Training Complete

Well training has come to an end and it's been a wonderful past three months. I still can't believe I'm in Africa. When I arrived back in September I was a clean shaven, pale, naive, young man who could barely speak French and ate using both hands. While I'm still young and naive, the rest has changed. I'm sporting a pretty solid stache like my pops. The sun exposure that comes from being 7 degrees north of the Equator tends to darken the skin. For me it burns then darkens. I'm still pretty naive. Remember near the beginning when I wrote about how hot it was. Yea well that was nothing compared to the heat now that it's dry season. The French has improved greatly and I can get around and converse pretty well. Now I have to work on learning Konkomba.
Integrating into another culture means recognizing and understanding taboos, one of which is using your left hand. The left hand is for wipin' yo butt, so offering someone your left hand to shake is an insult. Eating with the left hand is also not appropriate, especially for dishes that don't require utensils, like pate and fufu which you eat daily. Life without electricity is fine although it is nice to charge things once in a while. Lack of running water is no hassle at all. Not having my good friends around is definitely a bummer but hey what can you do? Write.
My taste buds are having the time of their life as I feed them food much spicier than I ever had in the States. Right now outside I can hear the call of a goat. It sounds kind of like Walter Matthau and I smile. I know the goat as well as numerous roosters will continue their call all night and three months ago it would have me cursing all night but now I can sleep soundly as the animals chatter away. The same is not true for the church in my backyard whose songs late into the night is infuriating. I remember walking out the door early one night when they were really going at it and my father was sitting at the top of the steps just shaking his head and you just had to laugh.
Yea life in Gbatope as a Peace Corps Trainee has been pretty sweet. It felt like we were at camp and sometimes like we were back in college. The other 12 trainees are awesome and we've shared some great times together. All 13 of us made it through stage which is uncommon and Thursday we will swear in together and become volunteers. It's going to be sad to part ways.