On the Way to IST

Greetings! I am spending the night in Mzuzu on my way to IST in Dedza. I get to catch a 7am bus for a 6 hour ride (at least) to Dedza tomorrow... I'm glad at the end of the road will be many familiar faces, free food, and many new things.

We have a new Peace Corps Response volunteer (the mini-Peace Corps you can do after you complete regular Peace Corps) that lives in Mzuzu, and she was a volunteer in The Gambia- and we definitely knew each other there! We just had lunch and its great to have a friend who experienced the specialness that is The Gambia around. Especially that lives in Mzuzu, since I am here about once a month. It will be exciting to continue to hang out and reminisce.

Things at site have been going well. I feel like there is so much to do and so much I need to do, which of course is a good thing, and is why I'm there. However, it is a lot of work that I can't do all on my own, and I'm trying to find the right people (and the motivation on all of our parts) to get to work. But my counterpart is great, and I know we will both get a lot out of IST and will help us focus on how to go about addressing everything we need to.

I start teaching Life Skills at the local CDSS when I am home from IST. Unfortunately the old Life Skills teacher got transferred and hasn't been replaced, so there is only me- and unfortunately again, I don't have enough time to teach more than two classes, so I am only able to teach Form 3 and Form 4. However, I'm hoping this will be an opportunity for me to train some Peer Educators, so at least they will be a resource to the Form 1 and Form 2 students.

The East Rumphi Youth Network is still in the beginning stages, but it looks like my old youth group in America wants to be a counterpart to the youth network here. This is really really exciting, and could be a lifetime lasting relationship between kids in Malawi and the USA. It's exciting to be apart of it all!

Hopefully we're going to be hosting a GAD meeting at IST, to reflect on GAD camp, discuss new ideas, talk about going national (we're currently based in the north), and of course, money money money. I'll let you know how it goes! Also- do any of you Americans out there know a t-shirt screening company that would be willing to donate some t-shirts to our GAD committee? If you do, please get in touch with me via facebook message or email!

Patti recently received a pink collar and bejeweled name tag in the mail from my family. Needless to say, she's the hottest pup in town. She is truly too cool- I'm almost concerned about the crowd she is running with, she's been coming home late, haha. Patti is doing great and I miss her already, and she will be excited when I finally get back home in a few weeks. Thank you family for the amazing packages!! I don't want to reveal how quickly I ate all the m&m's... also this is the best watch I have ever owned, THANK YOU!!

Hope everyone is doing well. Just a reminder to please send all mail to my address in Mlowe, since I am basically never in Lilongwe-
Renee Angelo, PCV
P.O. Box 2
Mlowe, Rumphi, Malawi

Keep in touch!! Love you all!