Foreword

An Introduction:

Wow, never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be traveling overseas to teach.  Furthermore, I have never seen myself as a "blogger" type yet here I am.  I am not the most eloquent of people, nor am I very verbose. However I met this one guy inbetween jobs who wrote an autobiography about himself and he said something very profound.  "Everybody's story is worth telling."  So here are the goals I want to accomplish by starting a blog.

1.  One of the goals of the Peace Corp, which I has blessed me with this opportunity, is to communicate the culture of the region of the area that we visit back to Americans.
2. By writing a blog, I hope to improve my writing skills. (If I improve even a little, Success)
3. This will be a main resource for me to communicate my experiences and keep in touch with people back home.
4. Maybe, just maybe I can expand peoples opinions about not only different cultures, but nature, and conservation as well.  

  The Beginning:

I have meandered to this point in my journey. In preperation for travel I have started with several courses to make me aware of my cultural perspective.  It has been very interesting to see how I prefer to communicate Indirect vs Direct, and if my views are more individualism vs. collectivism.  Our experiences shape who we are and I hope that this journey not makes me more open, but maybe through my experience we can create more awareness of our surroundings and culturally. It amazes me when I see posts of game cameras and people being in awe of the nature that we so often are unaware shares our space. We all (including myself but I am working on it) are overly self concious that it can detract us from thinking of other creatures or humans. One cool course that I took that openned my eyes to this is when a retired Parks and Wildlife member came and talked to the Master Naturalists about ethics.  Its amazing to see how quickly we judge a situation without considering all the variables, and how our opinion can change based on the people that are around us.

Today we went over Itenerary and what to pack and it still is so surreal that I didn't really know what questions to ask. I am going to be the only volunteer who hasn't previously volunteered with Peace Corp Response so I have a lot of learning to do. I am excited! Feel free to give me tips and comment on things you like so I can improve(I think you are able to do that?).  The first few weeks in St. Lucia are going to be mostly training and getting settled into our communities so most posts will be relating to that. I am hoping to post with more regularity as the trips get more eventful. I will be learning some Creole and Patois. Adios for now!