Just imagine these letters arrived handwritten in an airmail envelope.
A space for chatty updates and the answers to “what is she doing over there any ways?”
Letter home, from home
Hello from the States! I officially finished my Peace Corps Service on July 1st 2025! I was lucky enough to have friends for my final days of bureaucratic hooplah. Ryan and I “rang out” our service together which was rather…
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June 7 – letter home
Dear Family & Friends, I have just returned to village from Lomé. This past week was our Close of Service Conference. All of the volunteers who arrived in June 2023 gathered together for one last time. It was a time…
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May 27, 2025 letter home
Dear Family and Friends, Another month nearly gone, and just June left in Togo. The land is changing by rain and human hands. Every morning, I can hear the steady sound of hoes hitting and turning the soil. The baobabs…
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May 1, 2025 – Letter Home
Dear Friends and Family, I am writing to you on a rainy morning. I slept late and when I woke I found that the light was as dim as dusk. Zorro and I were hardly half-way through our morning walk…
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April 2, 2025 – Letter Home
Dear Friends and Family, Happy April! I hope all of you in the Northern Hemisphere are enjoying some fresh spring days. We’re gaining a little more rain each week here in Northern Togo. But some days the dust can still…
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Letter Home – March 10, 2025
Dear Family and Friends, I can hardly believe we are half-way through the third month of 2025. My Peace Corps service will be coming to a close in less than six months! Events, weather patterns, the blossoming of certain plants…
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Letter Home – February 22, 2025 – the value of cultural exchange
Dear Family and Friends, I appreciated your responses from my last letter. Your engagement was a reminder that although we know the world is interconnected, its rare that we have the opportunity to look closely at those connections. I am…
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February 9, 2025 letter home
February 9, 2025 Dear Friends and Family, The past couple of weeks have been strange and difficult. The aggressive dismantling of USAID and US foreign aid have been particularly shocking to Peace Corps Volunteers. We see the impact of foreign…
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Water and Joy
On Monday, on my way home from teaching at the middle school, I stopped by the Koukoude neighborhood. The path into the neighborhood winds through a Teak tree plantation, dips through a creek bed, and opens up on to rice,…
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La Famille goma! : The family has arrived!
Dear Family & Friends, Happy New Year! I hope you all got to ring in 2025 in good health and happiness. Mom, Dad, and Richard got to celebrate “Bonne Année!” Togolese style this year. We arrived in the afternoon of…
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Letter Home December 17, 2024
Dear Family and Friends, The Harmattan season is settling over northern Togo. Wind streams are blowing in dust from the Sahara. The nights and mornings are cool and calm. Big gusts of wind start whipping the trees and shaking roofs…
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letter home dec.8 & house tour!
December 8, 2024 Dear Friends & Family, I am happy to say, I feel very much in the present moment again. I completed sending in my graduate school applications! (Woohoo!) I have until February or March before I begin hearing…
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December 1, 2024 – letter home
Dear Friends and Family, Happy first day of December! As the year draws to a close, I feel myself to be at the beginning of new things: I am more than a year into service; the dry season has fully…
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Counting up or counting down?
Dear Family & Friends, I have officially been a Peace Corps volunteer for over a year. Or, I officially have less than a year left of my service. Whichever way you want to spin it. Over the course of the…
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The Creatures Among Us
When I was little and pictured a life of adventures, I saw myself riding on horses (sometimes camels) across big dramatic landscapes — always pausing at the top of the hill for a view of the sunset over the crashing…
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Anniversaries and repetitions: Thoughts on one year in my village.
If you ever want to get into the habit of daily sweeping, daily cleaning, move to the tropics. Dust, puddles, insects, odd smells, and weaving spiders work faster here than anywhere else. Throw in a puppy with sandy paws and…
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July 7, 2024 – letter home
Dear Friends and Family, It always feels good to come home — especially in Togo, where travel is unsteady, long, cramped, and hot. But I am a creature of movement; an observer who loves new sensations. The past few weeks…
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letter home – June 16, 2024
June 16, 2024 Dear Family and Friends, Ça fait un an déjà! June twelfth marked one year in Togo. I am just shy of half-way through my service. I would like to have some revelation, some completed thoughts at this…
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letter home – May 31, 2024
Dear Family and Friends, I hope you’re all in good health and enjoying the start of summer (if you’re well into the Northern Hemisphere). Here in Togo we’re praying for rain and the cool breezes it brings. More importantly, the…
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letter home – May 15, 2024
May 15, 2024 Dear Friends and Family, I’m writing this under the mango trees in the center of the chief’s compounds. There’s four of five mangos clustered together, dangling above me, just turning pink. A heavy cloud stretches under the…
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April Showers
Dear Friends and Family, I woke up this morning to rain on the roof. It was nearing six a.m., which is usually the hour Zorro, my puppy, begins to make sad little whines and stares at me through the mosquito…
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Gardening Journal
Since my arrival to site in early September I kept thinking about starting a garden. I was reading about gardens, asking people if there were any gardens in town, considering possible Peace Corps projects. In early October, after a few…
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And a happy new year!
Dear Family and Friends, I hope you all passed a warm and happy holiday season. Welcome to 2024! I was able to spend both Thanksgiving and Christmas alongside side fellow-volunteers-turned-friends. And, after training and a little vacation, I am back…
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Gratitude
Dear Family & Friends, I keep a daily journal and at the end of each entry I write three things I’m grateful for. Normally, I write either in the evening or the morning (sometimes both). Closing or beginning the day…
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Rain Day
I. A shadow falls across the page of my novel. I look up as a strong wind races across my front yard. The clouds have come in: low, thick, dark grey layers. I stack my abandoned curriculum books and novel,…
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A few days in Trieste
(in September’s light) September 23, 2022 September 25, 2022 September 25, 2022
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thinking about time: two weeks at site, three months in Togo
It’s been said a million times, and it will be said a million more: time is a very strange thing. For something can supposedly be measured consistently, the pace of time seems to change by the hour. They say “time…
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September 6th – letter home
Dear Family and Friends, I’m writing from my new home. The evening is cool and calm, with the sort of glowing blue sky that only seems possible in the tropical light. Today was a bright sunny day — good for…
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2 month photo update!
Incredibly in just two weeks, I will be swearing-in as a Peace Corps Volunteer (fingers crossed). With the speed of training, I haven’t spent much time going through my photos. I’m happy enough when I remember to even photograph what’s…
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Month 2 of 27! General Updates
Dear Friends & Family, I had planned to write to you every two weeks, but I’ve yet to get into that rhythm. As they say, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” And our three months of training has been a…
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Notes from a visit to the chief
One afternoon we were loaded into the fleet of Peace Corps vehicles and set off for M’Poti. Peace Corps Togo staff had arranged for a meeting with the canton chief. It was a day of perfectly blue skies with large…
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Two weeks in Togo
June 23, 2023 Today marks two weeks since I left Connecticut to head to Togo. On June 9th, Mom and Dad saw me off on the train to Philadelphia where I met up with the rest of the cohort. The…
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Off to Togo!
10 May 2023 Dear Friends and Family, I am heading to Togo! In about a month, I will begin my Peace Corps service. I let a few people know about applying and receiving an invitation to serve, but I had…
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Rome in Color
(including some reflections) A small sample of the fascinating bits and bobs of daily life left in the Colosseum. Oil lamps, bones from snacks, pottery shards, jewelry, burned or petrified foods, jugs. Not to mention drawn and written etchings. After…
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big ol’ update incoming
Dear Family and Friends, Hello from Ljublijana! (The capital of Slovenia). It’s been a little while since I gave a general where-in-the-world-is-Janet update. So here we go. After a few days in Madrid, I spent ten wonderful days in Portugal.…
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The Questioner and the Artist
“Are you an artist or is it just a hobby?” The question jerks me out of my concentration on tiled rooftops. After a pause, I respond, “Well I don’t make money off of it , but I’m an artist, I…
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August, already
Dear Friends and Family, It’s been a long time since I’ve written. But as I am officially solo traveling now, I’m reviving my blog. I have many more stories to tell from the Caribbean, each of which deserves their own…
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Belated updates from a busy year
Hello family & friends, I can’t quite believe it’s been more than three months since I last wrote an update! Life has been very full, in the best sort of way. As they say, “the days are long but the…
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Tropical Yuletide
Updates from Martinique at the end of December. Dear Friends and Family, Another month has flown by! I can hardly believe it is nearly Christmas. The weather has changed very little from my arrival, but the nights are slightly cooler…
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Mid-November Updates
From Martinique and Guadeloupe Dear Friends and Family, I hope everyone is well! 🙂 I realized it’s been over a month since I last let everyone know how I’m doing. And it’s been a packed month! My housing situation has…
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Settling in to Martinique
October 2, 2021 Hello family, I hope you are all well! I’ve spent the last week and a half getting to know the Fort-de-France and Schoelcher areas of Martinique. In looking for housing, understanding the neighborhoods I’ll work in, and…
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