day 1: invitation

today i was sent an invitation to the peace corps service in madagascar. i've been in the middle of the application process since december, and have patiently been waiting for a while now to hear some news. it's not easy knowing that sometime soon, i'm going to leave the entire world that i know and head off to somewhere completely new and different, where i won't speak the language fluently and will be very alone, and yet i don't know when i'm leaving (i do now though). i'm currently sitting in the library reading the welcome packet that was just emailed to me.

my placement officer was initially concerned that my visible tattoos could be a problem (note: one of them is brand new, antarctica around my left elbow in blue). she called back and said it was ok. i'm very bad at being interviewed and she asked me probing questions such as how i would handle people asking me for things all the time, being an outsider, having to explain my tattoos and whatever religious or personal meanings they might have, how i would do being a leader, things like that. i was nervous but i guess i said the right things.

i'll be leaving in 5 weeks.

i don't plan on taking very much, i'd mostly like to buy clothing that will fit in with what they're wearing, and use the hygeinic options they use (i want to learn how to brush my teeth with a stick). i will be taking a medium - largish bag of some minimal backpacking equipment for holidays and things like that. i assume that will be fitting, plus i'm hoping to travel more after my service is over.

a beautiful mailing address:

steven mingus, pct peace corps
corps de la paix
b.p. 12091
poste zoom ankorondrano
101 antananarivo
madagascar

and email: pcvstevenmmg@yahoo.com (nice of the peace corps to give me a government email, cheapies.)

as for now, there are some things i need to do before my public computer time is up.

lemurs, ho!