Porto Brovo (Doucement: gently: to be yelled at passing motorists)

I only have 5 minutes to write this blog entry!

Everything is going well so far.

There is nothing more awkward than meeting the family you will be living with for the next two months when you don't speak their language.

Stage is crazy. We had our first ET (Early Termination) about five minutes ago. I'm in classes all day, and then practice French with my host family at night.

They're super nice and helpful. I have a much better situation than others.

A friend of mine, who shall be called "Riley" for privacy, has a much stranger host family situation. I have a toilet and a shower. He has a hole in the ground and a bucket of water, and diarrhea to boot. He keeps telling me about how he has to step over his papa at night (he sleeps there to protect him) and walk outside to the latrine naked to rock the night away.

It's probably much funnier when you hears this with a bunch of volunteers over beers, like I did. But it's still really funny. If "Riley"survives Stage, he can handle anything.

Speaking of dietary issues, I've decided not to investigate what food is being placed in front of me, EVER.

Last night I almost threw up all over the dinner table eating something called pate noire (pronounced pot noire).

Peace Corps gave me a bike yesterday, and it took me less then an hour to break my rear wheel in half. Woops, so all day today people have been handing me bike repair manuals in English and French.

White people here are called yovos, and little kids here like to sing the yovo song, which goes like this:
yovo, yovo, bonsoir
ca va bien, merci

That's the only thing they think we know how to say, which is true for a lot of us.

I'm running out of time, but after school today I'm going to head to a cyber and hopefully write a full expose of Benin.

For now, all of my clothes are dirty, my water tastes like fish and chlorine, I'm in an air conditioned Peace Corps Bureau, and life is good.