Acting Intentionally

"Daily Reminder," a typographic woodburn plaque by Becky Murphy

On the eve of our Swearing In, I've got a lot on my mind. I don't feel thoughtful enough to elaborate much at the moment, because its the first free one I've had in 11 weeks! Almost. What I can say is that I'm not taking this experience lightly and I feel truly determined to make the most of my time here in Ecuador. We've discussed the Role of the Volunteer in Development ad naseum during training, but the truth is I'm just beginning to grasp the enormity of my job and the potential difficulties I'm going to face in the months ahead. And I really think it's going to be an awesome challenge.

I saw the piece above on Design is Mine (a delightful design blog by a fellow Portlander) and thought that it really captured the importance of acting intentionally, which is a crucial part of being a PCV. Why do we do what we do? What's the end game? We've talked a lot about sustainability in terms of project design and implementation and I think that asking "Will I be proud of this in a year?" could be a really useful question to analyze not only the validity of a project, but your personal motivations for doing it. I don't think that the answer always always need to be "yes"... but having some foresight, or at least attempting to have some, is important.

I swear in as a Peace Corps Volunteer Wednesday morning! I move to Alausi for reals on Thursday! Let the games being.

Also, my new address is:
Chloe Pete
Correo Central
Alausi-Chimborazo
ECUADOR

Send me a letter and I will send you a kiss! Plus, I just uploaded a bunch of pictures to my Flickr. Yes, everything is as beautiful as it looks.