I'm here

I arrived safely in Dakar and was greeted by the country director and some current PCVs. We took a nice (nap) bus ride to Thies where the Train Center compound is located. Our group of 50 trainees seem to be really great and motivated; and the staff with PC is amazing. They are very kind and patient. We've immediately begun cultural training (which senegalese culture is AMAZING). We were finally allowed to walk around with 3rd year PCVs outside the walls of our safe little compound yesterday. Thies is eye-opening. talk about extreme poverty. i've never seen anything like it before. hopefully i can get some pictures up, but the people are semi-offended by us taking pictures. they'll ask why we would want to take pictures, it's just their lives. but they are extremely friendly. We've been split up in language groups, and right now i'm learning french. though we've all picked up some Wolof. I travel up with my 4 person group and teacher to a village on the north western coast to live on-and-off for the next 9 weeks to train (traveling between there and Thies). It's a sweet beach resort town, so yea for that. I leave for there tomorrow evening for 10 days.
Asaalam aleikum