5 weeks to takeoff

Wow, time flies. I'm leaving for Nicaragua in 5 weeks. I'm posting my mailing address below. This address will only be valid for the first three months (September 2010 - end of November 2010), while I'm in training. After that, I'll post a new address when I move to my site.

Jessica (my last name), PCT
Voluntario del Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 3256
Managua, Nicaragua
Central America

Letters are especially appreciated during the stressful months of training!
If and when I have internet access, I'll update my blog and post photos on Flickr.

another slightly nostalgic entry about Guinea

It was a year ago today that I said my tearful goodbyes at the airport and flew to my Peace Corps Guinea staging in Philadelphia. (See entry for June 5, 2009) I would have never imagined what was to come. (See subsequent entries on evacuation, etc..)

Life is funny and unpredictable. I would have never thought that a year later I'd be back in Phoenix, waiting to embark on a new assignment in Nicaragua (leaving in 56 days!) I am filled with awe and gratitude for all of the little twists and turns that have steered me to where I am today, and I am open to the changes that the future will bring.

I am grateful for my brief experience with Peace Corps Guinea, and for all of the wonderful people I met there. (G-18, I love you!) I am grateful for learning how to bucket bathe, teach math in French, greet people in Fulani, fetch water from a well, and hand wash clothes. Not to mention having learned to integrate myself into a culture that is vastly different from my own.

I am grateful also for the time I've spent back at home after the evacuation. I have made new friends and done wonderful things in the past nine months, and I've had the opportunity to spend more time with friends and family.

I have learned so much in the past year-- much more that I could have imagined-- about myself and the world. I have grown and blossomed in too many ways to count.

Let's see where I'll be a year from now! If all goes as planned, I'll be in Nicaragua, using my summer vacation to work on English curriculum for my students. But you never know...