The First Post

Hiyya! I have never had a blog before so this is kinda a practice post. I am using this space to document and describe my adventures I have while taking on this wild journey of becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer. So here we are, about a month and a half before I leave, and feeling every emotion. woohoo

I am very excited to start this endeavor and i am also super anxious, along with everything else on the emotional spectrum. So just to get my barring lets state some facts, most of them are typical peace corps facts and some of them are known knowledge but this is how i am coping with my uncertainty of what i am doing for the next 27 months.

This will be the longest I will be living away from home. My university was a two hour drive away from my hometown so I came home when I needed and wanted to. I have had the fortune of studying abroad before for two months, and until now that was the farthest and longest I have been away from my family and friends. However I got through that, and keeping contact is super easy now, exhibit A; I have a blog.

Fact number two; Senegal is hot. I am not a hot weather person. I would much rather live in cold with a nice cup of tea, watching the rain pour, with a blanket and a book. That is not really what I am heading into at the moment. So yes, there are a lot of things I am looking forward to but when someone asks what I am I most nervous about it is not the language, isolation, or the hard work, it is the heat. I am already missing the cold weather and my rain coats and my scarfs... oh the scarfs...

This is something I have been wanting to do for a big part of my life. I learned about Peace Corps at a young age and it peaked my interest to do a service away from home and learn from the world. I got my interest for health in high school and progressed through college. However I wanted to look at a global perspective, and thus Peace Corps became a solid backing of my future plan.

After a few feminists activism gatherings, indigenous rights walks, and some hard truths about white savior-ism we got to here; about 40 days before I get on a plane to Philadelphia and then another one to Senegal. Oh my.

For now I am bundling up in my beautiful scarfs and getting splashed on by rain. collecting book, tv, and movie suggestions. Snow is predicted upon the horizon and I will be packing that in my suitcase... I think it will fit.