Greetings from Philly- the filthy city with few smiles to give.

I am currently in my room in the beautiful Holiday Inn wasting some time before checking out. We leave today on a 6:45pm flight where we will fly for 7 hours and 40 minutes to Paris and then another 8 hours to Yaounde, Cameroon. WE also get to wait 5 hours before leaving in the airport in Philly because we have no where to go after the hotel kicks us out. Honestly I can't wait to get there. The last two days have been all about giving us some basic information we will need and answering some questions for us, but overall it just wet our appetite for wanting to get in country.

The interesting thing is my training class- we are 38 people! That's a lot of new friends. We are all doing Secondary Education- English or Science teachers or Small Enterprise Development. We have about 15 boys, which is better than can be expected I think. On a side note we were told the first day that a lot of people meet their future spouse in the peace corps- talk about some pressure adn anxiety suddenly felt around the room (but i guess they said that about college too)! The boys are an interesting bunch some are very focused on sports, some seem to enjoy video games, some have taken the hippie route and some look like Clark Kent because everyone has reverted to glasses here.

The girls are a wide bunch of personalities and I am really excited to get to know them, one or two remind me of my girls back home and a few more remind me of my Lexington friends. It's interesting what states are represented we have 3 from Seattle (yes i know that isn't a state), 3 from Austin, about 7-8 from Ohio, 10 Maine ppl, 5 NYers, 2 NJ's, Lots from Louisiana and 1 from Kentucky, some Michigan folks, 1 Arizonian (me), 2 from Oregon, and 1 Californian (I guess they like their pollution too much- take that Ethan), 1 from St. Louis that was telling me was voted one of the most dangerous cities in the US- her car got stolen and lit on fire-, 1 from Chicago, a couple Philly ppl, and others from D.C., Iowa, Tennessee etc. We're from all over, but the west coast isn't really represented.

There is one funny thing I wanted to share, we were doing a get to know you introduction game and one of the questions was "what is something weird that you packed?" Now, we got second place with our team because a girl brought Fraggle Rock DVDs (an old tv show on Nickelodeon) and I was up there with my Tick Key bought for me from my bros (it's a metal bottle opener looking thing that you can remove ticks easily with- thanks guys). However, the best was submitted from a gentleman whose grandma gave him a huge liter of holy water. Evidentially she poured it all over her bags and he is now carrying it around. He said it just looks like a jug with a cross on it. I guess everyone gets their peace of mind in different ways and I'm glad his grandma is passing around the blessings.

Well I guess that's it for me. I should arrive in country in the evening on Saturday night. I start my Malaria medication today and I got my Yellow Fever vaccine so I'm ready to hit it and quit it. Here is my official good bye to warm showers, smelling decent, soft fluffy pillows, quality meat, flip flop wearing, television, the wireless internet, ice, not living out of a suit case, and bagels. I will miss it all but I'm sure it won't measure up to the insanity of living in Africa with a bunch of like minded people for the next 10 weeks. You should hear from me in the next few days, we will be staying in the capital and I will have access to internet.

Love you all,
Elyse 2008 volunteer in the 'Roon