less than 3 weeks til' swear-in and post!

Wow, it's really funny how fast the time is going!

Last weekend I went to visit my village in the north of Benin. It was awesome. The principal of the school where I will be teaching is just an awesome man. I felt nothing but good karma coming from him which was great. My village is small and my house has no electricity and no running water, though my neighbor has a generator and he said he'd be willing to charge my cell phone and other electronic for me which is great. My house consists of one large living room with two rooms off of it. I will be using one as my bedroom and the other as my kitchen. There is a back door which leads to a small walled-in yard where i plan on planting a garden and there is a little cement building out back too with an outdoor kitchen and my bucket shower room. The pit latrine is about 20 meters away. I'm probably going to hire 2 girls to help me clean, do laundry and get water from the public pump. In exchange for their help, I will pay their school fees for them for the year. This way it's a win-win situation.

I met all of the members of the parent-teacher association in my village and we had a great conversation about the importance of girls education which got me very excited. I'm hoping to get involved with the girls club at the school and work with an NGO in my village that works on keeping girls in school.

I have less than 3 weeks of training to go now. I'm excited to move out of my host family and into my own home. I think the first few months at post will be a definite adjustment, but also very exciting. I've started local language classes in Bariba (the local language in my village) too! I can say all of the greetings and I am learning to barter for when I go shopping in the market. In 2 years I hope i'm fluent...we'll have to see how that goes :)

Okay, until next time. OH, don't forget to send me emails and letters!!!!!!!!!!!