Becoming official

So, later today we are all going to the Presdential Palace and becoming sworn in as official volunteers, and the next day I am leaving for my site!!  Last night we had a huge party.  We went the "American Club" during the day which has a pool!  And pretty good burgers, then to a hotel in the evening then there were shuttles arranged for several bars/nightclubs.  The whole night was incredibly entertaining, and there was much ridiculousness.  However, everyone here has become really close in the last two months, and I am definitely going to miss most of the people...a lot.  I'll see them again in two months for In Service Training, but not really until then because we aren't supposed to leave our site for the first two months. (Normally it is three months, but there is another training group coming in June or July so they scheduled our IST earlier than normal), which personally I am glad about because the volunteers all celebrate holidays together, and Fourth of July is usually a pretty big event in one of the cities, and now I should be able to attend.  If the other groups was not coming in, our IST would have fallen during the Fourth, so we would have been at the training center unable to travel far.  I'm defintitely going to try to get some pictures at swear in, and hopefully will be able to post them in a semi-timely manner. 

I am very excited to start service, and to start cooking for myself! The food at the training center is pretty good, and well balanced, but I was not a huge fan of the cooking when I went to my site to visit a few weeks ago.  It didn't necessarily taste too bad, it wasn't great, but every meal I got some sort of fish sauce, and it generally sat out a bit too long in the sun, and it just turned my stomach.  I bought a stove, and will be buying a table to put it on when I get to Sikasso so I should be able to start cooking right away.  Now, I just need to figure out how to build a solar oven and I'll be in good shape...MMMMMMMMM.... Pie.