Alright my people, this will be cheeeeeesy.  Whatever high you get from being in a new place, the little language victories, making connections with people from all over the world, coming alone but only eating dinner alone one time, being humbled by an extensive, deep, and diverse culture – whatever that high is, I haven’t…

If you’re a history dork + food person + maybe a little awkward, here’s some ideas after booking a trip on impulse.  Tuesday Arrive to the Mexico City airport for your first solo trip ever, anxiously wait for your bag; nervously say hi to people in your hostel on arrival; contemplate all of your life…

One month has come and gone and baby, I’m back in Benin. In early December, I took my first vacation almost 15 months after first arriving in the country and went right back to good old suburban Pennsylvania. To clarify for non-PC folks, we’re allowed 48 vacation days for our two years to use how…

There are three different versions of this post- it’s really been on the back of my mind how to sum up a full year in country. That’s right, despite feeling like forever and no time at all, we arrived in Benin one year ago from September 17th. This presented a pretty good time to reflect…

An Update The summer is continuing to rush right along and I haven’t spent a full week in Dogbo for a long while. Slowing down a little and rolling into August feels very needed and is certainly quite welcome. My house is a mess from constantly coming in and out from meetings in different parts…

An Update Hello from month 9 in Benin! I didn’t actually notice when this marker passed but it presented a great opportunity to reflect on this whole experience so far. Some volunteers from my cohort said it came quicker than expected and some felt like it’s already been 2 years. For me, I feel like…

An Update Part of why I want to keep this blog is to give people an idea of what my life is like here in Benin. As I mentioned before the first three months of service are mainly focused on integrating and getting settled into life at site. Peace Corps really advises against starting any…

The last two months flew by. Honestly the first 5 days of May feel like they’ve lasted longer than March and April together. All of the moving parts of the past two months have made it hard to force enough perspective to write about anything. So I finally sat down, drank a beer, and got…

Hello from month 2 in Dogbo and month 5 in Benin!I have lots of ideas for this blog—I want to write about Beninese culture and history and food, I want to write about what it’s like to be Peace Corps Volunteer, I want to write about projects and how I’m slowly learning to make myself…

Posted 17 January 2019 Hello from Benin!Keeping a regular Peace Corps blog from week one sounded like a great idea, but so do a lot of things before you sign on for a 27-month commitment that makes you experience a full emotional rollercoaster every 20 minutes. PST (pre-service training), spotty Wi-Fi, and complete exhaustion had…