Site visit

Week seven has arrived and it is one of the most anticipated weeks of training. Week seven is known as site visit where all the trainees get to live at their site for the duration of the week to get a feel for life after training. My site visit experience did not go as well as I would have hoped. I got some sort of food poisoning on Monday night and was pretty much confined to the bathroom and the bed for much of the week. I have been feeling better the past couple of days but my appetite has been curbed exponentially and I still feel pretty fatigued and run down. But even with being sick for most of the week I got a good feel for the village and the culture around me. My living situation is very nice comparatively speaking. I live in a compound with three other families away from the action of the main street. The volunteer that I am replacing really enjoyed the site and felt perfectly safe during her two years of service. I also have a really motivated counterpart in the community that is really excited to work on nutrition causeries and interventions with me. Speaking with him this week has also motivated me to put more time into my French and to really take the last moth of training seriously. It was also a nice surprise when I found out that my house was equipped with a bucket flush toilet rather than a latrine. Latrines really are not as bad as you might think, but being on one for most of the day when you are sick is a little much (especially at night with the cockroaches). So I am sorry to anyone who was hoping for "pooping in a hole" stories because I won’t have that experience, at least not at my compound.

From here I have one month of training left before Swear in. Swear in can be a hectic time for a lot of volunteers because everyone is down in Lomé and has to purchase most of their furniture and whatnot for their house. I’m kind of spoiled because my house is pretty much fully furnished and anything I need to for it I can get in my village which makes the whole transition from training to post a lot smoother.

wow

ok finally i can update this thing...basically I have a lot to talk about but my time as always is limited and this french keyboard is extremely fruestrating. training has been going really well, I absolutely love my host famlily and the community in general. my french has been progressing quite nicely to my surprise. learning french in africa is definitly a challenge considering the fact that I hear the local language spoken more than I do the french. I have to tell my host sisters everyday to stop speaking ewe so i can understand at least part of what they are saying. I am actually more excited to get to post so i can JUST speak French. Here at training it is tough because we speak english during alot of our technical sessions so it acts as a crutch that i honestly would rather not have right now.

on another note i found out where i will be living for 2 years after training. but technically i dont think im allowed to post in on blogs for security reasons. But to give you a sense i am very very far from lomé. The distance issue is a factor and its the reason a lot of the other trainees didnt want this post, but for me it has everything i want. such as: bigger town, availability of food; high muslim population; lots of opportunities for work in nutrition and sanitation, and electrecity.

I have alot more to say but for right now i have to leave;, the peace corps really keeps you busy during training so untill next time.......