Saturday, December 30, 2006

New Year, New Chapter

Many of you knew that I applied the the Peace Corps in September of 2005. Many of you have heard me swing back and forth, am I going to go, am I not going to go, for almost all of 2006. Well, no more of that! I am going.

On February 12, 2007, I leave to begin a 27-month assignment in Honduras. My job title is "HIV/AIDS Health Educator" in the HIV/AIDS and Child Survival Program. I will spend the first three months in Tegucigalpa doing pre-service training, and then I will be sworn in and assigned to a community where I will serve as a volunteer for two years.

I'm experiencing a whole mix of emotions, but mostly I'm excited. Relieved, too, to finally know where I am going and what I am doing! I know it will be hard (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers - RPCVs - call it the "toughest job you'll ever love"). I will send out occasional mass email updates, but mostly will update this blog. I'll also faithfully respond to any personal correspondence, so please write! Lastly, I would be happy to host a visit from any of you. Really. Anytime you feel like taking a vacation to Central America, come on down! Taca, Continental, and American Airlines all have relatively inexpensive round-trip flights to Honduras.

Well I am off to enjoy my last NYE in the States for a while. Take care, stay in touch, and may 2007 be a great year for all of you!

3 comments:

Dave said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dave said...

raph, good to see what you're up to,
good luck.

do you have an rss feed?

feedburner can hook that up for you

Raphael said...

There is an Atom feed through blogger, there's a link at the bottom of the page. I just set up a feedburner feed, at http://feeds.feedburner.com/asies. I'll set up a link from my blog in a sec.