Caprivi Strip what!!!!!!!!

Greetings from Namibia!
(I apologize in advance for the disorganization and ramblingness of this post. My head is still spinning a little bit)
We’ve been at the training site since Friday, after a little bit of a hectic experience at the airport. Basically, we were supposed to take a 9:40 flight and some of us (the first 10 in the alphabet) got bumped to a later flight at 1:20. So my group arrived in Windhoek and the site 4 hours later than everyone else so we missed the original welcome song and dance which was a little disappointing. But, luckily we sing Namibian songs every morning, so it’s not too disappointing.
Right now we’re living in a hostel at our training site, and we’ve spent the last 3 days in preliminary training activities and lectures and our free time hanging out and getting to know each other. Even though it’s only been a week since staging in D.C. I can honestly say that every single person in Nam 30 is awesome. Everyone is so funny and open; it feels like being in college but being friends with every person in your freshman class. I can sit down and have a hilarious, honest conversation with anyone and find several things in common with each person. I kind of wish we could all keep living at the hostel during training, but on Friday we move in with host families in the area, in order to become integrated into the customs and culture of Namibia and to become immersed in our local language.
Tomorrow we start language training which is what I’m most excited about so far, partly because I’m extremely excited to start learning an African language, and also because this will be the first major indication of where in the country we’re going to be placed. PC/Namibia is changing the structure of the program this year in several ways. Firstly, in the past groups either went to the northern parts of Namibia, which is more homogenous and less westernized (i.e. less likely to have a western style house, electricity, running water, etc.) or the south, which is more diverse economically and in terms of race, and more “developed.” Since the last group of education volunteers went to the north, my group in the past would all be placed in the south, with maybe a few going to the Caprivi strip, which is the most rural you can get (the Caprivi strip is the little strip of land that goes between Botswana and Zambia along the Zambezi river). But, my group is being sent to all 13 regions, with a very wide range of accommodations. We have 18 English, 6 math teachers, 5 science teachers and 4 computer science teachers. Since there were so many English teachers our APCD read out the list of schools, what they were looking for, how big/small they are, how rural/urban the setting is, and what kind of accommodations we would receive. The other education sectors’ choices were mostly limited to urban or semi-urban areas, but for English teachers the choices were very diverse: some of them were schools in extremely rural areas where you live in a hut without electricity or running water, and some of them were in cities with internet at the school and full western style flats with electricity, shower, etc. Then, after hearing the choices we each wrote down 3 choices and then interviewed with our APCD about what we want, what our skills are etc.
So, I naturally picked the sites with huts, most likely no running water or electricity, and in the middle of nowhere (although hopefully only 20 ks from another PCV and the nearest town). I’m not sure if I’m going to get any of my choices but I’m pretty sure that would be awesome, although I’m not sure why. I would really be fine with anything, but I would rather be in a rural area where I would be forced to learn and use the local language and really challenge myself to adapt physically to my environment(although anywhere you’re placed in Namibia is a challenge and you have to adapt yourself in different ways.) I won’t find out what site I get until 2 weeks from now(!) but tomorrow at least I’ll know what language I’m learning so that will give me general idea of the region. We’re learning one of six languages: Oshindonga, Afrikaans, Silozi, Rukwangali, Otjiherero, and Khoekhoegowab (a click language spoken by the bushmen).
Sunday was my birthday, and I must say that I had a really amazing birthday thanks to my wonderful co-trainees. They even bought me a slice of cake from spar and sang happy birthday at dinner, and gave me wonderful Namibian gifts (such as meringue cookies and good pens from home. Which actually aren’t Namibian). The trainers sang me happy birthday in 3 different languages on Saturday too, thinking my birthday was that day, and then one of them sang to me in Oshiwambo at dinner on Sunday. I thought being away from home on my birthday might be hard, but actually it was fabulous. I love Namibia and I’m so happy to be here with all these great people. It feels like really cool summer camp. I guess we’ll see how it feels as training goes on…
Anyway, anyone at home who’s reading this…love ya! Miss ya! But probably not enough to ever come home…just kidding…

UPDATE
I found out what language I'm learning and it's Silozi, which means I'm going to the Caprivi strip, which is as rural as you can get! Basically I won't have electricity, running water and I'll be very very immersed in the culture. the culture is very different from the rest of namibia as well, and it's much greener and lush than the rest of namibia. There's also wildlife aka wild elephants roaming around and poisonous snakes which is kind of terrifying but oh well....

I'll update more later because for now I have to go. See ya!!