Day 2 of the great senegalese adventure

Bonjour! Today was more interviews and more orientation including a french test to see where we are. i was fairly confident with my test, and hopefully i will be learning a new exciting language soon. Tomorrow we begin cross cultural training and language training. it has been unseasonable cool and i am sitting outside with longsleeves on right now! i was very surprised when they offered (very delicious) vegetarian options. the training center is sort of meant to acclimate us to senegal while still giving some comforts of home-- for example we can still use american toilets and showers until we move into our homestay families next week and use squat toilets. once we are at our homestay there will be less access to internet, so bare with me if i am slow in postings! the homestay experience will be really exciting and i am ready to jump into full immersion. we had placement interviews today and were able to express fears, concerns, and preferences. they asked us to be honest, so when they asked if i could bike 20km, i laughed and said absolutely not. who knew peace corps volunteers wouldnt have diplomatic vehicles shuttling them from place to place?! (ha) i did however say i would sacrifice access to electricity to be close to other volunteers. also i told them being next to a church would be a huge bonus and they said it wouldnt be a problem getting to church. tomorrow i might be able to venture out of the compound so stay tuned for exciting info on the bustling metropolis of theis! i hear lots of promising sounds including donkeys and lots and lots of birds. (ivy, you would die.) i love you all very much and thank you for all the prayers!!