Valentine's Day and getting in shape

For Valentine's day we decided to have a bit of a party with the kids at my program. I ended up baking about 150 heart-shaped sugar cookies, with the help of a few of the older kids in our program, and each kid got to decorate (and eat) a bunch. These kids aren't used to having many sweet things, let alone a treat of any sort, so the sugar was quite a shock. I've never seen these kids with so much energy and hyperactivity, it was pretty amusing.
My own Valentine's day was a nice treat. My boyfriend Jason came up to visit and we had, over the last few months, collected all the ingredients to make sushi. We had discovered an Asian food store in Gaborone where we were able to get the seaweed wraps and wasabi; my mom was gracious enough to send some vacuum-packed smoked salmon, and after a lot of searching I managed to find pickled ginger and cream cheese. Sushi is one of the foods I've missed the most since living in a land-locked country, so this was a very exciting occasion. Amazingly it was pretty tasty despite my extremely minimal experience with making sushi. It's surprising how exciting food becomes when your options are limited.
This weekend some other volunteers and I are celebrating "Peace Corps Prom". We definitely have to be creative with ways to have fun, so we're all getting dressed up (as much as is possible with the limited wardrobe and funds that we all have) and having a dance. It should be pretty entertaining, I'll be sure to post some photos after the event.
I've officially started training for my 3-day sponsored walk that's coming up in May. I've been walking a lot pretty much everyday and started running as well. Fortunately it has been relatively cool in the mornings and evenings so all this exercise isn't unbearable. I just want to say thanks to everyone who has helped me raise money so far, including the recent additions from aunt MJ, Brian, J and Tony, and Tim. I've raised about $600 so far, only $400 more to go! Please email me if you're interested in helping out, leslie.duling@gmail.com. Thanks!