A Little More Clarity

Last weekend was halloween, we had a party at one of the girl's house who lives in Cotonou. I dressed up as a gypsy and my friend Glenna was a marche mama. She carried a bucket of cookies around on her head an sold them and wore alot of different colored pagnes or fabrics. The next night I stayed around and we made really awesome chili. It was more veggies than other but it tasted amazing and I had a Jiffy cornbread mix so we had awesome cornbread.

This week the radio project got approved by my APCD and the director and they sent it to USAID for their approval. Because of the exchange rate the amount of money I am asking for is more. Please pray with me that it gets processed quickly because I need the money by thanksgiving. It is kind of crucial. This weekend we had a 3 meetings this weekend and we went to the opening of an american bar restaurant that had amazing fish and steak fillets. I am looking forward to going back and spending time with my beninese friends at post these last few weeks before my vacation.

I also had a visit from my APCD (who is the person I report to in peace corps). It was a very encouraging visit, and I kept him occupied all day. First we visited my supervisor with the artisans and discussed what I have been doing these past few months and talked about the issues with the payment of my rent. Afterwards I brought him to the NGO that I volunteer with and showed him the work that I trained the accountant and the pharmacy inventory manager to do. It is pretty basic, but no written records were kept before and now they keep written records and the accountant records the revenue and expenses of each day in excel. I played the radio spots for him too while I was filling out forms. He told me that those we were talking with had continued to say I was "useful and helpful to their organization" and that he was also impressed with what I was doing.

I don't always feel like I am accomplishing alot because of the amount of downtime in my life, but when someone tells me that my work makes a difference it gives me that little push of confidence that I need to have joy in my days. Before I was content, but now I also feel confident and excited about what the future holds. As I look towards the future I am realizing that one dream job would be working with refugees, counseling them about their experiences. I would like to do this in Chicago, possibly with Heartland Alliance which is a large organization that focuses on this in Chicago and other countries. It would be pretty awesome to study abroad for a few months in another countries and do field work with refugees. I would like to be based in the states for a long time but if I got married and eventually got offered a job overseas I could see for a short term (maybe 10 years from now). Short term goal after peace corps: hang out with friends and family of course, get a full time job in Chicago, volunteer with Heartland Alliance in Chicago by translating or helping refugees integrate into american culture. tentative other goals, take gre, apply to grad schools in chicago: university of chicago, depaul, loyola... I might start out part time and if I get the research assistant position for the division than I would go full time. Any thoughts or feedback would be greatly appreciated.