The Basics

In one week I leave for Malawi, nicknamed the “Warm Heart of Africa.” I will be working in the environmental sector of Peace Corps, which, from what I can gather from various emails includes resource management, sustainable agriculture, reforestation projects, and anything in between. I will spend three months training in Kasungu which is two hours north of the capital, Lilongwe.  After training and (hopefully) officially swearing into the Peace Corps program, I will be assigned to a site which will most likely be very rural and isolated to work with locals on various projects and programs.

My hopes:

-To learn a new language

-To push myself outside my comfort zone

-To make a difference in someone’s life

-To explore Africa as much as possible

-To have my eyes opened to a completely different way of living

-To not get malaria

-To learn how to do my laundry by hand

I really hope that I will be able to use my previous experience working with nonprofit youth education for programs in Malawi. I would love to be a part some sort of youth outdoor environmental education program, as that is where I see myself going professionally in the future. It’s so funny thinking about what I want to do, knowing very little about what their actual needs are. Here in the United States there an increasing demand for these types of programs, but there may be completely different. Who knows? Just going with the flow is what Peace Corps is all about right?