A Day in the Life of a Trainee

7am: Wake up

7:30: Eat breakfast, head out to class

8am: French class

10am: Break

10:30am: More French

12pm-ish: Lunch (beans and rice, pasta, bread, or fried plantain)

1:30pm: Even more French, cultural class of some sort, personal study time, French game time

5:00pm: Finish! Hang with the wonderful RCH, bike for an hour, or go home for even more French

7pm-ish: Return Home (help mama cook, French review with papa, sit awkwardly while everyone talks)

8pm: Eat dinner with the family, go to the masjid

9pm: Head to my room, shower, and study more, read, watch a movie, type up a blog post, or call home

11pm: Lights out

In preparation of my departure...

Inshallah (God willing), a month from tomorrow I will be arriving in Benin! It is so surreal already. At graduation I was 50 days away and now I just booked my flight with SATO. I've been spending my time since graduating with my mother. I'm lucky that it is just me and her in the house for this short amount of time. Lots of quality time, food eaten, and movies watched together. Did I mention she's leaving me for 16 days and won't be back until the two days before I leave?! At least she gets back in time to drop me off at the airport. It will probably be my mom, my sister, and my grandma seeing me off. I don't want to spend too much time thinking about that tearful moment...
In the past I have been notorious for packing light, quick, and efficiently. I've never been a big fashionista or materialistic in any sense, but somehow packing for this 27 month adventure has been an unexpected challenge. I mean I have to fit my life into 107inches and 100lbs for goodness sakes! There is a rumor of a volunteer that packed nothing but a multi tool in the past and did just fine, I don't think I could ever do that. I mean my hair products alone are 15lbs, lol. I've been working to pay off the last of things that need to be payed off and buy the last of things that need to be bought. I managed to get all the clothes I need from Marshalls and Goodwill and I've been scouring other discount sites for deals. I truly lucked out at graduation and I am so blessed to have such an amazing and generous family. I cried like a baby on that day from all the outpouring love. It was truly an amazing day; the perfect lasting memory to bring with me. I have pretty much all the big things that I want to pack packed besides a shortwave radio, some sports bras, and an ipod. I also have a few tasks I need to complete before departing, here's my list:
-put in my two weeks notice at work (my last day will be June16th!)
- sign my car over to my sister
- visit my dad and if all works out right visit my grandma in NY
- cancel my car insurance
-buy my last things

I think ill be posting my first vlog soon and my next blog post will be an updated timeline from the day i first applied until the day I fly out!

Lets not be drab

Hello fellows! I just wanted to make a post letting you know some of the feelings I'm experiencing now. I've read through plenty of amazing blogs, my favorite being Elaina 's blog. I think she perfectly chronicled life in Benin, struggles and successes. Even though she ET'd (early terminated) I would suggest you all to check it out, but also keep checking on mines ;-).

I think some of the normal feelings to be experiencing right now, with 72 days to go are sadness, apprehensiveness, anxiousness, maybe even a slight feeling of excitement? Honestly, I'm only experiencing the latter two, but then again I'm about as far away from normal as it gets. Does it make me a heartless person that I'm not that sad about being away from my family (I don't mention friends because I don't have any)? I love my family, let that never be mistaken, but honestly we're not really all that close. We used to be and I'm sure we still would be if everyone were not so preoccupied with trying to make it day to day. I think it will be good for me to get away and give my family a chance to miss me and show they care. I forget sometimes to be real. It will be good for me as well to be able to get away regain a new perspective of how important they really are to me. The other day my Dad surprised the heck out of me when he called letting me know that he had Google Peace Corps Benin and learned about the Kate Puzey case and voiced his concerns. That conversation really sucked but I felt a little happy because it showed me that he does care enough to do the fatherly thing and check out where I would be going. It would be nice to feel that from all my family. I guess that's more of a latent goal of mines. As for my main goals...

 

 

 





So I'll leave you with that... next post will be on my biggest fears.