What is this?

The day after tomorrow I will be flying to Philadelphia, and 2 days later to Niger, to start my 2 year and change commitment to the Peace Corps. A great many of my friends and acquaintances have expressed a desire for me to keep in touch. Now while I definately plan to send the odd postcard and such to everyone I can, that's a lot of people who would like to hear from me regularly...and I'm just not that good at letters.

In an effort to decrease the number of letters I will have to write, and to ensure that I don't start to abandon some people, I created this blog. In addition to individual letters I will send my parents regular "public" letters, which they will post here for all of you to read. You can all then feel free to write me replies...or simply discuss my activities amongst eachother through the comments. I also hope that I will find some convenient and reliable way to get pictures out to my folks so that they can be scanned and posted here also.

I think that this seems to be the easiest solution and I hope that we can keep it going throughout my tour. Maybe it can even be found by others who are thinking of applying and want some insight into the experience. Thank you all and I look forward to your letters as much as you do mine.