My Fellow Volunteers

This week I received some more information from Baltimore on the other volunteers that I will be serving with. I will be serving in Malava with a guy named Ryan, but there will also be two volunteers, Sandra and Arielle, serving in Nairobi.

Ryan is from Havertown, Pennsylvania, a suburb of West Philadephia. He graduated from Penn State University in Communications where he had an interest in working in radio. He went to St. Joseph's, a prestigious Jesuit High School, in a tough section of North Philadelphia where he began doing volunteer work for the local community. He has also worked with Habitat for Humanity, helped deliver Christmas presents to needy children, and has done tons of tutoring.

Sandra is from Boston and has both a B.A. in Communications and one in Political Science. She went to a small Catholic High School, ran by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur (SND), called Emmanuel. She currently works for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Communications. Her mother works with the Department of Defense and her father is a retired naval officer so she has grown up all over the world. She was born in Panama and has since moved every two years of her life. She has lived in Cuba, South Korea, China, Thailand, Russia, Australia, Maine, Rhode Island, and New York.

Arielle is originally from northern Virginia, but she currently lives in Northeast Washington D.C. where she graduated this past May from Catholic University with a B.A. in Anthropology, she became interested in serving in Africa when she spent last summer in Kenya at a paleoanthropological field school through Rutgers University, she had close relations with the local Dassanech tribe and fell in love with the people and the country.

So far, we seem like a pretty good group. I am happy, excited, and proud to be working with all of them next year.