Hello new friends! My name is Jessica, and I’m excited to meet you and share my journey to Malawi with you. I grew up in Pennsylvania, and as a kid I always liked to play school with my younger sister. She would be the student, and I would give her math questions and read books to her. As I got older, I decided that I wanted to be a teacher when I graduated high school. I moved to North Carolina to go to college, and I studied English and Spanish education.
To help me learn Spanish better, I studied abroad in Mexico and Spain! Have you ever been to another country? I thought it was so fun and interesting that I decided to move to another country when I graduated. I worked as an English teacher in Mozambique, a country in Africa, when I finished college. There I learned a language called Portuguese, and I lived without electricity or running water for two years. My co-workers there were very nice, and I quickly made friends. In the afternoons we would sit outside and talk, and on weekends we would often go watch soccer games played between different neighborhood teams.
When I moved back to the United States, I taught at an elementary school in North Carolina for eight years. I worked with students who came from many different countries, such as Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Yemen, Poland, The Gambia, and others. I had so much fun meeting people from all of these places that I decided I wanted to live in another country again. This time I am going to Malawi, which is right next to Mozambique. But this time, I am living in a big city instead of a small town. I have electricity, running water, big stores, and many restaurants. I just arrived here earlier this week, and I’m very excited to be able to tell you all about my journey--as well as learn about all of you!
