I MADE IT!

So here I am, sitting in a humid Internet cafe at the Msimbazi Center hostel in Dar es Salaam, TZ! I have arrived! And life is good. Except for the fact that I've begun the poor Peace Corps life so I feel like I have to budget every second I spend on the Internet so as not to spend my entire 3,000 TSh/day allowance (about $3 a day is what we get from now til we swear in and become actual PCVs). Life has been crazy and busy so far! I love everyone in my group and we're all getting to know each other quite well since we spend 24/7 together. Unfortunately we already lost 1 person who apparently got cold feet in NY and disappeared right as we were boarding the plane w/o telling anyone. So thanks to him our flight ended up being delayed a good 1.5 hours. So 36 become 35. Hopefully the rest of us all stay! Flights were long, and unfortunately I hurt my ankles before leaving but never got time to ice/rest them, so they were swelling to high heaven on the plane and once we landed and I had to carry all my masses of stuff. They're FINALLY getting better now, though I'm still living on Advil. So until Tuesday we all have our own rooms in this hostel and we're spending long days together studying PC policies and missions, TZ culture, the schedule for our training, starting Swahili, how to not die here, and many other things. We visited PC Headquarters yesterday and had a little language test convo w/ one of our teachers. I was nervous but she said I did great with it and had a lot of good vocab. Then once we started learning survival language in groups I felt so confident because I realized that I really am leaps and bounds ahead of everyone just from taking those 2 semesters in college. Lots of people didn't even do any Rosetta Stone so they're starting from scratch. So I feel a lot better about that.
Sorry this is really rambling. I should've organized my thoughts before coming here. But I didn't. Alas. There are 2 other girls here from Columbus! They're both environment volunteers but they're both awesome. Mary and I decided when we're home we're going to go to the bars in Columbus and sit there speaking Swahili to be totally awesome and impress everyone. Hahaha. I love all the other volunteers so much because it's the 1st time in my life I've been surrounded by people who so completely GET me. We all have the same doubts and fears and everything, but we're all still so passionate and determined to do this anyway. So awesome to be around 34 other people with the same outrageous goals and life philosophy!!! Also, we've gotten to talk to several current volunteers who are here to help with this 1st week of training and picking their brains helps us realize more of what it's going to be like here. And hearing them speak Swahili fluently after only 1 year is awesome.
Today was interesting. First we talked about our technical training schedule, then we had a session on malaria and how to prevent it. Blablabla, take your medicine and use your mosquito net and you'll be fine basically. But of course since every day PC makes you do something you never thought you'd do, we had to learn how to do malaria self-tests. So we're all sitting in this sweaty classroom stabbing ourselves in the finger trying to draw blood and put it on slides and mix it all up w/ this chemical indicator thing. Never thought I'd have to do THAT! It was quite hilarious when you think about it but not at all a natural thing to have to stick yourself like 25 times to get enough blood. Pleased to say none of us have malaria. Then of course after that we had to get shots. Some people got 4 all at once, I only had to get 2...the 1st rabies one and renewal of meningitis. Woot. Done with that til more next week.
More language later today then dinner and hanging out time. It's definitely tiring...waking up every day at 4:30am when the Call to Prayer goes off. But it's good not to have much time to miss people yet. Everyone's nervous because Tuesday is quickly approaching and that's when we go 5 hours north to Muheza to go to our homestays. I'm really nervous actually. But I'm sure it will be good and a great way to learn Swahili really fast. This is the 1st time they're doing homestays in that area so no one knows what the Internet situation will be like. I might not have it at all for the next 9 weeks. I'm going to get a phone ASAP though and when I do I'll text everyone with my number. I'm not going to be able to afford to call internationally but if you call me it won't cost me anything. Apparently there are cheap calling cards available for you to use to get a better rate. Google it.
Anyway, life is good, sorry for the rambling, but my time's about up on the Internet. Love you all and thanks for the support. Send letters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!