Hello Everyone!!

So I have been in Tanzania for a week now. First let me say, holy shit! When the Peace Corps means intensive training...they mean it. It is 8 weeks (possibly 9) of 14 hour days 7 days a week. The most confusing thing so far is that they tell time differently in Kiswahili. So the day starts at sunrise (6am our time) so the first hour of the day is what we consider 7am. So 1:00 is 7:00. And since sun sets at 6pm it starts over, so 7pm is 1:00. 3:00 in English is 9:00 in Kswahail. So I go to school at 2:00 in the morning (or 8:00 am). good stuff.
What else...training. So training...There are 31 of us left so far (some have dropped out already) and 14 are environmental (mwanamazingra in Kiswahili). We are divided into 3 villages. There are 5 of us total in my village of chanzuru. We have a language/culture teacher that stays in the village w/ us. on Fridays we get back together at the meeting point to see how everyone is coping. Next week we start technical training. I have to pass a compentancy text that includes building a chicken coup, collecting/cleaning my own water, tree nuseries, fish farming and possibly bee keeping. our assignments work like this:
A town/village asks for a volunteer to come to their village. We are sent out individually. Once there, we have to arrange a village meeting to try to determine what needs the village might have that I might be able to help out with. Since we dontknow what the village wea re assigned to might need, we are trained in all areas. Other volunteers I have talked to says it takes about 3-5 months just to get the village accepting of you enough to have the meeting. Just because someone in the village asked for a volunteer doesnt mean that they all want one. So it seems more important to be better at interacting than to have a technical skillset.
The village I am training in is beautiful. we go for long walks in the afternoon (we have to draw a map of the village as our test) to get to know people. We are in a valley with mountains off in the close distance. It is mostly rice, corn, cassava, sesamea seed and sugar cane fields around here. Also there are a lot of mud brick makers. We saw baboons and some large cat of some kind. Here in the village we have these monitor looking lizards that are about 3 feet long, 1-2 feet tall. But other than that, no exciting wildlife. The food is good. Spinach, rice, potatoes, beans, ugali (unflavored over coked malt-o-meal, but tasty)...oh! the best thing ever - sambusa, a samosa/empenada type pastry. Damn tasty... severalof us plan on opening sambusa stands as our assignment project (small business development project!)
I should go off to bed...by the time you guys read this I hope to be fluent in Kiswahali
I love and miss ya'll...
Jane