Saturday, May 20, 2006

I get my tropical isle after all!!!


Well folks, guess what! I get my tropical isle after all!!! I learned late Wednesday that I will be going to Samoa - leaving home on June 4th for Los Angeles then a 10 hour redeye to Samoa leaving on the 6th. I will be working in the Village Based Development Project. I'll let you know what that means after I get there and find out myself. Right now all I know is that my post will be in a small village and my primary task will not be working with computers.

When I got the call informing me that our Guyana training class had been cancelled I was in a state of shock for a couple of days. It was only 18 more days and I would have been on my way. I had really gotten used to the whole idea and wandered around the house feeling like I had lost a really good friend. But it is amazing how much better I feel now that I get to go to the Pacific, which was my region of choice to begin with.


So, now. A little about Samoa. Formerly known as "Western Samoa" or "Independent Samoa" the country now called just Samoa consists of two large islands, Upolu and Savai'i, and seven small islets located about two-thirds of the way between Hawaii and New Zealand in the Polynesian region of the South Pacific. Only four of the islands are populated. The entire country has a population of only 180,000 and the main island of Upolu is home to nearly three-quarters of the population. The climate is tropical, with a rainy season from November to April. It is very close to the equator so it’s pretty hot and humid all year round and there is not much variation in hours of daylight. Temperatures vary little as well and it is usually around 80° Fahrenheit.

Unlike some of the other Pacific islands that are just coral atolls, Samoa has mountain peaks, tropical rainforest, white sandy beaches and coral reefs. So it looks like I will be able to do a rainforest canopy walk after all! (They do have one.) No Amazon jungle trek though - bummer. Anyway, if you are just dying to know more about this place I will be calling home for the next two plus years check-out the "Samoa A-Z" link on the left side of the page. It has tons of info.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Or not!!!! A change of plans.

Yesterday I got a call from the South America desk with the news that the June training group to Guyana has been cancelled. Needless to say this is an incredible disappointment.

The in-country staff is concerned about volunteer safety because of political unrest surrounding national elections that are to be held in August, so they decided not to bring anymore people down until it is over. Nice of them to consider my welfare. Bad of them to wait until 18 days before my departure to let me know!

I was supposed to get a call from the Placement Office to discuss possible alternative assignments, but that didn't happen so now I will have to wait until Monday for further edification. Who knows, maybe I'll end up in the Pacific after all. Now wouldn't that be nice!

Stay tuned for further developments.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

The ticket is on its way

I have been waiting for what they call our "staging packet" with it's instructions on what to do next and an overview of what the pre-service orientation in Miami will be like. It finally came today!!

I called the travel agency and booked my flight. I will be officially leaving home on May 30th! My flight leaves Bellingham at 9:00am for Seattle. Then it's on to Chicago and from there to Miami, arriving at 10:30pm (EDT). Taking time zones into account that's 10 1/2 hours! Ouch! I really wanted to take the overnight flight because it is direct from Seattle to Miami and about 2 hours shorter but they don't want us to do that because we are supposed to be "rested" when orientation starts.

This whole thing suddenly became a whole lot more real!! 26 days to go.

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