Jordan here: Well, we're within 2 weeks now and we just moved out of our apartment. 2 years and 8 months in that one-bedroom apt and it hasn't quite sunk in yet. Sarah diligently worked for a couple weeks packing and cleaning and trying to ease into the move out process. With Jordan's help and help from friends (thanks Kels), we eventually spent nearly every minute of the last morning cleaning the walls, nooks and cracks and dusting everything to the point of stir craziness!! We thought we'd be fine with space in our vehicles moving everything out, and it took us some creative packing, a few extra trips to Goodwill, and every cubic centimeter of space to get it all out and accounted for. But alas, Sarah and I round ourselves sitting on the floor in a spotless empty apartment eating soupy ice cream with a plastic fork waiting for the apartment office lady to come check us out officially. We thought about all the memories that we shared in that little space. Hopefully we'll look back in years and think, "wow we made a lot of stories there" and we'll share laughs about the first place we lived together.
Now we're getting emails from Peace Corps almost every day with more information about our Pre-Service Training (PST) and our departure and how to make it all smooth. We still have a lot to do to get ready, including packing, which then includes unpacking a lot of what we just spent weeks packing...crap.
I think we're just getting the first feelings of "this is really happening" as we say goodbye to friends for a couple years. Driving away from my job for the last time and watching the lakes, apartment complex, university, and everything else we've seen everyday, seeing them in the side mirrors (since I couldn't see out the back window) the bittersweet goodbyes came with the excitement that Africa is just around the corner!!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Finally living our dream!
Hello everyone! Welcome to our blog, you can thank Jordan for our creative title ;)
Just wanted to give a short update as a first post! Jordan and I officially leave for our staging event on June 6th at 7:30am for D.C. We are there for roughly a day-and-a-half, and then fly with the other 71 volunteers (wow! big group!) to Accra, the capitol of Ghana. We are there for approximately 10 weeks of Pre-Service Training consisting of Language, Cross-Cultural, Job, and Health and Safety Training. From there (assuming we pass and are sworn-in as official Peace Corps Volunteers) we will move to our designated site (chosen near the end of PST) where we will be for 2 years.
If you are still interested in more information, check out the Peace Corps - Ghana website: http://ghana.peacecorps.gov/
It's funny to me how things work out, sometimes how you expected them to, and sometimes entirely different than your expectations. When we had originally been nominated for service in the Caribbean, we were thrilled! When that fell through and we were then (after a couple of up-and-down weeks) nominated for Sub-Saharan Africa, we were feeling a little unsure. When we were invited to serve in Ghana in early March, however, we were pretty excited to say yes! We are, from here on out, going to enter into this whole experience with an open mind. The fun thing is that either way, no matter where we are sent or what we are doing, we are finally living out our dream! When I was cleaning the other day and saw a newspaper article during homecoming where I was quoted for my future plans after graduation from NDSU, I said that I was going to backpack in Europe (check), go to grad school (check) and join the Peace Corps with my husband...check! So again, funny how things work our exactly how you planned, or didn't plan them...
To leave you with a final quote (for those of you that are maybe a little nervous, and rightly so, about Jordan and I moving to and living in rural Africa for 2+ years...don't worry, I'm a little nervous too, so this quote is to help calm my nerves as well!) that I saw on the Peace Corps Ghana webpage: "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Nor do the children of men (*and women - correction SPW) as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." - Helen Keller
Welcome to our daring adventure!!!
Love Sarah and Jordan
Just wanted to give a short update as a first post! Jordan and I officially leave for our staging event on June 6th at 7:30am for D.C. We are there for roughly a day-and-a-half, and then fly with the other 71 volunteers (wow! big group!) to Accra, the capitol of Ghana. We are there for approximately 10 weeks of Pre-Service Training consisting of Language, Cross-Cultural, Job, and Health and Safety Training. From there (assuming we pass and are sworn-in as official Peace Corps Volunteers) we will move to our designated site (chosen near the end of PST) where we will be for 2 years.
If you are still interested in more information, check out the Peace Corps - Ghana website: http://ghana.peacecorps.gov/
It's funny to me how things work out, sometimes how you expected them to, and sometimes entirely different than your expectations. When we had originally been nominated for service in the Caribbean, we were thrilled! When that fell through and we were then (after a couple of up-and-down weeks) nominated for Sub-Saharan Africa, we were feeling a little unsure. When we were invited to serve in Ghana in early March, however, we were pretty excited to say yes! We are, from here on out, going to enter into this whole experience with an open mind. The fun thing is that either way, no matter where we are sent or what we are doing, we are finally living out our dream! When I was cleaning the other day and saw a newspaper article during homecoming where I was quoted for my future plans after graduation from NDSU, I said that I was going to backpack in Europe (check), go to grad school (check) and join the Peace Corps with my husband...check! So again, funny how things work our exactly how you planned, or didn't plan them...
To leave you with a final quote (for those of you that are maybe a little nervous, and rightly so, about Jordan and I moving to and living in rural Africa for 2+ years...don't worry, I'm a little nervous too, so this quote is to help calm my nerves as well!) that I saw on the Peace Corps Ghana webpage: "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Nor do the children of men (*and women - correction SPW) as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." - Helen Keller
Welcome to our daring adventure!!!
Love Sarah and Jordan
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