I'm still alive!

Hi there! Sorry I haven't been updating this much. Internet here tends to disconnect often, so I've been putting off updating until I can write something up on my laptop and just transfer it. BUT since that won't be for at least 3 more weeks I'm going to type as fast as I can and hope for the best!

So let's see. How about I kick 'er off with a typical day. That'll give you an idea of what life as a PC trainee is like.

My day starts around 6:30 in the morning, right around the time the sun starts to rise and the roosters take a break. Beginning around 3 or 4 there is a chorus of roosters, donkeys, and dogs. Fortunately, I credit growing up a house away from railroad tracks for my impeccable ability to sleep through anything, so it hasn't been an issue. I usually wake before my 6:30 alarm goes off, not because of the roosters but because I go to bed between 9 and 10 so I guess I've just had enough sleep. It's rather incredible. Remember the last time you got a good 8-9 hours of sleep on a regular basis? NON-alcohol induced? haha Yeah, it had been awhile for me too. But feels great, and honestly, I think it's necessary to maintain one's sanity during training.

My oh my, I haven't even got past waking up and I've written a whole paragraph! haha ok, moving on, at a quicker pace! After waking up, I get ready to go to training. Most days this starts at 8am at my LCF(Language and Cross-Cultural Facilitator)'s house. So I slather on my sunscreen (well through my second bottle already), put on my "business-casual" outfit and head over to the main house to eat my breakfast and pack a lunch. Breakfast is cornflakes with a splash of cream. I mean splash because I'm trying to keep my PST 10 (think Freshman 15) to a minimum. Lunch is usually a PB sandwich and 2 baby apples. We're talking about me here, so I tend to get hungry around 8:30-9am and whip out my snack of crackers or peanuts & raisins. If there is no snack, discipline is put to use until about 10am when I eat my lunch. (Hey, a girl's gotta eat!) Ok, my day doesn't just consist of eating, I swear, sooo I'm in language typically from 8-10, break for tea (oh yes, we really do, and it rocks) until 10:30, then language again or more likely my LCF translating whatever random phrases my group brought that day or, my favorite activity, harassing her about her boyfriend. =) It's all in fun. Around 12:30 we get picked up and taken to the center where CCB folks meet. All of us CCBers are placed in different areas throughout our training village, but most walk to the center every day. Six lucky trainees and myself, however, were placed at a distance worthy of a busride. This is fine, except prior to figuring out the transportation system, our weekend adventures were limited to walking 30 yards to each others' places.

Umm, so let's see. Once we're at the center we might have a speaker, or a tech trainer presents on whatever topic for that day. This is the part of the day where everyone's blood pressure rises and you can hear deep breathing exercises going on throughout the room. It's the breaking point in the day where someone usually gets so fed up with a particular assignment/session/what have you, they speak up, and either his or her feedback is well received or we launch into a long and heated debate. I go back and forth between wanting to jump into the argument and help drive the point home, and accepting that training is training, it's going to suck no matter what so I should just keep my mouth shut and get on with it. More often than not, I go with the latter. Training has been a harsh reminder of the importance of picking one's battles and I have a sneaking suspicion all the frustrations that have come out of training will end up being good preparation for the obstacles we'll face at our sites. How disappointing this would all be if training was as hard as it gets!

Alright, back on schedule. Sometime during the afternoon we break again for a short while before being herded back into the room to kick the dead horse some more until knock off at half four. (Notice my adoption of the local lingo? Knock off is the end of the work day, and it's half four instead of saying four-thirty here.) After knock off, we usually catch a ride on the bus home. By the time I get to my house and sit down on my bed to relax for 10 minutes, someone comes to tell me dinner is ready. Dinner is usually rice, or paletshi [maize meal], with sauce, boiled cabbage and a piece of chicken. I really do like all the food I've had here so far. Not sure if that's surprising to anyone, but I generally get excited about every meal. There's also soft porridge that they eat here and I really like. It looks and tastes just like malt-o-meal, and with a spoonful of sugar it's awesome. Yum yum. Oh, what are not so yum yum are the mopane worms. I got to try one when I was shadowing a PCV in her village a couple weeks ago. We were visiting the chief and I made the mistake of mentioning the worms. She asked if we had tried them yet, I said no, and within a few minutes there was a bowl of them in front of me. I took a small one and she told me that that one wasn't good and to take a big one, so I did cuz she's the chief, and then I lied to her and told her it was nice. It wasn't. Not so awful I'd never try one again, but not nearly good enough that I'd want to either. She even asked how long we'd be around, in case we could stay for dinner she'd plan a mopane worm stew for us, but unfortunately we had to be somewhere before then. ;) Umm, also while shadowing I got to try the seeds of a baobob tree pod. I liken the consistency of the seeds to lucky charms marshmallows, except it has a little pit in the middle. They have a tart flavor to them, and people generally suck on them as a treat. Or as my PCV told us, some use them to snack on for hours instead of eating to lose weight. Our volunteer put a bunch in a bowl with a little milk, sugar and real vanilla bean and let it sit while we ate dinner, and afterwards they had softened into almost a yogurty texture. Good stuff. And the last of my new food experiences thus far (oh wait, I've had goat a few times now, but I don't know if that's considered a "new" food...? It's good though!) has been sweet leaf. Sweet leaf is, as far as I'm aware, essentially the same thing as sugar cane. It looks the same, is eaten the same way, and if memory serves me correctly, tastes similar as well.

Ok! So, after dinner (this is almost over, I promise) I usually watch about an hour or so of TV with my fam. Lately it's been the Bold and the Beautiful followed with the popular South African soap, Rhythm City, which I must admit I'm slightly addicted to. When that's over, depending on how exhausted I am, I might stick around to catch a bit of the news and the weather, or I start heating up my water during Rhythm City so I can go to bathe right afterwards. Bathing is a bucket bath in a plastic tub just large enough to comfortably accomodate me, so I tend to make quite the mess. haha With it getting so cold in the evenings now, I've gotten pretty good at getting in and out in 5-10 minutes. But really, that's nothing, my greatest accomplishment lies in washing my body, face, and hair all with one bucket of water! Thank you, thank you, it wasn't easy but with the help of an altered definition of cleanliness and the cold getting worse, it was made possible. ;) After bathtime, I retreat to my room to relax by listening to music and writing or reading until I'm ready for bed. Or before I'm ready for bed, but don't have much of a choice, because all the lights in my the building are connected to one plug, so when my sister unplugs the cord, my light goes out. Most of the time, though, I'm out before the light.

....aaaaand that's it! Whew! But at least now you can create somewhat of a picture of what I'm up to in your head. And this Saturday is when we find out where we'll be placed for the next two years. Then we have a week visiting our site, before returning for one last week and a half with our host families. After that, we're on our own! Woop woop! Ok, I'll try to update this more often from now on. Definitely once more before heading out to site, and then after that will depend on my access to internet. Hope everyone is doing well. Keep me updated! Oh, and those of you who have sent mail, Thanks a bunch! It makes my day! Yay! Ok, byebye! :)