Tim and Jolene

This is Ben writing. Just received the following email and photo. Super happy that they made it safe!

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Dear friends and family of our newest Peace Corps Niger family members,I wanted to let you all know that the trainees have arrived safe and sound here in Niger. They arrived on time last Friday with all their baggage (a record) and are now safely ensconced at our training center in a village just north of Niamey. They seem to be settling in well and should soon be writing and sending off letters to you folks back home.

Please remember they will not have access to email or the internet during the next 8+ weeks of their training so be patient as mail is slow between Niger and the US.

We appreciate all the support you have given over the past few months getting your person ready to join us in Niger. We promise to pick up the work from here and take care of them for the next 2+ years.

I hope you enjoy this photo of everyone.

Cheers,
Mary

Hey, So we’ve been in Philadelphia for the past few days for orientation and today we get lots of shots (yea!)

We leave tonight at 6:55 PM for Paris and then to Niamey, Niger where we will arrive at 3:15 PM (July 27th).

You wont hear from us for the next two months most likely. But don’t worry, I have Tim and that makes it ok. At first it was kinda strange being the only married couple, but I feel very fortunate to have my best friend with me sharing each moment along the way. Our vows come into play so well here: “My heart will be your shelter and my arms will be your home.” Wherever your go, no matter where it may be in the world, as long as we have each other- we are at home. It’s a nice feeling.

Lots of love and I’ll write as soon as we can!

So we just did training and here is disclaime that we have to add:

THe contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the US Government or the PEace Corps.

So yeah…. We leave tomorrow and we are both very excited! It is so crazy all the emotions that I am feeling and I really really miss everyone! Lots of love to all!

Below is a link to the family letter that we received from the Peace Corps.  We are supposed to send it out to any family or friends to let you know the general routine of things, including how communication with us will take place and stuff like that.  Yesterday was my last day at work for 27 months.  Pretty crazy.  Today we’re packing up all of our stuff and heading down to San Diego to say by to Jolene’s family.

Family Letter

Sonia got all of the wedding photos up, and you can get them at
http://web.sendtoprint.net/proofbook/login.asp?userid=ssphoto5&secure_account_id=2939&secure_users_id=117416

This is my first blog (also thanks to ben), but I will see if I can keep it up with some regularity.  My final day at work is Friday, so this week is all about wrapping up loose ends and exictingness of that sort.  I know when I get home I’ll have plenty things to do, the most important of which will be fending off the want for procrastination.  At least we don’t have a couch anymore, mkaing it so that sitting around and watching tv isn’t quite as luxurious a draw as it has been in the past.  Anyways, lunch is over, so I should head back to work… to be continued

I was thinking that it would be nice to provide job descriptions of what Tim and I will be doing while we are in Niger for those who are interested… so I am going to try and upload what the Peace Corps sent us and hopefully it works. Oh yeah, and I am going to try and upload our packing list because it is kinda interesting too.

Packing List

Tim’s Job

Jolene’s Job 

So the countdown begins…. We made our flight arrangements on Tuesday and we are flying out of LAX at 11:10 AM on Monday, July 23rd. Everything is still quite surreal since our worlds continue to transition with very little time to take in the moment. Being married is amazing though, what a brilliant concept.

Ben helped us setup this website to make in easy to stay in touch with our family and friends while we experience life in Niger. With so much pre-departure ambiguity, we will hopefully be able to provide some more concrete information regarding our living status once we arrive in Niamey on the 27th of July.

And yes… pretty much anything can be sent to us to the Peace Corps headquarters e.g. chocolate, books, movies, pictures, but probably not ice cream