vicariously

I think I partially started this blog to convince myself that I could have interests outside of school and work and still maintain them. Well my little sis has taken the less beaten path and is now training as a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa. So far this is her first communication to us (besides the initial one where she told us she got there safe):

Hey Everyone!
I am in a township near the village where I am living at an internet cafe. We're staying in a small town called Moletji. On Wednesday we left our campus for our homestays. My homestay family is really nice. They've adoped me as their daughter and given me a Tshvenda name "Humbulani" which means: to remember. My homestay mother has started sewing me a traditional dress as well, which I think is pretty cool. I am learning the language Tshvenda
which is spoken in the northern part of Limpopo Province. I don't konw my assignment yet, but that will be on September 5. I've heard that the area where I'll be living is very lush and green. Plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. I'll probably be near Kruger National Park as well.
There are a total of 88 volunteers, 37 in the NGO HIV/AIDS program and 51 in Education. When I find out more details about my assignment I'll send out another e-mail. When we find out our assignments on Sept. 5 I'll go on a 3 day site visit to get oriented to my work place. The people in our group are really nice...lots of different backgrounds. There are 3 other people in my language group, so I'll most likely be near them. Our language instructor is from the area (called "venda") and my homestay mother is from there as well so I get a lot of practice.
The food here is good. They feed us a lot of this maize porridge called "pap" similar to "ugali" for those of you who have visited Kenya. I am not a fan of it, which I think my homestay mom noticed because she's been serving me rice. There are 8 children in my homestay family, 4 girls/4 boys, ranging in age from 6 months to 20. We have electricity, but no running water so I've been taking bucket baths and using a pit toilet. Its not that bad..I am able to be relatively clean and deoderant helps a lot. Hope everyones doing well and I'll send out my next update when I next get access to e-mail, which may take a while.