TIA: This is Africa.

First things first. TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT ANGELINA'S TWINS!!!!!!

hahaha and god bless globalization because I can pretty regularly use the internet. I'm at an internet cafe right now in Porto-Novo, the city where we are doing our training. I'm living with a host family, the Akande Family! They are a pretty wealthy family here. They have three daughters, Alethea, 22, Diana, 20 and Josette, 18 and a boy, Joseph, 12. I adore them. They are the nicest people ever! I have my own private room and as the Peace Corps loves to remind us; "This is Porto-Novo 90201" because the Akandes have TV, Nintendo from the 1980s, a refridgerator and a DVD player. We watch MTV Nigeria everyday as you can imagine, very interesting! hahaha. Oh and for Teresa, Celine Dion is honest to God the most famous person in Benin, singing her stupid heart out in French hahaha.

Outside of the other volunteers, I have yet to see someone of another race in Porto-Novo. It's hysterical. People openly drop whatever they're doing and just stare at you. To my host brother, I am an alien from the Planet White Freak. My host sisters and the little kids are always grabbing my hair, hahaha but I just grab their braids and everyone laughs. They are seriously the sweetest, most kindest people ever. Everyone in Benin knows what the Peace Corps is so it's really cool. The kids scream "Yovo! Yovo!" when they see you. "Yovo" means "Whitey" in Fon, the native language. They also chant this song; "Yovo! Yovo Bonsoir! Ca va bien? Merci!" but it's not mean-spirited, its just like "hey there white girl". I always just smile and laugh with all the people and they totally just eat it up because they're the nicest people ever. It makes me sad that Americans just have horrible stereotypes of Africans as sex-crazed AIDS patients stabbing each other because it's really not true!

I would definitely recommend that if any of you ever wanted to venture to Africa at some point in your life, DO IT! The airfare is around 2000 dollars, but once you are here, you are seriously spending pennies! Pennies! An hour at this internet cafe is a dollar. A taxi ride on a zemidjan motorcycle is a quarter. Its ridiculously cheap even with the crappy euro. And obviously, free place to stay with me!

Safari season in Benin starts in November and ends in March. At the national park up north, Benin has the big five: lions, elephants, rhinos, water buffalos and one other I forgot. Also there's huge waterfalls there and baboons! I think me and some other volunteers are doing a safari over New Years this year.

My best friend is actually a boy volunteer which is weird because I always have a million girl friends. Oh and before I forgot, Kate, that guy in the picture with the beard and stick for a bat went to high school with Dan and Joel in Omaha! How weird is that?! We found that out the first day. Anyway some of the girls in my training class are ridiculously stupid so I end up liking the boys the better. Theres like two or three girls I really like though.