Yippee!!

The hoops have been jumped through, the language tests have been passed, the swearing has been in – errr the swearing-in has been completed – the US Ambassador has admitted to liking Peace Corps volunteers, and I have made it back to site! It’s now Sunday, September 23, and I have one South African holiday to get through tomorrow (no one seems to know what it is), and then I start working. I’m celebrating with a haircut, because hair longer than a couple of inches just is a pain in the ass here, so it’s back to short-short hair. I’m also excited about that!

I guess everything’s exciting to me right now (cue the foreboding music… This means that in a couple of weeks, monkeys will have broken into my room, eaten all of my chocolate stash (of course I have a chocolate stash) gotten sick on my mosquito net, causing me to come down with a resistant strain of malaria, and my housemate, Lulu, will make a deal with the devil to torture me horribly in order to get some relief from the now oppressive heat. But for now, life is fabulous!). I cooked for myself today, sang praises to the gods of running water, found that my local supermarket carries both olive oil AND balsamic vinegar (a little expensive, but WORTH it!), and I went to a traditional wedding yesterday, and I’m sure the bride and groom will be asking themselves who that white person is when they get their wedding video back. I’ve done yoga now two days in a row and I’ve noticed that my arms are now tan, although my belly is still lily white. I’m going to see how many shades I can become at once during my time here.

Besides that, there’s not much to tell. Work hasn’t started for me yet, and that’s the highlight of my time here. Now it’s just adjusting to hot running water, control over my eating and bathing, and appreciating all the little things that we take for granted on a daily basis.

I’m hoping to update on a weekly basis, so no more mass emails. Just check in with me whenever you remember. And hopefully there will be pictures soon! Yay monkeys looking through my window!

PS. Yes, it is hot here now, and it’s only spring. It’s so hot that Lulu did tell me that if killing me would make it cold, she would do it (inspiring the story above). We have both contemplated the oversized freezer that is big enough to crawl into, but then what would we do when it gets to be 110?