New Adventures

Hello my lovely family and friends.

Big news, I am writing this from my parents' home in Alexandria. I know, SHOCKING and honestly not what anyone was expecting. I did go to Madagascar, and I did spend time with my host family and then I realized something. I am not ready for this.

Please do not mistake me. I was physically even more prepared than I thought. I could eat the food, take the bucket baths and deal with all of the requirements for healthy living. It was surprisingly easy in most cases, to the point where two years of doing those things wasn't something I was even worried about anymore.

What I was not ready for was the emotional requirements to going to Madagascar for two years. I have a lot of reasons why I came home and for me they are the right reasons. But most of all it just wasn't the right decision for me to stay in Madagascar.

I have a few other comments to add. First of all, the Peace Corps is a wonderful organization that really gives you great opportunities and if you realize it is not for you they also support you through your process of leaving and returning home. And I hope, in the future, I can help other people make the decision to join the Peace Corps and make a huge difference. Second, I am so excited to start my life here at home so I look forward to trying to see some of you in the near future.

Finally, I really would rather not talk about it more than I have to, it was a difficult and personal decision. But if you need to talk to me about my decision to leave Madagascar please feel free to let me know.

I think, at least for a while, I am going to try and still update my blog. I know some of you will be extremely curious as to what happens with my life now. But as of today I am searching for a job and figuring it out for myself.

My mom sent me a quote recently:

"As one goes through life, one learns that if you don't paddle your own canoe, you don't move." ~ Katharine Hepburn

Well, today I'm taking some of my first paddle strokes because it really is time to get my canoe moving.


Love,
Chloe

Off to Africa!

My adventure truly begins

As I write this I am getting ready to go to bed so that I can get up and shower before my 2:30am departure from Philadelphia. We will all drive to New York and at JFK we will get on a plane to Johannesburg, South Africa. After the short 15 hour flight we will take another flight to Antananarivo, Madagascar and arrive by afternoon on Wednesday. After our afternoon staging event I can tell you three things.

1. I know nothing. But I will learn during training and on the job all of the important things to making it in Mada. But really this is an entire new life adventure and I will be experiencing so many new things that I will have to learn a lot every day.

2. I am not alone. I have to tell you it was comforting to sit and a room and realize that the same fears and hopes are in the heads of most of the people there. We will get through the stress and get to enjoy our adventure together!

3. I am so scared and ready for this I can barely breath. I have been talking about the Peace Corps for years and Madagascar specifically for months and the fact that it is finally real is crazy. But it is a crazy I am so ready for. The knot in my stomach has butterflies and is the greatest uncomfortable feeling I have ever had.

I know this is a short one but I will try to post again soon. For everyone I didn't get to talk to I love you! And a special bit of love for my mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, and my soon to be nephew! I will miss you all like crazy but I'll come back a stronger, better person.

Love you all heaps!

Chloe

Purdue Strong, Packing, and Friends

Ok, this is a bad sign. I haven't even left for Madagascar yet and I fell off the blog-wagon! But to be fair its been a crazy couple of weeks.

I have this awesome post written about my friend Michelle's visit to DC. We went to the Smithsonian and the monuments and I wrote this awesome post about how cool it was to be able to visit parts of our nation's history without even having to travel.

Unfortunately, when I went to publish my post on 1/21/2014 something else focused my attention. There was a shooting at Purdue University and one student was killed. So of course, me being me, I wasn't going to post about my awesome weekend and I decided I had to share my thoughts about the shooting. But after some reflection I decided my opinions had no place in such a tragedy. Click here for a touching letter written by one of the victim's professors.

After an awesome weekend with Michelle in DC and some upsetting news the next week I then got to spend the weekend of 1/27/2014 with two of my best friends Alaina and Rosalie, in San Francisco and Sacramento California. It was awesome, we got to be tourists in San Francisco and then we got to explore Sacramento. I have never spent time in Northern California and  I really liked it, I can't wait to go back for another visit.

And this weekend I am getting to spend time with two of my awesome cousins! Rachel and Whitney and I have gotten to spend the weekend hanging out, having fun, and packing for Africa. I'm also really lucky that they were here because they were able to help me go through all my clothes and pick out everything that I am going to take with me. Thank goodness they were here because I would never have been able to cut down on all the items I want to take without their brutal honesty.

Since it is getting so close to the time I am going to leave I will try to post a couple more times in the next week. I hope you all had a good January and the start to our shortest month is good.

All the Best,
Chloe