19 June 2004 - 3:55 p.m.
Well, if you've made it to this webpage, you already know who I am, but probably most of you have no idea what I'm doing, other than the fact that I'm not going to be living in the US for a couple of years.
Basically, I'm going to be living in Mauritania, on the northwest coast of Africa, for 27 months, working for the United States Peace Corps (yeah, believe it or not, I'm going to be a government employee). I'm not getting paid, per se, but Peace Corps does take care of my expenses while I'm living over there, and I get a couple thousand dollars as a readjustment allowance when I finish my service. I'll be working in the Health field, specifically in Water Sanitation (promoting latrine usage and water sanitization techniques and such). Hopefully, I can improve a few people's lives (without getting malaria too many times)...
While I'm in Mauritania, I'm going to try to keep this site updated regularly (probably about once a month) so all of you can keep up with me. I'll be checking my email about once a month also but I probably won't have a chance to respond to emails. If you want to write me, that would be great...my address and email are listed in my profile area. That's probably the only way you're going to get a response from me...I'll have plenty of time to write letters, but I won't have much of a chance to make phone calls or answer emails (remember, I'll be living in a Third World country)...just keep in mind that letters usually take at least two weeks to go from the U.S. to Mauritania, and vice versa.
I'll add more later, I just wanted to get a brief snyopsis up so that when I send out the email to everyone, there will be something here for you to check out.
If anyone you know wants to know what's going on with me, you can refer them here...that's what it here for... Hopefully, I'll have some pictures up soon after I get to Mauritania so you can see what's going on there...
peace,
matt
