I don't really know what to say....

My world just changed drastically. I was at orientation in Thiès for a few days in a facility with Western toilets, (cold) showers, A/C, and food prepared for me three times a day. 10 hours on pothole-filled roads and I arrived where I'll be living most of the next 6 months, during another electrical outage. Luckily I was able to get a ride in a pick-up truck, otherwise this was the alternative:



Old beat-up station-wagons you cram a driver and seven passengers into.

Since arriving the electricity has been really reliable in Ourossogui, Senegal, but the water goes out most days after about 8:30 before coming back at night. In Dakar there was one night when I was chilling on the roof and needed to get a fleece. Saturday and Sunday it was 102F degrees here (41 for the Europeans reading this). I have no stove, no sink, no working refrigerator, definitely no air conditioning, and the bathroom is a squat toilet and a drain. At first the heat and the concepts that I was going to be walking to buy food and taking bucket showers for the next half a year intimidated me, but now I'm settled in really well. I'm doing fulfilling work for a non-profit that's done and doing really special things in Senegal and other African countries, and starting to slowly pick up the local language. The people here are really nice, and there's Peace Corps Volunteers in the region who are willing to serve as good resources, friends, and Senegalese beer-drinking partners.

I'll get used to cooking for myself over a propane tank, but I think I'll still be buying food out a lot. Breakfast is a loaf of good fresh bread for 20 cents with nutella and instant coffee. Lunch and dinner can be between 400 and 1500 FCFA, or about 80 cents to 3 dollars. There's spicy bean sandwiches, grilled lamb, grilled chicken with fries and salad, pasta, traditional senegalese dishes like cebojeen (sp?) and mafé, and other stuff.

For now I'm pretty settled down, but hopefully soon I should be traveling around the region a little. To give you a little idea of how it looks here, this is behind my office/house complex:




More pictures to come soon, if not more. Peace,

Jonah