Here I come Togo!

Right now I just got done my last orientation session in Philadelphia and we depart for Togo tomorrow morning. Orientation was great because it really cleared up a lot of issues and questions that we as future volunteers had. Our training class for the CHAP(community health and HIV prevention) program consists of 16 members. I knew from the people I met on the Internet prior to staging that the Peace Corps were looking for very qualified volunteers. I can say with great certainty that this training class is no different. We all come from a wide range of backgrounds and educations including several volunteers with their PHD's and a ton of other work experience. The one thing that was interesting to me was out of the 16 health volunteers I didn't hear one person mention that they were a Public Health major in college. Most come from backgrounds of communication, science, or other discipline( like nutrition) that is related to health in some way. Anyway I guess the bottom line is that the people I have met thus far are very dedicated and easy to get along with. It makes things a lot easier already since we have already gotten to know each other well as a group.

Tomorrow we are flying to Paris then waiting 6 or so hours then heading to Lome. We will be training about an hour north of Lome and the first 3 days of training we will be living with in a hostel before we get assigned host families. I am looking forward to meeting my host family. When I think of a host family I can't help but think back to when I first met Mohammad and Khalid and remembering the culture shock that they were being put through. I remember having to correct their English over and over again but in the end having them as friends was well worth the time. For me it will be the same deal except in French. The host families are trained by the Peace Corps so there is no worry that they will show frustration that easily.

Overall I am very excited to start my training in the Peace Corps. I started applying to join the Peace Corps in September and now tomorrow I will finally step foot in Africa.

From this point on I am not really sure how much time I will have with this blog. I know training for the next three months will be incredibly stressful. I cannot say with great certainty that I will be able to or want to update this especially if I am speaking in French all day, but I will definitely do what I can to give you some sort of perspective of how training is going. Before I go I want to thank all my friends and family for being supportive of my decision. I know it was a shock to most but it is a once ina lifetime experience to grow as a person both personally and professionally.

......and please make sure Obama takes the White House this fall, I do not want to explain to the togolese people the ideologies of McCain.