Now that I've been here for a few days, I figured I'd give you an idea of what a typical day is for me. Most days I get out of bed about 6:30am. However, I'm usually woken up MANY times before that during the night because of all the animal noises - dogs, goats, donkeys, cows, chickens, roosters, various other birds. It's pretty much impossible to sleep straight through the night where I'm living now. After I get out of bed, it's bucket bath time. There's a tap that comes out of the ground in the backyard that I use to fill up my bucket and then I proceed to the 'shower' area. Yes, we do actually have running water! However, that just means there's a tap that the water comes out of. It's still a bucket bath and then the 'latrine' does consist of a hole in the ground. After showering and getting dressed, I'll usually sit down for breakfast with either the father, the mother, or both. Breakfast always consists of a piece of french bread with a little mayo and Nescafe (instant coffee).

After breakfast, I head off to the training center which is only a 5 minute bike ride away. Quite a few of the other 32 trainees live in the small surrounding villages so they have a bike ride of a few miles and they definitely don't have running water. The morning consists of 2 training sessions that vary each day. Either technical teaching seminars, language, medical, safety and security, or cultural cross training. Usually I'll eat lunch at the training center - some type of salad or spaghetti.

The afternoon consists of another 2 sessions from the items I mentioned above and then we wrap up about 5:15pm. I'll usually stay a little longer and work on my French and then head home about 6ish. When I get home, one of the World Cup matches is almost always on. Oh yeah, I have electricity where I live too! The World Cup is huge here - there are 3 West African teams playing: Ivory Coast (who most people here root for), Togo, and Ghana. Having the World Cup on has been a BIG help. Since I can't communicate very well with the family, having the game on is a way to sit down together and not say very much, but still not feel too uncomfortable.

Dinner is usually served either during or right after the soccer game. The meals so far have been good. It's varied between couscous, spaghetti, to (traditional meal here - I'll talk more about it later, pronounced 'toe'), rice with beans, fish stew. Usually there will be some type of meat sauce, but I typically don't really know what the meat is. The only 'challenging' meal so far has been the fish stew. It consisted of peas and a few large pieces of fish. I lucked out and won the jackpot and found the head of the fish staring at me in my bowl. I couldn't actually bring myself to eat the entire fish head, but I did my best to eat around it. After dinner, there's often some type of fruit for dessert - mango, pineapple, melon. It's mango season right now so they're everywhere.

At this point, it's usually about 9 or 10 and I head off to bed and either study, read a little, or write. Between classes and the heat, I'm fairly exhausted by this point so I'm usually asleep under my mosquito net around 11ish.

That's a rundown of what most days here for me are like. During my training, I'll most likely try and put up a post every week or 2. There's plenty more to write about, however if you have any specific questions about anything here - please either post a comment or email me the question and I'll do my best to answer. Tomorrow's Sunday so there's no training and I get to just relax for the day. :)