A Long Strange Trip

So for the last two weeks I have been away from home visiting my future post/school. The first three months or so I’ve been living in Porto-Novo for training, but for two weeks in the middle of it they send us up to our posts so we can kind of Read more

Schedule and Salutations

Things seem to be settling into a fairly normal and predictable pattern here. I wake up at about 7 every morning and take a bucket bath, then I kind of dink around for a little bit until my breakfast is ready. Breakfast is the same thing everyday, two eggs scrambled Read more

Site Announcement

This is the big week, the Peace Corps told all of the incoming volunteers where are posts are going to be stationed for the next two years. So for now, during training, I’ve been living in Porto-Novo, the capital (sort of) of Benin, and it is for the most part Read more

Tissu Addict

My life revolves around clothes. Specifically finding the loudest patterns I can and bringing them to my tailor. Last weekend, after I found out I had 10,000 more CFAs then I thought I did, I went to the grande marche on a tissu hunt with my friends Ron, Sarah and Read more

My Gentle Tailor

Not a whole lot of exciting things have happened in the last week, although I have been able to pinpoint what Benin smells like. I would describe the general smell of Porto Novo as state fair animal barns with just a hint of middle school locker room. For the most Read more

Settling In

So finding the enough time and a stable enough internet connection has been more difficult than I thought, but I believe I have found the fastest internet connection in the country (it loads pages in like 30 seconds rather than ( minutes), so I finally have a chance to give Read more

Je Suis La

Hello! The last week or so has been fairly busy so sorry I haven’t been able to really give any updates. I just got to an internet cafe for the first time and the internet connection is like at least dial up slow, so this will probably be a short Read more

And Away We Go

So tomorrow is the day. I leave bright and early and should be in Philadelphia a little before noon, where everyone that is going over to Benin is meeting up. All together there should be a little under 60 people. We have staging tomorrow night, but that should only take Read more

Packing

So as I get ready to leave this week, there is really only one thing left to do: finish packing. Now trying to figure out what exactly I’ll need for two years in Africa is not the easiest task, and while the Peace Corps has given suggestions, I’ve taken them Read more

Timeline

So I figured it might be useful to give a timeline of my Peace Corps application process, that way if anyone is thinking about applying they can see how long it took. Also it’ll just bring everyone up to date on my Peace Corps experiences. I’m not going to try Read more