Sunday, February 04, 2007

I have arrived!

I arrived in Banjul, The Gambia on Thursday evening with 20 other fellow Peace Corps Trainees. We had two long plane flights, but we made it without any problems or delays. Our staging in Washington, DC went well and we definitely have a good droup. The past couple days have been fairly intense and will continue as such for the next 10 weeks. Today, however, we had a day off from our technical and language training and all went to the beach. One word: fantastic.

As of now, I feel somewhat numb and am anticipating the on-set of very different feelings later this week. This coming Friday, we will all head to our assigned language training villages to live with a host family, begin language immersion and technical training skills. We are told this is a very difficult leg of the 10 week training as we'll each be spending 3 weeks in with a host family in a compound. I will be in a village with three other trainees, but living separately. I have been assigned to learn Mandinka, which is the most commonly used language here in The Gambia. With this in mind, please don't worry if you don't hear from me in the next 3-4 weeks or if my communication is rather sporadic.

In any case, feel free to check out some new pics I've added. I suppose there will be more to come in the next several weeks. They are general pics of the area in which we are staying.

Take care and all the best.