Thursday, July 12, 2012

By the time I post this, I will have settled in Togo but as I write this, it’s 11:00am here in Brussels (5:00am EST), and we have ten more hours until we land in Togo.  We are due to arrive around 9:15pm Togo time (5:15pm EST, totaling about 32 hours travelled).  Upon our arrival we will go to the hotel where we will have training through Monday, July 16th, after which we will move in with host families where we will stay through the end of pre-service training (PST).  PST is scheduled to end in early September.  Travelling has been flawless thus far, and the whole process has been enjoyable with 37 other individuals to talk to, play cards with, and explore.

Everyone that I have talked to is excited; we all have our own motivations driving us to serve as Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs), and although these reasons are scattered, all of these reasons are easily understood.  From what I have seen, we have an extremely easy going and supportive group of PCVs – I am excited to serve with them, lean on them, and support them, for the next 27 months. 

Learning a bit about everyone’s application process, I have realized that my year-long application process was very lucky.  Some volunteers waited more than 2 years in the application process.  Some volunteers were invited to serve in Togo 6 weeks before departure, and others received even shorter notice as other variables appeared at the last minute.  I am thankful that I received 2 months’ notice, that my location remained constant, and that there weren’t any extra variables preventing me from serving as scheduled. 

After reading more information about PST, I believe that I will have access to Internet every week or two through PST (which end in early September).  PST is largely intensive language training and skills building.  My guess is that I will be exhausted after training each day – being inundated with a new language, health lessons, and lifestyle habits will be draining. 

I am excited to begin training, and excited to become accustomed to the new lifestyle.  The sooner I start, the sooner I can acclimate and concentrate on learning about how I can best serve as a volunteer.  Hopefully I will be able to provide a much better explanation of what I will be doing as a Community Health Educator/Public Health Advisor in a week or two!