I’ve done a bit of reorganizing, and put a lot of information on my Peace Corps info page.  There you can find links to all the different resources I’ve used while going through the process of applying and then being invited and finally waiting to get my staging information and preparing to actually leave (fingers crossed).  There are also some links on there to Peace Corps information about the Guinea program in particular.

So if you have some curiosity about the Peace Corps or the program I’m in, or if you’re considering the Peace Corps yourself, that’s the place to look.

Also, I did a trial packing this morning to see if I have room for anything else before I go buying it.  As you can see its a rather daunting amount of stuff:

And then I put in into the bags:

There are a few things I didn’t have that I will, but I didn’t pack too carefully and there was definitely some space left, though not a lot.  I think it will all work out.  My backpack is 30×14x11 = 55 inches and my duffel is 30×12x10 = 52 inches, which is exactly equal to the 107 inches that the Peace Corps allows.  Yikes!  I may end up getting a couple of cinch straps and strapping the luggage down to be a little smaller.

Things not included in the packing are:

• A nice long sleeved shirt
• Frisbees
• books
• Shortwave radio (if I bring it)
• GPS data logger (if I bring it)

I think that’s it.  Its looking pretty tight size-wise.

Wow.  In the last couple of days the communication between people in my group headed to Guinea has exploded.  Its exciting.  Now we are exchanging emails on packing lists, passport photos, food thoughts and all manner of other things.  It really brings the reality of the Peace Corps home in a very exciting and adventurous way.

I’ve got my bags selected and have bought nearly everything that I need.  I haven’t done a trial pack yet but I will at some point soon.  When I get my packing list set I’ll post it here in case any future volunteers want to check it out.

The Peace Corps has a six week deadline for invites, so everyone who is going to Guinea should have their invitation by now.  There are 9 or 10 of us that are in contact online, and probably several people who we don’t know of, so I’m thinking we’ll have maybe 15 to 20 people or something in our group.  That’s smaller than previous groups but then the Peace Corps is going through some rough times right now.

I think only four of us or something are ‘Small Enterprise Developers’ (SED), which seems very small to me.  I’m glad we’ll have the resources of SED volunteers that are already there to draw on.  I’ve already chatted with one of them and he gave me some good input.

Guinea, and Africa in general, is such a remote concept that I really have trouble visualizing what my life will actually be like.  Its easy to think “Okay, no electricity or water, which means hand washing clothes, pumping water, and bucket baths,” but I think the wider aspects of life are just impossible to foresee.  I’m a little concerned about the ‘rice and sauce’ diet so I’m bringing cayanne and cumin.  At least then I can have a little taste of New Mexico with my rice.

One of the volunteers from my group is bringing seeds to plant in a garden, which I think is an awesome idea.  I’d like to grow beans and green chiles.  If I have those two things I can always resort to a bowl of beans and rice spiced with some green chile, which will keep me content  (I may have to hit up my NM family and friends for cans of green chile though).

I’m also working on improving my French, because honestly 2 years of French in high school 10 years ago is a startlingly insufficient preparation, or at least it seems like it.  So I checked out the Pimsleur French CDs from the Albuquerque public library and ripped them.  They are great.  I’m trying to also listen to French radio over the internet but its way out of my league at this point.  I know of one volunteer who might have pretty good French proficiency, so she’ll probably be our local guide, at least for a little while.

My tech setup is very sweet.  I’ve spent a lot of time and effort getting a tiny laptop setup with the necessary tools and to allow for a very extended battery life. I’ll post more details of that sometime later as well.

That’s it for now.  Tom Waits is playing and the sun is coming in through the window and finally warming me up.