I am going to be sick!

2 days! 2 days till I'm on the plane bound for Kenya. I still can't believe it! I have wanted this since I was 12 and now it's finally happening 11 yrs later. I was talking to someone yesterday about leaving and it still didn’t seem real. It was like I was talking about a fairy tail and not my own life. I wonder when it will fully sink in that I am actually doing this?

So Sunday, November 1st, is the day this crazy adventure of mine begins. I fly to Philly for a day of orientation and then on the 3rd, and if I have decided to not return home, I fly to Kenya to begin my training! Since using the internet will be difficult, I thought to take advantage of it here to give you a rundown of what’s going to be happening these next few months.

Training is located in Loitokitok, I’ll get back to u on how to pronounce it later. The town of Loitokitok is located in the Rift province at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It is a small town with a population of approximately 35,000 people( bigger than Truckee at least). During PST(pre service training), I will be spending most of my time( 9 weeks) in the communities around Loitokitok, which is about a 7½ hour drive from Nairobi. I will live with a Kenyan family during this time until I get sworn in as a Volunteer.

Here’s an overview of the training I will be getting

Training is composed of five basic component areas:
• Language training component involves learning KiSwahili or Kenya Sign Language (KSL) and some basic local language
• Cross-culture and inter-cultural learning which involves adapting to life in Kenya, learning who the people of Kenya are, their history, their values, and their traditions. Living with a host family hastens this process.
• PACA (Participatory Analysis for Community Action) training. This involves learning skills for community entry such as community mapping, resource identification, seasonal calendars, gender and development and organizational structures.
• Technical training component, which outlines in general my future job and how to adapt my skills to the needs of the job as well as develop skills to meet the initial needs of my job.
• Health training,
• Safety and Security training that focuses on how Volunteers can develop strategies during Training that they can use to stay safe during their two year service.


Sample Day’s Schedule
A day’s schedule would involve starting as a small language training group in my community clusters discussing my host family experience and getting feedback from my language and cross-culture trainers about my progress, learning new material in language and practicing learned material. Then move to my technical group depending on the calendar of training events. Once every two weeks or so I will meet as a large group at the Outward Bound Trust of Kenya training hub to do large group cross-cultural learning and health training and touch base with the medical or other Nairobi based Peace Corps/Kenya staff.

And to think, I thought I was done with school! hahaha.

So I guess that’s all for now. Just remember, if you do not hear from me in the next 3 months, don’t worry. I am not dead. I’m just really really busy. Also, if you happen to see something on TV or on the internet about something bad happening in Kenya, just remember I am towards southern Kenya, near the Tanzania boarder. Not everything bad that happens in Kenya actually happens all over Kenya. :) Kwa Herii!