Traveling Hokie

Some questions and answers, courtesy of my mom and others:

Does your host family speak English?  
Yes!  I'm very lucky they speak it so well, and they are helping me with my Setswana as well.  I've  told the 8-year old that she is my tutor and she helps me pronounce words :)  Although my host mom's children are grown, the children of some cousins are often over/spending the night, so there's usually 3 kids ages 6, 7 and 8 around.  There's also some other older cousins that hang around, I've not figured out the family relations of everyone yet.

Are you the first PCV she has housed?  I think I'm the 3rd.

Is the "plumbing" indoors or out?  
Its actually both?  The house is 'wired' for plumbing.  The toilet works, but the sink in the bathroom doesn't because the pipes leak.  The laundry room sink and the kitchen sink work, but the kitchen sink leaks a bit.  The spout in the bathtub leaks a LOT so it's not usually hooked up.  Bathing is from a bucket of water, some of which I heat on the stove so its warm.  Actual bath is inside in the tub.  Laundry is in tubs outside. Dishes are in the sink but with minimal water.  There is a standpipe outside to fill buckets. Water is scarce here because its the desert, so even if the water runs, it's usually turned off.  They also have a pit latrine if the water is completely shut off, which happened last night for a few hours. Water is drinkable from the tap in most places including my house.

How do you get to your training meetings and to other places like the Mall where internet is located?  
I walk to training, about 30 minutes.  There are also some buses that the PC has to take us places- they are called combis here.  To get to the mall I usually take a cabs, its about 60 cents.

How is the food?  Do you eat most meals with your family?  
Food is good.
Have had an upset stomach one day but really pretty good all things considering.  Lots of stews and heavy starches.  Rice, pasta once for my lunch, something akin to dumplings, and a lot of white stuff with the consistency of grits with no taste.

How long are your training meetings?  What are you discussing/learning?
We have training 8:30-4:30 M-F with an hour off for lunch, and Saturday it varies.  Tomorrow its 9-11 I think.  We have a lot of language training, cross cultural training, safety training, PC values, and how to do jobs at
site.  We haven't hit that last one much yet but its coming.  This week for example we've had about 9 hours of language, food/water safety, intro to using the medical unit here, individual medical consultations and starting
vaccines, sexual assault awareness, how to prevent crime, learned games to play with kids, learned some of our roles as a volunteer (trainer, facilitator, learner, mentor, etc).  Lots of different things broken up into 2 hours sessions, except that sometimes language class can be longer.

You sound really busy!
I'm pretty busy, but I have a fair amount of downtime at night.  Usually I can read a little before bed.  The sun goes down at 6-6:30 and I haven't been out after dark.  I usually go to bed around 9, because the roosters go off at 6am and they have no snooze alarm :P

Other random things: 
My 'mom' (we are supposed to call our host family mom, sister, brother, etc.)  is a counselor in our village, which is a political position. Everyone knows her and shes very busy.  Our training group went to a local village counsel this last week and she was there :)  I also went to church with her on Sunday, which was from about 11- 3.
Then there was a meal afterwards so we got home around 4.  I think I might try church every other week, and do laundry this week instead. My sister showed me how to wash clothes last sunday after church, so I'll try with my own this week :) The weather has been really nice here.  It's cool in the morning and at night, and warm during the day.  I think its about to get really hot, but its nice for now.  I have used my sleeping bag, so I'm very glad I brought it.

If you have other questions leave them in the comment section and I'll try to answer them in the future!