For those of you that have clicked every link and read every twitter or blog post that I have written, you will see I have set a very nerdy goal for myself, to read 200 books during my Peace Corps service. And at first it was just going to be that. However, I am making it more than that now. My favorite author on the entire planet just released a book cowritten with her daughter Sammy; if you haven’t guessed yet, that would be Jodi Picoult. Being as this was the first year that I have not been able to go to a question and answer/booksigning with my best friend, I was and am a little sad. But my best friend was not going to let me go without a signed copy of Jodi’s new book. She meant it as a surprise, something I wouldn’t expect in a package that I would wait for over a month to receive once it’s been sent. However, she is just like my mom and can’t really keep secrets ;). So I received this post on my facebook wall this past morning (and Annica I hope you don’t mind):

OMG!!! SO if you have not checked your twitter. STOP!!!! Check my last tweet to you and then continue reading this post….

Back story: I was on Jodi Picoult’s site and noticed that their FIRST stop for her and her daughter’s book tour was in Mission Viejo. I was like NO way, that’s awesome!!! SO I decided to purchase a book and send it to you as a surprise. I held my secret VERY well (I think).

Today: Something happened that I HAD to tell you, because no one else would see the big deal out of it. SOOOOO my bubble burst and I am spilling the beans (honestly I could NOT wait a month to tell you this)

At the book signing: They were so sticking cute!!! The mother-daughter relationship that they have is amazing!!!! Poor Sammy had a horrible head cold and was still amazing!!! So at the end they made the announcement to stand in line, you are more than welcome to take pictures of them, but there will be NO posed pictures due to time constraint. i was completely fine with it, stood in line and waited.

At the table: Jodi asked me how I was doing and I told her this book is actually getting sent to my best friend in Madagascar who is in the Peace Corps. Jodi’s answer “NO WAY!!! I don’t think ANY of my books have made it to Madagascar!!!! Sammy did you hear that???”. Then Jodi tells the worker lady, take her cell phone and lets take a picture. So there is how I got the picture!! I GOT SPECIAL PERMISSION FROM JODI PICOULT!!!!!

And this morning I woke up to a twitter reply from Johnny Shaw, the author of the current book I am reading, Dove Season, thanking me for reading his book. Back story: I had nonchalantly posted a tweet thanking Johnny for writing a book so well: “Dove Season. This book is making me laugh so hard. Jimmy and his Spanish is like me and my Malagasy. Johnny Shaw. Props to you.” I didn’t even know he had a twitter and would let alone personally respond to me. But that got me thinking, what if during my service I not only tried to read 200 books, but I tried to personally contact each author of those books, obviously the still living ones of course, and see if I can get a response. I know, I know, sounds a little stupid, but hey wouldn’t it be something if I got a reply from each and every, or nearly every, one of them? Wouldn’t it?

-Her constant need to play 24/7 even when you’re absolutely exhauasted
-A neverending stomach. How much food can you possibly put in there? Oh wait, there’s still space.
-Even after being house trained, the need to go to the bathroom indoors even after you just took her out
-Going to sleep when you don’t want her to and then not sleeping when you want to go bed
-The irony that Parasy seems to always have parasy (fleas) no matter how much I wash her with anti-flea shampoo
-Your dining room chairs are her chew toys even when she has plenty of toys you have purchased on market days
-Her thinking your hand is a chew toy, owwww that hurts!
-Her CONSTANT need to bark all day and all night long
-The constant return of her having worms (maybe if she would stop eating trash when I let her out for her 2 hour run around every night) and the lovely aftermaths when you give her medicine
-After being shown how to jump on chairs by your counterpart once, you leave the room and come back to find her standing on top of your table eating your dinner
-Running away from you when you call her to come here
-Jumping on you with her muddy paws because she decided to play in EVERY muddle puddle after it rains; and you had just put clean clothes on
-Chewing through not one but two cell phone chargers

…and then there is…

-Always being greeted with a wag of the tale and jumping
-She thinking she’s going to lap dog forever when in reality she is going to be upwards of 60lbs
-Chasing you around the room informing you it’s play time
-Having your neighbors think she is misidika and that she’ll kill them if they get too close…ummm have you seen her face?? She tried to fight a small chicken, the chicken won. But she has become a personal security system
-No matter how mad I can be at her for being miditsa (disobedient), she gives you that puppy look and you can’t be mad at her any more.

Fetim-pirenena. What is there NOT to say about this holiday? The festivities start an entire week before the actual holiday, and it doesn’t let up even after the day has passed. It is Thursday today, normally a day I dread each week, two days after Madagascar’s Independence Day, and the very low turnout for market day is very surprising. But back to the festivities, it is karioke (spelling?) until 2am every morning, 24/7 drunkeness which leads to even more verbal harrassment then even I can tolerate (and I can handle my fair share). I had every intention of locking myself in my house all day on the actual holiday, reading and watching movies on my computer. However, that was shot down, fast. I was fetched at 8a to help cook for–well I really can’t be sure who–the kid’s soccer team? All I know was it was 40 to 50 kids and their coaches (?) and they were wearing matching tshirts with Kilonga (betsileo word for children) on them. So angamba? It took four hours, but was the most fun I have had in a while. Lala (I consider her my big sister/mom figure/best Gasy friend at site), Olivia, two of their friends, and I prepared rice (obviously) and a carrot/meat stew for the group. During those four hours we spent the time gossiping (or me trying to understand them talking sooo fast), sneaking bites of the delicious meal we were cooking, eating akoho, and drinking plenty of THBs (the most popular beer in country). I witnessed little Mariot, who can’t be older than 12 yrs old, sneaking sips of Olivia’s beer. I couldn’t help but laugh and yet was quickly shhhhh’d by this kid.Lala cooked me lunch and we ate together, consuming a few more THBs. Sidenote, Lala is an absolutely amazing cook; her pork chops, oh my gosh!

I made an appearance at the tsena fety, where I was required to sit on stage and watch the performances in front of an audience of thousands. Mijery, vazaha! Wait, white person…where?!? ;). My village has 12 fokontany‘s (I believe, again I could be wrong, it’s probably more) and the children had a dance-off. Gotta say, my neighborhood, Centrale/Atsimotsena (whoot whoot represent!) killed it and was the best by far! Four dances, all intricately choreographed to music, so good. Mariot and Maria (the cutest “couple” ever, please end up together you two) did a salsa-esc dance together in front of the crowd with their friends as back-up dancers. I nearly died from it being so cute. Depending on how good it is, the audience throws money up on stage for the kids to split as a tip. We then went from tsena to tsena and caroled each mpivarotra for more ariary tips. That definitely created a crowd. Why is the vazaha singing and dancing with the kids? Does she live here? Why yes, yes I do. And I have been for over a month.

So all in all, Mada Independence Day was fun and not as a complete train wreck as I thought it would be. But for the US’s Independence Day, I think I’m going to keep it quiet, watch a movie, eat a ton of yummy goodies friends and families have been sending me, and teach an English Club class. Enjoy the bbqs and fireworks for me. Never thought I would miss hotdogs so much.

Tratry ny fety! (Happy Holiday!)

PS. Expect a huge influx of blog posts over the next week. Much to inform you about. Miss you all.

I’ll start off this post with a quick observation. I find it so, I guess comforting for lack of a better word, the care I see the Malagasy give each other. When I’m not fending off the annoying tsks from men that I really just want to say “Go jump off a cliff” to, it’s refreshing to see the Malagasy run to the aid of their fellow natives. Just this morning, I was sitting in a taxi brousse in my town waiting for it to fill up so we could leave for Fianar to take advantage of my weekly ritual of an empty Meva and free internet. I heard the taxi brousse before I saw it, and soon it came speeding by, a little too fast for my taste. Just as it drove out of my line of vision, a huge crashing sound occurred. Next thing I know, people are running out their hotelys, tsenas, tranos, all of it, and running to help the crash. What caused the accident, I do not know as there was no obstructions in the car’s way, but the accident did occur, enough that the side door was stuck and it couldn’t be opened for a good five minutes. From my previous posts, you probably are aware that taxi brousses are the mode of transportation in Madagascar in which you try to fit as many possible people that you can in such a small space. So imagine the fear of these 40 people, crammed into the brousse, with no exit. No, the car was not on fire or smoking, but still, I would have been panicing if I was in their shoes. However, those fifty people from my town of Alakamisy were determined and everyone got out safely, no injuries. I turned to my taxi brousse driver who had returned from helping the accident and politely but firmly said, “Yea, let’s not do that.” He laughed, but firmly nodded his head.

The entire ride to Fianar, the vaovao (news) for all passengers getting on and off the brousse was the accident that occurred in my town. Nandeha mafy be sy boooom! (It was going really fast and well you don’t need a translation for that) was probably the most used sentence I have heard in a long time. That and ahhh, vazaha…with a nodding of their head. Independence Day for this country is fast approaching, June 26th, so security is even more pleasant than it normally is in this country (*cough*sarcasm*cough*). Every km or so to Fianar there is a security stop to make sure there is no transportation of homebrewed alcohol or other illegal things. Normally it’s a slow down to a crawl to pass the police and then get waved through ordeal, but with Independence Day next week, security has been tighter. Each stop, it seems a goal has popped up to try and catch a vazaha without her three IDs. Well guess what people, I’m not it. Got all three in my hand ready to go, so take that! :) And on that note, until next time!

To continue with my last entry, it really is surprising how much things have changed from the days when I was living in the United States. Yesterday, I came home from spending a night away having a movie/Mexican food sleepover with my sitemate Savanna before she leaves on vacation. I went into a cleaning spree, coco-broussing my floor, painting a small part of the remaining 2.5 walls that are still colored with this light blue that my predecessor loved so much; me not so much. As I was organizing my bedroom, I noticed some green stuff on my bed frame. After closer inspection, that green stuff was all over my bed frame, and it was mold. My new line in country is “if this had happened four months ago…” and I tend to use it frequently. If this had happened four months ago that you wanted me to bike 30k, yea I’ll pass. If this had happened four months ago that I found my puppy playing with a cockroach as a toy, I would have quit. If this had happened four months ago that you told me I would have to live without running water, a sink, or a bathroom, I would have asked if you were dreaming (and to be honest again, I knew what I was getting myself into when I joined Peace Corps, it just didn’t seem real at the time). If this had happened four months ago that I found mold growing all over my bed, I would have cried. Not saying I didn’t, because to be honest I had a moment of five minutes where I turned back to my California just go out and buy another ways. However, reality kicked in, and that isn’t the type of luxury I have here. I can’t buy a new bed frame because one, it is not in my budget, and two, I don’t really have a mode of transportation and no way of carry that bed frame back to my house. So I used some of my coveted internet credit and researched what to do, walked to my friend’s house to speak to her brother-in-law, and texted my unofficial counterpart. I scrubbed the bed with warm water, baking powder, and bleach—which while it did clean the bed, in reality I just moved the spores all over my house…oops. Google, you failed me. But Bona and Hashmira helped me—and when I mean helped me, I mean I stood there watching and they did the actual work—sand down my bed and lacquer it so the mold will not grow back. My bed still has the stains from where the mold was, and while I was planning on painting over it with the lime green paint I bought in Fianar a few weeks ago, I think for right now, I’m going to let it stay and be a daily reminder of the normality of absolutely absurd things (shout out to my last blog post) that is now my life.

So long story short (or more like long paragraph short), and the lesson of the story, make sure your furniture is dried properly and not still wet when you buy it, hence creating this lovely situation I just experienced.

My family mentioned this last week how much I had changed since coming to Madagascar when I nonchalantly mentioned I may need to drug Parasy to get her to Fianar and have this bump on her stomach looked at. I have to agree with them. I’ve been in country only three months, but have drastically changed from who I was before coming here. Walking the streets in Irvine sometimes scared me at night…after all it was dark! But here, where there are no street lamps, no distinguishable sidewalks in most cities in the country, and trash everywhere, walking home at 8p in Irvine wouldn’t faze me now. In comparison, life from an Orange Country girl to life in Madagascar wouldn’t even be on the same spectrum. “I needed a change of scenery,” I state every time people would ask me how I got to be in Peace Corps from a Hotel Management degree. I needed to take a break from the industry that I loved, or else I would end up hating it and I was already starting. And change of scenery it has been, in both the best and worst ways. Schedules don’t really exist here, it’s a ‘go as you please and wherever the wind may take you’ type of attitude. And I like that. No more working the same shift everyday, no more getting yelled at by guests over the stupidest things, no more feeling underappreciated for everything I put into my last job. If I am thirty minutes late to a class I’m supposed to teach because I was gossiping with the vegetable ladies, it’s no big deal. I only exited my house once today because I wanted to just have a ‘me’ day, “Don’t all vazahas do that sometimes?” they would ask. I rarely go a day here without someone telling me they are happy that I came to this country and I have already helped so much—I don’t know how much a few IT, English, and keyboarding classes can do that, but it is very touching. Yes I still have those days where I’m like “what the heck am I doing here?” but those days have become far and few since I got to my site.

Things that would have seemed crazy and absurd in the States, are completely normal here. Oh you have to go to the bathroom but don’t want to find a public restroom (and these actually rarely exist in country), just stop on the side of the road regardless of how populated it is, and go, no big deal. You’re selling pigs at the Fianar market, but need to transport them there…well the only rational thing is tie them up, pull them up on top of a taxi brousse while they squeal an ear-pitching sound and then tie them to the top. And add the chickens and goats too. For those that want to come visit, which I hope will be everybody because this country truly is amazing, but get ready for these things that will blow your mind:

(side note, I really like lists, and I find that I tend to put them in all my recent blog posts, so I apologize in advance, azafady!)

-Cramming more than forty people into a small church van (emphasis on the van part) even though it should really fit 15 max. (which although it’s crazy, it’s actually quite fun to see how many more you can fit in the car). That’s what we call a taxi brousse here.
-Trying to push (emphasis on push) your way though a mob of people worse than a sold out day at Disney on Market Days which is every Thursday—visual description: the tsena (or market) is angamba (maybe) 75 feet x 75 feet and even with 5000ish people squished in the space, you can always fit a few hundred more.
-Hitting a wall of stink when entering a tsena because they’re showcasing their dried fish in the window and it not only looks disgusting (all crippled up) but you’re pretty sure it’s the same fish that you saw three weeks ago.
-Walking through the market in Fianar and stepping in a puddle. You pray that it was just muddy water and not anything else.
-See that one cow walking down the road by itself and know you should get out of the way because that cow will take down everything in its path. There’s a reason it’s walking by itself and not with the rest of the cattle.

Those are the more pessimistic observations, but surprisingly I wouldn’t change them. They are what makes Madagascar, well Madagascar, and I truly do love this country. But in case you wanted more positive observations:

-The endless rice fields and hills that offer a picturesque view all day, every day
-Correcting a Gasy person who is telling everyone you’re just a typical vazaha and can’t speak the language in Gasy and then watch them their mouth drop open in astonishment.
-Making your way through the Frippe section at the market 30k from your village(clothes, clothes, clothes!), and run into someone in your village, stop to miresaka for a little bit, and watch the crowd around you have their mouth drop open in astonishment that you’re speaking Gasy.
-Pretty much anything that makes people’s mouth drop open in astonishment that you’re speaking Gasy.
-Walking through town trying to find your puppy who you had let run around this morning and she decided to be maditra and go on an adventure. You can’t find her, but everyone knows what your dog looks like, knows exactly where she is, and even picks her up to give to you (which if you know Mada, you know that people do not like dogs, they don’t treat dogs right by any means, but treat your dog differently because it belongs to the vazaha).
-Bike 30k to Fianar every week and just take in the view the entire way (well except for when you get to the Hill aka Grendel, when you curse at yourself as to why you decided to bike in the first place)
-Stand on your porch on Market Day and want to applaud the men and women who carry large and heavy bundles on their head. How do I know they’re ridiculously heavy? I tried to lift one and almost got a hernia.
-Head home after going to the market to buy produce and have to stop because the chickens are crossing the road (no joke intended, really happens), with the geese not far behind.
-Eat the most delicious oranges that you have ever had for only 1000a a kilo, a real steal in your eyes. In which case, you now average eating four of these huge oranges a day.
-Climbing a hill that seriously looks like it is perpendicular in Chacos and pat yourself on the back when you get to the top and you didn’t eat it.

So you see, I am a different person than I was a year ago when I was working for Disney and, well to be frank, very unhappy. My methods may be a little garbled at times now, but I think it’s for the better, don’t you?

It’s a little nerve-racking to teach your first English Club solo. Savanna will be out of town for three weeks this next month, for her COS conference, then a small vacation, and finally Training of Trainers. (Incoming Stage, I can’t wait for you to meet her, she is awesome!) I have only been at site for a little under one month, and I should really be solely focusing on my language skills since I’m mbola tsy mahay teny Malagasy tsara (still not great at speaking Malagasy well), but I don’t want English Club to stop because she will be out of town. So as a test run, I ran English Club today. In reality, very little Malagasy is needed, since after all, it’s called English Club. And these kids are really mazoto and want to learn English. We’ve been teaching them body parts and I finished the lesson today, adding in shapes too. Teaching English here is essentially making a fool of yourself, calling attention to how stupid you can be so that the kids are entertained and can remember the words. So if that means, I have to jump up and down while pointing to different parts of my body and asking what it is, then so be it. The entire class, I kept looking at Savanna mouthing “am I doing okay?”. She kept nodding her head, ‘yes, keep going’ but I couldn’t help but picture myself as one of the students watching their teacher look like an idiot in front of the class.

I will say though, it was very rewarding to finish a class and feel like I have completed something already during my service. When we first got to this country, my friend’s recruiter sent her a supporting email. I can’t remember the exact wording, but the concept is the same: “Don’t think of your experience as a success or failure based off of the complete end result. But rather look at all of the small successes and think of your Peace Corps experience as an imaginary necklace. All your successes, even the smallest of ones, string a bead onto your necklace and be amazed by how long it gets.”

So my necklace, it is just started, and yet so long. I think of each day I am here as a success, regardless of if I had something to do or not. Those are the smaller beads, and my actual accomplishments you can say, are the bigger ones in between. Arriving in country and actually disembarking the plane—while that may seem really stupid—was the first big bead on my necklace. Teaching my host family how to play Go Fish the second day in country…in Malagasy, surviving—because there is no other word to describe it—Homestay, Manjakadirina IGA project, Small Business Evaluation project, and the Feasability Study presentation are all beads on my necklace. Successfully hand-washing and drying my clothing for the first time, learning how to play Hearts and have all those years of not understanding the game finally make sense, swearing in as a volunteer, arriving at site and not having a mental breakdown, actually leaving my house the day after being installed even though I was scared shitless, holding my first twenty minute conversation in my village without Savanna translating, biking the 30k to Fianar, taking a taxi brousse home by myself for the first time, teaching my first keyboarding class, teaching my first English Club class, purchasing food at the market and not getting ripped off for being a vazaha, asking for directions and they actually understand me, the list is endless. Today marks the end of my third month in country, and it’s surprising how much I have learned about this country, culture, language, and about myself.

Family and friends, thank you for your support. For your phone calls, facebook chats, emails, words of encouragement. For the screen shots of the latest gossip news, like Justin Bieber potentially facing charges for assaulting a paparazzi, and for funny pinterest pictures that make me laugh out loud. I can’t wait to continue sharing my experience with you, and hope it brings a smile to your face whenever you read my posts.

Until next time, xoxo Gossip Girl (I really can’t help but end my post with this, dang you GG addiction and thank you Savanna for introducing me to this show…sarcasm intended)

PS. Did you know that even after three months in country, I still have not mastered the skill of cleaning my floor with a coconut? Yes you read that right, and I’m still an idiot every time I try to brush the dirt off the ground.

Friends and family,
Yes I am still alive and sorry I have been pretty AWOL the last few weeks. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have already started my work (or a little bit) in my village of Alakamisy Ambohimaha. I got a puppy (and she has become quite the vazaha princess. And I have tried to become as tamana (settled) as possible in my house. Just so you know I haven’t been lounging around watching Gossip Girl (well that might actually be kind of true) here’s what I’ve been up to lately.

A typical day:
430a: be awoken by the princess of a puppy to be taken outside under the conception that she has to go to the bathroom when in reality it’s to see if any of my neighbors threw a bone out last night.

445a: get rather irritated that Parasy hasn’t gone to the bathroom and just let her off her leash and run around by herself so I can go back to bed.

6a: the stupid alarm clock goes off and I roll out of bed…again. Pick up after Parasy who has decided to go to the bathroom in the house.

615a: cook breakfast (mainly vary sosoa (watery rice)) for Parasy and review some Malagasy words that don’t ever seem to stay stuck in my head

7a: start my breakfast run which consists of four or more stops, getting a small bit of food at each hotely so no one feels left out or jipped by the vazaha. And each hotely has their bomb specialties. Yogurt at Msr. Ramon, Compose (a noodle/potato salad/broth breakfast) at LaLa’s, fried mofo balls and coffee at ICantRememberHerName’s place, and hot milk at other ICantRememberHerName’s place. And yes I drink coffee now. Loads and loads of coffee. Never thought that would happen right?

8a: return home to find Parasy has destroyed my house…again…and start picking it up

9a: if it’s a Thursday or Saturday, teach or help teach a class to CEG kids (middle school). Any other day, probably shop in the tsena and try to find some ripe and tasty food to cook for meals that day

1030a: start cooking lunch

12p: finally finish cooking lunch and eat it. Watching two to three episodes of a tv show occurs.

2p: Bonaventure aka Bone (a neighbor and friend) stops by and either a tutoring lesson on my part (I’m teaching him keyboarding) or on his part (language lessons) takes place.

3p: Lycee (high school) English club or keyboarding class at the Commune (town hall)

5p: Adult English club

630p: start cooking dinner and eat dinner

730p: watch another episode of Gossip Girl

830p: take Parasy outside and make her ‘go potty.’ Oh and she doesn’t go but rather sits and stares at me.

9p: BEDTIME!!!!!

And repeat.

So not all Gossip Girl….but just enough to make me happy.

xoxo Gossip Girl (just kidding, I meant Christina)

Meet the newest addition to my family, Parasy Betro (or in English, Flea Rabbit). She is two months old we think and was one of a litter at my site mate Savanna’s neighbor’s house. Animals here are not really treated the way they are in the States, but rather abused and neglected. I saw Parasy scounging through the trash looking for something to eat, and my heart just melted. This is the dog I need to rescue. You could see her ribs through her skin and it reminded me of the dog I have back home when we rescued her from the shelter. I gave her some food I bought from the closest mpivarotra and her jumping around like a puppy should be is how she got her Gasy name. Savanna and I couldn’t decide on which to chose, so Parasy is her first name, Betro her middle, and her last name of course Nielsen, mine. Parasy just needs a little loving and in the next week or two I’m going to take her to Fianar and get her all the good stuff, vaccinations and getting her fixed. I don’t need a million little Parasy running around.

Sorry for the lighting, better pictures to come soon.

The Peace Corps saying is no joke…the toughest job you’ll ever love. The last week has probably been the hardest and yet best week in country. I moved to Alakamisy Ambohimaha, my village for the next two years. It is a village of 30,000, but spread out over a huge area of land, with 18 fokontany or neighborhoods. In the main part of town (what I call ‘downtown’), where I live, there is probably 2000ish people.

I got installed on Thursday, Alakamisy, market day. (Get the irony that market day in Alakamisy is on Alakamisy…). Which means that pretty much all 30,000 villagers were crammed in the ‘downtown area’ shopping and many of them have not seen a vazaha before. Savanna, my sitemate met me at the Commune, and went with me to meet the mayor, where no surprise there I had to give a kabary or in my case a really pathetic four sentence speech because that’s all the language I could come up with.

I was greeted by all of Bill’s–my predecessor–Gasy friends who immediately adopted me in their group and have been amazing with looking after me these past few days as I get adjusted. They even put together my bed in my house because let’s be honest, I would have no freaking idea what to do. And they had only known me for less than an hour. They’re awesome!

I got a mpatsaka rano (water fetcher) and mpanasa lamba (clothes washer) because I’m not very mahay at those things. And Bone, one of Bill’s friends (I’m spelling it the English way, but knowing my luck, it’s probably spelt the Gasy way or something like it, Baon) is my mpampianatra (teacher/tutor) and is going to help me become mahay in teny Malagasy.

My house/apartment is huge by PC standards, two bedrooms, small kitchen, and large entry room, so it looks HUGE with my bed, dresser, small table, and three chairs–the only furniture I have thus far. The walls are painted this light bluish color, something I am definitely working on changing. Paint has already been bought. I am putting in an order with a local painter who I am really excited to be working with the next two years and should have some awesome artwork coming soon. As soon as I get fully tamana (settled) I will show you pictures of this ‘palace.’

Fianar is only an hour taxi brousse from Alakamisy so I see many trips into the city to get supplies. Or in my case, Savanna and I are planning on biking in on Tuesday. That should be interesting.

I had a meeting with Mr. Mayor yesterday. It seems the supposed three month waiting period where I am supposed to get settled and not do any work will not be the case for me. And that is something I don’t mind at all. English Club (with three different level classes) has already started back up, Bike Club is starting soon, and I’m picking up Bill’s projects: development of the village website, computer maintanence, assisting with computerizing spreadsheets, and youth IT classes (which in this case my French needs to become mahay as well).

So I’ll be very busy the next few weeks while I try to get into the rhythm (is that how you spell it?) of things. Cheers to the next two years. Until next time…FYFG.