For those who are interested in the English language education part of Peace Corps service here, check out Joe Dodson’s blog, To MAK and Back. Since I’m in community development, his work will be substantially different than mine. (Also, I’m a little surprised that he has a blog since I thought that was something only… Read More »
We learned where the sites of service are going to be, though we still don’t know who’s going where. (For those new here, I’m one of several community development Peace Corps trainees who recently arrived along with English education trainees to serve in North Macedonia.) For community development, all but one of us will serve… Read More »
My Peace Corps cohort landed at the airport in Skopje, North Macedonia, at about noon local time on Monday, Sept. 26. After we were tested for COVID-19, we went through passport control, which went smoothly because they’d made arrangements for us to go through a special line. A bus took us to our hotel and… Read More »
I’ve met my Peace Corps cohort at the hotel where we had our staging. This is essentially one evening plus one full day of orientation before we get on the plane for North Macedonia. Among other things, we went over a whole bunch of scenarios that Peace Corps volunteers have been through and discussed how… Read More »
Medical clearance is all done except for one final COVID-19 test, so I’m preparing to go to a hotel in a suburb of Washington, D.C, on Friday, Sept. 23, to meet my cohort going to North Macedonia for Peace Corps service. We’ll get a bunch of information Friday evening and Saturday, then board a bus… Read More »
I’d managed to avoid it for well over two years, but I finally got COVID-19. Thankfully, I’m fully vaccinated and double boosted. My symptoms are really mild and it’s been treated with a phone consultation and a prescription. It was weird. On Tuesday, July 19, I was doing great. I ran 5 km on the… Read More »
Following are the details of the assignment I’ve accepted in North Macedonia. They emailed them to me in three mega-paragraphs. For easier reading, I’ve broken those up and added boldface lead-ins, but I haven’t edited it otherwise. I’m posting this here because these details don’t appear on the website linked to above and in my… Read More »
Woo-hoo! I finally heard from the Peace Corps about an assignment. They emailed me on Friday, April 29, about serving in North Macedonia and after a week of learning more, I accepted. The approximate date of departure is Sept. 25, 2022, though the exact date is subject to change. North Macedonia is part of the… Read More »
In early April, I was in Springfield, Illinois, to spend time with family and we saw the home of Abraham Lincoln and the various Lincoln-related things there. One surprising fact I learned is that Lincoln wrote to his old law partner, William Herndon, and told Herndon that after his presidency, he wanted to return to… Read More »
Well, I’m back up to running a 10-minute mile. I was able to run a 10-minute mile consistently back before I left for Ecuador in December. But once I got into the high altitudes of Ecuador’s mountains, I didn’t have the energy I did in Ohio. Here in Ohio, I’m about 850 feet/260 meters above… Read More »