News

So yesterday "they" told us that we won't have internet access for the next eight weeks of training as we go up the river to our training villages for cultural immersion and technical training. It's a bit crazy to think that I will be away from the "world" for so long, but at the same time, I don't really miss it when I am doing it. That's how I know that I am having fun, getting into the experience. I try to spend as much time involved in what I am doing, learning, and hopefully taking care of my fellow trainees a little bit, so that I don't miss my friends back home to a distracting degree, or worry about things beyond my control.

I love it here - maybe I will try to say that every post, so that I can have a mantra when times are tough. I am trying to design plans for writing posts when I don't have internet access (on my laptop which will hopefully hold up for a while), and come up with ideas of what to do when I start to feel useless in three or six or nine or however many months. This experience is completely going to be about what I put into it, and right now I have a lot of energy and desire, so I am trying to figure out ways to harness that, turn it into something good that I can hopefully save and draw on later.

This evening after dinner I went to a new supermarket with some friends - it's pretty much a real super market, with a lot of western products and all sorts of stuff from China and Thailand and probably a slew of other places. It reminded me of Lima, how much it imitated the developed world in it's style, while the rest of the country was struggling with so much less.

For lunch we ate from the communal food bowl for the first time, a fun experience for me as I've done it a half dozen times and didn't feel awkward, but more of a challenge for some of the other trainees. One guy, who will be living in the same training village as I, said he really didn't eat much. We are split up into villages according to language, with Mandinka (my language) being in three villages. Four of us will be in Bambakoo together - two women, two men - and I am really looking forward to it. The fellow who struggled with the food bowl is my biggest concern, as he has been shaking his head and / or turning his nose up at a lot things. He will certainly struggle at the beginning, and can hopefully find himself when he gets down and turn things around. In a way, having made the decision to help him as much as I can is helping me because I have less to worry about personally, and can focus externally. It seems to be making the transition easy.

I love the night time air here, even in the capital where it's full of smells and sounds of the city. Warm, soft, easy air that makes me so glad to be here. I love the morning air as well, and tomorrow I am supposed to be going for a run with a couple people early, so I should head home and sleep.

I hope to write again before we leave.

Cheers!