Upon Departure...

My Peace Corps ('PC' from now on) experience will officially begin tomorrow morning when I arrive in exotic Philadelphia for what we in the Non-Profit sector like to call 'staging'. I gather that 'staging' is actually short for 'name-games-ice-breakers-hideous-shots time', but I agree that 'staging' is a far more agreeable title. Anyway on Tuesday (Sept. 20th) after returning from my 7:30 am appointment at the clinic I will be flying Air France into Paris, and then from Paris directly into N'Djamena (the Chadian capital). I will then be training for the next three months in Darda, a Chadian village just outside of the capital, on how to be the best French and Chadian Arabic speaking English Teacher that I can possibly be. And just to put it out there, I do have my mailing address for where I will be over the next three months (training). If you were to be mailing me something know that mail takes about a month to arrive, and that there is a distinct possiblity that someone somewhere (and possibly multiple someones) might go through whatever you send... Anyway:

PCT, Zach Center
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 1323
N'Djamena, Chad
Central Africa

And I probably will be able to check email every now and then over the next few months so if you like you can reach me at zachcenter@gmail.com.

Continuing:
I'm excited and nervous. I really don't have all that much to say when people ask me how I'm feeling. It's pretty tough to know what to feel because I have very, very little idea of what life is going to be like for the next two years of my life. I know that it is going to be hot (more to come on that in a bit), that I most likely won't have regular access to electricity or running water, that language is going to be a serious barrier to communication, and that I'm going to be rather isolated from all other... from pretty much everything 'I know'. But I just don't really know how I'm going to react to any of these things. Should be interesting. Stay posted. I'm excited and nervous.

What I can say a bit more about is the situation I am going into as far as Chad, PC, and their historically tenuous relationship; and I will try to be brief. Chad, for those who don't know (and don't be embarassed, A LOT of people don't know) is a sizable country (roughly the size of Alaska) landlocked in central-northern Africa. If you check out a map (check out the 'map link') you'll see that more than half of Chad is actually Saharan desert, and is therefore quite unproductive and thoroughly inhospitable. As a result, the Chadian population of about 9.5 million are heavily concentrated in the south of the country.
Chad was taken as a French 'colony', 'sphere of influence', 'stomping ground', (I forget the exact wording they used) sometime around 1900 when everybody was trying to collect as many colonies as they could. But because Chad is rather undesirable (from the colonial perspective) it was never really developed in terms of infrastructure, industry, technology, etc., the way that many other colonies were (for better or worse). So when Chad was granted its independence in 1960 it would seem that they were left with very little. The country as a whole is extremely poor. Infrastructure as far as roads, electricity, plumbing... is very basic or nonexistent. And like many countries in Africa the politics have been extremely unstable.
So PC first set up projects in Chad in 1966 (check out 'official PC' link for more). But did I mention the point about political instability? The Chadian PC record looks like this: Opened in '66, withdrew in '79, returned in '87, withdrew in '90 (very briefly), returned in '90, withdrew in '98, reopened in Sep. '03. But it would seem that for the last few years things have been good. All PCVolunteer's in Chad are now working on a primary project of teaching English in secondary schools, and many are also working on secondary projects focusing on water and sanitation, and AIDS control and prevention.

Oh, but I get ahead of myself; what I know about Chad:
Chad has three seasons. The hot, where temperatures average around 110 and can get up to 120. The rainy, where it rains a lot. And the dry, where temperatures ease up to a cool and comfortable 80-90. There are two languages spoken in Chad, French and Arabic, although I believe there are hundreds of dialects of Chadian Arabic spoken, all dependent on where you are. I will be learning every single one of them. Islam and Christianity are the two primary religions of Chad, but there are many other indigenous religious and spiritual beliefs followed. The currency used in Chad is the CFA (some sort of Franc)...

Yeah, and a whole lot more. Check in over the next two years to find out what life is like in Chad.

Also, just an interesting note, National Geographic just came out with a 'special edition' all-Africa issue this month. One of the feature articles was all about Chad and the oil enterprises that are entering the country. They expect about 6 billion dollars to enter the country in the near future as a result and the question is who is the money going to go to. Check out the link to the article above, it's pretty interesting.

Still on the homefront (Nyack home that is),
Zach