Last month or so in summary: I'm joining the Peace Corps to be a secondary and upper primary English teacher in Namibia for 2 years. My assignment is to enhance proficiency in students and teachers, improve the curriculum, enhance knowledge of HIV/AIDS and life skills, assist in efforts to reduce the high dropout ratio of females at the secondary level, and do so sustainably. So I spent the last several weeks trying to prepare for departure, and now I'm here in my hotel room on another trainee's computer finally starting this blog I've been talking about to do my best to share the experience.
Our orientation here in Philadelphia (one local called it Filthydelphia) has been extremely helpful and wonderful -- my flight here was great, other Namibia PCVs seem really cool, and the staff has been awesome. We spent a lot of the day talking about logistics, safety and security, anxieties and aspirations, etc etc and now we're making our last minute preparations to embark on this epic rollercoaster journey. We leave in about 5 hours at 2:30am. Taking a bus from Philly to NYC (3 hours), then flying to Johannesburg (16 hours), changing into something more formal, then flying to Windhoek (2 hours), then taking one more bus (about 1 hour). Then I have a job placement interview. I'm SO excited! Not gonna have a lot of internet access so I'll update this when I can. Wish me luck and send me letters/packages!
Lisa Raffetto, PCV
Peace Corps/Namibia
20 Nachtigal Street
Ausspannplatz
Windhoek, Namibia
