PSA! PC Swaziland is asking for your help!

Hey everyone!

This is a special blog post for a project I’m very excited about! As you may remember from some of my earlier blog posts I’m trying to start a library at the primary school where I’ll be working on several projects.

Imagine for a moment that someone came in and removed all the books from your house. How would you help kids learn to read? If you thought about writing, imagine that paper is so expensive you couldn’t use it. Newspapers? Imagine all the newspapers are written in English, a language you understand, but you have to pass all your school tests, exams, etc. in a foreign language. You go to school where textbooks are written in foreign language and your tests are also expected to be written in that foreign language. Those textbooks are the only books you or your child has access to.

It may seem extreme for those of us who had books all our life. I remember my first gift to my niece was a Charlie Brown Christmas book with buttons that played songs. She loved that it played music, but it was constantly forgotten about as she worked through an endless pile of books with fun pictures and sounds.  The students at my primary school don’t have any library. The only books these students have access to are the textbooks that come from the school and without any reading preparation these books are too difficult to read for many students.

So here’s what I’m asking:

I believe development should come from the community level which is why I joined Peace Corps. I will rarely ask for money from my friends, family, and communities at home because community projects should come from community means and resources. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to understand your means and resources without education. Education simply can’t continue if students cannot read.

Books for Swaziland (a partnership between Peace Corps and an organization called Books for Africa) is a nation-wide project that will bring enough books to start 30 new school and community libraries all across Swaziland. The books will be free, high-quality books from United States donors, and each organization receiving the books will be responsible to raise 1,500 rand (about $150 USD – a big amount for our schools!) to help ship the books, in addition to providing a library room, shelves, labeling supplies, and a designated librarian.

Through these 30 new libraries, Books for Swaziland will reach approximately 60,000 students in the next ten years. This is nearly 6% of the total country population! Books for Swaziland will train a librarian for each school, approve a library program plan, and deliver over 1,000 quality children’s, young adult, and information books to participating organization. The result of this project will be an increase in literacy and English proficiency among students, as well as increased chances for students to obtain university admission or gainful employment. One library at a time, Books for Swaziland hopes to bring students out of poverty for a brighter, HIV-free future.

Each school/community must provide part of the shipping costs, a furnished room, and a staff member to serve as librarian. It is a hefty commitment on their end! However, the Peace Corps volunteers in Swaziland still need to raise $7232 (the rest to be covered by Peace Corps) to cover half of the cost of shipping the books to Swaziland. That’s where you come in – can you help raise money to support education in Swaziland?

I am asking family members and friends to commit to donating monetarily to this project (if you’d like to send books, I can give you the shipping address for the organization in America). If you feel strongly about helping improve the quality of education and opportunity for Swaziland students, or if you just love me and want to help me out, here are a few ideas for making donating fun and easy:

-Just go online and donate. Easy-peasy. Click here to find out about donating.

-Ask a class at school or church to fundraise. ‘Loose Change for Literacy’ is a great theme and you can compete between classrooms or between guys and girls. The winners get bragging rights, and if you are feeling generous, a party.

-Make donating to this project your end-of-year, tax deductable donation.

-Host a small event with friends and ask everyone to chip in. Maybe you bake homemade lasagna or make dozens of pancakes and charge $15 a plate, or maybe you throw a Vegas-themed party where all winnings go to libraries.

-Simply spread the word where you work, where you worship, or anywhere else you have an audience.

As always, thank you for your encouragement and support of my work in Swaziland.  Thank you for helping make that happen!

Lessons Learned and What Integration Really Means

I’ve been spending a while considering what to include in my next blog post. I could be telling you how my school is doing exams so I have been watching an excessive amount of shows/movies. I could also tell you about the two weeks of training I completed in Matsapha. Instead, I’d like to share some lessons I’ve learned during this indispensable “integration” period. As you read before, this is the first three months at our permanent site when volunteers are supposed to become a functioning member of their Swazi community.

When turning down a marriage proposal from the drunk man on the khombi hanging in your face, it’s best to do so with a smile and a simple no. Insults and anger rarely ever make the situation go away. So when life give you lemons….hopefully the drunk guy doesn’t make lemonade on your shoes.

Two weeks of training may feel long to a volunteer, but Swazis will assume you went all the way back to the United States…And continue to ask you why you were away for so long AND why you’re back. Those two thoughts don’t seem to fit together…Are you happy to see me or not?

Never convert the price to American dollars in your head. It’ll make you crazy…because it hurts to say 15E is too much when really it’s only $1.50 in USD.

Set your pride aside and just use a pee bucket at night. It’s just not worth a roach, rat, or snake crawling on/biting you.

Peanut butter sandwiches with bananas or apple are a perfectly acceptable dinner.

Don’t try and analyze how or why you have diarrhea (aka a poop parade). There are just too many possibilities.

Peace Corps before technology must have been …rough. I commend and applaud those who made it through without computers, kindles, cell phones, electricity in general.

Your feet will never be clean. You’ll step out of your bucket bath all proud of how clean they are. You’ll take a few steps and wonder “HOOWWW??!”

Screens on the windows are amazing but prepare to find spiders and other lovely surprises living between the screen and the glass. Approach with caution when opening your windows.

If you say you don’t want to do your insanity workout or hip hop abs because it creates more laundry, I suggest trying it pants-less. Don’t worry about chaffing, chances are you were sweating enough to prevent that problem before you even started the video.

Swazis have no idea if your hair is clean or disgusting. That’s no excuse for dreads, but it is a nice advantage if you feel lazy.

You’ll never be on time and transport will never go as you planned. There’s always a surprise in there somewhere. Hopefully it’s not pink eye from the number of butts rubbed in your face…now that aisle seat doesn’t seem as awesome huh?

Projects always seem like a good idea when you’re doing the work…Patience and learning how to convince the other party they want to help are two important PCV tools.

If you love dogs, people will think you’re hilarious and that you’re weird when you give them attention.

It’ll never rain when you expect/want it to.

Don’t compare your living conditions to other volunteers. For the three people who have flushing toilets and a nicer pad than you, there are plenty who don’t have electricity, reliable transport, etc. Consider those people before you bitch and whine.

If you want an honest, straightforward answer in Swaziland, ask a child. They’re rarely worried about offending you and they don’t know yet to feed you the answer they think you want.

Applying logic during moments of frustration may cause an aneurysm. Best to just go with the flow.

Well those are Sammy’s Integration Lessons. I’m sure there are many more... but these are the essentials. Enjoy!

TV Series: The Wire
Book: Game of Thrones (finished), The Shining

Many homesteads, a library, and a meeting

Hey I remembered to update my blog! In an effort to make these posts shorter, I’m going to try and update this more often.

The past week hasn’t been overly eventful. I think the reason Peace Corps Volunteers have to have patience is because of integration. I have no idea how volunteers did it before laptops and kindles. I would have been bored to tears by this point without them. You may wonder why the government pays for us to be here then right?

My two biggest goals at this point in my work is to get my Site Assessment Report (see my previous post) completed and an attempt to start a library by applying to Books for Africa. I went to 27 homesteads on Monday (the 7th). It was certainly a tiring day! Mondays seem to be my day to do my homestead visits with one of our Rural Health Motivators. So far I’ve visited 60 homesteads. I’m beginning to find familiar faces around town but names are difficult. Many people have the same surname so I could guess one of the common surnames (there are about five very common ones for my town) and probably get it right but I don’t want to know them just by guessing.

The library project is sadly being started from scratch. I say sadly because it means these kids have no access to books to improve their English reading and comprehension. It’s also sad because it’s going to take a serious amount of work to get a functioning library up and running. At this point we have a small, narrow room that will barely even fit the shelves. I know the school really wants this library so hopefully it’ll all work out. The next step is shelving, a budget, and the Books for Africa application.

I don’t go to the primary school every day. Tuesdays are health club days and Wednesdays I try to get a meeting about the library. This week I’ll be doing an HIV knowledge and attitudes survey with grades 5-7 to try and understand what information, myths, etc. the students already know. There haven’t been any formal discussions with the school yet but it seems as though they want to work me into the timetable (class schedule) to teach life skills. There are a few different manuals Peace Corps provided but it basically means HIV information, communication skills, relationship skills, self-esteem building, etc.

This past week I went to Simunye Country Club to celebrate the October birthdays among G11. It was a nice relaxing day but the internet didn’t work. This was sad for two reasons. I couldn’t skype with my stepsister and my niece. I also found out that PC didn’t make the automated payments they’re supposed to make from my readjustment allowance. It’s an added stress I didn’t really need. I feel broke in two countries! Yay!

If you were wondering about financial matters, I get a monthly allowance and I got a moving in allowance. I’m not actually broke, but there are still a lot of little frivolous things I buy to make my hut feel more like home or food I buy for comfort when I really don’t need it. Hopefully next month I can start saving some for a potential trip to Mozambique for the holidays. There’s a big group of volunteers who are hoping to take our first vacation over the Christmas/New Year holiday time. The US dollar and even the Swazi currency gets me pretty far there from what I understand. 

Today I went to a meeting at the umphakatsi (chief’s home). The inner council has chosen a new interim chief of sorts. The brother of the chief that passed away was chosen to take his place but by custom it’s supposed to be one of the chief’s children that follows in his footsteps. I thought perhaps the children weren’t old enough. Turns out the children are old enough but it would be improper to make them one of chief while the chief’s wives still “wear the black” (grieve). It was a short meeting but thank goodness it was today and not yesterday. I can’t figure out the weather in this country. It went from over 100 degrees yesterday to the 60s today. Obviously being from New England, I prefer the colder weather but dang it’s weird how fast it changes. Also…still no rain. I hear it should have rained a lot more by now. Hopefully we will get some soon.

I know I’ve seen other PCV blogs that list what the volunteer is reading or watching. So I thought I’d let you know what I’ve been doing in my spare time.

TV Series: Game of Thrones (Season 3)
Book: Game of Thrones (Book 1) and Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

A Month to Make a Home - Settling In

Yikes I’m a terrible blogger! To be fair, I have equally terrible internet access. On August 29th, I was officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV)! I made it through the nine weeks of training. In the meantime, lots of interesting stuff has happened which I’ve of course neglected to fill you in on. The first week I was supposed to be at my site I actually spent 10 days at site with my friend and fellow PCV, Janae. Unfortunately, my host uncle died so my family had A LOT of people here for the funeral. They asked me to stay elsewhere so they could house people in my hut. It was a good week because all that stuff they tell us about being lonely at site wasn’t so lonely when you have a friend, but it was disappointing I couldn’t unpack and get settled.
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So on September 9th, I moved to my home for two years! It’s a one room hut with a thatched roof and two windows. I do have electricity but for a few weeks all I had was a lightbulb, no outlets, so I charged my electronics in the main house. I gave you the run down on my family in my last blog. This time I’ll try to give you an idea of my town, which for safety reasons I won’t type outright. It’s a town of about 400 homesteads, we have two small stores, and two umphakatsi houses. Technically most places only have one umphakatsi but ours had a lot of wives. I live about a 20 minute walk from the main tarred road and the school is along the way so I’m close to everything that I need.
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In the five weeks since swearing in I haven’t done a lot in the way of projects. In case I forgot to explain earlier, I have three months of what PC calls “integration.” In these three months I have a set of tasks I should complete so I can do a Site Assessment Report. This report will help me shape projects and goals to fit what my community/school wants and needs. One of these projects is homestead visits where I visit each homestead. I’ve been asking some simple questions like if they have a garden, electricity, how many children, do they go to school, etc. It’s a good way to go around and get to know people. Most people I’ve visited have been receptive but some are a little suspicious and don’t really like me asking questions. I don’t blame them and hopefully over time they’ll talk to me on other occasions so they can know me better. I don’t do the visits alone. I have a really great Rural Health Motivator (RHM) who walks around with me. Bless her soul for putting up with walking around in this heat.
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The first week and a half or so I focused on getting comfortable. I bought a bed and a fridge (which couldn’t be plugged in for a while but it’s easiest to pay transport once). Then I painted my room blue and green in true Evenline fashion (Wells College…google it). I now have some tables and my mosquito net is hung so it’s really coming together to feel like a home. I’ve been trying to post photos but it’s expensive to do on my phone.
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My pit latrine has showed me the wonders my grandfather loved so much as an entomologist. We had some BIIIGGG nasty bugs in there. I spent half an hour one day walking around the toilet seat spraying Doom (bug killer). I’m sure my family thought I had lost my mind. Not entirely certain they’re wrong but who knows. We also had eight lovely pups when I arrived. Two have been sold since then but good news we are keeping two of the male puppies!! Oh I can’t wait to train them. Unfortunately that means squishing the bot fly larvae from under their skin (don’t google that one…it might make you toss your lunch). They have tons of fleas but such is the dog life around here. We have goats around all the time but they aren’t ours. They even tried to drink my laundry water while I still had clothes in the bucket. Lesson learned: do laundry indoors and guard it with your life.
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One friend from home asked me if everything tasted different here so I wanted to give a little explanation of food. Since I can’t default to my nachos or quesadillas for dinner without tortillas and salsa, I often resort to rice and beans or fried egg sandwiches. Pasta is easy to do here so that’s a huge plus. In Senegal the pasta was outrageously expensive. I also eat a lot of peanut butter and apples. The cereal options are quite limited which is so sad because otherwise I would eat that all the time. I found chicken franks that are almost like hot dogs but not quite the same. In summary, everything tastes a little different but most of it still tastes pretty darn good. And on days when I miss Cheetos, Nik Naks are SPOT ON. That’s one thing Swaziland learned to replicate exactly.
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Last weekend I went to Mbabane, the capital, and ran a 5k race. Why you ask? Because it was a good way to go see friends and do something that makes me healthier. I’m not a runner and no I don’t enjoy it but it felt good to finish. I also learned my lesson about traveling at month’s end. Just don’t. It’s awful. Payday means people have money to travel and buy stuff. There’s a saying here that tomorrow doesn’t exist, aka take advantage of everything today. Unfortunately, I’ve embraced this habit when noshing on nik naks and coke but it’s awful when traveling.
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This past week was a little tough. I’ve been a bit restless and I miss home. The two combined makes me generally grumpy. I’ll bounce back but don’t think I’ve forgotten about you back in the States. There are times when I remember certain memories or listen to a song I sang in my car to work every day before I left. It makes me miss it all, but on the other hand I’m starting a project to get a library at my school and I’ve been organizing activities for my school’s health club meetings. Slowly but surely may days seem to get a little busier and I meet new people. Another girl left at the end of September and I have to say I was a little jealous she gets to eat salsa and honey bunches of oats at home. On tough days all I have to do is play with our six puppies and it puts me in a much better place. Ahh the love of a dog! Unconditional whether I can speak Siswati or teach a class effectively!
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Hope everyone is doing well at home (except for the whole Syria shindig and US govt shutdown that’s pending)! See Swaziland does have some advantages! If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or whatsapp me. I’m sure I missed some stuff about my first month at site.

On The Job! And other stories from training

August 25, 2013

I’m now heading into week nine of nine for training. It’s crazy that eight weeks have come and gone. The past three weeks were big weeks for us PCTs. We have been assigned our permanent sites, got to do On the  Job Training (OJT), and had our final “tests” in SiSwati/Medical/Etc. OJT was from Tuesday, August 6th to Friday, August 9th. We started the adventure by meeting our Site Support Agent (SSA) which for the Youth Development Trainees meant a head teacher or someone in the school administration. I got paired with a primary school. I was hoping to have the option to work at a high school but it looks like the high school my students go to is a WAYS away and there may already be a volunteer working there. Regardless, I’m excited to finish training and get to my community.

Here’s the skinny on where I’ll be living for two years:

I’m living on a small homestead with a Babe, Make, two boys and two girls. My 13 year old host brother, Nduduzo, will prove to be very helpful because his English is excellent. The two girls, Sinetisiwe and Bayabongwa, are 9 and 6 respectively. They were very shy and refused to talk to me so that was a little sad but I think over time they will warm up to me. Then Siniketo is the three year old. Remember how I was told there was only one child on my homestead? That’s because the other three were usually at school I think when PC visited.

There is a primary school and preschool just a ten minute walk away (maybe 15 if you drag your feet some). The preschool is run by World Vision, an international NGO, and they have also provided a lot of things to the primary school. Apparently, World Vision gave the primary school a bunch of volleyball nets and balls….so I guess I’ll be learning to play that soon? There are 15 teachers for approximately 370 students. That is about a 1 to 25 ratio so it’s not great but not bad either. Some of the projects that were mentioned during my stay were: a library, a garden, and flushing toilets (a promise I doubt World Vision will come through on). The first three months of training are supposed to be for assessment only, but I really want to work on getting a library as soon as I can. There is a program called Books for Africa that has a deadline in December for applications to receive library books. We are allowed to be working on that. The biggest challenge for my school seems to be space. We have enough buildings for the classes, but the admin building is very small and I don’t see any unused rooms that could work as a library. Again, World Vision has been promising to build some buildings so fingers crossed that they come through on some of that. Also another potential, and I say potential in slim chances terms, is a project with the Raspberry Pi computers. One volunteer in Swaziland has already initiated a project to bring these to his school. This is the  website if you’re curious about the project: http://igg.me/at/SwaziPi

During my stay I also met some key people in the local leadership. I met the Indvuna and the Bucopho. The Indvuna is the right hand man to the chief (umphakatsi) and the Bucopho is the “brains” (that’s what bucopho means in SiSwati) who helps with community projects. Sadly, our Umphakatsi was killed in a car accident last month. He left behind three wives and lots of children. I live very close to the Umphakatsi which is also an advantage because that’s where they do community meetings. I asked when they would pick a new umphakatsi but some other volunteers said their community’s umphakatsi died over 20 years ago so I doubt there will be a new one during my time. I did get to meet the wives and some of the aunts who are all related to my host family somehow. I think my host father’s father is a son of the chief’s son. Yea…you try and figure that one out. It hurts my brain sometimes when they explain family relations. Another important person I met was Make Nobella. She is one of fifteen Rural Health Motivators (RHMs) in our community. These motivators are commissioned by the King to help with health issues in rural areas where the population may not have access to a clinic. Make Nobela also explained that many of the RHMs in my community help care for families living with HIV. We walked ALLLLLL around the town (which has 400ish homesteads). I meet a lot of homesteads, saw the water dam, several boreholes (water pumps), and our Neighborhood Care Point (NCP) where the government pays to have food and care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs). Are you sick of the acronyms yet? Welcome to our world as trainees :)

Then on Thursday, every volunteer got to visit a PCV from group 10 who have been here a year. The volunteer I stayed with lives in Simunye which is a very nice town funded by the Sugar Corporation. Luckily, knock on wood, transportation has been more successful for me in Swaziland than it EVER was in Senegal. Also less holes in the floorboards. It took me about an hour walking from home, waiting for a khombi, and driving to Siteki (my shopping town). Then another 30 minutes to Simunye. I even met Kelsey (a fellow trainee) on the khombi. Small world in this tiny country ( The bus rank is outside this lovely shopping plaza and next to the LOVELY OASIS of the Simunye Country Club. Just imagine a nice resort. They have a big pool, a kiddie pool, a playground, tennis courts, basketball courts, free wifi, fantastic pizza, and everything else a girl could want. This is where I’ll go when I just can’t take the heat any longer. If I haven’t mentioned this yet, PC thought it’d be hilarious to place the gal from New England in the hottest part of Swaziland. I’ll probably melt into a pool of molten human like Alex Mack. Anywho, Taylor (the G10 volunteer) showed us around the plaza and had us drop our stuff off at her apartment. She doesn’t have a host family because she’s in a bigger town. We then got to see the high school where she does most of her work. It’s a pretty nice school compared to what I’ve seen but someone once said don’t compare in Peace Corps. It’s a bad mindset to start with and to carry. The haves and have nots so to speak.

Then we went to the country club and had dinner. Their pizza is ….whew it’s priceless. I love cheese and pizza and cheese. YUMMMM! We also got to meet Taylor’s host mom (even though she doesn’t live with the family it’s still nice to have an ally in the community). Interestingly enough, her husband works for the water company that supplies water to Lubombo region (where I’m living). She was able to help me with some information about the water situation at my home.

On the way home, of course I got harassed by a drunk man on the bus. We were on the bus at 8am by the way. We were heading from Simunye to Manzini and this guy sat near me. I figured if I just ignored him nothing would happen. That’s just not the way the world works for me. He tried to talk to me. I told him I’m married and I don’t like him. I got pretty mad but tried to keep my cool. Then he stood up and tried to lean over my seat. I was ready to kick him in the balls but luckily my friend Hyomi stood up and started yelling at him. The bus conductor was quick to help us. The guy sat back down and just stared at me the rest of the way. Yippee! We got to Manzini safely and got to do a little shopping FINALLY.

The following week didn’t really have anything notable so I’ll just move on to this past week (August 18 – August 24th). This past week was by far the most stressful since I’ve been in country. It all started on Monday. I was having a bad day because I had a nasty cough and I just really missed home. My homestead didn’t have water for like three days so when I got home I realized I was all out of water. My Gogo explained how she had to go somewhere to get the water and did a lot of work for it. I respect that entirely. I only took half a bucket figuring I wouldn’t need much. I did however have laundry that had been soaking for a day and a half at this point so it needed to get rinsed. As I’m hanging out my laundry, it seems Gogo and the other woman on my homestead are laughing at me because that’s what I decided to “waste” my water on. It wasn’t like they were trying to be mean. They thought I couldn’t understand SiSwati but I understood enough. It was just a little cultural misunderstanding but at the end of a bad day it felt like crap to be laughed at. Then came our final testing day. Remember that list of tests from week five? Well we repeat all of those during week eight to make sure we know what we need to know. So I went into Thursday feeling really good about my SiSwati test. I had been interviewed by two teachers the day before and understood everything even if I couldn’t make up a good response. Bam! Thursday morning my SiSwati test was first and I totally bombed it. Now, I don’t like to blame the tester…that just seems like a cop out, but really she was awful and I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. I would ask her to repeat something and she’d repeat it three different ways and confuse me. Then she would give an example and it usually ended up being the answer I would have given. On top of the already stressful week and missing home, this just pushed me over the edge. It was a bad day needless to say and it only seemed to get worse.

The following day was host family appreciation day and I had offered to put together a slideshow of photos for the group. I didn’t have any photos with my family because I’m just not the best picture taker. I never think to whip out my camera. So I felt pressure to get a photo with them and get this presentation together when all I wanted to do was sleep and cry because my day hadn’t gone well. Luckily I pulled it all together and made it through the day Friday with a little help from a package from my mom (REESES CUPS!!!). I’m back on track and we move back to our training center tomorrow. Yay for showers and food made for me!! It was a long week, but I’m sad to leave my host family because I’ve become so comfortable with them. It’s hard to balance the excitement of getting to my permanent site with the sadness of leaving my new “comfort zone” so to speak. I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of things in there but that’s what I get for blogging once a month…oops! Until next time!

Site announcements!!

August 1, 2013
Yikes almost a month since my last blog. Sorry folks! I am now in week five of nine for training and since I don’t think I can get it all down in any other form, I’m going to list some of the big events from the past few weeks. (In chronological order of course)

Week 3

I got to visit a high school and facilitate an activity where we compare girls’ and boys’ daily schedules. This is a tool volunteers use to assess what activities each is responsible for and how to plan our sessions. For example, if we want to do a session with girls about HIV we wouldn’t do it at 3pm on a Thursday because they are probably doing chores on the homestead or doing their homework.

Week three was all sorts of technical stuff and activities to assess what projects are needed most and discuss with the community what projects it wants to do. It was a seriously stressful week because a lot of the sessions felt forced and there were some personality clashes I think. Nothing major or groundbreaking but I think having so much time all as one group can push peoples’ patience (including mine).

On Monday July 22nd my Nana passed away. I have had a lot of ups and downs about this. I would have loved to go home but there was simply no way to go. We are in the heart of our training and I certainly don’t have the $2000-$3000 to spend on a short-notice plan ticket to the U.S. Instead, I sat through training in which we learned about OVCs (Orphans and Vulnerable Children). There is an astounding number of Swazi children with only one parent or no parents particularly due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Although, I’m sad I can’t be home, it makes me incredibly thankful I got 23 years of stories, love, and learning from my Nana. I wouldn’t have that perspective if I weren’t in Swaziland so I try to remember that when I’m sad.

Week four was off to a rocky start with the passing of my Nana, but it was a good week for several reasons. I passed my first round of tests in all sorts of topics. We got tested on how to assemble cook stoves and water filters, SiSwati, technical training, medical training, and on and on and on! My SiSwati score wasn’t as high as I had hoped for but I’m trying a lot harder to speak with my host family and do better on the final test.

I FINALLY HAVE A CELLPHONE YAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please please please get Whatsapp if you can. Otherwise I can email and facebook message. Skype isn’t terribly expensive but it does use up my data pretty quickly so I’ll have to save it for special occasions. The single biggest stress reliever for the week is the ability to connect with my family especially after my Nana passed away. Peace Corps was very quick to give me a phone to call home the day I found out but honestly it is way better having my own.

Last but not least, we had an interesting weekend full of randomly organized events. We went to a museum, King Sobhuza II’s Memorial, culture village, a shopping mall, and Sondzela game reserve. Let me start by saying Saturday was more stressful than relaxing. Our first stop was actually a permaculture/premagardening place called Guba. It was beautiful and fascinating. I got to see compost toilets in action. They actually seem cleaner than the pit latrines despite doing your business in a glorified bucket. This was a little way for PC to show us all the gardening techniques they’ve been trying to teach us. Granted they have a lot of hands on deck to do the work. Then we went to the museum. I basically saw the bathroom because we were rushed out to the Memorial where a man was supposed to give us a tour at 10:30. That did not happen…Swazi time is a real problem some days. Instead we got whisked off to Culture Village to see some traditional dances, songs, and beehive huts. I think this was the most interesting mainly in the sense that if you did a colonial village in the states it wouldn’t be the same as the way we live today. I wonder how Swazi culture has changed and why. I have some idea for the obvious reason that I live on a modern homestead, but I’m still not living in “rural” Swaziland. The game reserve was pretty cool but a bit of a letdown because we didn’t get to do a drive. We got there and all the women were in this one massive dorm building with 23 beds. We did finally get to use some showers which was AWESOME of course. Any water that runs itself is a friend by me. The three guys and the two married couples did get to stay in little rondavels. I was just jealous because their beds looked waaaayyy more comfortable. Anywho we ate some uh…wildebeest and other poor animals sausage. So that was adventurous. It then was so hot I felt a bit ill. I came home and rested up the whole afternoon.

This is week five and I can already tell you the most exciting thing that will happen is official site announcements on Saturday! Then next week we get to visit where we will be living for the next two years! Whew no pressure or anything right? I’ve been told I’ll be in the Lumbumbo region with a very small host family with just a Make, a Babe, and a kid.

That’s all I can think of for now but it’s been a tough two weeks. A lot of down moments last week but a lot of up ones this week. For example, I climbed up into the cage where my family keeps the maize (corn) to dry so it can be made into mealie meal (aka corn powder). We were putting the corn into bags so it can be sent through some sort of tractor/machine to separate out the kernels and the cobs. Either way I learned some new SiSwati and braved some NASTY bugs and worms. There is some cockroach/earwig hybrid and man is it gross. Thankfully it moves slowly. Moral of the story here is that I felt like I was really part of the family helping out and talking. That’s the reason I’m here and it’s nice to have some Kodak moments like that to remind me of my ultimate goals. Salani kathe (stay well)!

Two blog in one courtesy of Swazi internet connections...

July 4, 2013

Whew where do I even start?! I left off with kindles and prospective host families so I suppose I’ll start there. Good news is I got my last blog posted only two nights after I wrote it and I got my PC Kindle to connect/register to the internet. There is an overwhelming wealth of information and instruction books that came already loaded on the Kindles. It’s phenomenal the amount of information us trainees (PCTs) are trying to absorb. We have had classes on language, culture, safety, transportation, health, and almost anything else you can think of.

I want to start with my host family because they are amazing and I’m thrilled with my experience so far (which was the main stressor for me in Senegal). On Tuesday, July 2nd each family send one member to eat lunch with their trainee. After lunch we loaded up the khumbis (15 passenger vans…well they say 15 but let’s be honest why not squeeze a few more in?) with all and I MEAN ALL our crap. We had to give up one piece of luggage to be stored at the Country Director’s house for the duration of training and, despite all my whining, thank goodness we did! I didn’t do my research on internal frame backpacks so one piece was 50lbs and the other was ~25lbs when I left. Now it’s probably more like 70/18 because there was no weight limit for the bags. Peace Corps did an amazing job of organizing tubs, stoves, silverware, bedding, pots, pans, plates, etc. and delivering them to each volunteer’s site. Granted the process wasn’t perfect. Some people didn’t have pots because of a supply problem. Poor Babe Mussa (Babe meaning father and Mussa is our training coordinators name) was ready to kick some butt yesterday when he couldn’t get his hands on the correct stuff. I sure did have lots of spoons and zero forks when I showed up but on the whole the staff got us everything we needed. It was organized chaos for this week while we moved in but hopefully us Trainees can find our groove thang soon. I can’t speak for the whole group but MAN I can’t wait until Sunday when I can do laundry, sleep in, and just be still.

SiSwati is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to learn and I’m convinced it’s because my brain is just full. Hopefully, it will get a bit smoother soon as my host family repeats repeats repeats every word and phrase a gazillion times. My host family is my Gogo (grandmother), Mkhulu (grandfather), Babe (father), three sisis (sisters), and three bhutis (brothers). My sisi’s names were hard to learn. The one who traveled from the training center and helped me move is named Thabile. She gave me a SiSwati name of Calile which of course has a click in the beginning of it so that’s nearly impossible for me to say, but hey it’s good practice! There is another sister who told me her name tonight while making dinner but whew I just can’t remember it…the last and smallest of them all is Sisi (yes her name is the same as the word for sister which makes it the easiest to remember). The brothers are Andi, Thando, and Swalithe (I’m not sure how to spell that smallest boy’s name and saying it is almost just as hard). Andi is maybe 16-18, Thando told me he is 10, and Swalithe is four. Thabile and her sister are my age and Sisi is two. It’s truly intriguing to see how similar children are even across cultures. She is just as playful, mischievous, and curious as my niece Genevieve.

So Thabile is my main gal. She’s the one who really makes sure I get where I need to be and helps me learn how to cook. Tonight I cooked with my other sisi because Thabile is in town doing her Gogo’s hair for an event. Thabile runs two hair salons and was a business major at university. I admire her go-get-it attitude and it gives me a great jump-off point for teaching younger Swazi women how to be business women and leaders. It’s hard to say “You can do it!” if you don’t have an example. Her sister (the one I cooked with tonight) wants to go to school for business and economics but hasn’t been able to get any scholarships. She helps at the salons so it’s a learn by doing education. It’s really hard for students to get scholarships to universities in Swaziland but there are three universities and a variety of vocational schools. My whole family speaks English except for Swalithe and Sisi so I feel like I got lucky in that sense. I want to learn SiSwati but I also didn’t feel overwhelmed on day one. I have a small room that’s sandwiched between the one car garage and the house. There is an indoor toilet (a real treat!!) and a pit latrine. We have six pigs (I may have counted wrong) who are MASSIVE. Then there are four dogs and a variety of chickens and highly irritating roosters. When I read all the other PC Swaziland blogs before my trip I was thought surely roosters aren’t that bad right? Wrong…all wrong. Seriously they stand like three feet tall (as tall as Sisi) and are SOOO noisy. The dogs are pretty noisy too but I like dogs better so I’m biased. There are three dogs who run around the property and one on a chain because it’s the “naughty dog” and, based on its freak out last night at me leaving the house, it would eat your face off if it got the chance. The other three are lovely and two of them are a little over a year old. For anyone who knows me, they know I’m in heaven with these pups!

I studied abroad in Senegal for four months and I did not even consider the health risks involved. Our PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) Daynese has basically made us the most paranoid people on earth! Apparently our water could have Schistosomiasis which is a parasite that takes two years to get rid of in the human body…yay. So we either have to let our water sit for three days and let it die or boil it. Now, those of you who worried about my health shouldn’t forget all your worries but seriously we have a three step process for our water. We boil, filter, and then bleach. Yuck. The bleach makes it taste like pool water. I’ve been doing two of the three. I boil everything and then filter it if it’s for drinking/eating and then I bleach anything I do dishes with or bathe in. I’ve also learned that those two months of diarrhea and cramps in Senegal wasn’t just normal “crap”…oops. Here we have ORS (Oral Rehydration Salts) to battle the lost of fluids. I’ve come to realize this may be why my energy level was always a little low in Senegal. Heat definitely played a part in my energy level there but I’m glad we have ORS here. Especially if I get a little shaky and icky feeling. There’s a whole slew of other diseases, parasites, illnesses, ailment, etc. we learned about but I don’t want to cause nightmares. I do have to take a malaria prophylaxis here. So far I did dream but nothing wild and out. Nothing like Malarone dreams my friends in Senegal described. I just wanted to let you all know I have the best health care I’ll ever have. Seriously 24/7 care from the PCMO. If I can’t walk or make it to the office on a bus, PC will pick us up. If we are so ill it can’t wait, we will get airlifted. Honestly, don’t worry parents 

Last but not least, today was Fourth of July. It always makes me incredibly sad not to be sitting front and center behind Hinesburg Community School watching the fireworks with my friends and family. The last two years I was in DC which was a lot of fun but both years I was sad on the Fourth because I wasn’t home. Today we went to the CD’s (Country Director’s) house for hot dogs and hamburgers and potato salad and everything a gal could want! Today I wasn’t sad because I felt the strength of the PC community. There are still some folks from Group 8 who have extended into their third year, there are folks from Group 9 who leave in a week or two, we got to grill Group 10 which has been here one year, and us Group 11 folks got to meet our new family for the next two years. I’m still sad I wasn’t home and I was a little overwhelmed at how much information there still is to learn when I heard stories from Group 10, but considering I cried over Kaylin’s secret note the first night alone in my new hut, I felt a lot less alone in the sense that these people really do care about one another and they have done great things so far. I’m so excited to push through the tough training period and make this experience my own. I cried my first night alone but I wasn’t unhappy to be in Swaziland. I miss you all but I’m enjoying 99.9% of Swaziland so far. Now if only I could get internet to post this blog…. 

Just an fyi – one of the most comforting items so far is my ipod and the external speaker I bought the night before I left VT. So nice to have some background noise in my home when everyone goes to bed at 8pm. Also, my host family is so amazing they gave me a key to the actual house so I can use the indoor bathroom rather than a pot for my potty needs at night. Super duper plus plus.

July 12, 2013

They did say there would be a honeymoon phase when I went abroad to Senegal. I didn’t really get that feeling there but I sure do feel it in Swaziland. Before I explain, I’m still in a great mood and happy to be here. It all started Wednesday when I e-mailed my parents. My dad e-mailed me a big huge list of questions. I didn’t have a lot of time to write back because there were a bunch of other volunteers waiting to get on the internet. Our router can only handle four people at a time at its best…and it’s never at its best. Either way I got my e-mails out and then tried to post my July 4th blog. Blogspot.com wouldn’t even load over a 5-10 minutes span and I tried to reload it over and over. I got super frustrated and for some reason just crashed. All of a sudden I was homesick, pissed off, and just generally wished I had a phone so I could call someone or they could call me from home. I thought I shook it off and that day a group of PCVs had made us a ton of delicious, familiar food to eat. I went up and of course our PCMO, Daynese, asked if I was okay and I couldn’t help it. I cried. Funny enough during our discussion I said to Day “I’m a healthy and happy volunteer for the most part, I’m just frustrated I can’t communicate with people at home.” WHEW did I jinx myself. What an idiot.

Part two to this blog. Don’t continue reading if you have a weak stomach (you had fair warning). Wednesday night after all that delicious food the other PCVs made us I had diarrhea like you wouldn’t believe. It wasn’t just diarrhea once in a while. After eating dinner with my host family, I thought I was just having a little bout of diarrhea. Today is day two, night three of that. I went to the bathroom about six times Wednesday night. Not fun. I tried to figure out what I did wrong and I think part of it is that my host family ran out of water this past weekend. Usually we have a tap that brings water off the mountain, but for some reason it stopped working Saturday night and didn’t start working again until Tuesday morning. Saturday morning of course I thought it was a great idea to soak my laundry while I was at class. Low and behold, I come home to no water. So I used a lot of my filtered/boiled water on my laundry hoping the water would come back soon. No luck chuck. That also happened to be the night my host sister, Thabile, bought five chickens to slaughter. With no extra water. See where this is going? I tried to wash my hands and make sure all the water used for dinner was boiled and I tried to be as hands off with the chicken preparation as possible, but it’s too hard to keep track of all these things. Eventually I think something yucky made it into my food or water. I lost the battle but not the war.

Today was much better. We have five language groups and each group had to try and cook a Swazi meal but in a slightly healthier way. They use a lot of salt in their meals and something called Aromat which is basically straight up MSG. Yummmyyy! They also serve huge portions of rice and barely any vegetables. So my group cooked beans with onion, rice, patata (which is like a white sweet potato type deal) mashed up, coleslaw, and sautéed cabbage because we just had so much cabbage we had to do something with it. It was really delicious so I couldn’t resist. I ate a bunch and it seems like my stomach only tossed about half of it. Last night after dinner my host family served Coke. Let’s be clear about one thing: soda is my kryptonite. In my heart of hearts I knew I should just avoid the caffeine because it’s a diuretic, but I just couldn’t resist. This resulted in a run to the bathroom about 15 minutes after dinner. Sad but true. Today I ate a ton at lunch and did much better. Hopefully I’m on the upswing from whatever made its way through my intestines. Also, thank god/allah/or whoever you pray to that we have an indoor toilet. Six trips to the latrine at night may have caused heart failure and pneumonia from the amount of time I’d have to spend in the cold.

Rolling back a little bit to last weekend (when we ran out of water). We had a birthday go-to-town day on Sunday for Matt. His wife Caila put together a trip to Riverstone Mall in Manzini. It was nice for us all to get out for a while and feel a little taste of freedom. We also got a nice taste of BURGERS!!! We ate at a place called Wimpy’s. I’m told it’s a chain in the UK as well as down here? Someone else would have to verify that since Google and I broke up when I had to leave the U.S. All weekend my host family was gone to South Africa to visit family. It was just Thabile, Andile, and the three little tykes who were around for the weekend. Andile, the 17 year old bhuti (brother), totally took advantage of this as all teenagers do and blasted his American hip-hop and R&B as loud as he could. I enjoyed it because it was all music I liked from home and I didn’t have to waste my iPod battery listening to it  All in all it was a good weekend which lead to an interesting week.

This week was all about gardening and nutrition. There are a lot of spice and vegetables Volunteers can grow for the sake of availability and expenses. I totally have a black thumb but I’m more than willing to give it the old college try if I can have fresh basil, cucumbers, etc. We learned a technique called permagardening which uses double-digging to allow roots to stretch down rather than out. We also learned how to compost as a way to supplement even the hardest soils. It’s a great concept and, to everyone at home who has had a hard time gardening, I highly suggest you do some research. This will probably be my favorite week because I love food. On Sunday, we get to cook anything we can muster up with 150 emalangeni. That’s about $15 for those of you who were curious. It gets you a lot further than you think. We were able to feed about 12 or 15 people with our Swazi meal using that amount of money. Granted it has less fancy ingredients than what our group is going to try for Sunday. I’ll get back to you on how it ends up…although don’t expect it to be soon. As you may have seen this because a double entry blog since I wasn’t able to post my fourth of July blog. Don’t fret about my health. I’m happy and keeping myself healthy despite my umsheko (diarrhea in SiSwati) days. Sorry if you posted questions I haven’t gotten to see them yet. I know my dad e-mailed me a big list and everyone is welcome to do the same. When I get a cellphone and a SIM card on July 26th I’ll have much more real contact with everyone through email and whatsapp. Until then it will have to be through rushed emails and overly thunk blogs.

Arrival, Internet Challenges, and Clarifications

I made it to Swaziland! I have so much to tell everyone and I’m sure you all have questions. First off, no pictures yet and the internet is really, really, rreeallllyyyy slow.

So on Wednesday (June 26th), 34 volunteers woke up bright and early at 2am to bus our butts from Philadelphia to JFK airport in New York City. Some of you may be wondering why PC goes through all that trouble. It was basically cheaper and safer than conference services in NYC. We made it to the airport at 6am just in time to wait an hour and a half for the South African Air desk to open and to go through security. Unfortunately, my brother had already cut off my cell phone service and wi-fi wasn’t free. No internet state-side or in Swaziland! Whew talk about separation anxiety  The flight was 14 hours….yes foooouuur-teeeennnnn. Luckily we escaped the ten hour bus ride and took a 45 minute flight to Manzini, Swaziland instead. If you thought flights out of Burlington used small planes, you haven’t seen this dinky plane. It was three seats across and four of us had to move from the back to the front for “weight balance.” It was concerning to say in the least but it all worked out in the end.

We arrived at Matsapha airport in Swaziland which consists of on building and four hangars. As you can imagine, it wasn’t difficult to find the two PC staff members when we arrived. All my luggage arrived with our plane AND intact (except for a little shampoo explosion that escaped the plastic bags it was contained in). Only two volunteers had issues with luggage and luckily they had their belongings by the following day. Where the heck was that kind of service when I suffered three days in Senegal with no clothing?! I was thrilled I had everything and we had an amazing greeting crew made up of current Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs). They helped us load up and take the 20 minute bus ride to our training center. For the sake of safety, I’m not going to post the name of our training center but it’s in the Manzini area if you care to Google Map our surroundings. It’s really beautiful with mountains all around. I’ll get pictures as soon as I can but it’s been a bit foggy lately so that would be a waste of internet posting efforts honestly.

The training center is like summer camp as one volunteer adeptly described it. We live in dorm like “hostels” with two beds and two desks per room. We have a shower! YAY for running, hot water! It’s a gated campus with these hostels and several training buildings. So for my parents who are undoubtedly reading this, I’m safe I promise. When we arrived on Thursday (yep 20 hours of travel time if you add the six hour time difference), we got the quick tour and a little bit of logistics stuff out of the way. Nothing too noteworthy. Plus I’m too tired to remember all of that because I cannot sleep on planes. I knew I should have taken something to sleep…

Day two we got to sleep in a bit. Breakfast at 8am and classes at 9am. What I mean by class is orientation really. We met the staff, signed documents for our bank, got photos taken for our IDs, put down deposits for packages, etc. It was basically like herding cats. We also had medical interviews to discuss our medications, immunizations, vaccinations, yada yada yada. Unfortunatley, I had to get typhoid again. Who knew it expires every two years dang! The staff has been amazing this far. It’s easy to find material bashing PC because they are bureaucratic, disorganized, etc. but I have found the staff in Swaziland to be extremely helpful and understanding. PC varies by country because here they have one group per year of about 35-40 volunteers. In other countries, they may have two or three groups arrive in one year of over 100 volunteers, so keep that in mind if there are any prospective PCVs reading this.

Day three was the most exciting so far in terms of logistics. We got to meet our language trainers for SiSwati classes. This is important because we will be living and working closely with our LCFs (Language and Cultural Facilitators) all throughout training. On Tuesday, we move out to two different villages for the remainder of PST (Pre-Service Training). One village has the Health volunteers and the other has the Youth Development Volunteers. We attend training Monday-Saturday 8am-5pm. People who think PC is an easy replacement for a normal job in the U.S. should seriously reconsider joining. We also got Kindles to hold all our training materials. We are the third PC site to try this and so far it’s not going super well since the internet is kind of down…possibly.

For anyone who didn’t catch this while I was home, I am a Youth Development volunteer. We get more specific training as we move forward, but honestly there is a ton of overlap between the two programs because the focus on HIV/AIDS is so essential. The statistics I read before I left the U.S. said Swaziland had an HIV/AIDS prevalence of 26%. Sadly more recent statistics seem to show 31% prevalence. Prevalence vs. incidence is important to understand. Prevalence is the population living with the HIV/AIDS virus and incidence is the number of new cases in a particular span of time. One of the main goals of PC in Swaziland is to effectively change behavior (not culture) to improve the health of the Swazi population and improve HIV/AIDS awareness/prevention. As our country director said today, Swaziland is an easy PC post on the surface because transportation is fairly reliable; there are grocery stores and normal commodities; and, the country is fairly small so it’s easy to get most places. On the flip side, it is a very difficult post emotionally because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. There is an incredibly large population of single and double orphans (one or two parents have died) which makes our post with Youth Development especially difficult and rewarding for many reasons. We are also warned that it is entirely possible for one of our counterparts or close community friends to die while we are here. That provides a whole new set of challenges.

Moving back to the happy stuff, the group we have here is great. We are now a group of 33 since one person decided PC wasn’t the right fit. Unfortunate but not unusual from what we were told. We now have 5 men and 28 women separated pretty evenly between the two programs. I can’t wait to start training in the village. More importantly, it’ll feel so nice to UNPACK and let loose! Wohoo!! Living out a bag has been rather irritating but hey at least my bags made it. We had heat in our dorm room using this ceramic wall hanging thing but then our outlets stopped working so that’s kind of a bummer because it is actually cold here. I mean I was prepared for cold but 64 degrees at all times with no heat has kept me a little colder than I expected.

That’s all for now and I’m sure there are still many questions so feel free to post them. I don’t know when I’ll get to them but we have a signup sheet so we don’t overload our poor little router. I have a time slot tomorrow as well but let’s face it the internet could go down at any time. Look out for a post hopefully next week at some point about the 4th of July celebration we get to have at the country director’s house and news about my first host family.

Packing and Staging

Well I'm assuming from the spike in "views" on my blog page that it means people found my blog. That's a plus and I'm glad you're all on board!

So here's what I've been doing since I left Vermont on Saturday.

On Saturday afternoon, I flew out to Philly to meet up with some lovely Wells ladies. Kaylin, Hannah, and I went to the park on Sunday by boathouse row and chilled in the sun. So I got a little roasty-toasty before my trip. And yes that means sunburtn...oops... We saw the most ADORABLE family throwing a birthday party for their massive Great Dane puppy. Talk about jealous! Monday Kaylin and I walked around Philly and got some delicious drinks and food. I've been eating everything in sight. I'm definitely going to miss pizza, shredded cheese, and microwaveable food.

Tuesday has come and gone as I write! Kaylin dropped me off after a fun night with some cool City Year alums. I was nervous getting into the hotel and definitely felt like spilling the beans on the sidewalk, but I got here before my roommate so I was able to go get some Chipolte (heck yes guacamole and cheese!!). Who isn't a little happier and braver with a full stomach? We registered, sat for what seemed like no time at all in the room, and then it was back to the conference room. The training session was pretty basic but for the love of ....it took forever! I had the attention span of a fish and it was really hard not to just chat with everyone about their life.

So you'll probably ask what our group looks like. There are two married couples, a few Californians, more midwest folks than I imagined, and a good handful of New Englanders. We all got to run through some scenarios of awkward and difficult situations. Of course, my group got the religion situation. As I don't generally practice any particular religion, this will actually be an issue for me in Swaziland I imagine. It's not that Senegalese people tried to push any religious beliefs on me when I studied abroad, but the concept of atheism or agnosticism is really difficult to explain. Luckily Swaziland speaks English rather than French. Why I ever studied French is still beyond me. I have no use for it....seriously so much struggle over a useless language.

Speaking of language, no pun intended tehehe, I'm super stoked to learn SiSwati. We were sent audio files and a PDF to learn from but in my experience sassy pre-teens and curious children are the most effective and blunt way to learn you f***ed up what you were trying to say. They have no shame and hopefully us Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) won't either. It's a learning process for both parties involved.

The next steps have been a little irritating to explain over and over again but I'm thrilled people are so excited for me. Keep up the questions!! It may drive me a little crazy to repeat myself but a huge goal for Peace Corps is to foster understanding of you culture among the U.S. community as well so hey the more you ask the more I can help that process along.

Step 1: Staging (this is what we did today in Philadelphia)
Step 2: Pre-Service Training (or PST because everything in PC has an acronym). This is three months (well really until August 29th for our group) of intense language, culture, and technical training to really get us volunteers up to snuff. This should cut the learning curve a little and hopefully it gives us the tools to effectively implement projects in our host community. During this time we live with a host family so we can learn to cook, do laundry, live without the lovely U.S. amenitites we are typically spoiled with (oh microwave....how much I will miss you). The Swearing In ceremony on August 29th is a huge deal. It means we passed our language tests and that we are ready to venture off alone. That's right I said alone.

Step 3: At this point in the process, and in the last week, I think I have been asked this question by every single family member and friend as I said my goodbyes. Will I be alone in my community? Sure will be! Swaziland is slightly smaller than New Jersey and has a population of approx. one million so lets not get carried away. It's not like there's no one around at all. Actually that's one of the advantages of being in Swaziland. It's small enough that other volunteers don't ever seem worlds away. Imagine being in China. Holy wow would that be a lot of traveling. So yes I'm alone but there's a really good reason for that. It's easy to lean on your good ol' American friends when the going gets rough, and if you've ever been on the outside of a group looking it, that can make it difficult for host country nationals (HCNs) to feel included. It becomes so easy to just coast rather than to really push yourself and integrate. At least that's my opinion from my study abroad trip. It's nice to have people around who understand what you're going through, but PC is really about pushing yourself to be a part of a whole new community for their benefit and yours. Then it's two years, lots of tears, possibly some illness, and many other hurdles and handshakes.

Well I leave y'all to ponder that stuff for now. Like I said if you have questions feel free to ask. This is the final blog posted stateside so my posts will probably be really random and come in large chunks rather than a smooth stream. Training is intense and time consuming so family and friends be warned it may feel like I fell off the face of the planet. Also, a final note for everyone that our training really helped me with today. A lot of times it's difficult to understand how to support someone in a time of depression and need. There will no doubt be days I cry, whine, and prepare to bail out. Remind me that I've wanted to do this since high school and that it's an amazing experience. Rule #3: Suck it up.(rules 1 and 2 were way less interesting don't worry).

New title and new adventures

Imagine me shouting and dancing as I say this - I have received my invitation from the Peace Corps!!! This means two things: I have a future and more paperwork.

I will be a Youth Development volunteer in Swaziland. I leave June 25th, 2013 to begin step number one on my adventure. Staging is the first step where all volunteers meet state side. Peace Corps helps us wrap up any loose ends with paperwork and immunizations. Then we ship out to pre-service training in Swaziland. This is a three month crash course in language, cooking, and culture. Officially, my two years of service will start August 30, 2013 if the dates don't change.

In the meantimes I have a couple appointments with the doctor and the dentist. All the check ups and records are somewhat annoying but I guess it's important to know volunteers are healthy before hitting the road. Thankfully, I already got vaccinated for Yellow Fever! One down, many records to prove.

If you're interested in learning about what volunteers do in Swaziland and what it's like to live there, this is a link to the Peace Corps Swaziland website which has videos and information.
http://swaziland.peacecorps.gov/