A Letter to Family & Friends

Dear Friends and Family,

  Two weeks from now I will be getting on a plane for Washington DC and four days after that I depart for Africa.  I cannot explain to you how excited and nervous I am to begin this journey. I literally cannot explain these feeling because to be honest, I do not understand them nor do I understand the full extent of the experience to come.

I want to first start by thanking each and every one of you for being a part of my life.  In some way big or small you have all added to the story and in part helped mold me into the man I am today.  I cannot thank you enough!  The Peace Corps suggests that as a volunteer you have a support system/network of people that will aid in your journey and projects.  I would be honored if you would all be my support system.  Accepting this challenge not only pledges your words of encouragement when I experience lows in my journey but also participation in my in country projects.    I do not know what my projects might be and I will not even attempt to try and guess.  As my prospective projects are ambiguous at this point, all that I ask of you is that I will have your support.

I have started a blog on behalf of my journey in the Peace Corps.  With limited internet access this will be your best way to follow my progression through the PC.  I have already posted 2 entries detailing the timeline and my reasons for joining the PC.  I hope you enjoy it and please understand I will have limited internet access (once every one to two months). Please excuse the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors because I will not have much time for editing and as most of you know, I am dyslexic.

www.jwpcorps.blogspot.com

If you feel so inclined to send me letters or packages please be aware of this information.  Letters take between 6 to 8 weeks to arrive and packages can take up to 3 months.  Theft within the African postal service is a big problem, so please take these precautions:  Sequentially number all packages and envelopes.  The most cost-effective way to send packages is to use flat-rate boxes.  Use a lot of tape.  If you can, please remove items from their packaging. Trash is a problem.  Write address information on the outside in red ink, it is said to be superstitious to West Africans to open a package with red writing.  When listing the contents of the box on a customs form, list the least valuable items first to deter a package handler’s interest.  You may also want to list an item of religious content, another superstition.  Please do not attempt to send any items in the first 2 ½ month because at that time I will be in Senegal for training and it will be hard to receive these items.  After my training is complete, please send any mailings to this address:

Justin Wellins, PCV

C/O Peace Corps/The Gambia

P.O. Box 582

Banjul, The Gambia

West Africa

            Feel free to email me at anytime once I leave March 7th for Africa but please be patient because my response time will be very slow.  If you have any more questions, words of advice, encouragement or a quick goodbye, I will have unlimited internet for the next four weeks.

Thank you so very much for being a part of my life, I will miss you all and I look forward to hearing from you all very soon.

Love,

Justin Wellins

Passion: who has it, who wants some and where can I get some!

I seek passion. I am a seeker of passion. Passion is what I seek.  The obvious question is-why do I seek it? And the more obvious answer is, because I have not found it yet.  Those that possess this thing – passion – I just want to attach myself to them and learn from them.  I see the Peace Corps as that thing right now and the people that are a part of it.

They say this kind of wonderment of world change only exists on college campuses and those few crazy people that think that they can still change the world (and by ‘they’ I mean the people that have lost it, but once had the ability, to dream big).  But I found this organization, the Peace Corps, and I think we are on the same wave length.  Start small, make relationships and learn to live in a place as it is, before you can make a difference.  Changing the world is exactly what the Peace Corps is going to help me do, as well as, give me the skills to survive in a foreign environment.  I am so grateful for this opportunity and can hardly wait for the journey to begin.  I have realistic expectations that I am not going to make a global impact with only two years with the PC.  I also know from speaking with numerous returning volunteers, that this is only the beginning.  Although I won’t change the world in two years, I will gain the skills, confidence and humbleness that will launch me into a career where that is a very realistic possibility.

I am constantly seeking the next thing to challenge my wit, emotions, patience and most importantly my shear ability to survive.  On my recent trip to southern Asia I found that challenge and I felt so alive.  The Peace Corps is the next step of proving to myself that I can do it. In Asia I never stayed in one place for more than a week but every time I moved, I thought to myself ‘what if…’  I want to walk down the street and be able to know everyone in the small village.  Where I can go to the open air market and every food stall I go to already knows what I am going to get.  They know I like to pick it myself and they pretend to be surprised with my purchase.  Every Sunday, with out fail, when I walk back to my hut with all my food, I always stop and say hello to the old man sitting under the mango tree trying to cool off from the hot sun.  We make small conversation with my limited vocabulary.  As I leave, I always give him a fresh piece of fruit that I just purchased from the market and he is overly grateful.  This whole image I just laid out for you may or may not happen but that is the whole beauty of it.  It actually may.....or may not happen, but I get the chance to find out.


Wish me luck and hope that I learn from my many mistakes!

Time Line

I am not boarding the plane nor am I already in Africa but I thought I would give you a little background information.  This blog reflects my views on the world and stories but please be aware that it does not reflect the views and values of the United States government or the Peace Corps.

Let me start with some history about the Peace Corps.   A president made a call to America’s youth, “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country – John F Kennedy.”  Several months after President Kennedy was inaugurated he made a speech in 1960 at Michigan University asking the youth of America to serve its country not with a gun but with a hammer and a hoe.  The first batch of Peace Corps volunteers left in 1961 for Ghana and Tanzania. Since the first group of volunteers there have been over 200,000 who have served in more than 139 different countries.  The volunteers work within five different sectors of the organization, health, education, youth development, business and agriculture.  Each volunteer serves for 27 months which includes 9-12 weeks of intensive culture and language training.

I hand delivered my application to the Boston PC office on the 1^st of December in 2010.  Two days later I had my in-person interview.  One day after that I was nominated to go to West Africa as a health volunteer!  I was initially expected to leave September of 2011, that date was soon changed due to government budget cuts of nearly 20% of the PC budget.  January 4, 2011 was my new date of departure.  My now official date (as of 2 weeks ago) is March 4, 2011.  Although the delay is a disappointment, it is a huge benefit to me and my experience in the PC.  I will have dual visa for The Gambia and Senegal.  This opportunity gives me the chance to work across borders and work with a larger network of volunteers.  My training will be held in Senegal at a USAID training site.  After my 12 weeks of training in Senegal,  I will spend two years of service in The Gambia.