So everyone seemed to really like the sunset photo. Y'all are a bunch of saps. Just so you know. But I still love you. So here's one more. As taken from my living room window.

Just a Quickie....

Time Flies like the Wind. Fruit Flies like Bananas. I love bad jokes. The worse the better. And I'm always looking for excuses to throw them into places where they're at best barely relevant. But I thought this one was because I've been at my site for over a month now, which is hard to believe.

Well, maybe not, now that I think about it. Things are definitely starting to become more routine. My students are adapting to my style of teaching (even if they do leave class most days thinking I'm crazy). My villagers are getting used to seeing a random mzungu (foreigner) walking around and no longer ask me if I'm lost or need help. And my insect population is learning it's limits (even though they still sometimes like to push them).

And I think I'm definitely getting used to things here too. The frantic bus rides aren't quite so hair-raising with a local mama or another teacher to chat with and distract you. The big classes aren't quite so intimidating when they're speckled with faces you recognize. The charcoal jiko (stove) isn't as impossible to conquer once you've swapped tips with other volunteers. And the insane maze that is the market doesn't seem quite as chaotic once you learn to look for the banana truck (a big rig literally full of nothing but bananas, that happens to be my new favorite landmark).

So I'd say all in all, I'm settling into life here. And it feels great.

Oh, and I'm getting calouses on my fingers from washing my clothes by hand. Physical proof that this is making me tougher!


"I can't complain but sometimes I still do""

Ramblings about hats, goats, bugs, etc

I’ve never been much of a hat-wearer. In fact, I think the only hats that I’ve ever owned have been the ones I bought just before or while living in upstate New York, in all of it’s freezing glory. But I’ve been wearing lots of different hats lately, and hats that I don't think I would've ever worn in the US.


Let’s see, so far hats I’ve worn include goat-herder (they wander onto our school grounds to nibble our delicate trees, so we chase them away and back to their respective owner’s general direction…which is actually harder than it sounds since our trees are incredibly tasty and goats are incredibly stubborn..I might have to look into obtaining a 'freakin goat rope'), window-latch-repairer (I managed to successfully put a halt to the constant blowing open and shut of one of my living room windows after a little bit of super glue and a lot of cursing), sign-language-interpreter (for all the times when my Swahili skills fail me, or for when my villagers talk to me in their tribal language, which I don’t understand at all), and computer-problem-solver (since skills such as how to re-name documents and create new folders are in short supply here). With any luck, I’ll also add fish-de-gutter (you can only buy fish whole here and you have to clean them yourself but they look so fresh and tasty that I think it’ll motivate me enough to be able to chop off their heads and pull out their insides) and amateur seamstress (or at least learn how to sew, as I think it’s just a smidge too far to send my mending back to Mommy…though don’t think I didn’t consider it). Oh, and painter! With any luck I’ll be painting the inside of my house within the next couple of weeks. Which sounds like fun (and I’m hoping that it doesn’t just sound that way because I’ve never done it before).


But the recently acquired hat that I think I’m perhaps most proud of is insect-genocide-instigator. Which was has also come with the amateur-bug-ologist hat (sidenote: I used to think I was reasonably intelligent and knew things such as what a person who studies bugs is called; I know realize this is not true and in fact simply knew how to use wikipedia). Before I moved in, my house had been empty for about six months, and as a result, it was absolutely filled with bugs. So I’ve summarized and categorized them here for your enjoyment. Laughing at my expense is highly encouraged.

Cockroaches - These buggers (pun very much intended) gross me out, but I’m coming to detest them less and less, as their slow nature makes them easy to kill. They’re also relatively predictable and like to hang out in the same areas and now that I’m cognizant of those places, they’re much less startling.
Squeemish Factor (on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 high): 7
Juiciness Factor (upon sudden death by designated bug-killing shoe): 5

Beetles, Flying – These guys can get pretty big (like the size of my thumb) and are pretty stupid (they have a habit of flying into walls repeatedly, as well as towards shoes trying to kill them), but their distinguishing feature by far is their loud crackling sound followed by intense gushiness (I’m talking a legit small puddle) upon meeting their maker.
Squeemish Factor: 6
Juiciness Factor: 10

Beetles, Crawling – These guys are slightly smaller than their flying cousins, but come with good-sized pinchers. Luckily they’re pretty slow, so I haevn’t found out how those pinchers effect people yet.
Squeemish Factor: 3
Juiciness Factor: 6

Crickets – These guys are mainly just annoying cause of the loud sound they make (not bad when they’re outside, but annoying when they’re inside), but can be kinda creepy when they jump. Especially onto your feet. Eesh.
Squeemish Factor: 5
Juiciness Factor: 4

Spiders, Daddy Long Legs – Just like in the states. I’ve been killing them (just so they don’t think they’re getting special treatment and get big heads…and I don’t want to get involved in any of the local insect politics), but I can feel my persecution of them starting to lose its fervor. Plus, they kinda remind me of home.
Squeemish Factor: 1
Juiciness Factor: 4

Spiders, Itty Bitties - If you couldn’t tell, this is my name for them, since they’re super tiny – like dime-sized. They’re pretty fast, but just not that big a deal.
Squeemish Factor: 2
Juiciness Factor: 5

Spiders, Beasts – Again, my name for them, and with good reason. These guys get BIG (like they average about the size of my palm) and are pretty meaty too. And I think as a result, they’re sturdier, because one good whap isn’t enough to do them in – they need at least two and sometimes three. And it’s not very easy to give them a good whap either, as they are crazy fast and they jump. Yes, jump. There was much squealing involved on my part (and none on the part of the spider) when I discovered this.
Squeemish Factor: 9
Juiciness Factor: 8

Wasps – I’ve had one of the other teachers at my school remove three wasp nests for me so far. These guys also get pretty big, and usually need two good whaps to kill ‘em. But I’ve gotten rid of most of them and haven’t gotten stung yet, so I really can’t complain.
Squeemish Factor: 7
Juiciness Factor: 5

Termites – Among my least favorite. They’re eating my house. And my furniture. And they leave their piles of sawdust and their trails everywhere. If anyone knows a home-remedy for getting rid of these fuckers, please let me know
Squeemish Factor: 6
Juiciness Factor: 2

Aliens – I’ll need to undergo further study of these guys, as so far I’ve only encountered a handful of them. But they are huge (like from the tip of my pinkie to my wrist in length, not exaggerating) and they literally look like something from another planet – freaky. Twice now I’ve spotted one, turned my back on it just long enough to grab a can of bug spray, and when I look back he’s not only clear on the other side of the room but has scampered halfway up the wall as well. So they’re either ridiculous fast, or they have short-range teleportation abilities. Right now my predictions are leaning towards the latter.
Squeemish Factor: 10
Juiciness Factor: 7

Buzz – Another name of my own invention. This guy is a total loner and has made a home for himself in the overhang right outside my back door. He makes this incredibly loud (like I can tell when he flies home from the other side of my house) buzzing sound and seems to keep himself very busy. I haven’t had the heart to kill him yet, partly because he’ technically outside and he hasn’t given me any trouble yet, and partly because it seems unfair since he’s been living there so much longer than me (my counterpart says he’s ‘known’ Buzz for at least six months now). But if he violates our tacit agreement (you stay outside and don’t bring any friends around and I won’t kill you), I might be forced to spray poison in your home while you’re out.
Squeemish Factor: 3
Juiciness Factor: Unknown

Jumbo Red Ants – The name pretty much says it all. There were tons of them at first, but since giving my house a good spray down, they haven’t given me much trouble and normally content themselves to eat the carcasses of other bugs that I kill and am too slow / lazy to sweep outside.
Squeemish Factor: 4
Juiciness Factor: 3


So that about covers the ones worth mentioning, or at least the one I can think of off the top of my head (I fully reserve the right to complain more about bugs at a later time). One bugs that I don't have any issues with is mosquitos - I don't think I've seen any at all in my village, which is awesome.

Oh, and I managed to figure out the deal with the post service in my new town. The post office here is run by this awesome group of mama's who are really enthusiastic about PC volunteers and happy to have us here. Which is really sweet because (among other things) it means I'll actually get whatever y'all want to mail me (as opposed to horror stories I've heard from other volunteers about things being stolen or packages never coming). Lucky me. So here's my new address:
PO Box 715
Singida, Tanzania
East Africa

Of course I'd love to get letters or pictures from everyone. Or if you want to send me something, I'd love to take up a new hobby, as I can tell I'm gonna have a lot of free time here. Boredom means complete lack of pickiness, so pick me out a new hat to wear.


"I'm standing shell-shocked but I'm still here"

Ramblings about My Site

Hello all! It feels like a very long time since I've written to you all. I'm at my site now (been here about two weeks) and have been busy setting things up, and learning my way around a new school and community, and cleaning my house, and about twenty million other things.

As I told you last time, I'm living in Singida region. The provincial capital is a town that is also conveniently named Singida. I'm in a little village that's about a two hour bus ride from town. Physically, we're actually not all that far from town, but the road is bad (meaning unpaved, super bumpy, and littered with sand pits) so it takes awhile. It's a rural area so the houses are really spread out (lots of room for farms, cows, goats, sheep, and what not), but the 'village center' is compacted into roughly two rows containing a handful of shops, a bar/restaurant, a tailor, a church, a mosque and a few other buildings that run some sort of business that can't be easily observed /my Swahili isn't good enough to grasp yet.

Then my school is about a 15 minute walk from the village center, along a path that probably gets treaded more frequently by animals than by people. It's a relatively small school, with only about 400 students spread across four years. But they're not evenly distributed, so there's about 120 students in form one (equivalent to freshmen year of high school), but only about 50 students in form four (equivalent to senior year of hs). And they aren't split up into different groups at all, so you teach all the students in a form at once. Which isn't too bad if you've got for three or four, but with forms one and two....well it's a challenge. The whole country's got a severe teacher shortage and my school's definitely been effected. We've got five teachers, including me. And each form studies nine subjects. So each teacher ends up wearing a lot of hats. I'm teaching English to all four forms, and will probably add a form or two of math when we start the new school year in January (the school year follows the calendar year here, which makes so much sense) and I'm slightly less clueless about everything.

And finally my house! I'm livng at the school, which is what all the teachers at the school, and most in Tanzania, do. Since there is a teacher shortage, the government pumps out new teachers (usually young, single men/women) and then assigns them to different schools across the country. And it's a lot easier for them to pick up and move to a new school if there's teacher housing there waiting for them. I've got a pretty big living room, and three bedrooms. Then I've also got my own enclosed courtyard, off of which is a choo (squat toilet), and outdoor bathing room, kitchen, and storage room. So plenty of space. The house has concrete walls and floors and a tin roof, which makes cool noises when the wind picks up (it's really windy here). There's no electricity or running water in my house, or the village for that matter. I have water delivered by a guy with an oxen cart (like Oregon Trail!) and use lights that run on batteries (which are called 'Chinese lights') at night. The house was completely empty except for a bed and a table when I arrived, so it felt kinda barren. But it's slowly starting to feel more homey as I get more and more settled in.

On an unrelated note, I touched a dead lion. It was eating people's cows so the authorities shot it. And then I convinced the men with large guns to let the amazed white person touch it. It's paws were as big as my head. No joke.

Ok, well I'm sick of writing, wihch probably means that you are sick of reading. Stay tuned for next time, where I'll probably devote a considerable amount of time to the subject you've all been waiting to hear me complain about: bugs. Though I think more meaning is conveyed by the word in Swahili - mdudu. Till then.


"I ain't in it for the glory of anything at all, and I sure ain't in it for the wealth. But I'm in it till it's over and I just can't stop..."

Ramblings about Swearing In

Today was our swearing-in ceremony, which means I am now officially a Peace Corps volunteer. Eek! This morning we had a ceremony at the ambassador’s home with all of the PC Tanzania training staff all of our heads of school, and some representatives from the Tanzanian education department, among others. Our heads of school (or principals, essentially) arrived in Dar a few days ago and have had training session with Peace Corps to prepare them for working with foreigners who are sure to do odd things, and to escort us back to our respective schools (which is nice, since I’ve got tons of luggage).


I met my headmaster yesterday. I think our conversation, more than anything else, really made it sink in that this is real. He seems like a good guy, kinda has a fatherly feel about him. Of course I had about a million questions for him about the school and the community, and he sat there and patiently answered them all without any hint of complaint. And every other comment out of his mouth must have been about how excited he is to have me, and how excited the students are, and the village in general. The school has about 400 students across four grades. I’ll be the sixth teacher, and the only English teacher. So it’s definitely a school that’s got a real need for a volunteer, and I’ve been telling myself that it’s just all that much more of an opportunity to make a difference. The region I’m going to is called Singida, and it’s kinda I the middle / northern middle-ish part of the country. It’s been described to me as being like ‘the wild west’ of Tanzania….I’ll let you know what that means once I find out myself. We’ll leave tomorrow at a ridiculously early hour and still have to spend the night in town before continuing on to my village the next day.


Ok, so here's a couple of pictures - of people this time since I haven't done any of those yet. The first one is of me and my Swahili teacher. I chopped my hair, remember? She's an amazing teacher and I owe her about a million thanks for getting me to the point I'm at now. The second one is of my homestay family, who I said good-bye to a few days ago.






Ok, well this will have to suffice – I’ve got a celebration to run off to :)


“The times, they are a'changing"

Ramblings about Shadow

For Plato, shadows of things were what we see in the world all around us, instead of the real things themselves. For Winnie the Pooh, a shadow was a close friend who never left your side. And for Peter Pan, a shadow was a pesky rebel who was constantly trying to escape to freedom. In Peace Corps lingo, a shadow might be considered all of the above.

Last week was shadow week, during which all of us Peace Corps trainees travelled to different parts of the country to stay with a current volunteer for a week. I shadowed a volunteer in the Tanga region, which is the north-east corner of the country. Me and one other trainee (we go two by two, like Noah’s ark), stayed at the volunteer’s house which was right next to the school where she teaches.
The idea behind shadow week is that one of the best ways to prepare to be a volunteer is spending time with a real volunteer and seeing what it’s really like. And I think it definitely accomplished that. I found out that my Swahili is good enough / random strangers are nice enough that using the Tanzanian transport system for long distances (as opposed to being shuttled about in PC vehicles) isn’t too scary. I got to see her teach a math class of 80 form three students (which translates to roughly junior year of high school) in a combo of Swahili and English. Several times she had to stop because the sound of the rain on the tin roof (it’s winter here) drowned out her voice. And several more times she had to pause to chase a goat out of her classroom who apparently really felt the need to learn about geometric sequences.

Monday August 8th was a holiday here - nane nane, which means eight eight. As far as I can tell, the government just went ‘Wow, that’s a cool date, let’s make it a holiday. We’ll celebrate labor or something’. We also got July 7th off for saba saba, which means (you guessed it) seven seven. It doesn’t happen every month…though I wouldn’t complain if it did. So since there was no school, we spent the entire day in the volunteer’s banking town, which is just the closest town that’s big enough to have necessities like a bank and a post office. We did some shopping, and it was really nice to just walk around a new town Oh, and we went to the spice market, which was amazing. Picture a maze of little stalls, each with a make-shift table covered in large piles of different colored spices emitting every fragrance imaginable. And the vendors...about a third of them are shouting the prices for their goods in frenzied Swahili approximately twelve times the normal speaking rate, about a third of them are haggling with customers or raking their spice piles to coax their fragrances out a bit stronger, and about a third of them have just succumbed to the afternoon heat and are dozing on hammocks or empty spice sacks. All in all, pretty cool.

So Monday we spent in town, and Tuesday through Thursday we spent in the village observing classes, watching Seinfeld, supervising the weekly rag-tag bunch of kids that comprises the coloring group (which rivaled Seinfeld in terms of entertainment value), visiting with random villagers who all seemed to want to feed me, and soaking in the stunning surrounding scenery.

Then Friday after school, we headed into the city of Tanga, which is right on the coast and has the accompanying laid-back feel of so many coastal cities. We had some amazing Indian food at this cute little restaurant that was literally built on a dock overlooking the Indian Ocean. We had to kill some time before we could order food (it's Ramadan right now, and many restaurants won't start taking orders until after sundown), so we just ordered a couple of beers, chatted and watched the sunset. Definitely a night for the win category. The next day, we walked around the city for a bit in the morning, had a great breakfast of just fresh tropical fruits, and then headed to the beach for the afternoon. The water was unbelievably warm and super clear. After a delicious picnic lunch on the beach, I taught some impromptu swim lessons to a couple of local girls in broken Swahili. We all giggled plenty at the roundabout way I had to say things in order to express my directions, but it still felt good. There’s something about swimming in the ocean that’s just both incredibly invigorating and relaxing at the same time. And it was especially great to stock up on all those good ocean-y vibes, since the next day we had to make the trip back to Morogoro and the intensity of training. The bus ride was only five hours (short by Tanzanian standards - one of the shortest ones of my training group) but with all the chaos that comes with the trip…well, let’s just say that I slept well that night.

Shadow was a great opportunity to get an idea of what my life will be like once I get to site (in less than two weeks!), while still trying to keep in mind that every site is unique and that my experience at mine will be in large part whatever I make it. Not quite the real thing, but close. It also let me really solidify friendships with a couple of other volunteers and trainees, which was especially cool since they were all people who were really different from me, while getting out of town and getting a chance to see another part of the country. Plus, it was a blast. So did I hit all three of my inspirational characters…I think so.
I had a request for a sunset photo, so here’s one of those from our dinner on the coast.




Oh and a quick note. I love it when you leave me comments. A lot. I will probably love them even more if I know who they are from as so far I’ve gotten lots of anonymous ones, and unfortunately my sleuthing skills stop just short of being able to figure it out on my own. So just add your name after your comment (you can just do it in the same little comment box, you don’t need to create a profile or anything), and double my fun.

Ok, well my final oral Swahili exam is tomorrow so perhaps I should go study for that instead of….oh, let me give you something in Swahili. Let’s up the anty a little and go with a phrase instead of just a word today - ‘ninafitini’ means I am making mischief. Fun, no?

“The beach gives a feeling, an earthy feeling, I believe in the faith that grows”

Ramblings about Training

My time in Tanzania seems to have been flying by lately. I have to take my malaria medication once a week, which makes keeping track of how long I’ve been in country conveniently simple. The first two weeks or so of training it seemed that Mef day (also known as Wednesday for those of you who don’t take a brand of medication with a long confusing name that gets shortened to Mef once a week on Wednesdays like I do) or that post-Mef days (also known as Thursday and Friday, but more awesome cause it means that us trainees get to swap ridiculous stories of extremely vivid mef-induced dreams) would never come. But now it seems that my boxes of pills just fly by. And indeed, my training is almost over. This week was my last of a month of internship teaching at a local secondary school. The school had a little farewell assembly yesterday which was really nice. And apparently a month is long enough to get attached to a group of students, cause even though I was only teaching three days a week I’m definitely going to miss some of them.

And while I’m being all mushy, I might as well mention my host family – who I’ve gotten really attached to. I’ve been staying with a family that consists of a mom and dad, an eleven year old sister (Esta) and an eight year old brother (Paulo). They’re good people. Like, good in just about any way I can think of that the term ‘good’ is applicable. And now that I’ve got enough Swahili down to actually be able to understand what they’re saying, I’ve realized that they’re also absolutely hilarious. And it’s such a natural way of learning about the culture that it almost barely even feels foreign. Like I remember my last couple days in the US, I had a hard time (read: completely stressed and over-analyzed) trying to figure out what type of clothing I should pack knowing that I was going to a country that was both very hot and very conservative. Now, my standard is just to ask myself if my host brother is going to tease me, or if my host mama is going to raise an eyebrow if I leave the house wearing this. Infinitely easier for me and far more accurate. I feel very lucky to have been placed in a homestay where I feel so comfortable.

So yes, training has been overall busy but enjoyable. And now it’s almost done. This Sunday I’ll travel to the northeast corner of the country for ‘shadow’ – basically I stay with a current volunteer at their site for a week to see how things get done for real. I’m pretty excited. Then once I get back, I’m only at my homestay for one more week. After that, I’ll spend a couple days in Dar before our swearing ceremony, which is when I officially become a Peace Corps volunteer (right now, I’m just at lowly ‘trainee’ status). And then after swearing in I’ll head off to my site. For the next two years - eek!

Ok, this will have to suffice for now. There’s always so much that I want to tell you guys about, and so little time. Oh, let me give you a Swahili word (I think I’m gonna try and do one per blog entry – thoughts?) and then wrap this up. Shagala bagala means messy or untidy and is useful for describing both states of mind as well as our kitchen after the chickens complete their morning scramble through it on their way to last night’s food scraps. On an only slightly related note, we ate the rooster that was waking me up every morning. He was delicious (sorry veggie friends, but a girl needs her beauty sleep).

Oh, and for those of you who doubted that I’m actually in Africa and are secretly harboring suspicions that I’ve just decided to be extremely anti-social for two years, well here’s a picture of lions. One’s eating a giraffe they just killed while the other one guards their meal from mischievous American onlookers. Really guys, Africa.

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“Speak to me in foreign tongues, and share your secrets one by one”

So Far, So Good

I've now been in Tanzania for over two weeks, and I still don't think it's really hit me yet that I'm here long-term. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that training has been really intense.

I wake up every day to the sound of roosters - which was really cool at first, but now I just wish they had snooze buttons. They do not. We have training sessions six days a week, usually from 8am to 5pm. There's sessions on all sorts of things - lots of Swahili lessons (fun word: pipi means candy), but also input on teacher training, cross-cultural trainings (ie; don't sniff food when eating as its an insult to the chef), medical sessions (ie; malaria nets are your friends), and safety and security sessions (mainly common sense and a good time to go through swahili flashcards). After sessions all day, I spend about an hour walking /navigating the public transport system (I use the term loosely - more on that later) to get back to my host family. Then I'll either help my host mama cook (outside over a pile of charcoal bricks), play card games with my host sister and brother (I taught them Egyptian war - which they love), or if I'm feeling ambitious, language homework. After dinner, we'll all usually sit around the dinner table and I'll attempt to communicate in my broken Swahili. Miming, repetition and odd sound effects have become a mainstay of most of my conversations here. My host family doesn't speak any English, which I was hoping would mean my language skills would improve really fast. So far, the main improvement I've seen has been in my acting skills. I joke, but in reality my Swahili is coming along nicely - it's the fastest I've ever learned a language. The Peace Corps language training program is top notch.

So that's what I've been doing....I guess I should give a bit of attention to the question you're probably all wondering - how is Tanzania? The short answer is so far, so good. The people are warm and friendly and generally willing to be patient and helpful as I slaughter their language. Well, either that or they'll just laugh at me. But that's to be expected.

The city I'm in now is a regional capital and is nestled at the base of these rally gorgeous mountains that always seem to have clouds covering the tops of them. I'm going hiking up there tomorrow (yey!) The family I'm staying with lives in a village outside the city. I say 'village' without knowing exactly what that means, but that's what my family refers to it as, so it's the the word I'll go with. Regardless, it definitely has a 'village' feel. Everyone seem to know each other and greets each other in the streets. Chickens and goats roam about, in between kids playing soccer in empty fields and women in brightly colored fabrics carrying water on their heads. My family lives in a house built from cement with a tin roof - which sounds awesome when it rains. There's no running water or electricity, though there are some families that have those. Next week I start teaching at a secondary school in the community where my family lives as part of training. I'll only be there for about a month, but I'm excited to get back into a classroom and finally be working with Tanzanian students.

My time at the internet cafe always seems to go by very quickly, so this will have to suffice for now. OH, if anyone wants a postcards from Tanzania, you should let me know (just leave a comment below) and I'll make that happen. On the flip side, if anyone feels compelled to mail me anything, here's the address:
Melinda Cobian, PC Trainee
Peace Corps Tanzania
PO Box 9123
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

So this post got written about 2 weeks ago, but the power went out while I was at the internet cafe and I haven't been able to get back since. Lucky for me, blogger saved all this for me :)

I almost forgot to mention - I chopped my hair off, it's super short like I had it in high school. Sorry Jess. But Africa is really hot, and the nightly bucket bath is infinitely easier this way. Thanks for the fb love Erika - it totally reminded me that I used to have long hair. And that I have amazing family and friends.


"Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes that call me on and on..."

On My Way

Now you’re all very important to me, but I’ll admit that I’m writing this mainly to keep myself entertained on my first of many long flights. Currently, I’m on my way to Amsterdam, where I’m hoping that the airport will have free wireless so that I can upload this. Once in Amsterdam (only another 2 hours!) we’ll have about an hour layover before catching our flight to the city of Kilimanjaro – a nearly 11 hour trip. Jeesh. Then another precious hour of being able to use the lower half of my body, before one final flight to Dar Es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania.

I’ve spent the last two-ish days in Philadelphia for pre-departure orientation. The orientation agenda consisted of lots of paperwork, some sessions on expectations and guidelines, and lots of talk about safety and security while in country. Sounds pretty boring, I know, but it was really more an opportunity for my training class to group up and get to know each other than anything. We’ll spend three months together in training, which according to many returned Peace Corps volunteers is the most arduous piece of service.

My training class is amazing. For real. There’s about 40 of us, and it seems one person is more interesting than the next. One girl recently completed a masters in computer science at a competitive university, and then became a competitive belly-dancer. Another has spent the last several months biking across the county, with ukulele in tow. Other have been working with Somalian refugees, overseeing construction on schools in Ghana, and working for senators. There’s another Cornell grad (!!) and my roommate just happened to be from Elk Grove. We’re an incredibly diverse group in terms of age and ethnicity, and we come from all across the US. And yet, for all our diversity and varied experiences, we all have so much in common. Everyone is anxious about learning Swahili, and taking malaria pills, and the lack of communication with home, and being eaten by lions, trampled by wilderbeast, rammed by rhinos and all the same things. Knowing that you’re not alone in your anxieties has been such a huge comfort. But even better is that everyone has the same spirit that made them join in the first place. We all truly want to improve the quality of life for the people we work with, and believe that’s worth giving up some comforts like facebook and Starbucks. And cable and hot showers. And reliable transportation and familiar food. But I digress.

It’s possible that we’re all just a bunch of naïvely optimistic fools that have no idea what we’ve gotten ourselves in to. I’d even be willing to swap out possible for probable. But the palpable energy that shoots through the air wherever we congregate, and the instantly recognizable look in all of our eyes just completely take me in. I feel extremely lucky to be surrounded by such an incredible group of people. And knowing that we’re all there for each other, knowing that we’ll all share the tough times and the rewarding times of service, knowing that I’ve got 40 people I can legitimately call friends after only two days, well, that all goes down in the major win category of my book.

Let’s just say that if I wasn’t completely sold on doing this before I left Sac, I’m definitely all in now.


"Yeah it’s overwhelming, but what else can we do? Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?"

Less than two months!

As many of you know, I've wanted to join the Peace Corps for a long time. But now that it's actually happening I can scarcely believe that in less than two months I'll be on a plane headed for Africa, with a return ticket set for more than 27 months later. What awaits me while I'm there....well, I won't pretend to know now, that would ruin the fun. I think that the only things I'm certain of are that it will be new and it will be hard. Incidentally, those things are nearly my entire motivation for going as well.

So loved ones, laugh at my mistakes with me as I try to learn Kiswahili. Join me in "awww" moments as I connect with my students. Marvel at the beauty of the country and the richness of the culture. But most importantly, keep in touch. I'll miss you all more than you can know.