Ca va mieux...

Woohoo!  I'm back on my own laptop, which means a QWERTY keyboard and punctuation.  Second woohoo!:  I survived my first bout of "toubab" (Pulaar for white person) disease this past weekend, and although my digestive tract hasn't recuperated 100%, I'm able to walk around town and sit up now, which is much better than last Friday.  Now that I'm in the clear, I feel like I've conquered some sort of Peace Corps rite of passage, but I was miserable for about 24 hours lying on my matela and reading and explaining to my host family why I didn't want to eat handfuls of oily couscous.

We're starting our last week of "Phase 1" now.  I'll be living with my family until next Friday and going to Hassaniya class like normal, then moving back into the training center for a few days before we find out our permanent site placements!  This is a very big deal around here since sites vary greatly in available resources and general atmosphere.  And then we'll all disperse to visit our permanent sites for a week before returning to Rosso and our host families for the second part of training.  I'm not sure if I've explained that clearly.  It took me awhile to wrap my mind around it in the first place.

In other good news, our goat Amineta had twins yesterday morning!  One boy and one girl, who we named Cortney and Sidi.  I'm going to take pictures this afternoon, in particular for my mom whose been asking about the goat every time we talk!  They are so soft!  I'm not sure my host family understands my fascination with the goats because they roam the streets here like pigeons in New York City, but baby animals are always cute in my opinion.

My facilitator also took our language class to the Senegalese border yesterday, which is probably the most scenic part of Rosso.  I definitely need to go back with my camera because there were wooden boats (beydouns) lined up and ready to ferry people across the river to Senegal.  So much movement and people in such bright colorful clothing in front of a background of reeds and a wide, brown river.  And you could see some green palm trees off in the distance!  Trees!  Senegal is quickly taking on a mythical aura.

Thanks for all the emails, everyone.  I'm going to attempt to answer some now that I have free internet at the center.  I love hearing from all of you.  It makes the distance from here to the USA not feel so far.  A la prochaine...