Hello Friends,

We've arrived in training town and have been very busy in training each day. Kilimanjaro beams down onto me each morning during language class and the stars sprinkle brilliantly each night. I love it here: the people, the food (and I'm eating a lot of it), the atmosphere, and the friends. My host family is great. My baba is Masai (you'd prob recognize the tribe if you googled it). I have a 12 year old brother and a 7 year old sister and a cousin staying home from college break. i'm learining how to cook each day after training and wash my clothes. my moma is determined to make me a real kenyan woman. and my baba is determined to speak to me only in swahili ;) i pretty much lucked out with the homestay. we have running water, electricity \9though not this morning) and satelite tv. the only tv i watch is love spell which is a spanish soap opera and news. i'm pretty much tired from training and cooking so \i go to bed around 9. The food here is great, but i never eat enough according to my moma. best of all, we go our site placement last week! i'm going to (ta-da): Makai. which is not on the map...it's in the nyanza province off the coast of lake victoria. it's located in between kissi and kisumu which are the major cities i'll be going to for shopping. im currently learning Dholou as my language and it's pretty much nothing like swahili but we're picking it up fast. \i'll be working with people living with aids, orphans from aids, elderly people and school drop outs. apparently the group there has done a lot of good work there and my counterpart is awesome so \i'm excited. plus there's a solar oven in my compuond which is just cool. im going to be doing a lot of baking. also the chief works inthe compuond that will live in so it's heavily guarded. nice.

otherwise, all is well here and although i'm so exhausted each day i' m so glad i'm here. also i got a phone 0723227250 it's for my coworkers to keep in touch so only call if emergency. or you can go online and get a cheap callign card. it doesnt cost anything for me to receive messages or calls, so do with you want with it, just note the 7 hur time difference. thank you to everyone who said they were sending packages and letters, \i'll start sending letters soon. you have no idea how nice it is to think someone is thinking of you back home!

sending my love to all
-H