I'll be home for Christmas

Well, it's official! I am leaving the Peace Corps a few months early to go home, help my family out, and make some money before medical school. The decision was definitely a tough one and one I analyzed for a long time before calling the Peace Corps to set it up, but ultimately it's the best thing for me and my family right now. Essentially it came down to the fact that I was going to have to ET anyway, probably in April, and why should I wait around for five months, get back into a routine, and be frustrated and miserable when I could make it home for the holidays? The Peace Corps does not make it difficult to early terminate and once it comes down to a need to ET for grad school, a few extra months seem superfluous in the long run. Sure, I feel a little guilty about leaving my projects and work partners behind (and I am close to traumatized about leaving Zaari), but everyone has been very understanding, especially of the fact that in reality, it's only a few months earlier than expected.

The next couple weeks will be spend filling out pages and pages of forms, figuring out packing and getting Zaari to her new home. She will be going to the home of a PC homologue who has many kids who love animals. I will be able to get updates on her through my Djougou post-mate and in the end, staying here is what is best for her (even if it makes me cry at night haha).

The last year and a half has been completely life altering and amazing and I wouldn't trade it for anything. It had its ups and downs, but doesn't life? Overall, I was happy and feel like I've both done some amazing work here and made many lasting friendships (cue cheesy music now). I'll miss a lot of people, but I would have been saying good-bye in a few months anyway, so I guess it's just ripping off the bandaid early.

All that sad stuff said, I am so incredibly excited to be going home! I'm looking for jobs in tutoring, being a nanny or long-term babysitter, or working as a receptionist at a medical office. I've already applied to over 20 jobs and hopefully I'll start to hear back soon. Apparently moving is sort of expensive...as is getting married and starting a household...(who knew? haha) so I'll be trying to save up as much as possible in the next few months before the wedding and med school.

I also just want to say that there have many times when I've wanted to leave, usually for very emotional reasons not backed by real logical ones. I've missed America and my family and Colt, but I've held out because I'm strong and determined and have never been someone to quit something just because it was hard. While ETing now does indeed solve some of those feelings (completely normal feelings that almost every PCV deals with on occasion), me leaving now is not due to emotional reasons. Right now it's about logic and finances and being a part of my family. Once I reached this point of clarity in thinking about my options, it actually wasn't that stressful of a decision. Ultimately, I'm not upset or struggling with the choice because I've put in enough time for me, personally, to feel accomplished and satisfied with my work and life here. Before I was always worried about regretting the choice later in life, which was a major deterrent to leaving. But now, at this point, with only a few months left, I know that I will have no regrets, only good memories! It helps that everyone I've talked to is supportive and in no way do I feel like a quitter. I loved it here and feel like I'm ending things on a good note at a good time for me.

Benin, it's been real. Stay classy,

Elaina

PS. I'll probably be back on to give a few ET updates for interested people and I may update again once I'm permanently back in the states. I can't believe this blog is ending! It's been such a big thing in my life for a long time now and it's going to be weird. I'll link my new, med school blog here and again in my final post. Yay, for turning the page!

R & R

I came to Nati yesterday to think very hard about my plans for the next year and a half and get some laundry done. I hung out with a couple cool cats and we had dinner and watched movies. I've been sick so it was nice to just chill out a bit and use the internet. I spent way too much time doing wedding planning stuff and just thinking about life and priorities and making difficult decisions. No one can please everyone all the time.

But, I am headed back to Djougou today after I go to the bank and do the dishes from yesterday. This weekend I am getting my hair done with the braids and the weave; I'm super excited about it!

Well, that's all for now I suppose. The family planning week didn't happen, but I'm still hoping to get more involved with the nutrition stuff with H, the Japanese volunteer in Djougou who works at the health center on Fridays. Last Friday we talked to sixty women about the importance of only feeding their babies breast milk for the first six months. Then we filled out health cards and they all got vaccinated for several different ailments as well as weighed. The health center is very efficient and I was pretty impressed at how unnecessary I was; in fact I was more in the way than anything! That seems to be happening a lot lately.

Elaina

Happy New Year!

January 09, 2011
8:42pm

I have finally gotten back to my place after what has been a month of travels and holidays. Colt has been and gone, we’ve rung in the new year, my three month integration period is officially over, and in less than a week, my stage will have been in country for half a year. Before I delve too much into that whole passage of time thing, I thought I’d let everyone know that this Friday, the 14th, 20/20 is supposed to be airing the special on Kate Puzey’s death. Please tune in and someone send me a copy!

Colt was here for almost 15 days and it feels like we built a little life for us here during his time. Christmas morning was a blur of travel to Djougou and we basically showered and crashed into bed for several hours. I think he had been traveling for like 40 hours or something by that point. We woke up on the 26th and did our Christmas morning then. We took lots of ridiculously adorable photos and made dinner…tacos! Then we basically spent the rest of the week eating local food and watching an insane amount of 30 Rock and Inception (I almost convinced him to let me watch it a third time, but he convinced me to watch some Californication instead). We enjoyed each other’s company and fell into a lovely sort of routine that involved meeting up with some of my friends here, eating too much, and seeing my village. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. New Years’ was rung in with card games, cake, and champagne. Colt read Ender’s Game while I continued to gavage myself with 30 Rock and we started to get a little sick of each other. I think the constant cold showers started to get to him…no hot water and it is damn cold in the mornings here during Harmattan. We smoked some hookah on my roof the last day we were in Djougou and got yam pilee once more with cold cokes and then watched Pineapple Express and giggled like dorks while we cuddled. Ahhh. Then we stayed two nights in Cotonou where we just ate out at all the nice places I can never afford (Chinese, Thai, Lebanese, etc) and his last day we spent at the workstation while I was sick and throwing up for several hours (good timing!). He held me, though, and although we ended up not getting to go out to Indian food that night like we’d planned, it was nice to just spend those last hours alone and close. I did feel sort of guilty though…but I guess I shouldn’t have tried to be so macho and drink the shower water. That’s what I get haha. His flight left on the 7th late at night and he has safely arrived back home and had Christmas with his family. I sent a bunch of random African gifts for him to disperse to various people, just little trinkets and stuff, nothing fancy (I am so broke right now!). It was a wonderful visit, we took lots of pictures and videos, and hopefully the next 8 months and 3 weeks will pass by without hardly any notice at all! Yeah, we’ll see about that. =(

Hmm, let’s see…what else? Big projects are starting to get going now that I’m allowed to really jump into work…several girls and boys camp meetings are going on this month and I am going to get back into going to the health center regularly in addition to my time at the office. I need to get some scrubs made for the maternity so I can help with births, but until then I am going to help out a midwife nurse when she inserts IUDs and Norplant birth control. The Peace Corps has restructured some of its goals so that now what was my primary project (sexual health and family planning) is now technically a secondary project…so I also need to try to get more involved with the maternal health side and do more prenatal consultations and stuff with the midwives. In a really bullshit red tape move, the Peace Corps noticed that volunteers weren’t meeting family planning goals, so instead of giving us more training or directive, they just decided to abolish that program as a major source of focus, thereby making the stats look better, but not fixing the underlying issue. That’s just one example in a growing list of examples about Peace Corps administrative bureaucracy that seriously hinders volunteers’ ability to effectively work abroad. Sigh. Onto more pleasant things…

Er…yeah, I got nothing. Oh! Next month I’m going to Pendjari, the national park, with Andrew and Krista, Eric, and a couple other people. I had originally planned on going with Colt when he was here…but well, that didn’t work out. So too bad for him, I guess I’ll just send him a picture of the awesome lions I’ll see!

It’s hard to believe I’ve been here for 6 months already. Time has really flown by it seems and yet it feels like I’ve been here for soooo long. For some reason I can feel like I just boarded the plane from Kansas City a couple weeks ago and also feel like I’ve been here for years simultaneously. I guess it was the same thing in college; day to day felt insanely drawn out, but by the time I graduated, I felt like I’d just blinked and it was over. I do wish I would have savored my time at Wellesley a little more, but I think I did okay. Similarly, I think I’ll do fine here in my looking toward the future and yet relishing my moments in the present. I suppose there will a time when I look back on my service and wish that I would have just been more involved in the day to day small things and knowing that keeps me a little more grounded even though I just want it to be a year from now so badly. The time will come, though, and probably sooner than I think I’ll be saying goodbye.

And when I do…I’ll be a vegetarian again. Because right now…well, I’m not. Not exactly. I’ve decided to be an Afri-tarian. I only eat meat while I’m here in Africa. I’m just so protein deficient especially if I want to avoid palm oil fried wagasi. I’m also basically a vegetarian for economic reasons stemming from the commercial meat industry in the United States, which clearly does not exist here. So I’m eating fish and poultry which I haven’t eaten since 2004. The chickens here are all free range and crustaceans are basically just big bugs anyway. I’m actually sort of grabbing onto meat eating with gusto. I was calling myself a ‘meatatarian’ for a while, especially while gnawing the bones of a particularly tasty guinea fowl when colt was here. I’m planning on enjoying it while I can and reverting back when I finish up here, although there is something to be said about spending my money on free range meat in the United States as it adds an even more forceful economic incentive for companies to use humane treatment of their livestock. I’m not sure, we’ll see.

Moving on…Medical school packets for the advisory committee are due in a couple weeks so I need to really get cracking on that. Hopefully that will keep me busy enough to not count down the days until I see Colt again. I need to have an awesome application so I can go home to interview!

And speaking of that, I wanted to publicly declare that Colt and I are clenched into a competitive battle to lose weight. Whoever reaches their goal weight first gets to decide the number of children we’ll have in the future. This is not a decision he will get to make. Thus I must win. So please, no one send me pasta or sugar. If it’s in my house I’ll eat it, but if it’s not, then I will be the champion. Send Colt, however, lots and lots of goodies. I’ll update my wish list to include canned or packaged tuna and mints instead of chocolate and velveeta cheese…as much as that pains me.

I guess that’s it for now…things should start to get back to a semblance of routine, or at least as routine as is possible in Benin. For example, tomorrow is a voodoo national holiday and I don’t have to go in to work. Hello, Lord of the Rings marathon! My life is sort of awesome, yeah?

See ya when I see ya,

Elaina

GANHI

We went to the Cotonou marketplace a bit after I updated my blog and I totally have fallen in love with Africa. The market, called Ganhi, was amazing. I saw the sweetest jewelry and shoes and bags and tissue (the long colored fabric here). There was this silver necklace with a tiny shape of Africa that I almost got, but didn't think I should spend 13000 cfa on it right now. Maybe next time.

Colt says i can wait for the ipod to die and then recharge it. so that's the plan. I like getting on facebook and updating my status and then seeing like 40 notifications in two days. it's pretty sweet lol.

I honestly dont' have much else to update about. it's time for lunch now and i'm talking to colt on skype! best thing EVERRRRRRRRRRRr

Oh, and i'm totally getting my wedding dress made here because it is mad cheap and i can get the hippy flowy style i am going for. Woot!

E

only one w-word until the a-word

That's what Colt is saying. Every time he brings up our impending uber-separation I either burst into tears or declare loudly that I don't want to talk about it. He pointed out this morning that we should probably talk about it sometime other than in the airport next Wednesday. Well, perhaps.

Packing update: I officially own or have access to everything that I will be taking with me to Africaland. It is all pretty much gathered in my old room at my mom's house, scattered among the 10 totes of other stuff I own that I will be leaving with her. I have 1 big duffel bag and a smaller one with a pretty nice black canvas backpack to carry everything in. I've also used up almost all of my mom's ziplock bags by storing all my toiletries in them. I searched high and low for solar powered rechargeable batteries, but could not find them. And then I realized that I'm not really bringing anything that requires battery power. Sometimes, the blondness is tres apparent.

As I type this, I am slowly working on uploading all of my summer photos to facebook. Thesd pics include trips to Kansas City, Chicago, Oklahoma, and Texas. Most of them are definitely from my Chicago vacation/med school visit (like half from the gay pride parade!) and looking through them makes me increasingly sure that I am going to apply to Northwestern and the University of Chicago. Both campuses were awesome and I definitely fell in love with the Lincoln Park neighborhood. Molly's Cupcakes FTW! Anyway, it will be fun to visit the city again next fall when I come back to interview (assuming I even make it to the interview stage of the application process!).

The summer has been primarily lazy as far as french preparation goes. I've been incredibly lax with my studies post graduation. I guess at some point I just realized that I was going to be in a pretty low level group to start off with and it wasn't going to be particularly beneficial for me to study all summer to get up one level, after which it will be more difficult to improve. So I've been slowly moving through Harry Potter et l'ecole de sorciers, but I don't think I'm much past chapter 2 at this point. I think I can handle being one of the poorest french speakers of the group. C'est la vie.

I'm getting ready to go on a Pirates of the Caribbean binge as part of my American pop culture overload of summer 2010. Other binges have included mashed potatoes, corresponding tattoos, vegan hotdogs, little league baseball games, sunburns, and spending too much money on mediocre Italian cuisine. My facebook album, Quest: Party in the USA, is an attempt to keep track of these last few weeks of America. The fourth was fun and included a very American doubles game of ultra-competitive table tennis and semi-naked trampoline fireworks viewing. I created this delicious cookie cake that was decorated with an anatomically correct flag made of mixed berry. Yum!

Ah, Colt. Preparing for our goodbye is not something I am even remotely ready for. He is taking me to the airport and I haven't decided if I'll be so shell shocked from the immensity of the separation or if I'll flood the place with my tears. I know that I am going to be a big ball of stress about the whole thing soon. I made him promise to show some emotion sometime this week and not just always be the strong one. He has off from work all but two of the next 7 days, so hopefully we'll get in all the cuddling of two years into this week. Ugh, just thinking about him all lonely makes me sad. Next!

I'm having a lovely going away/graduation party on Friday. I am making a drink concoction called summer beer that I discovered at a friend's 21st birthday party earlier in the summer. It's light beer with vodka and lemonade. I'm pretty stoked about it. I'm also going to make funfetti cupcakes which will be good practice for our wedding reception since we'll be doing the cupcakes ourselves.

On that wonderful note, this summer I also have planned a lot of the wedding details since I won't really be around to do it in the next two years. It seems maybe a bit over the top, but I literally have a schedule of the ceremony and we've picked out the locations for it and the reception. We have a budget and have selected colors and songs and pretty much everything except reserving locations and vendors...because it's like waaay ridiculously too early for that haha. I tried on dresses, too and found styles that I think will match the look I'm going for. My plan is to actually buy the dress and make a lot of the set in stone plans when I am back in the states next fall for med school interviews. It's fun to actually think about this stuff finally!

One other thing I've slacked off with this summer is running. I think I probably went running a grand total of 10 times or something embarrassing like that. I really miss it and so does my body. I've basically gained back all my marathon training weight which is wicked lame! I'm bringing my Asics with me to Benin, so as soon as I can, I am going to find a running routine. I think I forget sometimes how much a quick jog can clear my head and calm me down. In fact, that sounds pretty good right now; maybe I'll get in a couple runs before next Wednesday.

Well, I doubt I'll be posting until Philadelphia staging. My flight is 7am on the 14th and orientation activities start at noon at the hotel in Philly. We'll all meet up and learn about safety and culture shock for two days and then late at night on the 15th we head out for Benin by way of Paris.

I think there's definitely some part of me that doesn't actually believe that it's happening. I mean, I applied over a year ago on a renewed whim and here I am just days away from leaving. It's pretty trippy and I'm sure it's just going to get increasingly mind blowing.

Keep it classy,

E

Midnight heart stopper

Just got online to the PC wiki on a whim and saw that Benin has been added to the July time line with staging set for July 6th! That means official invites are out right?! And I suppose the caveat is...if I didn't get one, it means no to Benin for me, yeah?

Probably not necessarily. It could be that another desk has gotten out invites before the health desk...or that the date on the wiki is so super unofficial that no invites are actually out yet. Or maybe everyone who is nominated for a a health extension in July for francophone SSA has found out where they are going, except for me!! Ahhhh...

Ok, moment of crazy has passed.

I think I need to go to bed. Maybe I'll get an email in the morning. The restless applicant syndrome is killing me! I really hope I haven't gotten my hopes up for the birthplace of voodoo just to have them dashed.

Positive thoughts! On that note, just one quick thing: I was thinking that I want to incorporate my PC service into my wedding somehow...and thinking I could maybe use a song or tradition I pick up. I'm probably going to have a bit of an off-beat wedding anyway, that a couple African traditions won't seem out of place...Hmmmm. Okay, good. Now I am sufficiently distracted from RAS. Yay for my fiancé!

*edit*
It seems as if Benin has already been on the wiki and somehow I had just missed it. LOL. Way to go me. Sometimes I really meet those blonde moments head on. haha

E