As usual, I am terrified to leave for the next step in my Peace Corps journey. At this point, I am aware the the terror I am feeling is part of a pattern and that everything always works out even better than I could imagine. Trying to remember that as I pack my bags and say goodbye to my friends for who knows how long to live in a remote and foreign village.
Tomorrow I leave in a sept place (post about transportation coming soon) with the other volunteers from my region and all of our belongings. I will stay for a day at the Peace Corps regional house in Ourossogui and buy all of the items I will need in my new home, and then the next day I will be dropped off in my village. I can't believe this is happening so fast, but I guess I'm ready.
Once I am in village I can come and go as I please, though volunteers are encouraged to stay in our sites for five weeks ("the five week challenge") to work on acclimation. The regional house (an apartment for volunteers in the area to sleep, socialize, and work) has internet, so hopefully I will come into the city for the luxuries of electricity, running water and internet every now and then. (I will not be participating in the five week challenge because I will be visiting my volunteer friend Lindsay for her birthday in three weeks.)
For the first three months in our permanent sites we are supposed to just work on getting to know the community and getting better at speaking our language. In August, we go back to Thies for a two week technical training, a more in-depth look at solutions for the problems we have now identified in our sites.
After that, Im pretty much on my own. I will by then have a list of projects and I will go about doing those projects for the next year and nine months, punctuated only by various holidays and volunteer social events. Wish me luck!
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