Broken Dreams

So my African dream has been crushed and I'm totally ok with it. Training is almost over and soon I will hopefully be a real true Peace Corps Volunteer. I know where I will be living and sort of what I will be doing. I told everyone when I left to come visit me in my mud hut in Mali, hopefully I was going to have chickens and maybe even goats. Well, sadly, no not sadly that is not to be. My site is a city of about 100,000 people. I have a second story apartment with 6, yes, 6 rooms, and the best part, I have a shower and a toliet, that flushes! After only 7 weeks of pooping down a hole and taking bucket baths in the open air. I am excited about having a bathroom. I am close to dogon country, in fact my host family is dogon. The boat trips to Timbuktu leave from here, there is climbing about 5 hours away, a very famous mosque 2 hours away. This city, which is remaining nameless at the recomendation of the Peace Corps blog watchers, is a tourist destination, and all Mali has to offer is close. So start planning those trips now! As a side note, it is a 10-12 hours bus ride from Bamako, but not bad really. And some people might be bothered by the grand mosque that is a block away and the call to prayer at 5 in the morning, but I sleep right thru it. The ceiling fan, yes I have 2 ceiling fans drown out all other noise. So while my fellow volunteers have their walls disolve in the night during a rain storm; have a spitting cobra in the rafters; or have to endure 56° C. (all those are true by the way) I will be either in the shower or sitting in my livingroom under a fan. I will actually work too, well hopefully my French won't prevent me from getting something done. I am working with the city on trash disposal and sewer improvements. There are a lot of aid agencies in town so maybe I can work my way into some side projects and get to meet a lot of people in the process. I've never been so happy to be disappointed!