Last week our group ventured back to the Jerusalem Hills. We hiked for two hours through semi-desert, past ancient ruins and ended up at the entrance to an underground labyrinth. It was a tight fit in to sections of the caves, crawling one by one in a whole slightly larger than the diameter of my waist. But the experience was amazing.

Ashley at the lookout on top of one of the Judean Hills.

View from the interior of an ancient home on top of the hill.

A cool beetle.

I found these dead snails under a rock on top of the hill. The climate is rather desert like up here, not sure how old or what the climate was like when these roamed the hills.

It was a very beautiful day out.

Me in the caves.

Kevin crawling through the tunnels

The adventure party.

We began this weeks tiyul hiking through the desert near the Dead Sea. Very little plant life grows in the area, it’s an endless seas of sand and rock. We traveled through canyons and on top of sand dunes. Lots of climbing, lots of walking, lots of fun. The scenery was so different then what I’m used to seeing. After the desert hike, we visited a nature reserve that isn’t regularly open to the public. The reserve hosts two endangered species of sea creatures, a breed of black snails and a salt water fish. Both species are have adapted to the harsh salty climate of the water near to the Dead Sea.

Our next stop was the Dead Sea for a dip in the salty sea water.

It’s official! We have received our Peace Corps assignments. Ashley and I will be serving in Mali, Africa! We depart from Kansas on January 31, 2011.

About Mali/our assignments:

Ashley will be working in Health and HIV/AIDs awareness. I will be working with local entrepreneurs to establish their businesses.

Housing is typically a small house made of mud or cement bricks with a thatch roof. Some Volunteers in urban sites live in cement houses with two or three rooms.

Most Volunteers do not have running water or electricity; water comes from a pump or a well, and light is provided by kerosene lanterns or candles. From what I’ve read, most volunteers receive access to the internet about every other week.

Nearly all Volunteers are within one hour of another Volunteer and most are within 10 hours of the Peace Corps office in Bamako via public transportation.

Business in Mali is conducted in French, however, most rural areas speak Bambara, Dogon, Fulfulde, Malinke, Soninke, Sonrai, or Khassonke.