Dear Friends and Family,

          We found out about our position in Gabon. We'll be in NDENDE (IN DEN DAY), which is a town of a few thousand-much bigger than we expected. We'll probably have a house as opposed to a "grass shack"-but we don't yet know if we'll have water or electricity. Our project is to remodel two old schools that were built by the peace corps in the 60's, and to build one new school and a couple of new teachers' houses. The guy from Gabon (that came here to Zaire to visit all of us trainees) said we got the site because we had the most experience. That's not too suprising-the next oldest person after us is about 24. It looks like our Gabon training may be north of the equator because they don't have accomodations yet for a couple at the south training sight. We think that's great because we'll get to see a lot more of the country that way. They extended the in-country training from 6 to 8 weeks, so we won't officially swear in until about the 26th of September.

          Only have 2 more weeks of French here. I can't believe it, but we can actually communicate in French! We're not great, and I'm sure we sound like a couple of 7-11 store rejects, but we can communicate! We get more French in Gabon during the construction training, but the real basis for our language training is here in Zaire.

          There's no phone system in Zaire, the postal system is shut down because the workers weren't getting paid. Lots of the businesses are closed down. Still it's a beautiful country and the people are wonderful. You should get a newsletter from us in a week or two.

Miss you all