Happy 4th of July!

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July !
Over here the volunteers and staff had a nice party in the city with lots of great food…which included mango pies and goat kebobs! (We slaughtered the goat given to us by the big chief on our arrival here…delicious!) We ate, drank and danced it was wonderful!

Training is going by slowly but surely. It is definitely starting to get more detailed and specific which is good. Were also learning a lot of cultural integration things including a recent class on nutrition, what foods we can buy and the seasonal foods available. We even received a cookbook made by past volunteers which has some pretty cool and interesting recipes that I am anxious to try. Next week we all find out our site location (our home for the next 2 years!!!) And the week after that we actually go out on site visits to see our future home.

As much as I love being out in village, I do enjoy being able to come out to the city once a week to see the SE volunteers, run errands, have electricity and enjoy city life! A few days ago when we spent a couple days in the city for training, myself and some other volunteers played in a soccer games vs a local girls team. We lost big time… 4 to 1 but it felt great to be out there and play, get some exercise a little bit! This girls are tough!

The rainy season is definitely here. It will be nice and sunny when all of a sudden the sky goes gray, and the wind starts to really pick up….thats when you know to duck inside as quickly as possible because when it rains, it rains hard. Sleeping outside is great but being woken up at 2am to quickly disemble my tent and rush inside...not so fun. But its great because after the rain the weather is much nicer and cooler. I would say lately its been raining about once or twice a week.

My family life is still going great. As time goes on my family is giving me more and more independence. Im learning how to wash my own cothes and I’m getting cooking lessons on meals I can make when I’m at site! Things like potatoes and sauce with onions and, and this really good meal of beans and rice called Benga. Ive also showed the family how to play "Yum"... this dice game i used to always play as a kid. They had never seen dice before and they LOVE the game. They ask to play every night...everyone from the kids to the fathers. Its a fun game plus it involves some math so I think its good :)

Ive gotten quite a few questions from people about what its like to live in a Muslim family. To be honest, its not what I expected at all in terms of religion and conservativeness. Yes, my family is very religious and prays five times a day. There are specific gender roles with the women’s role being to cook and clean from early morning to late at night. But in terms of dress, they are really not that conservative. The only time I have seen women veiled is when they pray (and the women have to pray behind the men.) But other than than, it’s pretty lax. They wear tank tops and jewelry. I’ve joked that I’ve seen more breasts in the past couple of weeks than I have in my lifetime! Breats are definitely no big deal. My family, including men women and children have been really busy during the day planting and cultivating.
However I will say that adjusting to gender roles in Africa as a whole has been interesting. Yesterday we learned that an elderly woman in our village died, so we went to pay our respects to the family. We were a few volunteers (white) and our two male and female language teachers (black). The family gave us to mats to sit on and we told to sit separated, not by color but by gender. So while they say female volunteers are typically treated as a 3rd gender...we are STILL women, and treated differently for it.

Lastly, I got my first letter by mail here! (Thanks mom!) And let me tell you it was absolutely wonderful to get mail. It totally made my day so please please send me letters (or packages) I have been feeling homesick, not to the point that I wish I were back home but I definitely miss my friends and family and think of you often. Even being in such a large family, its amazing how alone I can feel out here. When everyone around you speaks this completely foreign language and are completely different from you, it’s hard to relate and its very isolating at times. So, the connection to home is greatly appreciated. Also, thanks so much for those that send me emails! I love reading them and i applogize for my late replies. But here internet is slow and I usually only pay for 1 hour. Im still adjusting to the strange keyboard here and i never get a chance to respond to all. But please keep writing!
Things on my wish list right now: dried fruit, nuts, peanut M&Ms, hard candy or any type of non perishable american food snack, little packets of tissue (great for toilet paper!), hard candy or anything I can share with the kids! Thanks to all
-Jariatu (my African name given to me by my village...my famlily calls me Jari for short)