Bamako or Bust

So my three day staging event in Philadelphia is complete, and I am reporting to you from a kiosk in the Paris/deGaulle airport. I am pleased to report that there are no major snafus as of yet, and my biggest woe is sleep deprivation and some interesting stains on the airport bench that I have been calling my home for the last four and a half hours. There are 39 other trainees joining me on this voyage, and from the start they strike me as a very interesting and capable group (but would you expect any less from us Peace Corps folks?). Our plane will touch down tonight in Bamako around 9 - then we will be wisked to our training site a half hour outside of the capital, taught how to use warm water instead of toilet paper, and then be promptly sent to bed. I can't wait.

ps: Anyone interested in writing to me has a couple of options. Both my email address and my postal address are listed to the right, and both have their quirks. While email is guaranteed to get to my mailbox, I don't know how often I will be able to get to a computer to check it. And the post is pretty reliable, but mail might take a month or two to arrive (so you'll just have to give me at least a months notice when you write to tell me that you are visiting). Letters should also be numbered so I know if I missed one, and all the goodies you plan on sending me are best shipped in a padded envelope (I have no shame and will clearly beg for mail and visitors, as you can plainly see).

Happy New Year!

Hi Everyone! I'm sure you were wondering if I was ever going to update my site (Duane in particular). Well the time has arrived; it is a new year, and although I'm not holding my breath, it looks like I will really be leaving for Mali on the 19th of this month. So I have decided it is safe to begin my Peace Corps blog.

For those of you in the the audience who are scratching your heads wondering what happend to Nepal (and where the heck Mali is located), I will give you an update. I was scheduled to depart for Nepal on September 11th, but received a call on the 7th of that month saying that my trip was going to be delayed due to unrest in Kathmandu after the assasination of 12 Nepali workers in Iraq. Four days later, the Peace Corps called to say that the trip was cancelled, and all current Peace Corps volunteers had been removed from the country. This was the first time that such action had to be taken since the Peace Corps began work in Nepal in 1962. Very sad. For more details on the events in Nepal, check out these news articles:

http://www.goasiapacific.com/news/GoAsiaPacificBNA_1190199.htm

So within a few days they were giving me options for where I could go instead. I made a shift from Asia to Africa, and received my assignment in Mali as an agricultural extention agent within the week. So the past few months I have been enjoying myself - sleeping and traveling mostly, with an occassional visit to CFS to teach a lab or two. I just returned from Boston Sunday, before that I went to Santa Cruz, and tomorrow I will be leaving for Montreal so that I can brush up on my French and play in some snow before heading to the Sahara. It was defintely a disappointment to lose my assignment to Nepal four days before I was supposed to leave, but the change has given me some time to relax and enjoy myself, and spend another Christmas with my family.