Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Au revoir Cotonou

well I'm leaving the capital tomorrow to move in with my host family. I'm super excited, but nervous as hell. My french is non exsistent and so is their english so communicating will prove to be interesting. I have been in the country for about a week now, but honestly I still don't have a whole lot to say. I don't know if this stems from still processing all I'm seeing/doing or from the lack of things we've been doing. Honestly, we've been busy everyday, but nothing really special. Today I've been in the Peace Corps HQ waiting to have meetings with doctors and with the lady who is in charge of the Health sector. The past couple days have been filled with much of the same, language lessons, meetings with doctors and various other trainings. One point of interest was that yesterday I underwent zimmijean training, which is basically the motorbikes that they use to get around the city. Benin volunteers are the only PC volunteers to be allowed to ride these machines. I must say it was a blast. I can understand why Eric loves his bike so much. The only things that takes a little getting use to is that women are not allowed to touch the driver. We may be able to touch their shoulder to get on, but while riding we either keep our hands on our lap or hold on to the rack behind us. I'm not sure when I'm going to get to post again because as I said earlier I'm leaving tomorrow for my host family's home and I have no idea what kind of conditions that is going to be. I know my entries have been pretty boring so far, hopefully things will start to pick up.
until then...

4 comments:

Unknown said...

if you touch the driver do they cut off your hand?

Janet said...

Hi Jenn! I hope we'll hear from you again soon to find out about your host family. It's far from boring, have you already forgotten what it's like here? We're on pins and needles waiting to hear what you are doing! Sad, huh??? Have you had to change your clothing style to dress accordingly? Maybe you'll be able to post a pic or two sometime. do you have a digital camera? I didn't think to ask before you left. Take care, we're thinking of you!
love ya,
Janet

Unknown said...

where are you???????

SecretBadgeofHonor said...

Hey Jenn. I'm glad you are starting to feel comfortable. Enjoy yourself and keep up with the blogs!

Salut!
Sarah