Site Placement!

We received great news about our site placement. Chris and I will be serving our two years in an Amerindian village in southern Guyana. It was one of our top choices, a combination of both our interests. We know there is a computer lab with internet in their resource center, but the electricity is from solar panels and it is only on the computer lab and a few other buildings (not our house). Our water will come from creeks and rain tanks, but there is no pipe water system. There are no land lines or cell phone service, but we will have Skype. J Chris will be working with the hospital doing health education and I will be working with their Department of Education, working with teachers to improve literacy and their library. We hope to get involved in secondary projects of environmental work and gardening. It is a fairly remote area, about 4 hours outside the nearest city, and due to flooding, we may not be able to get out for 2-3 months during the rainy season. (Don’t worry; there is an airstrip in case we need an emergency exit). This is about all we know, I’m sure our first few days will be quite an experience settling in and ‘integrating’, to use popular Peace Corps terminology. 

            We are still going in this week for a few final days of training before we swear in Thursday morning. Our swearing in will be attended by Guyana’s Minister of Health and Minister of Education, our Ambassador, Peace Corps staff, host families, and ourselves. We will be swearing in along with 30 other people as “Guy21”, the 21^st group to serve in Guyana. I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge the awesomeness of our group. I’m sad we’re going our separate ways this weekend, but I’m excited to see what we’re going to accomplish in our term of service.

            I have been coming to a greater understanding of what it means to be a Peace Corps volunteer through Pre-Service Training and from discussions with fellow volunteers. I am more confident in my decision to join Peace Corps and spend two years living in another culture and integrating into the community. I am going to develop these thoughts and write a blog about it later. 

            On a side note, Peace Corps volunteers read some awesome books and then pass them around, so I’ve already gotten my hands on a few. Recommended reading for those interested: One Thousand White Women, an amazing historical fiction story about the integration of Caucasian ‘civilized’ culture and ‘savage’ Native American culture, quite fitting for my upcoming adventure. The book had me forgetting it was fiction, not history. Read it, you’ll love it.    

            Quote of the post: “Some see the glass as half empty; some see it as half full. A Peace Corps Volunteer sees the glass and says, ‘I can take a bath with that.’”