A new home

I have a new home! Yesterday afternoon I moved from my grungy and somewhat-seedy hotel/conference centre to a 'maison de passage' run by the German development service. It's about a five minute walk from work, is full of other foreign people, has a kitchen, and is relatively clean! Very exciting! I'm not sure how long I'll be able to stay there, as preference is given to German development workers, but we'll see. So far the other people seem really nice (there's a Belgian boy working for some forestry service and a German student who's trying to work out an exchange with the university here), and I think that overall I'm quite happy to be there! My only complaint is that it's hot, but I think that will be an issue no matter where I am in the area...

I don't really have any other exciting news... My boss (Florence), along with the Representative, went to Togo yesterday to meet with recently-repatriated refugees (I think), so the office has been very quiet. It's a little weird working here because a) I have an incredibly difficult time following office conversations due to the mixture of French/Fon; b) people tease a huge amount, a lot of which is usually directed at me because I can't quite follow; and c) everyone's doors are always closed because of the air conditioning so I mostly sit by myself reading. I'm sure I'll start to follow conversations a little better soon, and that I'll get to know people better, but for now it's a little strange. Oh well. And I don't really know what I'll be working on, and subsequently where to focus my reading, so I feel a little lost. But I've only been here a week so I'm sure things will improve!

And now I should go read more... I'm painfully slow at reading in French!

love Katie