Third Goal

Having gone from New Mexico to New England in one month to really see this country, to smell and taste and get to know where I am leaving from, I feel well-prepared now to say goodbye. Peace Corps has been updating me periodically about what to expect from the coming days, weeks, and months: I have a good supply of reading material, Q-tips, and a small solar charger but I’m not sure yet where it will all fit in my backpack.

I leave in three days to meet my fellow volunteers for a two-day orientation in Philadelphia and then travel through Brussels, Belgium to Dakar, Senegal and finally into Banjul, The Gambia. I received my Invitation to work in Peace Corps The Gambia’s agriculture and environment project in July and so I have had two months to prepare by looking at various guidebooks and websites and by listening to mp3s of Mandinka and Wollof that Peace Corps has provided me. Now that I have had so much time to create such an image in my head of me-being-there I am about to tear that down and actually experience me-going-there.

I hope to have access to the infornet with enough frequency that I can maintain regular posts to this site with illustrations and anecdotes.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 9:34 am and is filed under Africa/Western Africa/Gambia . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.