I am a bad bad person for not updating everyone on my recent super fantastic news!

Two Monday’s ago, I got a call from my actual Placement Officer. He wanted to know about my efforts to learn French, so I gave him a huge long list of everything I plan to do to become as fluent as possible before I leave. Apparently my plans were enough to satisfy him, because he immediately put my invitation in the mail!!

He told me to wait 5 days for the invitation to arrive. I have to say—those were the longest 5 days ever! I was determined that after I went out with friends on Saturday morning that I would come home to a big white PC packet. No such luck. However, at 5pm when I went outside to take out the trash, there was my packet sitting on top of the mailbox! I dropped everything and went sprinting across the yard and back into the house, while yelling “It’s here, it’s here!” Yeah, I was pretty excited.

Take a deep breath before you try to say any of this, because it’s a mouthful: I am going to Cameroon to serve as a Farming Extension Agent in the SAHEL Agro-Forestry and Permanent Farming Systems program. I leave September 26th! The more I research this placement and the assignment, the more excited I get because it all sounds so amazing!

Yesterday, Tuesday, I officially accepted my invitation. Now I have 10 days to send out my new resume and aspiration statement as my introduction to my country desk!

I’m an invitee!!! :) :) :)

Hope

Lately my free time (what free time?) has been taken over by the hunt for French classes. Unfortunately, all college courses began back in June and are either done now or are done in a few days. That doesn’t help me a whole lot.

Luckily, a different person from placement called me a couple days ago, and her supervisor said that it would be ok if I just got a tutor instead of enrolling in a class. So now I’m on the mad hunt for a tutor!

This last phone call was much more positive, and she sounded fairly sure that I would get this assignment. So the flame of hope is relit!!

Now I just need to crack down and get really really serious about this French stuff. Au revoir for now!