Paper, paper everywhere! (nor any drop to drink)

Hello, friends, family, strangers!

As my first order of duty, I'd like to welcome you and say thanks for stopping by.

I'm new to blogging, (although it's not all that much different than my scholastic career at FSU) but I'm sure there are a few of you out there saying, "Thank goodness she's doing something to communicate!" In case there's anyone who doesn't know this yet, I'm notorious about picking up a phone. Rotary, cell, or other. So, I've created this blogg as a way to casually keep in touch with everyone while I prepare to go to South Africa (fanfare!) for two years and three months. I'm pretty sure that, when I get over there, this lil' ole blogg will become more and more of a Godsend. From what I've been told, I may not have access to electricity where I'm posted and the trips to a phone will be few and far between. When I do make that trip, though, I'll also stop by a computer to put up new posts and photos and say hello again.

Just as crucial as this blogg will be... Letters!! I know, I know, who has the time? And it does seem ironic that such a request would be coming from me (grin), but getting letters from the States will be like finding gold bricks in your mailbox. I can tell already! And when you give letters, you get letters. Who wouldn't want to get a letter in the mail from a friend in South Africa? How cool would that be?!? What's more, it would have all these neat post and ink stamps, too. oh, yeah. When you send a letter, don't forget that it'll take about 6 weeks or so to get to me (and the same amount of time for them to get from me to you), so the two essential ingredients to this process are A) patience and B) early mailing! Even though I don't leave until mid-July, please think about sending off letters to me as early as the end of May or beginning of June. That way, I'll receive some letters while I'm in training.

This will be my temporary address during training:
Kathryn Welch-Goings
Peace Corps
PO Box 9536
Pretoria 0001
South Africa

If anything comes my way after training, don't worry: they'll forward it on to me at my post. And I'll post my new address here when I find out what it is, too.

I will be sent with other Volunteers in my same program to a training center in a major city in South Africa. I'll be there for three months, working through intensive language and job training. Afterwards, I will find out where my individual post will be. For both training and my individual post, I'll be staying with host families. Also, even at my individual post, I'll be located close to other volunteers.

My job -as far as I understand it now- will be to work with about 4 or 5 local schools, developing new teaching methods and curricula that can be employed with very little resources. In addition, I'll be offering as much support as I can to teachers who are being affected, directly or indirectly, by HIV and AIDs. Yup, as you may have heard, the AIDs situation in South Africa is Not Good. There are 2.2 million folks who have AIDs in South Africa, about 20% of the adult population between 20 and 60 years old. That translates to about 1 in 5 men and 1 in 4 women. On top of that, the life expectancy in the southern African region is expected to drop to about 37 years by 2010, the same year I'll be leaving there. So, many teachers will have family members to care for, have AIDs themselves, or simply won't show up sometimes because of low morale (can you blame them?).

Although I'm not really sure exactly what I'll be doing (someone from the Washington offices said something about "web-based facilitation"?), it sounds like I'll have plenty of work. Yay! Speaking of work, I'm currently creating and posting this blogg instead of doing my paperwork for the Peace Corps. I've already done the application, gone through the interviews, given a gallon of blood for the medical exam, and applied for a visa and current passport, but I have more forms to fill out and send in still (just one more form! We promise, Kathryn. oy!) So, I'm going to stop procrastinating and get back to work. Check back for updates, post comments and letters, shoot me an email if you'd like (kwelchgoings@gmail.com) and generally help me count down to departure day!