Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a girl named Elizabeth who decided that she wanted to become a Peace Corps Volunteer, just like her mom... whoa whoa whoa, what a lame way to start a blog! Whatevs. Anyway, I decided to finally start my Peace Corps blog today seeing as I FINALLY received my invitation in the mail!!! I have been waiting for this day for months. Earlier today I thought that my wait would have to continue seeing as there was only junk in the mail box, but a few hours later the doorbell rang, and it was the UPS Guy!! As soon as I saw that package, my stomach knotted up with both excitement and nervousness. I knew that inside would be an invitation to a Francophone country in Africa, I just wasn't sure which one.
For weeks I had been scoring the Peace Corps Wiki trying to guess where I'd be spending the next two years of my life. I had come across the possibilities of Benin, Mali, Niger and Madagascar. I talked to my parents about all four possibilities, each with their own positives and negatives. One stood out amongst the bunch though. My mom told me that the one place she did not want me to go to was Mali. Apparently there are a lot of kidnappings of foreigners occurring right now and some issues between Muslims and Christians. After hearing this from her I started to worry that I might get Mali, but at the same time I knew that I'd be happy wherever I ended up, and that the Peace Corps wouldn't send me to someplace where I'd be in danger.
Once I had that invitation packet in my hand I immediately ran outside to tell my Dad the news, but then decided that I also wanted to have my mom on the phone for when I opened the packet. Unfortunately my mom didn't answer my 20 calls, so I opened the packet, and the first thing I read was "Mali." My heart dropped.
I had always thought that Mali was an insanely cool country (it's home to Timbuktu, hello??), and that it would be such an awesome place to visit. Unfortunately, I had let my mom's opinion of Mali being entirely unsafe poison my mind. I felt like I was about to cry when I read where I was going. But that lasted for all of 5 minutes... After a very comforting phone call from my PC recruiter Amy and a mini-talk with my Dad, I came back to my original opinion of Mali being a freakin awesome place to go. I still felt anxious over having to tell my mom though... I was finally able to reach her like five hours after I opened the packet, and to my surprise she took the news amazingly well! All she said was "I was worried it would be Mali" and then she told me to look to the bright side and to think about the positives (which I was already doing!)! She wasn't mad at all!! Here I was thinking that I might have to call the placement office to find out if it is possible for me to get a new post, which I thought would be really embarrassing and would make me sound ungrateful. My mom's positiveness over the situation removed any of my doubts and allowed me to become completely giddy and beyond ecstatic. Upon hanging up the phone, I ran to my room to send my invitation acceptance email.
Since sending the email, I've developed this desire to devour any and all information on Mali. I joined the facebook groups for PCVs in Mali as well as the group specifically created for people in my staging group (July 2010). I scanned through the Peace Corps manual and welcome book, and tried to look up as many blogs as I could. There is so much information out there!!! I can't wait to begin my Peace Corps Journey, and this really should be interesting...