Bismillah!

This is our first camel meal. If I am correct, that is a femur left on the plate. The people here are so hard core, they even eat the bone marrow. I just ate around...




Colleen lounging under the khiama.


Eli and a language facilitator on a magic carpet getting a placement exam for French.


the refectoire with all of our lounging mats, also known as matellas.


Our tent city!
Bismillah!

We left Georgia on Friday afternoon from Atlanta. We had our own personal screens with in flight trivia and everything, which was pretty nice. Our big arrival into Africa was at 4:40 am, so as you can guess, we were all pretty tired. We flew into Dakar, Senegal and were greeted by Peace Corps Volunteers. It was very welcoming. Somehow we each managed to find our bags. I had exactly 120 pounds, and now that I'm here I can definitely say I might have over packed. Everyone else did the same, since we had trouble loading the bus. Both buses had over flowing storage compartments, so we converted the back 7 rows into storing baggage. And we had to put extra into a car that followed.

The ride to Mauritania took 5 hours. I don't remember much, and I'm sure no one else did because we were all passed out. We finally made it to the border, and had to cross the river by ferry. However, it was broken, so we sat in the market of Rosso, Senegal and just watched the town. It was very colorful and vibrant. Especially for the middle of the day.

After an hour of staring at people dance for money and harass children, we were given the green light and made our way over to our country. It was pretty exciting to be there after over 24 hours of straight travel. Our training center is about a three minute ride from the border so we pulled up and were greeted by the entire staff and the welcoming committee volunteers. They taught us all the greetings to say, but I didn't remember them that well and just answered in my broken French.

After all of our introductions and unpacking our luggage, we got a tour of our brand new compound. It's very nice. The main building is the refectoire, the girl dorms, boy dorms, and the sector offices. They we have the latrines, and sink, and khiama, which is the big tent we all lounge under. Past that is the kitchen and a couple more offices. And tucked away in the corner is an open space for us to actually sleep in. Mauritanians prefer to sleep outside because its cooler, so we all set up our tents to make Tent City at night. And since someone suggested we all get Tropic Screen Repel II self standing tents on the Google Group, there are about 40 of them.

We are officially at orientation right now, and we will get to meet our host family on Friday. So our days are packed with tech, health, safety sessions, and such. So far my favorite cultural difference has been the food. They don't use utensils, so eating is all with our hands. Somehow we got through spaghetti. It was the funnest dinner I've had in a while. I don't have much time, but I'll try to update later!