as far as i can tell, Chaco and Nalgene and The Company that Makes Bandanas

...are making a killing off of us! we got spiffy new bikes and bike helmets today in preparation for our departure tomorrow. and they even cooked us pizza! and french toast! today. but i was assured i could expect to eat millet at most every meal with my host family. everyone's trying to use the computers now and they're going super slow. Gmail is taking a major hit from us.

more in a few weeks!
this post sponsored by gmail, chaco, nalgene, and bandanas inc.

pictures, as promised

I freaking love technology! we had our first practice eating with our hands out of the communal bowl at lunch today. it was only mildly humiliating. you can only eat with your right hand because the left hand is reserved for cleaning yourself in the bathroom (aka the nyegen), and is therefore the unclean hand. here's some pictures of my environs right now- the road in, some random trees, and the huts where we sleep. more later hopefully! i'm taking full advantage of this internet while I have it.

finally here!

after a million hours of traveling (or so it seemed), we have finally arrived at our training site. we got here late last night, found our respective huts and pretty much immediately went to bed. surprisingly, our training site (which is about an hour's drive from Bamako, the capital) has electricity, showers! and fast internet! also, my phone, which i turned on for fun not expecting anything to happen, gets almost full reception here. i'm probably not going to use it though. for all the luxuries we have, though, we still have to use the squatty potties. i think i'm getting pretty good already!

we start language classes tomorrow- "survival Bambara" is first up. exciting! i haven't gotten to practice my French too much but i'm pretty confident about it. there are 80 people in my training group and we run the gamut of French knowledge, from absolutely none to close to fluent. most people in Mali speak Bambara in addition to French, but the language I will learn will ultimately depend on where my final site is, because a bunch of other languages are spoken here too.

for the next few days we'll be going to classes on safety, health, cross cultural adaption and language and then on wednesday we leave for our home stays (i don't know where mine is yet). i have a feeling we won't have high speed internet at our home stays, but we'll travel back to the training site every week or so for more classes as a group.

more updates and hopefully PICTURES! in a few days!!

Last day in atlanta!! pack, unpack, repack, stuff some more stuff in, last minute runs to the store, trying not to cry...etc. The going away party yesterday was awesome, thanks if you came! Sorry if you had to witness the sobfest at the end. Also sorry if you had to sit through THE LONGEST GAME OF CLUE EVER. But I'm not complaining. I'm gonna miss y'all!!

I leave for Philly at about 6 am tomorrow (flight is at 8:45), then we leave for real on Thursday evening. I don't know how much internet access I'm going to have from here on out, seeing as I don't have a laptop, and I don't know the internet situation just yet. Just another part of the great unknown that is my immediate future. But email me please!!

I'm going to keep trying to figure out this website and get my mailing address posted up here. Till next time, love yall!

freak out!!!

4 days!!!! ahhhhh!!!!
saying goodbye to athens is getting harder by the minute. i had a good last day walking around taking more touristy pictures of town, drinking a soda outside the co-op, then later going to a bunch of bars that were more crowded than they should have been. today i'm busy burning cds and packing and trying not to freak out (as always).

another thing that's getting harder: fitting everything into my suitcase. i envy people who are moving to another house or city or state. i wish i could just carry boxes instead of trying to fit everything into a box made of fabric that's going to get thrown around. but at least it's expandable.

i'm still getting used to the idea of typing my everyday activities out for all the world to see, so bear with me. if I know people are reading this I might be more inspired to keep up with it (if I have time)

things left to do: everything

so, here it is. we'll see how well i can keep up with this.

thought of the day: whistling is totally contagious! i always want to whistle when someone else is whistling.