America, America. Time flies in this world of instant communication, instant access, and overabundance of distractions. Before you know it, it is December, and it has been six months since I have written a blog entry. In the meantime, I ended my service in Peace Corps Benin, with a multitude of activities, and goodbyes, traveled [...]

About a week after last writing, my whole world changed. I realize that everything now seems to be through the lense or perspective of the death of my friend Kate. Almost two months after the event, things seem to be normalizing again to some level, although I do not know what normal really means anymore. [...]

After a three month span since writing, I have to report, I am still here! There is now officially one more semester of school left of teaching for me here in Benin, which is pretty amazing! It’s been a long road, and it is slowly, but surely coming to an end. There is still lots [...]

            It’s hard to believe it is already December, 2008. It seems as if so much has happened since I last wrote at the beginning of October, yet at the same time, life has gone on as usual in Azove and here in Peace Corps Benin. I have to say I have definitely had my [...]

As I have said to some friends and family before hand, I am super pumped about my second year of service here in Benin. I just completed my mid-service medical examination (and I am perfectly healthy, thankfully), and so I feel like I am officially cleared to mentally prepare for my next year. This summer [...]

            Where do I even begin? Since July, it has been a whirlwind of time spent at post, two vacations, a parent visit, and preparing for the “official” second year of my Peace Corps service.      At this point, I should be starting school in about a month, as the original date of September 15th [...]

          It is the day after July 4th, and the beginning of my somewhat official status of being a 2nd year volunteer. Granted I have not actually been in Benin yet for a year (that officially happens July 20th), but the new set of trainees came in last night. Which makes me and my fellow [...]

It appears to have been ages since I last wrote. This has to do with very limited access to internet – having not been to Cotonou in a very long time, and really an inability to summarize my experiences. This can often be difficult and a bit overwhelming of a thought. But here I go [...]

So I am being transferred to Somalia to complete my service. April Fools Day. It has only been two weeks since last writing, but some significant things have occurred during that time span.  I had two intense days of teaching before spring break started.  Even though I technically only teach 12 hours a week, I definitely [...]

Since getting back from Burkina Faso, life has been good and busy. With school, I spent almost a week officially putting all of my students “moyennes” (averages) in the grade books. I had already calculated them before break, but it was quite the process officially writing them down for the school. And nothing was explained [...]

After a whirlwind trip from Burkina Faso, I am back in Benin. However, since last writing, I have done more than travel.  I had my site visit from my APCD (Assistant Peace Corps Director), have continued to enjoy life and discover my town, did several weeks of “surveying” (proctoring exams), and of course visit Burkina [...]

It is hard to believe that it has been over a month since I last posted. Life here has gone on as usual, and things at post right now are actually really busy with the end of the semester for my students, and just a ton of lesson prepping, interrogation and devoir (big exam) writing, [...]

Things started really getting good! It was never NOT good before. Things were always going well…but it seems that things just started making sense a few weeks ago. I went with a day of having my worst homesickness after watching “The Holiday” and feeling those twinges of wanting to be around family, and hot chocolate [...]