Orphan Promotion

Good Morning! I thought I would do a little shameless plugging right now, since it is my last day in this wonderful office, with all of my wonderful co-workers and bosses. :) The Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project has been my "summer" internship since March, and I can't say enough about all the wonderful experiences I have had here. The organization runs two primary schools in Uganda for children who have lost their parents to AIDS. We also run a farm in order to feed them healthy meals, a community library so everyone can get in on the education and are in the process of building a health clinic.

For the past 5 months I have been helping to manage the Grandmother Basket Program, which helps provide opportunities to the Grandmothers of Nyaka to extend their economic independence, and provide for the children that they care for. They make beautiful handicrafts, which we then buy for a fair price, sell here in the states and then put the money back into the organization. We also have training programs for them in community development and micro-loans. Supporting the Grandmothers of the community is essential since, after the death of their own children, Grand parents often take over guardianship of multiple children.

So it is a wonderful organization, and I have been proud to work here for the past couple of months. That being said, they recently started a blog and we are trying to get the word out there, thus the shameless plug :) http://nyakaproject.blogspot.com/ is the address, and if you are interested in helping out the project you can check out the website at: http://www.nyakaschool.org/

On a more peace corpsy type note, I am hoping to hear back from placement sometime soon, since I sent in all of the extra information and at this point the only thing they (and myself) are waiting on is my final transcript. I'm hoping that they can still work on placing me before that comes in because I feel like it would just be a waste of time to wait for a document that isn't going to be ready until the end of the month. But we will see, and I can be patient. Breathe in, breathe out, the time will come sooner than you think.

Much Love,
Claire 

Medically Cleared!!!!

WOOHOOO!!!! I just got the status update that I have been medically cleared to serve!! I had no idea it was going to be that quick, but I sent in the last of the paperwork yesterday and am now good to go. :)

Of course, Peace Corps being Peace Corps, about 5 seconds after getting the update email I got another email from a placement officer asking for more paper work. I have to submit a final transcript (which I still need to write one more paper for,) an up dated resume and a form called a Romantic Involvement Questionaire. The somewhat annoying point of this is that I already submitted an RIQ when I first applied for Peace Corps and I can't imagine that the answers are going to be any different and I have also been sending them "resume updates" since December.

So...for those of you out there who might be doing the same thing, just stop, they are going to ask for it again once you clear medical anyways.

Super pumped, going to get the paper work in quickly and hopefully figure out where the heck I am going sometime soon!!!

Keep you updated, hope all is going well,
Claire 

Medical Round 2 DONE!

Hey everybody, I know its been a bit but I have been running around and trying to wrap up life things before moving back home. That being said I finally received the last of the paper work from my doctor and have submitted to the medical office. Fingers crossed I hear something soon since we are reaching the two month point from the "confirmation" email, and now that my medical stuff is in I should be good to go/ wait a bunch. :)

Either way it is nice to have what is hopefully the last portion of this paper work in. Now I just need to turn in my final paper so I can officially graduate and send in my transcript!!

Hope all is well!
Claire