Greetings from Kolda House in the southern region of Senegal! As I said before, the other day I found out where my site is for the next two years. Its a decent sized city of about 24,000 but don't let that fool you, it's still going to be a bit out in the boonies. The Kolda region is south of the Gambia, so when travelling between here and the training center in Thies or Dakar we need to cross international borders; which is interesting to say the least.
We were woken up at 6am to get on the Peace Corps Bus (not a big school bus or Greyhound) and head to our site visits. We started off with 22 people and a lot of gear, including a refrigirator, on the roof. As we moved southward, however, people got off to meet up with current volunteers for a week and get an idea of what our lives are going to be like for the next two years. We had to bride our way through the Gambia, which is pretty cool. Not many people can say they had that experience.
Overall the ride took 14 hours on EXTREMELY bumby roads but the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. Overall Senegal is really flat, with the southern regions being more green than the northern. The other volunteers in my region are great; they threw a little party for us when we arrived last night, which was great fun. The house has elecricity, TV, and internet (that I'm using to write this) and seems to be a great spot to meet up with other volunteers and get a little taste of home for a while.
Well I'm going to keep this one short as I'm coming down with my first Senegalese ailments: diarhea, headache, chills, and some funky rash. But ohhh well, it all comes with the territory. Atleast I'm somewhere with a nice bed. A bientot!
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