Language Lessons

The Peace Corps updated my toolkit with some language lessons to get ready. I can't believe that I will ever get good at Chichewa, but I will definitely try. They say alcohol is good for lowering your affective filter when trying to speak a different language... Peanut Barrel anyone?

Congratulations!

I began my application this time last year. Here is a brief overview of the application process, for those of you who may be interested in joining the Peace Corps.

Congratulations! You have decided to apply for the Peace Corps, now fill out a lot of paperwork.

and then you wait until...

Congratulations! You have been nominated, now fill out more paperwork.

and then you wait until...

Congratulations! You have accepted your invitation, now fill out some paperwork.

and then you wait until your staging, which seems to be a two day paperwork-a-thon

yay!


Anyway, I applied for my no-fee passport. Ah, the sweet success of mailing paperwork away from me.

Invitation Accepted!

I have been working a lot at the shop and simultaneously trying to prepare myself for Malawi. It's good to be busy though, if I have too much free time I won't get anything done, but being busy puts me into college mode.

I accepted my invitation the other day, and just this morning got my big bad peace corps packet in the mail. I had been reading about my assignment from the peace corps' website, but this makes it more tangible. Also, because this is the peace corps, ta da! More paperwork to deal with. It's like homework.

Malawi.... No, not Maui... It is in Africa.

This past week I was in beautiful Saugatuck on lake Michigan for the MacDonell family reunion. It was awesome, one of my cousins bought a giant party island (shout out to Gracie) that we all nearly died on in the waves, I covered my left arm in temporary tattoos, ate a lot of food, drank a lot of micro brews (because if you're drinking a micro brew, you aren't drinking to get drunk, you're just a conniseaur... who gets drunk) hmm... what else? Oh yeah,

I GOT MY PEACE CORPS INVITATION!

Yesterday afternoon, I was lazing around on the front porch of our rental (which incidentally smelled like cat pee... just sayin') when I got a phone call from DC. I didn't know who it could be at first, but when the caller introduced herself as so-and-so from the Peace Corps, I missed a step and almost face planted on the deck, Mike was there, he saw.

After a few questions about my application (how do your parents feel... are you still available... etc) the woman from Peace Corps told me she would e-mail me later that night if I got my invitation. So what did I do in a town with next to no cell reception or wi-fi? I skittered around making everyone in my family nervous, that's what I did.

Finally, my aunt MB must have gotten sick of me running around like a caffeniated squirrell, sat me down with her phone, and told me to work it out. I found out I would be moving to Malawi on her cell phone, and we promptly went out to celebrate.

I spent about three hours on the phone talking to friends and family having different variations on this conversation:

"Malawi... no, Malawi... because we don't need Peace Corps in Maui... It is in Africa..."

'Aint family grand?

I should give credit where it is due though, Megan and Thom know where Malawi is, and have promised to be my first visitors, because Thom's mom actually grew up there- how cool is that?

You know what else is cool? The fact that Malawi and Michigan both have Great Lakes named after them.

Lake Malawi & Lake Michigan