I've created this blog to keep my friends and family updated on my adventure with the Peace Corps in Malawi. I hope you'll enjoy reading it and will find it informative and interesting.
Since leaving CNN of February 5th, I've been running around, trying to get myself ready for this trip! Between shopping, packing, handling financial and legal matters, and unwinding from my previous career, it's been a busy few weeks! Now, I have just two days left to finish everything, and then it's off to the Peace Corps!
On Friday, Feb. 26, I'll take an early flight to Philadelphia for "staging," in which my group of trainees will get a brief introduction to Peace Corps. Then, we leave at 1:30am Saturday for our flight from JFK to Johannesburg. After a brief stop-over in South Africa, we'll arrive in Lilongwe, Malawi on Sunday, Feb. 28th. Then, we'll go to Dedza, a town in the south of Malawi, where we'll complete two months of training in language, culture, development work, and health and safety concerns. I'll be staying with a host family for most of the two months, and I'll have no access to Internet or phone. For the first two months, at least, snail mail will be the best way to reach me.
My chief concern for the next couple days is to finish packing for the trip. We're allowed 80 pounds of checked luggage, with no bag weighing more than 50 pounds. I got my large suitcase packed a few days ago, but it weighed about 65 pounds, so I'll have to work on rearranging some things. I have a 5-page-long list of things I think I should take, but it may have to be scaled back a bit. The most essential items: tent, sleeping bag and mat, netbook, pressure cooker (for quicker cooking of beans), and solar backpack (which I hope will charge my netbook, iPod and a few other devices).
I'll leave it at that for now, but plan to make one more post before I go silent for two months!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment