Staging and Orientation

Just finished with staging and tomorrow, we get our shots ("the pincushion treatment") and fly to Johannesburg for an overnight layover before flying to Windhoek.

Staging was tons of fun, and facilitated meeting and getting to know all (70!) of my fellow volunteers as well as learning about various Peace Corps policies. There was also a lot of reinforcing different approaches to being a successful volunteer such as being flexible and patient and being aware of one's own culture to start understanding others. I was generalizing there, but we did have some specific, practical case studies and people were asking lots of good questions, which were answered honestly to the best of the staging peoples' abilities.

There were summer camp style group activities and I usually take those kinds of things with a grain of salt but the staging people really tied it in well with what they were trying to get across to us.

Good start! Gotta be up at 4:30 tomorrow -_-

I'm going to Namibia

Yup. For the Peace Corps. It's that country on the west coast of Africa, just northwest of South Africa. Angola's to the north, and Botswana's to the east.

If you want to know more, the Wikipedia article is great, but here are some fun facts:

• Namibia is the 2nd least densely populated country in the world, after Mongolia. It is about twice the size of California, but only has a population of about 2 million.
• Most Namibians are Christians, and most of them are Lutherans! I'll fit right in.
• Namibia has a diverse ecology, with the south being mostly desert, a central plateau, and forests and grazelands in the north.
• Besides native languages, many Namibians also speak German, and Afrikaans.

As for what I'll be doing, it should be something along the lines of teaching computer literacy in the 6th - 12th grades. I'm sure other things will follow (if retired Peace Corps volunteer stories are any indication), but that's the job description for now.

Edit - oh yeah, I leave October 29th so, still got some time in the states.