在台灣和美國之間轉彎....

Dear Friends & Family,

I found out on the Fourth of July where my official site is for the next two years. I am visiting Yaba, my site, on July 11th.

Yaba has hosted volunteers in the past in the health and education centers.  The director of the CEG had such a great experience with volunteers in the past that he requested a volunteer again!  I will be in a courtyard with another family, but I will have my own private courtyard.  My regional capital is Dedougou and I will be only 11 km from Toma (where I will probably have my post box) and 25 km from Tougan.  I will have a neighbor about 30 km away.  The language spoken is San, and the people in this region are primarily Samo.  Though Moore and Dula (Jula) are also spoken.  Yaba is located in the NW part of the country and from what I hear there are a lot of animals (for eating) there.

I am pretty far away from the other stagiaires (trainees) in my group.  In fact, there are very few volunteers in my region.  There is one volunteer about 65 K away and another volunteer about 80 K away.  It looks like I will have to bike about 40 K to get to the nearest (and also very unreliable) source of internet.  So, after August, it looks like it will be mostly letters for communicating with me.  You can keep sending mail to the same address until I get a post office box in the nearest "city" to me.

I also got a cell phone recently.  I have two different phone numbers.  On one, I can actually receive and send text messages to the USA.  On the other, I can't send text messages to the USA, but I will actually have service at my site.

My two phone numbers are (226) 76793190 and (226) 70649690.  Send me text messages with news from the states!  Or if you are feeling rich you can call me too, but in general, I am in bed by 9 or 10 and at class all day.  The best day to reach me is Sunday.  The time difference is currently four hours to the east coast and seven hours to the west coast (we are on gmt here all year round)

Fourth of July was well celebrated by us PCTs.  Some how I volunteer myself for organising these fun activities.  We ended up getting some meat ground at a local restaurant.  We made some tasty onion hamburgers and potato salad.  They were fantastic.

It's cooled down a bit thanks to the start of the rainy season.  I didnt take any pictures during site visit because I have been sick for a while now (it made biking 40 K at noon a lot more fun), but I can tell you my village is very pretty (with lots of trees relatively speaking) and I have cell phone reception.  The down side is no electricity, running water, or even paved roads.  I have some issues with my counterpart and my house, but my APCD (and basically a good portion of the staff) is in the process of clearing it all up.  So, hopefully I wont have to change sites, since it is really a beautiful area.  I hope after two years I will be able to mangle at least two of the local languages, if not three.

On the plus side (thanks to all the biking and being sick) I am down twenty pounds.  I dont actually think this is a good thing, but I cant really tell since all my clothes have elastic waistbands.  I actually think I have only been losing muscle mass since the diet here is so low in protein (and really high in fat and carbs).

Model school starts next week.  I am teaching 6e and 3e math during model school (equiv of sixth grade and ninth grade).  At site, it has yet to be determined since I can pretty much teach whatever subject I want.  The down side is I have 100+ kids in all of my classes.  There is no basketball court, so I think I am going to try to have one built by the middle school and one by the primary school.

Yes, it has been hot and hard, and my intestines hate me, but I think it will work out.  Swear in (when i get to call myself a volunteer) is the day after my birthday so I plan on making it!

<3,

Andrea