Sorry its short

So long time no post.

Doundibi (dun-deebee) was amazing! My village is about 600-1000 people. My maygery(chief) is awesome. He's a 70 yr. old, man with lots of gray hair and one leg. Whenever he saw me he would get this big smile on his face and start to clap... saying we we're going to talk lots and lots of Zarma... then we pretty much sat silent. My hut is a good size. It's pretty much a 10 by 10 box. Most impressive is my drum roll please... CEMENT FLOOR. I'm fairly excited about that. My closest neighbor is a traditional singer. I'm not even 30 yards from get this... A FOOT PUMP! Woohoo! I was able to watch a women read Zarma for the first time... which was so awesome!

We lost 3 more people all girls... for various reasons. We also have another person being medavaced to DC the day after swear-in. Chances of him returning are slim. But officially only 5 have dropped out.

My birthday was grand. I was wished many happy birthday's at around mid-night. Carrie gave me a card. Then she & I traveled back to the training site. Where at dinner I was greeted with cake. I got to see all my friends and talk to my mom, grandma & papa and Adam... it was a great day I rather like being 22... if not for the fact that iwey cindi hinka sounds better than iwey cindi fo... 22 and 21 in zarma... oh I almost forgot I got a cat for my birthday. Our driver at the Dosso hostel gave me his cat which I'm thrilled about. Bitik which translates as very black is just that... with some white. He looks alot like Scrub and i'm excited about that.

I started reading and have almost finished Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller... definetly a good read and I highly recommend it.

Well i'm going to go because quite frankly I'm tired of typing. I miss you all terribly and can't wait to hear from you... through letters (and packages).

Miss you all more than you'll ever know... come visit me!