Hey kids, I can't do a full update but I at least wanted to leave my newest address and let you know that I'm doing well. I'm becoming used to life here in Zambia and really enjoy the work. I've got my full health, what seems to be a great program I'm working with, and one burly beard. Jess, have you been getting my letters? I move out to my ( Read more... )

Ok kids
I'm off like bug spray.

Do you remember the game "dead arm?" Dead arm is one of those games little boys, and I'm sure some girls, play to prove how tough they can be. The game is played where two stupid people stand opposite one another and take turns punching each other in the arm until one cries "mercy," and the winner raises one arm in victory (only one arm because ( Read more... )

I've left Missouri and I'm only a temporary visitor to New York. Let's go to Africa for a couple years. Ok?

List of things that must be done (part 2):

Finish and give senior research presentation (went fantastically, PhD Defense here I come)
Do group co-facilitation project
Pack (603 Apartment A is empty and unoccupied)
Graduate (Happy ( Read more... )

The time is 3:50am and I am dreaming about my orientation (staging) in philadelphia. I'm sitting in a room with the 19 other members of my team. We each have an identical bag, an Osprey Waypoint 60, the bag I bought last week. Everyone is emptying the contents of his or her bag and checking to see if everyone has the same things. I have ( Read more... )

Bats, black mambas, foot long milipedes, spitting cobras, scorpians, giant cockroaches, monitor lizards, spiders of various size and consequence. And thats just in my hut.
Man, this is going to be great.

I'm almost done with the bulk of this school stuff. My departure date has been moved up a day. I leave the 22nd now.

That panicked feeling that resides in the back of throats, the base of spines, and the pit of stomachs has set up camp in my body. It is as though my body is aware of the impending doom that is poised to pounce on my exhausted frame if for one minute I allow myself to become waylaid by the future prospect of finishing school. It is at this point ( Read more... )

"Using HIV/AIDS emergency plan funding, Peace Corps/Zambia is developing and implementing a new project focusing on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention. Twenty trainees will be invited to join the LIFE training program in May 2005, becoming the first full-cycle Volunteers to participate in this project. The program, delivered at the district and ( Read more... )

very soon i will be traversing oceans and settling in somewhere i've never been. in proper nature with the generations before me bent on humanitarian work and self discovery, i have joined the peace corps. i will be doing HIV/AIDS prevention and education in africa. i am leaving, tentatively, may 23rd. i hope to get a chance here or there to ( Read more... )

This morning I was awakened by a man in a crane seven feet outside my second story bedroom window with a chainsaw cutting down the tree in my front yard. He was supposed to be there, but it was startling nonetheless. One of the trees in my yard is dead and considering the amount of rain we have had this fall, it had begun to shed 25 pound ( Read more... )