ANOTHER ONE!!!

Hello again. This time I'm in Antsirabe, on my way to site. I'm traveling in a Peace Corps car, with 2 other volunteers (that's right, not trainees, VOLUNTEERS) , Ryan and Katie, and the director of the PC Mada health sector. We're in Antsirabe for 2 nights, while Katie is installed at a site near here and we do all our shopping. We're all new sites (i.e. we don't inherit the furnishings of the last volunteer) so we bought sooo much stuff. Example: yesterday I bought 6 different types of bucket. Life becomes very bucket-intense when you don't have running water, or a dishwasher, or laundry machine, or toilet you can use at night.

Before I talk more about installation, let me back up and describe tuesday, which was amazing. Our swearing-in ceremony was in the morning, at the US ambassador's palatial residence. I made my kabary (speech) in Malagasy, and there was a translator standing next to me, saying my speech in english!!! (a complete surprise to me; I realized as I began my speech that he wasn't going anywhere (he had been translating the previous speaker into Malagasy) and that I had to pause to let him do his thing every few sentences). I had given our country director a very rough english translation of my kabary to give to the ambassador, but somehow the translator had a copy of my kabary (in Malagasy, i think) that he was holding, and he had a very eloquent translation that I think was a bit sappier than what I actually said (embarrassing), and at one point he actually got ahead of me, so he's lucky I was paying attention him and noticed, or else I would have paused after my next bit but he would have already said it and that would have been awkward. I couldn't stop grinning at him while he was translating because it was so weird to have him translating me into English, when I speak English. But I think the speech went really well, so I was very happy. After my speech our group did a really silly presentation in Malagasy about different health topics. My bit was an interpretivedancepoem about AIDS with 2 other trainees. Basically I made a very serious speech, and then made a fool of myself immediately afterwards. it was great. And it was all filmed for Malagasy television.

Health '07 with Boda, the director of our sector, and Bill, the country director

After the ceremony and a reception we got to hang out at the ambassador's houseand swim in his pool and eat amazing chili and desserts. then all us new volunteers went out to eat and then to a dance club and stayed up way too lateand then woke up way too early to say goodbye to each other for 4 months and then head off with our installers to our respective sites.

today ryan and i are hanging out in antsirabe while katie gets installed, then tomorrow we'll head to fianar and do a little more shopping there. I still need a mattress and maybe a table and chairs. We'll stay at the peace corps house there for 2 nights because we dont want to arrive in my banking town on the weekend because my bank wont be open. So i wont get to site until monday. i am excited and terrified. Duh.

i dont know what the internet situation is in my banking town yet, so it might be a while before i post again. also i think im going to have a new mailing address there, but the one i told everyone before will always get to me eventually. it's just the PC office in Tana.