Attitude of Gratitude
I have many thanks to extend. First to my Mom for throwing me an amazing surprise going away party! I don't know how she managed to get it all done and not have me find out, probably because my mind is in about 1000 places right now. Also, thank you to my sister, aunt, Dad, and stepmom for their help. And to all of the people who showed up from near and far. I feel that I am going to Kenya very loved, so asante sana! Big thank you to my BFF from middle school who flew six months preggo to see me off and stayed up until 3am helping me pack. She is a RPCV in Dominican Republic and she made me halve my clothes and take about 1/4 of everything else. She also told me pretty bluntly that I will need to take my hygiene down a couple of notches because I had a suitcase full of wipes, soap and deodorant. I'm sure my back will thank her again as I lug all of my bags through Kenya. :-) And of course, thanks to you, my readers, who overlap a lot with the aforementioned group but nevertheless I thank you for your words of encouragement, prayers, and just for reading.
Logistics
Tomorrow I leave for Philly where I will meet the other wonderful volunteers. We have an orientation of sorts and then Tuesday we take a bus to JFK and say kwa heri Mmarekeni! I'm not sure about flight logistics but we arrive in Kenya on Tuesday, I believe. Then I will start training, which will continue until July 22. During this time I will be living with a host family and learning all I can about Kenyan culture, KiSwahili, and technical training. At the end of July, inshallah, I will be sworn in as an official volunteer and go to my site where I will be living for the next two years. That is pretty much all that I know. Here's what I don't know: availability of electricity, availability of Internet access, what exactly my job role will be, where exactly in Kenya I will be living, and probably any other question you might have. Hopefully I will have better answers in the coming weeks but I don't know how I will be able to communicate things to you all. Stay tuned though!
Mailing address
One other thing I know is how you can all get in touch with me: snail mail!!! My address during training will be:
Megan Browder, Peace Corps Trainee
P.O. Box 698-00621
Village Market
Nairobi, Kenya
If you and I will be frequent pen pals, they do suggest that you number your letters so I will know if one got lost. If you choose to send a package, please don't send anything that is expensive, the chances of it not making it or me having to pay a hefty "duty" on it are pretty high. PC recommends using a padded envelope rather than a box (less conspicuous I think). When I get to site I will have a new address but you can also use the above address throughout my service.
Ok, now that I have written this blog post I have 99 things left to do so I'm going to get on that. I probably will not have internet access while in training so if you don't hear from me, don't assume the worst. Enjoy the summer everyone!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Naenda Kenya!
I think that means, "I'm going to Kenya" in Kiswahili but don't hold me to it! The last couple of weeks I was in Morocco and during my time in Egypt and Jordan, there was something else very important going on behind the scenes: I got my invite for the Peace Corps!!! For those who may not understand how excited this made me, here's a time line of my Peace Corps process:
-September/October 2008: Decide to take my life and career in the direction of economic development and proceed to gather as much information possible about how to make that happen.
-November 2008: Let the idea of Peace Corps settle into my brain as a (relatively) safe way to accomplish the social, professional, personal and spiritual goals I had set for myself. Begin the application.
-December 2008: Talk over my decision with my family while I was home for Christmas break. Some family members visibly unhappy, some I know are unhappy but will support me no matter what, some are unconditionally supportive!
-January 2009: Finish my application and submit it on Inauguration Day. Take this as a good omen.
- Early February 2009: Have my interview in NYC
- February- April 2009: wait. wait. wait.
-May 2009: Receive my nomination for business advising... slated to leave in JUNE 2010. Start completing all of the medical paperwork while I still have insurance.
-June 2009: Quit my job even though PC explicitly tells you: "There are also other factors such as programs filling, changing or canceling that affect placement. For these reasons, we do not recommend that you make any major commitments or changes – such as moving or leaving your job – unless you have been offered an invitation." Decide to take a chance on myself and spend the year in service.
-July-September 2009: Obsessively check my email and toolkit for signs that the PC still remembers me. Stalk current PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) blogs to make waiting bearable.
-September 2009: Get a letter that there are some problems with my physical and go to the doctor 4x in the next month to get that taken care of.
-November 2009: Medically cleared!
-January 2010: Send in an (unsolicited) updated resume. Resume blog-stalking.
- Early March 2010: Get an email from my PO (placement officer) asking for updated information and a business addendum. Spend the rest of the month freaking out because my program in Morocco ends in April and I'm not sure where to go if I haven't yet received my invitation. Almost cry in the parking lot of Acima when someone innocently asks what I'll be doing/ where I'll be going in two weeks when I leave Morocco.
-April 2, 2010: Laying in bed at 1AM and cannot sleep. Decide on a whim to check my toolkit, which I think is pointless because they always send you an email anytime anything changes. Think I am hallucinating from lack of sleep when my "candidate toolkit" has changed to "Invitee Toolkit". Gasp, OMG! even though everyone in my room is asleep. I woke up Ayah and we giggled over the news. Proceed to call my mom 500 times so she can see if the infamous blue envelope came. It didn't :-(.
-April 5, 2010: Call my PO and explain to her that I know she is not allowed to tell me my invitation over the phone, but can she pretty please email it to me because I'm in Morocco and I'm leaving at the end of the week and I know there are some things that are time sensitive. She emails me and I see that it is KENYA! I also see that I need to get some special passport that usually requires you to send in your current passport. However, since I am abroad and obviously need my passport I have to go to the embassy and fill out the paperwork then FedEx it back to the States in three business days. Run to the embassy in Rabat only to find out in Morocco all citizen passport services are done at the consulate. In Casablanca.
-April 6, 2010: The invite package finally came to my mom's house in Ohio! But now I need to get it to Morocco by April 9th so that I can begin filling out some of the immediate paperwork (passport, visa, aspiration statement, etc). Am reminded I have the best Mom ever who went early to UPS to rush mail it to me! Run (literally) after class to the train station to get to Casablanca in time to go to the consulate (in the afternoon the are only open from 1-3).
-April 9, 2010: Get a phone call from Mohammed that my invite package arrived in Morocco! It would have been a major problem if it didn't because I was leaving for Egypt the next day.
And there you have it folks, my PC story before the story even begins. Oh and it's not over yet. Now I am an "invitee". In a couple of weeks, I will be a "trainee" inshallah. If all goes well, I will be sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer in July! Needless to say, I was very excited to get my invite. I had never waited this long for anything. I applied early decision to Columbia, so I found out before Christmas. I had to wait a week to find out I had gotten my job on Wall Street. For a person with little patience, this year and a half wait was certainly a lesson. Now I at least have a country to work with. And a real job description! I will be doing small enterprise development, which could manifest itself in a number of different ways. According to the job description they sent me, my main duties will be to assist:
* Entrepreneurs individually and in groups make better choices of businesses apply better strategy and position, operate, and manage those businesses better;
* NGOs and other entities providing services to small businesses to organize themselves better and offer better support to entrepreneurs;
* Organizations providing social services to operate in a more businesslike manner and work towards financial independence;
* Entrepreneurs and entities providing business services to them apply modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) to increase their productivity in business and in life.
Ok, this post is getting quite long so I will leave off here and write more later. One last thing though. Before I had my invitation I had planned to travel around the Mediterranean coast for about a month. When I tried to change my ticket with Air France, though, the dates kept moving as to when they had an open seat. Finally they had a seat open for May 23rd. I went down to the office and they couldn't book it so she gave me the customer number. I run back to the house and try to call but I ran out of cell phone minutes. Then, I went to the Acima and used the payphone but I couldn't stay on the phone long because we were supposed to be leaving on the bus to Chefchaouen in a few minutes. I finally get someone on the phone and they tell me the seat is no longer available. The next week I call Air France back twice and every time something different kept me from changing my ticket past April 22nd. Two days after I changed my ticket to April 22nd I got my invitation saying I was leaving MAY 24th! All that to say, God is watching out and, if we would stop being so stubborn, He really tries to tell us when we are making a mistake and when we are going in the right direction. :-)
-September/October 2008: Decide to take my life and career in the direction of economic development and proceed to gather as much information possible about how to make that happen.
-November 2008: Let the idea of Peace Corps settle into my brain as a (relatively) safe way to accomplish the social, professional, personal and spiritual goals I had set for myself. Begin the application.
-December 2008: Talk over my decision with my family while I was home for Christmas break. Some family members visibly unhappy, some I know are unhappy but will support me no matter what, some are unconditionally supportive!
-January 2009: Finish my application and submit it on Inauguration Day. Take this as a good omen.
- Early February 2009: Have my interview in NYC
- February- April 2009: wait. wait. wait.
-May 2009: Receive my nomination for business advising... slated to leave in JUNE 2010. Start completing all of the medical paperwork while I still have insurance.
-June 2009: Quit my job even though PC explicitly tells you: "There are also other factors such as programs filling, changing or canceling that affect placement. For these reasons, we do not recommend that you make any major commitments or changes – such as moving or leaving your job – unless you have been offered an invitation." Decide to take a chance on myself and spend the year in service.
-July-September 2009: Obsessively check my email and toolkit for signs that the PC still remembers me. Stalk current PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) blogs to make waiting bearable.
-September 2009: Get a letter that there are some problems with my physical and go to the doctor 4x in the next month to get that taken care of.
-November 2009: Medically cleared!
-January 2010: Send in an (unsolicited) updated resume. Resume blog-stalking.
- Early March 2010: Get an email from my PO (placement officer) asking for updated information and a business addendum. Spend the rest of the month freaking out because my program in Morocco ends in April and I'm not sure where to go if I haven't yet received my invitation. Almost cry in the parking lot of Acima when someone innocently asks what I'll be doing/ where I'll be going in two weeks when I leave Morocco.
-April 2, 2010: Laying in bed at 1AM and cannot sleep. Decide on a whim to check my toolkit, which I think is pointless because they always send you an email anytime anything changes. Think I am hallucinating from lack of sleep when my "candidate toolkit" has changed to "Invitee Toolkit". Gasp, OMG! even though everyone in my room is asleep. I woke up Ayah and we giggled over the news. Proceed to call my mom 500 times so she can see if the infamous blue envelope came. It didn't :-(.
-April 5, 2010: Call my PO and explain to her that I know she is not allowed to tell me my invitation over the phone, but can she pretty please email it to me because I'm in Morocco and I'm leaving at the end of the week and I know there are some things that are time sensitive. She emails me and I see that it is KENYA! I also see that I need to get some special passport that usually requires you to send in your current passport. However, since I am abroad and obviously need my passport I have to go to the embassy and fill out the paperwork then FedEx it back to the States in three business days. Run to the embassy in Rabat only to find out in Morocco all citizen passport services are done at the consulate. In Casablanca.
-April 6, 2010: The invite package finally came to my mom's house in Ohio! But now I need to get it to Morocco by April 9th so that I can begin filling out some of the immediate paperwork (passport, visa, aspiration statement, etc). Am reminded I have the best Mom ever who went early to UPS to rush mail it to me! Run (literally) after class to the train station to get to Casablanca in time to go to the consulate (in the afternoon the are only open from 1-3).
-April 9, 2010: Get a phone call from Mohammed that my invite package arrived in Morocco! It would have been a major problem if it didn't because I was leaving for Egypt the next day.
And there you have it folks, my PC story before the story even begins. Oh and it's not over yet. Now I am an "invitee". In a couple of weeks, I will be a "trainee" inshallah. If all goes well, I will be sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer in July! Needless to say, I was very excited to get my invite. I had never waited this long for anything. I applied early decision to Columbia, so I found out before Christmas. I had to wait a week to find out I had gotten my job on Wall Street. For a person with little patience, this year and a half wait was certainly a lesson. Now I at least have a country to work with. And a real job description! I will be doing small enterprise development, which could manifest itself in a number of different ways. According to the job description they sent me, my main duties will be to assist:
* Entrepreneurs individually and in groups make better choices of businesses apply better strategy and position, operate, and manage those businesses better;
* NGOs and other entities providing services to small businesses to organize themselves better and offer better support to entrepreneurs;
* Organizations providing social services to operate in a more businesslike manner and work towards financial independence;
* Entrepreneurs and entities providing business services to them apply modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) to increase their productivity in business and in life.
Ok, this post is getting quite long so I will leave off here and write more later. One last thing though. Before I had my invitation I had planned to travel around the Mediterranean coast for about a month. When I tried to change my ticket with Air France, though, the dates kept moving as to when they had an open seat. Finally they had a seat open for May 23rd. I went down to the office and they couldn't book it so she gave me the customer number. I run back to the house and try to call but I ran out of cell phone minutes. Then, I went to the Acima and used the payphone but I couldn't stay on the phone long because we were supposed to be leaving on the bus to Chefchaouen in a few minutes. I finally get someone on the phone and they tell me the seat is no longer available. The next week I call Air France back twice and every time something different kept me from changing my ticket past April 22nd. Two days after I changed my ticket to April 22nd I got my invitation saying I was leaving MAY 24th! All that to say, God is watching out and, if we would stop being so stubborn, He really tries to tell us when we are making a mistake and when we are going in the right direction. :-)
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