Various and sundry

It's been a month since my son Jeff married Stephanie.  Beautiful wedding at the Old Well, and great fun other events!  They went to Argentina and Brazil for their 2-week honeymoon.  If this blog were not about the Peace Corps, I'd post a bunch of pictures ;--)

We have dumbed down our house even more.  Stripped it of 2/3 of the furnishings (we had already taken out about half), and painted most of the rooms beige.  We've shown the place more than THIRTY times, but not a single offer.  Steve thinks nobody's buying.  I'm definitely getting a little panicky.  At some point we'll have to decide whether to drop the price SO low (it's already the lowest priced house in the neighborhood), or hire a manager and lease it out for the time we're gone.  Sigh.

News from a friend - a new resource

I received a Facebook message from my friend, Alex Amorin, who is serving as a PCV with her husband, Lucas.  They are working in Vanuatu, an island in the New Hebrides of the South Pacific.  She had such a WEALTH of great information, including some food for thought regarding serving as a married couple.  They keep a blog at http://ourantarctica.blogspot.com/.  It's referring to Antarctica because before they served in the Peace Corps, they lived and worked in Antarctica for 6 months.  Actually, FIRST they got married here in the US, worked in Antarctica (for an adventure) and saved lots of money.  Then they traveled around the world for 6 months before they went into the Peace Corps.

They both teach various topics at the schools; right now it's mainly workshops about acquiring and maintaining clean water.  They are really good about posting pictures and keeping up with the latest activities.

ANYWAY, Alex directed me to a site - http://www.peacecorpswiki.org/ - that is fabulous.  Developed by PCVs FOR PCVs, it is chock full of great stuff, including ways to calculate when and where we might go.  (WHY does it have to be a secret?)  I spent a lot of time looking at living conditions for the different English-speaking African countries.  It's likely that we won't have running water or indoor plumbing, but we will have one or two rooms (one might be a porch) we can call our own.  Probably won't have electricity where we live.  Of course, if I'm working in IT, there must be a little electricity at least for part of the day somewhere close, right?

Have some fun digging around in Alex's blog and the Peace Corps Wiki :--)

Medical stuff turned in

Cathy here.  We continue to wait (on the edge of impatience) for news about our assignment.  I have completed all my medical screenings and have sent in the very thick packet of paperwork.  Fingers crossed, y'all.  I received a confirmation email that the PC received the paperwork, with the caution that
"Peace Corps received the results of your physical exam on June 29, 2010. If the program you are nominated for is not scheduled to leave in the next 4 months you may not hear from Medical until the time of departure is closer. Currently those programs scheduled to leave in the next 4 months are being reviewed. For applicants leaving within 4 months Peace Corps may request additional medical information. Please respond quickly to these requests."


So I'm focusing on that line about "scheduled to leave in the next 4 months."  I guess October is 4 months away, so maybe they'll go ahead and start the review of the docs.  


Steve goes to see his last doctor next Tuesday.  Here's hoping that pulling together all the test results and myriad "attachments" required is a speedy process.


By the way, my primary care physician, Cecelia McKay, must have spent MANY hours working on my stuff.  I saw the statement from BCBS and it was over $1500.  She didn't charge me a cent!  She is just too cool!