where to begin?

I already had a pre-written post for my first in country update but of course I do not have my flash drive to laptop with me.

So here we go

I arrived in Ouaga with 24 other volunteers. We stayed at this weird missionary/youth hostel/summer camp place for days and days of orientation, vaccines, and ice breakers. I took my language placement interview and realized that my french SUCKS. I tested into novice mid (novice low-mid-high, inter low-mid-high etc) A trainee must be inter-mid in order go to actual site.

After this me and the other volunteers traveled to Sapone where we were adopted by out host families. They held a little ceremony full of heavy dancing and strong armpit aroma. Deodorant is def optional in this country. My home stay family is great, they cook me vegan food. I have a mother Alice, father Issaka, and a little 2yr old brother Farid. My family is very educated in comparison to the other families. Issaka is a nurse and Alice works at a bank. They probably think that I'm an idiot because like I said before, my french sucks. Most of the other families don't have electricity but my family has a tv and a fridge! Lucky me.

A normal day here in Sapone for me is class from 8am-5:15pm. Classes usually consist of french, cultural session, and government protocol stuff. My french is slowly improving. I cannot wait to get better!! After class I go home and chill out with the fam and do hpmewprk. I also hang out with the other trainees. For the most part they all are pretty cool!

This past weekend they split us up into groups and we visited an actual PCVs(Peace Corp Volunteer) site. My group went to Nakaba to stay with Doug. Doug took us around his village. We met the Chief de Terre and his many sons. They both gave us chickens as welcome gifts. One of the other trainees, Gerard, slaughtered the chicken and we cooked it for dinner. I actually saw a chicken being killed. It was intense. They have this home made brew of fermented millet called dolo (sp?). Usually people sit in the shade and pass around calabashes of dolo. So we of course went dolo bar hopping. It was pretty fun.

I am back from Nakaba right now in Ouaga waiting for the bus to go back to Sapone to stay with my host family. It is going to be hard to keep this thing undated. There are a lot of people behind me right now waiting for the computer so I can't type too much.

I miss you all and I hope all is well.