Adventures Resurrection

It is time to resurrect this lovely old blog as I prepare for my next BIG adventure.

As many friends and families are aware, in November I accepted my invitation to move to Lesotho, Africa to serve in the Peace Corps as a Healthy Youth volunteer. I'd been waiting for this opportunity since finishing my application in March of 2012 (eons ago, I know!). 

Now, with fewer than four months to go before departure, life is incredibly busy. I continue to teach Humanities at the Oliverian School in northern New Hampshire. Boarding school life comes with its own challenges including incredibly long hours and lots of weekends on, but is also incredibly rewarding. The crazy part comes with looking at the calendar. Graduation day is June 1st...and my staging day with the Peace Corps is June 3rd. No matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to give myself a vacation!

In addition to the school world, comes a lot of preparations for departure. I've already covered most of the dental prep, but still need to call the dentist to make sure he is finishing my forms. As I tried to start the medical paperwork (a book unto itself), I ran into a surprising problem. It turns out, I am living in an area rural enough that there aren't really enough primary care doctors and the only ones accepting new patients have fifty-plus person waiting lists! Calling around to follow up on the dental paperwork or to find a doctor has been a challenge too. The hours they are open and I am free are few and far between. Combined with the lack of cell service up here means I have to go find a landline to use, usually in a coworker's temporarily empty office...

Since I had already accepted my invitation before Christmas, my family approached this past holiday as if it would be my last for a few years. We did a serious of holiday portraits with a family friend. Mom, despite a valiant effort, cried on Christmas day just thinking about me being gone next year. And my sisters shocked me by each giving me a stationary set. Once I had opened them all (and was mentally trying to figure out how to fit it into my luggage), they stood up, walked over, and took it back. Indian givers! It turned out their gift was actually promising to write to me! Each stationary set marks which sister sent the letter so I can get excited at who wrote to me before I even open the letter.

And that is my attempt to briefly update the world on my upcoming adventures and current state of being. Stay turned!