Thursday, July 28, 2005 Today hasn't been too much different than any other day in particular, with the exception that the whole family was together today. By that I mean everyone in my host family, as well as the two volunteers who lived here before me. It's fun comparing notes with the other two, and listening to their crazy stories and mistakes. It's sort of like having one more brother and sister. The whole host family dynamic in general is sort of strange. You fly half way around the world (in this case almost literally) and are adopted by people who know they won't be able to communicate with you. I think it takes a very special type of person to do that, so my entire experience here has been very positive.

Regarding immersive learning. Man, I didn't think I would be able to be capable of anything at this point in training. I mean we've really only been in country the length of an average vacation. With the French tapes I did before hand I could order wine and beer sort of, but I would never have though that I'd actually be able to convey half of the information I'm able to. I'm not at all saying I'm even close to coversationally fluent, or even ready to tackle the challenge of giving formations in French. Yet, still I feel pretty confident that if things continue in the way they are I'll be fairly comfortable.

Yesterday we had our last round of APCD interviews. Essentially they were the last step in deciding where we would be posted. It was essentially just a QA session where they had be list and rank my hard and soft skills, and asked if I had any particular needs or desires of note. I'm fairly easy as I have no medical conditions which require special attention, nor have I any real preconceptions about what my post would be like. So essentially I told them to put me where they need me (which is probably what they would have done anyway =P). There has been a little bit of speculation as to where we'll each be going. It's been speculated that I'll be going to Parakou, which is a city about half way between the far north, and the ocean. I have no idea what it looks like, nor do I have any idea what is there. I'm pretty sure it's around the 3rd largest city in Benin, and is a major stopping point for volunteers headed up and down country. I dunno, we'll get our official announcements somewhere around Tuesday.

Next week is our tech live in week, where we'll be taken to a volunteers post so we can observe their daily lives. I think we're there for about 5 days or so, leaving on Weds. I don't know where I'm going yet, but I'm hoping (although dreading the bush-taxi ride) that I'll be headed up for north to the Alibori region.

Oh, and I haven't mentioned this sooner, but I'm not the only one that thinks that Benin is shaped like a 'weiner'. When we arrived in Cotonou one of the volunteers described her post as being up in the "left nut", and a fair number of us confessed to having thought the same thing. So ha, all you nay-sayers.