Settling-in to my new house

So I have been in site for almost 3 weeks now. I have to admit the first week was rough. I was a little sick, (which I cannot complain about since I haven't really gotten sick so far, Know on wood!) and all of a sudden I had so much time one my hands and nothing to do!
Training is such an intense phase, and the schedule is so tight, and then I got to site, I was alone, and I had nothing to do!
Unlike the first week though, things are great now! I really like my site, the people are nice and the area is beautiful!
The volunteer I'm replacing is back from vacation now, which is really nice because she shows me around, introduces me to people, and we can hang out together.
We do a lot of cooking, which I love! Ever since getting to site I have been eating pretty well I must say, even with the limited equipment. So far I made things like rosemary and olive bread (on a little gas stove inside a pot), chocolate balls, sesame peanut noodles, bruchetta, pasta, salsa, refried beans, etc.
Spices are hard to get here, but I am fortunate since the person I'm replacing has a nicely equipped kitchen and a lot of spices that she inherited from people who were here and left.
During training food was a little different because I had to eat what my host family made. I was lucky to be served good, tasty food at my host family, but the variety of food available locally was limited. The food was not bad, but it was a lot of rice and beans, cooked plantains, French fries, cabbage or spinach, and some sort of fruit such as bananas, papaya or orange.
For breakfast we usually had chai, which they made with milk, black tea, sugar, and ginger; mandazi (mini doughnuts), vitambu (a rice doughnut), or bread with blue band (margarine).
Unlike everyone who thinks I'm gonna come back with half of my weight off...I'm just hoping to come back the same!
On a good note though, I just got my bike today! It is a brand new bike, a really nice one too. It is actually still in a box, I have to ask someone to come help me put it together. I am very excited about it since I haven't ridden a bike in about 10 years! I hope to get in a habit of riding it and get some exercise done that way. There are great roads to bike around here with beautiful scenery.
I also started doing some remodeling this week. We painted the living room and I had a carpenter come over and see if he can make me some furniture. I hope to be done with renovations by sometimes next months. Ok, that is the update for this week..I actually had time to upload some pictures, but its hard to get them on the blog, so if you would like to see some you can email me and I will send you a link.