Finally Home

Aaaand I've made it. September 1st I spent my first night in my one-room house (+ closet to take cold bucket showers). I spent a couple days paining and now I have trees and a sky in my house. Two weeks later, my body is finally starting to adjust to the temperature (though I take at least 2 showers a day--always shocking but refreshing). It's a close call--whether there are more freckles or mosquito bites on my legs. I'm going to go with freckles, but that's probably wishful thinking on my part (ha). Apparently there's a swampy area behind my house, so the mosequitos are everywhere. Ha--reminds me of Minnesota--except, you know, with the added risk of malaria. Apparently I must learn to co-exist with the spiders that eat them. And to make my life a little more exciting, I decided it'd be good to have a hive of bees on my water pump, to test out my allergy. I guess they like my mango tree :) Don't worry--I keep my bee meds handy, and I'm on malaria medication stuff (which is currently messing with my body--as we speak, my entire right arm is tingy--ha).

But seriouly, I'm very happy with my home and enjoy the nice walk to town. My neighbors are great too--though I think they think I'm a little strange. Every morning I have to justify wearing some clothes inside out (um, ha I realize that sounds weird--so I'm not going to explain--ha) and drinking my coffee black. The most common question I get is "What's that?" referring to either my freckles or my nose ring. I don't know how to explain either. My town is small with one main road, so people are slowly becoming familiar. I finished my first week of teaching (is anyone else still thrown by the fact that I'm playing teacher for two years?) and honestly it's just been a relief to finally be working. I teach students in the 7th and 10th grades. And my proviseur is awesome--I really lucked out. Once school gets more into the swing of things, I'll start an English club and think about other projects I want to do. And I'll also start giving you more entertaining messages, as soon as I am no longer spending all my time trying to avoid getting hit by cars and cows, and instead just looking and laughing at life. Not to fear--it will be à la Paris in no time, for those of you who were along for that ride.

For now I'll just give you some random stuff and one funny story, but I mostly wanted to let you know that I'm safe and settled and happy. Miss you all!