and so it begins

this morning i met with my volunteer group for our orientation, and what a multicultural group we are! i represent the NA'merica - from Mexico to Canada. While others hail from Engand, France, Phillipines, Singapore and Australia. Some have great experience with human rights organizations while others of us have just been teachers around southeast Asia.

we had a nice long orientation session from 10 - 5 which started with a fun bike ride while our leader rode on her scooter and the rest of us followed in a straight line as to not get lost, or hit by a car. very cute. like a goose with her geeselings.....reminds me of 8th grade when my sisters and i wanted to ride our bikes to school 5 minutes away and we were required to wear helmets and follow my mom who put lacie in a little biker seat on the back of her bike. good times, good time....needless to say that didn't last too long. (but i appreciate the momness of it, i just wanted to be cool like the gordon boys!)

the main attraction of today was finding out about our placements....which we found out little. except most have no housing, which is a big disappointment to me, but there is hope. still too little information which surprised and confused all of us. plus there are 7 placements and 7 of us. so the lawyer in the bunch suggested we eat dinner and talk about our first choices, so its not a bloodbath tomorrow morning when our supervisor asks. problem is that the information is so little that most of us have no clue what we want. but thats ok.i have an idea, but im not gettin excited about it bc i wont know till wed or thur if i get it or not.

the other fun of the day was riding back to the office where im hanging out for free (i can't live luxuriously all the time) with two other girls. buuut we really dont know the way back to the office from town very well. its raining. its dark. there are scary dogs. oh yeah and im carrying my huge backpack filled to max capacity on my back and my bag over my shoulder. alright bring it on!

definitely took me two hands to control the bike, but we made it with not falls, scratches or dog bites....(thus far....) now im here on a thai mat on the floor getting ready to fall asleep to wake up to another fun day of orientation. yee haw!

~from the yankee