Pictures from PST

Meeting my host mom for the first time!

The diversity panel. Best part of training so far!

Kids in my village

Blokus with the family

With the twins!

Typical lunch at our training site

My brother making Pap for about 60+ people

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Thomas Maresco

My thoughts are with the friends and family of Thomas Marseco. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer who was killed today in Lesotho.

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Almost done with PST!

Its been about 7 weeks since my last post. internet is not easy to find here. I was using my kindel for amazing free internet but it was really slow and limited. currently im using my unlocked android phone with just 8mb on data on my sim card. i installed opera mini and this relativly small amount of data that cost just 9 Rand (1.20$-ish) is lasting me a long time!
Our pre-service training has been severly disrupted by the ongoing national strike here. Doctors, nurses, teachers and police are on strike with more sectors set to join this week. Instead of working with the local schools here we have been spending more time learning our target language and in educational sessions at a local college.
I found out where my site will be for the next two years. its a town high up in the mountians on the border of Swaziland called Don Donald. It will be cold all the time Im told! Im going to be the 3rd volunteer here. One of the training staff here is the volunteer I will be taking over for. its kind of intimidating knowing the big shoes I am filling. We were supposed to visit our site but again the strike prevented this.
Water Vall "B" is the name of the village Im in for training. I am living with an amazing host family and already have plans to come back here for Christmas (then possibly Durban for new years :) I have so had many adventures with my family. A few examples: We all went to a traditional wedding and then all got food poisioning and then a few days later i was running from town drunks with my host brother!
I am beyond excited to swear in as a volunteer sometime in the next few weeks (again this is dependent on the strike ending), but know its going to be very sad/hard to deprart from the other volunteers. Once we get to our site we will be on a 3 month 'lockdown' to assist will community integration and project development.
I miss my friends, family, and burritos so much. i would kill for Chipotle and/or Sushi right now! My mom sent me an amazing package with Starbucks Via coffee (hint hint) and it was a religiious experience! It will be a while before I can upload pictures due to data restrictions. The sounds of chickens, cows, drunks, and dogs are 'rocking' me to sleep now. I promise it will be much less than 7 weeks before my next update.

Jet Airliner

    At 11:15AM we depart on South African Airways for out 16 hour journey direct to Johannesburg. Last time I flew this airline they announced as we were departing "Do not embarrassed yourself by asking to fly business class during the flight." This Peace Corps thing is starting to get very real!

    

In Philly!

    I finished packing at 3am the night before staging (thanks Aunt Donna and Uncle Bob for letting me destroy your house). My bags are way over the Peace Corps 40 pounds limit for each bag. South African Airways has a limit of 45-ish for each bag so I hope it works out. I have a mental list of what I can toss out at the airport to get under the weight limit. First would be the very large bottles of Fluoride mouth wash (I would just prey I can find it there). 

    Staging is taking place at the Holiday Inn Historic District in downtown Philadelphia. I arrived yesterday with my Mom and Hunter. We had a monumental 23 mile drive! All the volunteers and staff are exceptionally friendly and outgoing. I could not be more excited to be here!

    

    This morning we walked to federal office for our Yellow Fever vaccinations. After the shot it began to downpour so a few of us took refuge in a court room that we assumed with filled with registered sex offenders but turned out to be jury selection. 

    Tonight I say goodbye to my Mother (who none of this would be possible without). I will take her to dinner with my ridiculously large allowance from the Peace Corps :)

Wikipedia

With less than two weeks before departure I am desperately trying to gather educational resources for my service as an education and community recourse specialist. We are only allowed 80lbs so this makes bringing books impractical. I have found some interesting ways of utilizing Wikipedia to develop education resources for use when internet is not available. You can create a book of specific wiki pages and download the book as a pdf. here is an instructional video.

 Wikipedia Book Generator YouTube Video

I am working on creating these Wikipedia books for biology, chemistry, physics, HIV/AIDS and South Africa (history, culture, politics). If I have access to a power source for my laptop I should be able to refer to these books to help with lesson development. 

Example of Wikipedia Book for South Africa

Wikipedia can also be downloaded in its entirety on to your hard drive! I am still debating if this is a good idea. This would be a great resource to have but would take a very long time and might clog up my computer. The problem is that you cant just download all of the science or math portions, you must download everything. There is so much junk (anything with Justin Bieber as an example)

iTunes has many free resources for an educator. Its called iTunes U. Numerous educational institutions post complete course lectures in podcast and video formats. 

I might just be going crazy with all of this! I'm sure I will have access to various educational resources (and possibly internet) but doing this makes me feel better :)

Invited to Serve!

After 13 months in the application process I finally received my invitation. I will serve as a school and community resource specialist departing July 12th. Staging will be in DC Philadelphia (30 miles from where I live). The hardest part of accepting this invitation is parting with my friends and family.  I am going to make the most of the next 6 weeks before my departure!

• Read as much about Africa and teaching as possible
• Make one last Magic Kingdom trip
• Possibly have a Lion King themed party
• Get my packing list together 
• Attend my nephews preschool graduation
• Eat McDonald's at least once a day!