It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. ALAN COHEN







Saturday, August 21, 2010

SALT Orientation

I left Goshen on August 12th, and since then, I have been living out of a suitcase and going to many orientation sessions. My first week of orientation for SALT was in Akron, PA where all of participants in the SALT program were together. This also included those young adults who were in the IVEP and YAMEN programs. I made friends with people from all over the states and from other countries. It was such a fun week. There were sessions in the mornings and afternoons, but there was also free time to talk and play games. My roommate was a girl from Columbia and it was fun to speak Spanish with her. This week went by so fast. On August 19th, we left orientation in Akron to fly to Bolivia. There are 7 others in my group and we spent 24 hours of traveling to get to Santa Cruz and were in 5 different airports. We arrived here in Santa Cruz on the 20th and have spent our time here at the MCC center and having orientation sessions that are more specific for Bolivia. Tomorrow (Sunday) we will leave on a night bus to go to Cochabamba to take 3 weeks of Spanish language study classes. There I will live with a host family and I will write more about it once I am there. For right now, I just wanted to post that I made it to Bolivia and I am excited to be here. I will try to post some pictures next week.
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Wednesday, August 11, 2010

August Orientation

I am packing today and leaving tomorrow! On Thursday, August 12th, I will fly to Akron, PA for a week of orientation at MCC. This orientation will include everyone who is participating in the SALT program this next year and also those who are participating in IVEP and YAMEN. After a week of orientation and many activities, my group of 6 will fly to Santa Cruz, Bolivia on August 19th. We will have a period of orientation to Bolivia and language study before beginning our service assignments.

I am really excited for this adventure to begin. It feels like I have been preparing for this for forever. However, this anticipation is bittersweet as it is also hard to say goodbye to family and friends who I will not see for the next year. There are so many people that I will miss.
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