My Peace Corps service officially ended on July 8th, 2010, nearly 4 years after I started. It's been a long journey, and I feel blessed to have been given the opporturnity to have such a positive impact on the community and students here in Mkoani, Pemba.

However, although I have finished working with the Peace Corps, I certainly have not finished working on Pemba. I will continue working the the NGO I helped to create here, and I will continue teaching part time at Uweleni Secondary School. I have grown too attached to this community and this way of life to give it up just yet. In fact, I also just married an amazing Pemban woman and we plan on building a house here in the next couple of years.

In the short term though, I will be moving to Tanzania's largest city, Dar es Salaam (The City of Peace). I just receieved a job offer doing spreadsheet and database work for PEPFAR (Presidents Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) here in Tanzania. It's only a four month gig, but it will help me out with working for the NGO this coming tree planting season. I should be moving to Dar within the next couple of weeks, but come December I plan on moving back to Pemba to keep working.

-- Mike