April 22nd, 2011

So I have officially been a Peace Corps volunteer for over a week now. I've moved and settled into my new apartment, complete with 2 hammocks and an adopted pet kitten named Nala. I started my new job at the hospital on Monday and they already have given me another project to add to my workload but I'm excited to get started. I feel like I've been here for years and I feel like I just got off the plane yesterday, all at the same time.

While this has been an exciting whirlwind of a week for me and my fellow Guy 23er's, it was a bittersweet week I'm sure for another batch of volunteers who had their COS on the 13th (close of service, which means their 2 years are up and they have to return to the states). I ran into many of them at the Peace Corps office in town as they wrapped up few last minute items and I had a brief, fleeting thought that in 2 short years, I was going to be exactly where they are. It dawned on me how short of a time period 2 years actually is and that, befoe I know it, I'll be back in the states, not as a Peace Corps volunteer but a Returned Peace Corps volunteer. I know that I'll be so busy with projects over the next 2 years that their is no way time won't just fly by. That notion made me pause for a minute. When you finally accomplish a dream you've had for years, serving in the Peace Corps, the only thing crazier to imagine that actually doing it is imagining it being over. It makes me even more determined to make the most out of these next 2 years and to get everything I possbly can out of this expeience.

One of the major reasons I know I will be so busy over the next 2 years is my job at the hospial. My supervisior has so many ideas and projects he wants me to get started on that it is almost a little bit overwhelming. The first project is the most daunting but also the one I'm most excited about. Currently in Guyana, there is almost no treatment/prevention/rehibilitation services avaliable for mental health. Even though suicide, alcoholism, and domestic abuse are major issues throughout the country, the social stigma surronding them is so strong that there is almost no way for a person to seek help or get information. The current minister of health has made it a personal crusade to change the status of mental health in this country by implemting new policies, new training programs, and new prevention and treatment services. My job is to tell him what those should be. I am pretty sure that my supervisor and I
are the only people actively working on this. No pressure. And that is just the first project they want me to do. Like I said, overwhelming and daunting and super exciting all at the same time. I'm definitely gonna need that vacation in December :)

I promise I will write more soon. It's Easter weekend so I have the next 4 days off, plenty of time to lay in my hammock and update everyone on my life :) Miss you all, hope everyone back home is well. Can't wait to start getting letters from everyone!!!

Love,
Lindsay