First days

As the Shirly Bassie song goes... where do I begin to tell the story...?

In brief I arrived safely and tired and am unbelievably at home here in spite of the fact that I am living the life of a poor exchange student, not an exec on sabbatical. I have a tiny bed and 3 hangers and no place to put any of my toiletries... though I have to say that I have spent $300 a night for practically the same size accomodations in NY and the food wasnt nearly as good. The other people in my program are less than half my age and I could be the mother of my host "mom" so I feel quite young - who knew?

I have a much longer blog to share, though trapped on my laptop until I can find a wireless connection. Suffice it to say here that all is quite well - in fact could not be better (except for this azerty cyber cafe keyboard where I cannot find an apostrophe and the roman letters are rubbing off so only the arabic letters are showing)

I will start work tomorrow - for an idea of the kids I will be working with, rent the movie Ali Zaoua - our center has both boys and girls like this from the streets. And they are amazing. In the first 5 minutes at least 10 kids asked my name, told me theirs, showed me their drawings, and one sweet little girl even gave me a kiss on the cheek when I bent down to ask her name - I am in heaven.