'Ello People of America

I got to my permanent village last Thursday, almost a week ago. I like it so far. The village is really hilly, surrounded by beautiful mountains. When my supervisor was showing me around it seemed more like a hike than just walking through a village, but it’s cool. He told me they requested someone young because of all the hills. My house is on top of a hill near the back of the village, so I have a nice bird’s eye view of the area. To give you an idea of how steep it is, my supervisor’s car couldn’t make it all the way up the hill to get to my house, so we had to carry all of my stuff up, but it wasn’t too bad.

So I have my own three room house, it’s two bedrooms and a sitting room. I pretty much only use one of the rooms, but there are two extra beds in the other room for friends to use if they come visit, so that’s nice. There is no running water but there’s a spigot just outside the gate so I don’t have to go far for water. There are three other buildings on the grounds, one is a garage which is right next to my house, then there’s a building with two rooms where a tenant stays, Eugene. He’s a social worker, nice guy. Then there’s the main house where the kitchen is and a few more bedrooms. My host mom only stays here sometimes, mainly if everyone is gone for the night she’ll stay here so I won’t be alone. Her husband owns this house and a house down the hill which is where she stays most of the time. Right now her sister and niece are here for the week of school holidays. The niece, Ramoraswi, 6, seems to think I’m her new personal constant playmate, which is getting a little tiring, but she doesn’t live here all the time so it’ll be fine. She’s fun though.

There was a previous Peace Corps volunteer who lived here before me, same family, same house. Her name’s Leah and her two years ended in June. She left me a bunch of stuff in the room, like pots and pans, books, and school stuff which is pretty gnarly. It’s nice being the second one because the principals and the family have done it all before so they know what to expect. I get compared to her with pretty much everything I do, but I don’t mind. It’s funny, walking through the village people ask me where Leah is, or if I’m her sister. I guess they assume I know her or am related to her because we’re both white.

The weather so far is pretty nice. It’s been sunny mostly, but there’s always a nice breeze. One day it was cloudy and really windy, lovedddddddd it, felt like San Francisco… almost. But that night it was really loud in my room from the wind because the windows don’t close completely, but once I fell asleep I was fine of course, I can sleep through anything. A lot of PCV’s in my group complained a lot about roosters waking them up super early every morning; they’re everywhere and super loud, but they never woke me up.

So I’m pretty much just been hanging out this week, checking out the village, introducing myself to people, getting used to everything. I got here just as the schools went on their week break between quarters, so I haven’t been to my schools yet, but that’s ok. I like being able to just hang out for a while, although 6 year old Ramoraswi keeps me pretty busy if I let her, and she’s pretty persistent even when I try to go to my room for a while, it’s almost like babysitting all day for no money… But her mom makes me dinner sometimes so it’s ok.

Alright, that’s it for now, probably have some pictures for you soon.

Peace.