Thanksgiving and ranting

Here I am again!
Last weekend all of the Salone 4's went to a town where 4 of us are stationed in the center of the country to celebrate Thanksgiving together. It took me about 6 hours to get there, for whatever reason. I think it was because for the whole time I was in lorries that I felt like should break down at any moment. Some of these vehicles people use here must be 40 years old.
I mean, there isn't a whole lot to say. I didn't really take any pictures, unfortunately, but I imagine a bunch are going to be on facebook soon if you want to see them. We drank lots of palm wine and ate lots of delicious thanksgiving food. We were all pretty impressed with what we (a few of us, and not so much me) were able to produce. It was nice to see everyone again, but I find that I get burnt out on white people pretty quickly these days. By the way, happy Thanksgiving!
We have this week long training coming up in a couple weeks, so with leaving we just said k see you all soon. I'm not really looking forward to it. I almost have nightmares about training. Good thing it is only a week long and not ten like the PST. There are countless times when I am wanting to say "I'm an introvert, for god's sake!" But yeah, I'm striving on and learning patience. I can deal with anything, but I can't promise I'll feel like talking.
I know my community likes me a lot. I feel like I am doing the job well. Luckily that is what I came here for. I am focusing on learning Themne, which is progressively coming along. I'm just impatient to make it go faster. Yesterday I finally met the guy that teaches Themne to the primary school kids in town, so that sort of made my day. I feel like so long as I put a lot of effort into learning their language, people are going to love me. I think knowing this language is going to be a huge asset to me. I think it is cool that I'll end up being probably fluent in this language that just a few million Africans speak. I really like the language - it's logical in a lot of ways, sounds nice, has interesting features, etc. I still can hardly understand what most people are saying. They all speak it really fast of course, and some people, especially the children, are just impossible to understand.
I have been wanting to say that I am astounded by how much these people are just that, people. I have been mostly talking about the differences but to be honest I am being more surprised at the sameness of humanity. I have been wondering whether I have been seeing so much similarity between these Africans and Europeans because they are a little bit westernized from their history and the whole spread of western culture in general, beacuse of the kinds of people I'm around, or because I am integrated enough to be seeing through the cultural layer and to the basic things that makes everyone human beings. I know everyone thinks this racist thought even if they don't acknowledge it, including Africans: Africans are somehow fundamentally different from the whites.
From my perspective, I am not seeing it. People here seem to me to behave pretty much in the same manner as people in the States. They have as much depth, personality, strength, likes and dislikes,and capabilities. I meet plenty of wise people here. But, this place is impoverished and violent and most of Europe and America has a huge surplus of wealth and is relatively civil. Why?
In prehistory I'd say Africa got the short stick as far as available resources for development like domesticable plants and animals. Read Guns, Germs, and Steel. Then, Africa was exploited not only by its own people, but later by Europeans. This all created a long lasting instability that still seems to be at work. Many African states were colonized and then later clumsily gained independence. After Sierra Leone gained its independence, things became much worse. The British just sort of up and left. During the colonial ages, I doubt education of the natives was a priority for the masters. Their leaving opened the country up to exploitation by the rich and powerful.
Eventually people were fed up with starving because rich people were taking everything and there was a stupid war that reset development yet again. It's a classic story of the rich and powerful exploiting the rest of the population. This is happening everywhere. I see nothing innate in Africans that has caused these problems. I see how this can happen anywhere there is not an educated population, there is resource scarcity that promotes corruption, and the system is so easy to work outside of. I am afraid of politicians the most. They'll steal everything and let everybody else starve if you don't have a system in place to prevent it. It's unfortunate they are sort of necessary.
Things are going pretty well. The term is ending. I've written a couple really difficult finals for my two classes. I hope not all of them fail, but I mean if they do, it's their own fault. I told them in the beginning my classes would be difficult.
I am focusing on a lot of things. I have some more designs I want to paint on my walls and outside doors. I am reading some good books and almost done with a couple. I really recommend Sophie's World: A novel about the history of philosophy. It's a weird premise that the author really pulls off well. I'll have to wait to see how it ends. I know this two years is going to be short (it's flying, really) so I'm trying to milk the 'free time' for all it's worth in self improvement and learning. Doing PC is probably one of the best things I've chosen to do just because it's this great stretch of time that forces you to do all of these things you never have the chance to do in the US. I'm going to come back to the states with an education that you don't get at a university. I spend a lot of time thinking about how I'll be young still when I get back. All of this is a huge asset for me.