Peace Corps Volunteers - Chad, Africa
Swear In - December 2005

Catherine giving swear in speech in Arabic

Training vs Reality / fm Catherine to MOM

Catherine has been at her site at Pont Carol since Dec 4, 2005. Two weeks and already counting the days. She has little or no phone contact where she is. She was able to text me and said to call - RIGHT NOW! So I tried for about an hour and a half and gave up. She did finally text me and said she was OK and signal was very weak. I later found out she would go to the tallest rock she could find and turn and turn until she could get a bar on her phone. I told her I wanted a picture of that! HA Evidently she can text me, but couldn't receive my text or calls. She did go and visit some PC friends this past weekend Dec 16-17 because her school had already gone on strike and she had no class. Seems they go on strike regularly, I am not sure if they do that when they don't get paid or what. Anyway, she was able to call me from Lere ?? She said all of her intensive training had done very little to prepare for the complete isolation and lack of direction she felt. She was very down, another PC volunteer in Chad had already quit, #2. But by the end of the conversation, very long bye the way of calling card, she and I both felt better. I was able to talk with her several times on Saturday and I feel she will find her niche and be and effective in her village. She was going to go to the capital, N'Djamena for Christmas to meet up with some of the other PC volunteers that are stationed in the North. She says she is cooking for herself, one of the few things to break the monotony of the day and, and doing her own laundry. She mentioned that she has an audience at all times, comprised of the local children. Thoughts of military coup don't seem so bad right now, considering it would maybe involve evacuation of PCV's to anywhere else (some of the volunteers in the East have been moved already). I had to laugh at that one. She doesn't have a gouon?? yet, a person to help her bargain and introduce her to the vendors at the local market. Evidently this is common and much needed for a Nazara, foreigner. She has said that she probably has the nicest house that she has seen, it seems to stay cool in the afternoon, but she hasn't bought much furniture yet. So it will take some time to make it home. So copy your pictures and send to her to decorate with. I have a new address for letters only. :

PCV Catherine Cole
S/C Aaron and Emily Holmes
B.P. 11
Kelo, Tchad
Africa
AIR MAIL / PAR AVION

She will be able to get letters sooner, using this address, but packages need to be sent to her address in N'Djamena still, due to payments required, and customs is dealt with directly by the Peace Corps attache. I will update this site as I receive new information, so stay tuned. - Catherine's mom

And so it must be....

....that I sign off for a while. We swear in as Volunteers tomorrow morning, 9am sharp, Ambassador's residence. We leave Monday morning for site and I'm afraid it will be a loooooong time before I will be able to get to a computer again (like 4-6 months, but maybe I'll get lucky...you never know). BUT, still keep checking in now and then for updates posted by the mom. I shall miss technology.

As for Thanksgiving, it was a smashing success! It was the best group activity we've been able to bring ourselves to do yet. We cooked all morning and into the afternoon with Christmas background music (courtesy of moi) and had a huge feast and celebration to mark our last full day in Darda. The food was plentiful and delicious, and I am not exagerating when I say that the asparagus casserole and pecan pie kicked all the other dish's ASSES. Ask anyone. So it was a nice little group bonding experience to mark the beginning of the end of training. Good day.

As for site and communication stuff: I don't think I have cell reception but I may get it at any time. For now, however, I will have to go 7 miles outside of town or some crap like that to get a bar. We only have mail runs once every 6 weeks (meaning I can neither recieve nor send letters except for once every six weeks, which absolutely sucks). They are, however, trying to change that to make the mail runs once a month, which would actually make a huge difference regarding my sanity, so continue to write so that when I DO finally get all your letters it will be like Christmas all over again! I may try to see if I can rent a P.O. Box in Kelo so that I could receive letters a bit more regularly (which I will post the address here if that should happen), but it would be wise to continue sending letters and especially packages to the N'Djamena address. I will be in Kelo for Christmas and will have cell reception then, so that will be good, but then it's off to site for another 2 months before I'm allowed to travel anywhere again.

By the time of my next posting I should be well engulfed in being an English teacher in Chad and will have been at site for such a long time that I should be able to consider myself a seasoned foreign veteran with many many stories to tell. But until that time I will have PLENTY of letter-writing time, so for those of you who are wondering where the hell your letters are, they're comin'. Keep up the communication and support for me, I'll need it. I'm entering into the abyss....

I want to wish everyone a very early Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Love to all, and I'll catch you on the flip side.

Peace Out.