I made it!

Bonjour tout le monde!  Salaam aleykum!  This is my first post from Mauritania -- Rosso to be exact.  The Peace Corps training center has wireless internet, so I'm sitting in the boys' dorm, in my Crazy Creek, on my laptop, and feeling very spoiled at the moment!  

We arrived at the training center yesterday after almost 24 hours of travel -- bus to the airport, waiting for five hours for our flight, nine-hour flight to Dakar, then a seven-hour bus ride north to Rosso.  Luckily, the training center is right over the border because the border crossing (Senegal to Mauritania) was extremely slow, and we were all ready to get out of the bus.  They threw us right into the mix of things with a tour of the training center, introductions, lunch (eating with our hands), more shots, and depositing our valuables into the safe.  Needless to say, I was very ready for bed last night -- outside in my mosquito net!

Today, we've had more lessons and interviews with the medical officers and our program directors.  No problems on either front.

Two things I'd like to comment on, in particular for those of you who watched the online training video from last year:

1.  Eating with your hands is pretty easy to learn.  Make sure you wash your hands before and after you eat, and only use your right hand!  What I think is the weirdest part so far is the fact that you don't have to wait for everyone at your plate to finish eating before you leave.  Just finish, get up, wash your hands, and wait for tea.  Seems rude, but completely acceptable here!

2. Absence of toilet paper:  pretty steep learning curve on this one too.  Imagine a bidet-type feeling.  Very refreshing, to say the least!

I've tried to put my address and cell phone number -- yes, cell phone number! -- on this blog and on Facebook, but let me know if it doesn't work.  It's free for me to receive calls -- I'm not sure how much it is on Skype -- and for now, coverage is good.  I haven't purchased minutes yet, but I have a few start-up minutes for now.

For now, I'm loving the Peace Corps.  No digestion issues to speak of, food is tasty, the other volunteers and trainers are so friendly and welcoming and interesting, and our training center is quite comfortable.  It's a bit warm -- I'm constantly sweating, especially now during the middle of the day, and I have yet to leave the "compound," so I'm not quite sure what's outside these walls.  BUT, I'm thinking of crossing that bridge this evening before dinner with a walk around town, so I'll let you know how that goes.

Finally, I now know that I need to take pictures, since I don't have any to post yet.  Time to sign off so I can get going on that!  A bientot!