Happy Fourth of July! I was trying to remember what I did last year at this time. I believe I was in Greencastle with Alyson and Amanda Link watching the fireworks done by the Grable family. Then, we got ready for Alyssa's wedding. My how things change in a year. Not in the level of "fun" of course, just in what I am doing and where I am in my life. This past week has been two training sessions. The first was TOT - another Peace Corps acronym for Training of Trainers, which is an...

Hello all. Training is going quite well! I just posted pictures from the end of school and from a big cultural even from Nikki called Ghani. Check them out, they are pretty cool. yorkphoto.com

Hello all. Training is going quite well! I just posted pictures from the end of school and from a big cultural even from Nikki called Ghani. Check them out, they are pretty cool. yorkphoto.com

Hello, hello! I am officially on vacation. School ended with a blister of loose ends to tie up. Mainly because I will be gone for a month and a half. This meant finding someone to feed the cat, finishing our mural of the world, entering all the grades of my students, finishing up work for three PC projects: a teacher training session I am doing in October, a camp for girls in August promoting their empowerment - two of my students are going, and finally getting the budget for a school ...

Hello, hello! I am officially on vacation. School ended with a blister of loose ends to tie up. Mainly because I will be gone for a month and a half. This meant finding someone to feed the cat, finishing our mural of the world, entering all the grades of my students, finishing up work for three PC projects: a teacher training session I am doing in October, a camp for girls in August promoting their empowerment - two of my students are going, and finally getting the budget for a school ...

So I apologize, I have been a bad friend, daughter, niece, granddaughter, and sister of late. Pretty much because I have isolated myself for the past two months - not emailing, writing, or getting phone calls. But, not without good reason as I have been a post for the majority of the time. Seriously, I cannot believe I am writing this, but I am finished with teaching for this year. Last Friday I reviewed for the final test and next week is their final exam. During June we do the calc...

Funny story: So I wake up today with a bit of a stretch. Not perfect sleep, not completely refreshed. Well, I do some last minute planning for class, throw on an African dress and call it a morning. I walk to class and in hindsight see no students, get to school and it is not open. I am in a bit of panic, but then see three other students who simply say it is a holiday. I laugh a bit to myself. They warned us of this is training. Sometimes people in the village just expect you to...

I am three days away from my eighth month anniversary and the end of the school year is getting closer. I am in the midst of an interesting paradox between becoming settled and simply wanting to move on to the next thing that comes along. School went well this past month. Tests are next week and I see the light bulbs illuminating the classroom more thann not. I must admit I have finally sided with my father. School is not for everyone. The two of us always had this running debate wh...

Well, well I am going back to my village today after a week of vacation, which most was spend getting to and participating in a PC training conference. As conferences go, this one was fairly informative and I feel we made realy progress is identifying problems and then beginning to find solutions. This particular conference was to greet our new country director who just arrived. She is an American woman who just served in Morocco as a volunteer and has just continued in a more administr...

As the subject says my lovely brother turned 21 yesterday. Mike is obviously a year older and now wiser and I wish I could be there! I have been at post for about two weeks since the last time that I posted. Classes are kindof starting again as the teachers are taking their sweet time calculating the final grades of students. It is all done by hand and let me tell you, I have never understood the importance of computers so much before. To think that I could look up my grades at DePauw ...

You all have photos to look at right now. Yipee!!!! I found this really fast cyber cafe and cheap too, so enjoy. The site again is yorkphoto.com You must login and the info if you forgot it is email areifsnyder@depauw.edu and the password is schmackles. The only downside is the cafe equipment would not let me name them. So, I will try to give some explanations another time or feel free to post questions! Love you all!!!

Hello all and happy valentines day a week late. I am here in Parakou for a week for the In Service Training all Peace Corps Volunteers go through three months after they swear in. So, I will hopefully be in touch will all of you soon. Tests went well this week. My second year classes did especially well and all but ten kids passed. I graded all of my 225 papers in one night because I did not want to bring them here. WOW, will never do that again. However, I have 100 percent less work...

Hello all, This is an unexpected visit. For those of you following West African news, Togo s president died and the military inserted his son as the president rewritting the constitution. African leaders are calling this a military coup. So, yeah, all of this happened lqst weekend. Since I live about fifteen minutes from the border the other volunteer and I called PC on Monday. It is very peaceful in both of our villages, but we wanted to make contact. Anyway, PC said to be careful, ...

Well, I am cheating a little bit and typing this update from the workstation and then am bringing a disk over to the Cyber Café. I just for some reason feel pressured to write down my thoughts and moments here in Benin into the thirty minutes I have at the café. So, yeah, I will write in my insomnia. My life here is becoming routine and in some ways boring (to the outside world of wow…you mean you live in Africa). I feel like I have nothing new to tell, but not because there are not a...

Sorry all. This will be breif, because I have litterally been and will be in Parakou for 24 hours and still have a lot of work I need to do. It is test time for the mid semester February 7th and my exams are do on the 19th. Also, on the 19th my boss Maria comes for a site visit. So, I have to finish some reports and fill out a bunch of forms. Plus, teach and keep up with my other projects. Sometimes I am too busy and then other days I realize it is for a good reason and cause. All ...