Friday, August 13, 2010

Yes I can carry water on my head!





Yes I can carry water on my head!
So lately it has been super crazy with training and I havent had time to get to the computer station at all so here.
is some catching up! I am now in the home stretch of training (2wks left) and I can communicate with my family on a
level where they atleast have a picture of what I want and I understand them to the point to where I can figure it out.
It is really scary to think that I will be out on my own so soon! Right now I am doing shadowing where I am at a PCV
(peace corps volunteer) house and we are seeing what she is up to and all that jazz. We took the bus early saturday so
we had to leave our houses at 3:15am! We met the bus about 2 hours outside of Dar and then sat on that thing FOREVER!
It took about 9 or 10 hours but it was super cool to travel without peace corps holding our hands... Also, we drove
through a game park and I saw elephants for the first time in the wild! We also saw a lot of deer-looking things and
zebras and of course a lot of giraffes!.... When we got to Njombe we stayed the night with a lot of other PCVs as they
were on their way to COS (close of service) we were able to just chill and eat good food and have a few beers at a great
hotel that all PCVs use and there is a book and movie collection, also we get a discount!!... I am sooooo excited because
friday we got our site announcements and I am going to Milo which is in Ludewa, I am the only health volunteer there but
there are 3 education volunteers there and of course I got to meet them at the hotel! They seem super cool and Andy promised
me lasagna my first night at site! The ed volunteers are all COSing in December and 2 of the 3 are being replaced so I
will for sure have people atleast close to me which is a great worry adverted..... Here are the facts that I know about
my site, I live in Milo where there is a hospital 1k away a primary school 0.25k away and a high school 4k away, Andy works
at the secondary school and says its not a bad walk away... Also there is an orphanage (I may have a baby soon) and I
forgot to mention it is FREEZING!! yes I did not pack the right clothes lol who brings winter clothes to Africa?... I am
curently sitting in pants and a jacket trying to keep warm!... I am smack dab in the Livingstone mountains (rough road!!)
by lake nyasa which is a simple hike away which means my tent is going to get some great use our of it. My sitemates said
that it is cold pretty much all of the time because it is drafty! It is weird because in the US when it is cold you just go
inside but here your house is the same temp and so I need a jacket!.........Some vil news, my sister is healthy SHOUT OUT
to the Nagorski family for the packages Thank you soooooo much it was awesome to get some American goodies! .. My favorite
little boy was eating something weird the other day and I asked him what it was and he said “head” and I thought that I
didnt translate it right so I asked him again and he said “chicken head” Yep he had a skull in his hand and he was eating
the brain!!! NASTY buuuut apparently it is a treat to the kids ew....I helped my mama go get water all this week and yea
it is super hard, I only carried a small bucket on my head and she had a huge one and another in her hand these women are
soooo strong!! The villagers love to see me carrying water so I am the show when I do it! It is HARD and I plan on paying
kids stickers to do it :) ….CRISIS MY IPOD WONT WORK, no seriously crisis! After a day of kiswahili I need music and as
of now it is a black screen, I am working on it and there are some cool tech ppl that I have faith in!!!! here is a pic
of the view from the terrace of the PCVs house, it is pretty much what it will look like HOPEFULLY at my site! Love getting
mail so keep it coming! I am going to be getting a new PO Box number in about a month so I will keep you posted with that!
LOVE AND MISS EVERYONE!!