Okay. So I have met my work partner and am very happy with meeting her so far. I found out that the director of the NGO I will be working for was a Peace Corps facilitator. He was a french language trainer. Crazy cool huh?!! From what I hear they have been waiting on a volunteer for quite sometime and they are really excited to have me!! I will be the first volunteer here and my home is newly built for me so I'm happy about that. And I see my village tomorrow....I just don't know what to expect and I am really nervous about it. I am only staying for four days but this is the time to gt a feel for our work partners and communites. My work partner wants to help me order my furniture from the carpenters and bargain. Im excited about that. Visuals always work with limited french. She told me that I will meet the mayor, village chief, and a bunch of other people waiting for me. Can you say "nervous"???
Again I heard that my village is beuatiful with palm trees all over the place. And I am in anana (pineapple) paradise!!!! Nice!!! She says, I will be living in a village with 500-700 people actually. I thought it was 1500. I'm very excited about it because I wanted a very small close knit community. She said I was lucky about getting what I wanted and my facitator said I was lucky to be working with the director who already knows the mission of Peace Corps. Yay!!!! However....my french SUCKS!! I am getting discouraged but I continue to try every chance I get. I know I will get better like anyone else who learns a language but I feel that I really SUCK!!! However I have been told that I'm doing fine. I plan on getting a tutor. So now I have put my focus on learning Fon because only about three or four people in the village speak French. Great huh? Oh yeah!! I got my first Beninese outfit made and I am very happy about it. I blend right in which is good and bad. I even fooled one or two volunteers who glanced right at me and thought I was Beninese. Nice. I still havent packed so I should probably get started on that. Wish me luck!! I hope I like the place I will be living in for two years.
Thoughts crossing my mind...
How will the ride there be?
What does my village really look like?
What does my house look like?
How will I react?
Hope my village isn't mad that I'm not white
Will they believe that I'm American?
What will they think of my French?
How much will my furniture cost??
How friendly are the people?
What do they expect from me??
I will soon find out.....
Damn I hate these computers. They are slow and because these are French keyboards make contact even slower. Oh well...I should just thank God I have the internet. I saw a HUGE spider in my room last night!!! I mean freaking huge!! Did I ever tell you that I was terrified of cockroaches and spiders?? Well I am. The spider was about half the size of my shoe!! EEEEEKKKK!!! And guess what....I killed it myself!!!!! There was no way in hell I was gonna run and get somebody so he could hide when I got back! Yay!! I'm a big girl now!! First, there was the flying cockroach, the one I stepped on barefoot (eww, by accident), and now a spider on steroids! I'm so proud of myself for bringing that big ass can of Raid here with me!! I didn't even have to go near the monster. I will provide a picture of him soon. A la Prochaine (until next time)!!!
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