I'm here!!!!!

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Hi all, Bonjour tout le monde!!!

I arrived in Lome, the capital of Togo, safe and sound last night after a two long flights, both about 7 hours long, with a short stop in the Paris airport. I am a little jet lagged, but other than that I feel wonderful and I am so excited to be here. My French is quickly coming back to me and many aspects of what I've seen so far remind me very much of Madagascar. The main differences, I guess, are that their are people on mopeds all over the place, the people are tall, well built, and very dark, and their are over 40 local languages and dialects here besides French to confuse me. I will try to upload pics of my volunteer group and other aspects of life here as soon as I can, but the internet here is extremely slow and I haven't been here long enough to take any! By the way, Togo time is 4 hours ahead of the East Coast and 7 hours ahead of the West Coast.

So I feel healthy and happy, and the Peace Corps and my fellow volunteers, 25 in all plus volunteers that have been here for longer, are taking awesome care of me, and vice versa. The plan is a 3 day orientation in the big city Lome for all the shots we need and some basic safety and health instruction; after that, we will travel to a village not far to the North, Adeta, for 3 months of training in French, local language, and business skills. At that point, the SBD, or Small Business Development, volunteers like myself will split up from the NRM, or Natural Resource Management, volunteers. Our group is about 50/50 of each group.

I think my previous travels in Africa have built up my immunity to the food here, knock on wood, because I feel great. Last night after arrival the volunteers already working in Togo took us newcomers out to an opn bar and we had a blast sharing experiences, although I didn't drink very much. Some interesting things I heard are that volunteers have eaten dog, cat, bush rat, bat, and snake, which I of course hope to sample.

The Togolese people are very beautiful and very friendly. They are all so excited here about the World Cup so GO TOGO!!!! Also there are so many colorful lizards running around, and I can actually walk to Ghana from my hotel. Just some random thoughts...

I'll try to be in touch soon with pics and updates. A la prochaine!!!

Steve

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Comments

[Greg]

Good Luck
Good luck with everything! I hope you have a great time. Will you be able to watch the World Cup game tomorrow? It should be on around 1 pm Togo time. Keep in touch.

[Jana]

Miss you
Steve, I'm so glad you made it to Africa and are enjoying yourself so far. I miss you already back here in Seattle--promise not to forget us! I have to say that you are missing some fairly nice weather here, but I'm sure you've got much of the same there. Make sure you keep your blog updated so I can see what you're up to!

[archie]

exciting!!!
good to here that you made it safe. can't wait to hear about your first taste of weird "edible" creature....lol....take care....

[Joelle]

Go Togo!
Hey Steven, I miss you! I'm glad you're doing well so far. Let me know if you need anything from home. Seattle is good--but I'm leaving in 2 weeks for Iowa. A little pre-PC training on gardening, animal health, and being bored out of my mind. See you soon! joelle