Sorry its been like ten thousand years since I've posted.  Things are still great.  So since last time we found out our sites.  I will be moving to Mtwara and teaching at Newala Day Secondary School.  Mtwara is in the far south of Tanzania, on the Mozambique border and along the coast.  I am supper excited about my site!  I have a 2 bedroom house, pretty much already furnished, with a courtyard.  There is a passion fruit vine, mango tree, and papaya tree in my courtyard.  And the best part? ELECTRICITY!! Yes friends. I will be living on the coast, able to see Mozambique pretty much, with a plethra of fruit and electricity, so basically in the lap of luxury.  Anyone want to visit?
In other news, I am done with training!  The week before last week, we went to shadow current volunteers.  I got sent to Singida.  I was told that Singida was the desert of Tanzania and was dreading it.  It turns our Singida is absolutely beautiful.  It is dry, basically sand, but the sky is huge because the land is so flat.  Our adventure began with the always exciting Tanzanian bus system.  To start, the but was almost an hour late.  When we were getting on, we basically sat wherever our bag was thrown by the conductor.  I sat in between Doug and a gangly, rather pungent Tanzanian man.  Most of the ride, the bus was flying.  To avoid hurling all over the extremely crowded, swerving death-trap of a bus, I tried to stay passed out the entire ride.  I was so unaware of my surroundings most of the time, I had no idea, until told by Doug later, that apparently my stinky friend next to me monopolized on my current state and used me as a pillow.  After a whole 8 hours on awful roads, and at one point no road at all, we reached Singida Town.    After getting to town, we met up with some PCV's.  They had gotten hotel rooms and we went and dropped our stuff and went to the next door bar for drinks and dinner.  They are all well acquainted with the owner who just loves "wazungu," or whities.  He made us maybe the best meal I've had since arriving in country.  The next day, we hung out in town, grabbing breakfast going to the internet cafe and later on lunch.  After all this, it was time to catch our bus to her village.  The ride was ridiculously bouncy.  Imagine riding a charter bus across a field.  Consequently, I spend the ride ready to stick my head out the window to hurl.  I was in a better boat than my fellow volunteer though who was having stomach issues and about to poop his pants the entire ride.  Apparently, this is not an extremely uncommon issue in Peace Corps.  Our host said she had pooped her pant four times in the last 30 days due to a gnarly stomach issue.  We finally reached her village and walked to her house.  For the next 2 and a half days, Colin and I pretty much did nothing but work on a puzzle and occasionally help cook.  It felt pretty awesome to just do nothing.  While we were at Amy's house, we celebrated her birthday, making banana pancakes, omelets, and mango.  Uma, Jordan, Doug, and their host Carol walked from their village, bringing chocolate cake.  After vegging out, we spent the day laying on the concrete talking/reading/playing cards/puzzling.  It was pretty wonderful.  That night, Amy, Colin , and I went into the village to visit and eat dinner.  We hung out chatting with her village, drinking what was meant to be homemade mango wine.  After what seemed to be too much yeast, too little sugar, and too little mango, you get pretty much mango vodka'ish jazz. There are really no words to describe.  The next day, we hiked 2 hours to Carol's village to spend the night with Jordan, Uma, and Doug.  We played games and drug mattresses out on the front porch and slugged around all day.  The next day, we again had bus adventures.  So buses might bery well be the most interesting/scary part about my Tanzanian experience.  We took a bus from Carol's village to Singida Town.  We get smooshed on, fighting for our seat and breath in an often exhaust filled bus.  This particular bus ride, I literally saw a man shove two live chickens into the overhead bin.  Apparently the chickens just shut their eyes when the bus starts moving. Maybe we share the quality of getting motion sick and they just close their eyes to avoid tossing their little poutlry cookies.  When we reached Singida Town bus stop, we then had to fight off the hourds of people selling mangos, water, baskets, and plastic crap.  These vendors are all over the new buses rolling into the station like stink on poo trying to sell their goods.  After a bit of confusion, we figured out that our bus did not leave till 1:30.  It was currently about 8:30.  We then went into town to waste time, avoiding the usual children screaming "give me money mzungu."  After wasting time in town, we went to the bus stop and our bus was actually there.  the bus ride seemed off to a great start: a normal amount of people, no animals, and actually leaving on time.  Well then, we stopped 10 other times before leaving town and crammed as many people on as I though possible.  Well I was wrong.  The bus then stopped on the highway the entire way to Manyoni, cramming more people on.  At one point, I had about 4 people half-sitting on me.  Another time, some lady literally sat her baby on my shoulder.  I am thankful I wasn't in one of the other volunteer's seat where he had to stay our of pecking reach of the chicken held right at his eye level.  After a day in Manyoni, we headed home.  It was then that I saw yet another sight that was extremely unusual.  I saw a petroleum tanker with a live goat tied on top.  Strange.
This last week, we had to go to CCT everyday.  We had numerous tests, over teaching technique, security, etc.  Thursday, we learned to make a permagarden.  I really enjoyed this from about 8 to 3, but after that lost all concentration.  I was entertained by playing with a machete for most of the day though.  We would take pieces of banana tree and throw them at each other, trying to slice them out of the air.  Basically it was like that Wii game, but real life.  Friday, I had my final language test, which went awful.  Friday night, we had our family good-bye party.  My family gave me a dress.  I am so ready to move on to my site, but will miss my host family so much.  Tomorrow, on Sunday, we head back to Dar es Salaam where we will stay until we are sworn in at the embassy on Wednesday.  Then on Thursday, I move to MTWARA!!