Wholesome, but a little nutty

So, here I am. I really reals Peace Corps Volunteer. It's kinda crazy, but also kinda neat. The service was good. We went to the US Embassy, and it was the picture of efficiency--something I've not been used to in the last couple of months. The ceremony started at 10am and was over before 11am. I had to do that silly oath thing that's required of all government officials when they're sworn in (that same one that the president must take when taking office).

After the swear-in ceremony, we were driven to the America Club, which was quite posh. It had a great pool, a sand volley ball court, a basketball court, tennis courts and a ping pong table. I received just a bit of sun. Oh, it also had all you can eat hamburgers, hot dogs and various other goodies (the hot dogs, in particular, were amazing). Also, while at the America Club, my laptop was delivered to me. This excited me beyond all else (interesting that I received my laptop on the same day that I became an actual volunteer).

After that, we hung out at the hotels for a few hours before making our way to the night clubs. First on the agenda was Pirate's Club. This place was neat, and had some interesting music, lots of Tubabs (their word for foreigners, aka Americans, French people, etc.), too much alcohol, hookah, pool tables (btw, pool is free everywhere I've seen a pool table in this country). It was here, at this club, that we learned our stage name.

We're to be known as Honey Bunches of Oats, because in all we're wholesome, but a little nutty. That's fair.

After Pirate's Club, buses took volunteers to No Stress (another club), but I and a few others opted to stay behind. It was already around midnight, and I was enjoying the atmosphere at the Pirate's Club.

So after that, I enjoyed some late, late food at Adonis (a falafel sandwich) and walked back to the hotel with friends.

The next day was rough. And by rough, I mean hangovers with little sleep in a foreign country that sucks all the moisture out of you as it is because of how hot it is at all times are not exactly enjoyable. Luckily, I packed Excedrin, Migraine Strength, which can conquer any hangover.

I spent much of Saturday buying things for the apartment (specifically, my roomies and I bought a new fridge, a used stove and some mattresses), which used up a lot of time and a whole lot of money.

I opted to stay at Tubani-So Saturday night so that I could enjoy the company of my fellow volunteers one last night before making the trek to site (everyone else left for site this morning, it seemed only fair that I do the same--even if I didn't have to). Technically, I could still be at Tubani-So, enjoying free food, but I've decided to come to my house, which is where I am.

I've walked to the market twice today, to the store twice as well. I have internet, I have my laptop, I have a lot of things I still need to install on said laptop, but that's coming along, and I have my own really real home as a really real volunteer. I do not, however, yet have my bank card, so all the money that I'm supposed to live on for the next three months is, as of this moment, inaccessible to me. Hopefully, that will change this week. In the meantime, some supplies have been bought, including Nido (which is a brand of powdered milk that's very common here) and cereal.

I've also discovered a firefox addon that I'm testing out with this post. I'm posting using the program "Deepest Sender." So far, I like it. We'll see how I feel about it later. Most of my posts will likely continue to be through the normal means of actually going to livejournal--as I enjoy perusing lj.

I've also posted a heckuva lot of pictures over on facebook. If I have time in the near future, I'll try to post some on flickr for you non facebook people.

In other tech news, I also downloaded a mac program, Senuti, that enabled me to copy my iPod songs from my iPod to iTunes. This was a godsend, since I had wondered how I was going to get all those songs back--especially the ones that I'd simply bought off of iTunes.