Je suis une voluntaire maintenant

I'm not sure if the title of this post is spelled correctly, but it says "I am now a volunteer." The reason I can make this claim is because I passed my language test. Hey, it only took two tries. We had our swearing in ceremony today and I have a few minutes before I head off to the well-deserved fete. Well-deserved for all of us.

Unfortunately the party is only with the people in my group. There's nothing wrong with the people in my group it's just that it would be nice to be able to see, and celebrate with, the other groups also. However, we have not been allowed to have a party in one place. Each group had to return to their training town before dark. At least we all got to see each other for a little while before we all went our separate ways to post.

I do have more good news as well. I have found the source of my sleeping problems here. Yes, it is hot and yes, it is noisy, but my main problem has been the medication I have been taking to prevent malaria. Several of the volunteers that have been here for a while told me they had the same problem. I spoke with one of the doctors and he confirmed restless sleep as a side effect. I switched medications Thursday. That night the electricity also went out for a number of hours after dark. The combination of new medication and the lack of blaring radios and TVs made for my first good nights sleep on this continent. I am now looking forward to many more restful nights here.

I leave for my post tomorrow (Saturday) morning. As I said before there is no internet connection in Ketou. I do not know when I will be able to update this blog, or even send out another email again. I will try to find reasons to get to another town with an internet connection as often as I can, but I only get two days a month vacation time. I can take more days away from post for work reasons though so I will try to make up as many reasons as I can.

Sunday I have to rent a truck and go to Sakete. I have bought all of the furniture of a volunteer who is leaving next week. In the meantime he is living in another town finishing up on projects so I can take the furniture anytime. Sakete is about a one hour drive south of Ketou. I have directions and the keys to the house so nothing can go wrong, right? Stay tuned, this is Africa.

Until I can write again I hope all is well with you and yours and rest assured I will be fine here.