I leave in 2 days.

I have watched too many sunrises of late.

I might buy a sleeping bag and some books, but other than that I think I'm just about done. Right now my stuff comes in just under 70 pounds.

This photo is dedicated to Esther.

The backpack alone is about 47 pounds. At first I thought that I was over the weight limit for 1 piece of checked luggage (50 lbs), but then I took the backpack off, weighed myself again, and discovered that all my frantic feasting of mexican food and ice cream has plumped me up quite successfully. Bring me some more horchata, fools!

I can't stand up straight in that backpack, and I don't think I'm meant to. It feels fine, like I could wear it for a few hours without any real pain other than my exhaustion, but getting it on and taking it off without a chair is impossible.

Misty, a woman leaving in the same group as I, found my blog and invited me to join in a yahoogroup containing a few other members of our group. It's been ridiculously helpful in preparing me mentally and materially for leaving.

I think they need to put me on a plane already, in my pajamas and everything, just so I'll stop packing and repacking. My hands have been numb for hours now. It may be because I've slept 6 hours in the past 61.

Pre-departure FAQs

There are a lot of questions that I've been asked repeatedly over the course of the past year and with increasing frequency over the past two months. I don't think I've answered everything below, but hopefully it will be helpful to people who I haven't been able to talk with extensively.
The information I have provided is true to the best of my knowledge, but I have to emphasize that I'm not a PC Volunteer just yet, and some of my info may change in a few weeks or months. ;)
Many thanks to Jeansun and Gary who helped me think of questions!

1. What is the Peace Corps?
"The Peace Corps was established in 1961 to promote world peace and friendship through the service of American Volunteers abroad. In adapting to changing needs around the world, the Peace Corps remains guided by three goals from the Peace Corps Act:

• to help people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women;
• to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served; and
• to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans
  

More than 170,000 Americans have furthered these goals through service in the Peace Corps for more than 42 years and in 137 countries."

"A cornerstone of Peace Corps' approach to development is the belief that success is achieved by helping people develop the capacity to use their own skills and resources to improve their lives. Identifying assets and resources to improve their community and building on these assets to increase self-reliance and sustainable development are critical elements of the Peace Corps' philosophy."

- Peace Corps Volunteer Handbook

It's a government agency. Your tax dollars at work!

2. What will you be doing, exactly?
I'm going with the public health program, which means I will be educating people about HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

Yeah, but what does that mean?
It will vary based on my final site, but some examples of what Public Health volunteers do in Kenya are (I have directly quoted some of these from PC materials):

• working with a Kenyan counterpart in designing and facilitating community ed workshops to increase HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, counseling, and testing
• participating in HIV/AIDS and communicable disease education through school-based programs.
• teaching personal and community hygiene practices that decrease vulnerability to water-borne illnesses.
• helping establish resource facilities that provide information
• teaching the scientific and medical facts about condoms and demonstrating their correct use
• supporting and assisting self-help seropositive groups and linking people with HIV/AIDS and their families to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provide support services.

3. Where will you be living?
For the first three months, I'll be training in Naivasha, which is a moderately sized town about 100 km northwest of Nairobi (world66). Its greatest tourist attraction, Lake Naivasha, is famous for its hippo population, and there are more than 400 there (magicalkenya). in Kutui. For the subsequent two years I will be assigned to another site.

4. What language(s) will you have to learn?
Kenya's official languages are English and Kiswahili. I will have to learn Kiswahili and I might have to learn a dialect too. (cia world factbook)

5. Will you be by yourself or with a group of people?
During training, I will live with a host family and see my fellow Peace Corps Trainees frequently. I'm not sure if I will be hosted by the same family as any other volunteers. After training, PCVs are assigned to separate locations.

6. What will you do about housing?
Housing will be provided. I have actually heard a couple horror stories of people having to build their own huts, but those were second- and third-hand accounts, and I'm not even sure where those volunteers were serving.

Some excerpts from the PC/Kenya Welcome Book:
"The standard and condition of Volunteer housing vary widely, from mud houses with thatched roofs to very modern cement houses with running water and electricity."
"...you can expect to have, at the very least, a room to call your own."

Some things that the PC states are "minimum housing standards":

• a private, lockable room if housing is shared with other people.
• a place to take a bucket bath or shower
• a latrine that is private or semiprivate (such as shared with staff of the school but not the students)

7. Will you have electricity?
PC: "you will live in a rural community and will most likely not have access to indoor plumbing or electricity."

8. What about your laptop?
I'm not going to bring a laptop, but I will have some other small electronic devices (camera, mp3 cd player(thanks, gary!!), shortwave radio), and I don't really care if they're uncharged most of the time(I'll recharge when I can). They'll kind of be luxury items anyway.

9. Are baobabs real or were they made up by Antoine de Saint Exupéry?
They are real, they are fat, and they are juicy.

10. Are you really going to live in a baobab tree?
No, but I wish I were a monkey, how fun would that be... (don't eat me!)

11. Will you have phone/internet/mail access?
Internet cafes are supposedly not that hard to find. If I live somewhere super-rural, I vow to sniff one out in a nearby town and go at least once a month, unless that proves to be too difficult.

Cell phones can be bought there (there are two cellular service providers) but I dunno if that's a good idea. and word on the street is that all PCVs in Kenya get them. Some large cities have overseas telephone service. Some places are fast and efficient while others may take several hours to get through. Snail mail might turn out to be the best way to reach me (and for me to reach you), which is ironic, because it's nowhere near as reliable as USPS. (see below)

12. How much can you bring with you?
I have an 80 pound limit, but since I will be moving around a lot initially, I'm limiting myself to 1 large hiking backpack (5000 cu. in.), 1 school backpack, and a purse/carrying bag.

13. Are you going to buy/make your own clothing? Sounds like you won't bring much.
Yeah, clothes will be easier to buy there. In rural parts of Kenya, women have to wear long skirts at all times, and I don't really own any, so I'm better off buying most of my clothes there anyway. Apparently, the underwear, bras, and shoes that I can get here will prove to be much better in quality than the ones I can get there, so I've brought more of those kinds of things.

14. Can I send you stuff?
Yes, but things get lost in the mail sometimes. Letters that contain nothing of value or interest are the least likely to get "lost." Letters take about a month and packages take about three months to reach Kenya, but it'll vary greatly depending on my eventual site. Please see below for more info about sending me things.

15. What will your mailing address be?
This address will change, but during training (May-Aug) you can send letters to:
Jennifer Lee, Peace Corps Trainee
P.O. Box 30518
Nairobi, Kenya

It is strongly recommended that you mark letters with "Airmail" and "Par Avion" and number them so that receivers can know if they missed any letters. Basically, keep mail plain-looking, and don't put anything valuable inside. Enclose postcards in envelopes.

To send packages, you can send to:
Jennifer Lee, PCV
U.S. Peace Corps
P.O. Box 30518
Village Market, 00621
Nairobi, Kenya

Quoting the PC/Kenya: "sending packages can be a frustrating experience for all involved due to the possible theft and heavy customs taxes." Things in padded envelopes are less likely to incur heavy customs taxes and/or be stolen.

I will probably get my own P.O. Box after I've moved to my final site. I'll update the address when I know it.

16. OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE IT TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES DUDE!!
I will try to take tons of pictures! Whenever I can, I will upload them to my Flickr for you to see.

17. Did you have to get vaccinations? / Will you be taking malaria pills?
Yes. I'll be given a bunch of shots during orientation (before we leave for Kenya). Then I'll have to follow whichever precautions are appropriate to where I'll be (so malaria pills at least. We'll be educated about it during training, but I don't know the details right now.)

18. Do you have any idea how much you'll be walking over there?!?
No, not really.

19. I don't want you to starve!
Don't worry, I will get fat like a hippo and spend my downtime wading in a lake with my mouth open.

20. Do you get paid?
We get paid a salary that is intended to cover living expenses (and therefore adjusts based on where we live), and we are never meant to have to spend our outside funds. By all accounts, and I mean all, it is plenty. I hear horror stories about the PC, but I've never heard that the pay wasn't plenty to live a modest lifestyle on. We also get a stipend at the end of service.

21. Do you get any vacations? / Can you come home?
Yes, vacation days accumulate during service. I can come home, but coming back to the States costs so much more than chillin' in Europe or something equally exotic to an amateur traveler like me... so I might take advantage of it to explore. If I'm homesick, though, I'll definitely come home.

22. Can I visit you?
Yeah, you actually can. I don't know all the details about getting there, though. You'll have to get a visa and probably some vaccinations/meds, which could turn out to be expensive (not to mention the cost of the ticket), but you and I need to do some research because PC has handled so much of it for me.

23. What will you miss the most?
IIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNTTTEEEEERRRRRRRNNEEEEETT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

24. If you wanted to, could you quit early?
Yeah, but I don't imagine I will.

25. What will you do when you come back?
I want to go back to school...we'll see about that.

testing, testing...

Welcome to my Peace Corps blog. I don't know how often I will get a chance to update!
9 days til Virginia.
14 days til I leave the States.
1-5 hours til I finally kick myself off the computer to do a practice run for packing... I need to see if I have any extra room for extra sneakers or a solar charger or a solar shower... hehe.
----------------
My practice run took me a few hours but was a success. I still have some room, and might use it for some good shoes or extra clothes...maybe fifty more pairs of underwear...