Chokwe!

Got my site! I’m headed to Chokwe, Gaza!

I’m fortunate in that I had the chance to visit during site visit and got the ropes straight from the ones who have been there for the past two years (Andrea and Sinead, I appreciate you now more than ever).
Chokwe is one of the larger cities in the Gaza province in southern Mocambique, and is on the banks of the Limpopo River (made famous by a few just-so stories by a certain author of The Jungle Book). The school site is just a 30 minute walk (or 5 minute boleia) from the city’s center, which has, among other thing, ice cream, at least three restaurants and Kellog’s Corn Flakes.
As far as living conditions, the PC house in Chokwe is high living – electricity, indoor toilet, oven, and, sometimes, even running water. To top it off, it’s got its own little library from years of bored PCVs. And an ata (cherimoya) tree in the backyard!
The teacher’s community is on site at the school, the Instituto Agrario de Chokwe. It’s an agricultural school, so there is absolutely no curriculum for English – meaning the only person with any say about what I teach is me (for better or worse…). Furthermore, the classes are mostly small in size – usually less than 30. My future roomie, Clancy, and I have already checked out the amenities, and we’re ready to dive in.

Here’s where I need some input… for the first month or so, we’re not supposed to leave our site, and school doesn’t start until a month and a half later. I already have big plans to explore, set up my curriculum and abuse the oven with every recipe in the PC book (when we visited, we made spice cookies and banana bread – BANANA BREAD!).

However…there’s no TV. No gym. No scrapbooking store. No Hobby Lobby period. Any ideas on hobbies I can pick up to pass the time? Something that requires very, very few resources? Any ideas are welcome and appreciated.