Estabishing contacts

So when I first took a look at this Blog assignment I was completely blown away and felt way out of my element. I had no idea where to start when I was looking through the global contacts. I felt absolutely clueless when glancing through trying to figure out I was going to choose. As I was scrolling through the list the first thing that popped into my head was the my cousins were in Ghana for 2 years with the peace corps and I decided that if they had a contact for that country then I was going to start there since it has personal interest to me. I did in fact find that they had a contact Rev Charles Arko-Nunoo. I liked this for a couple of reasons, Rev. Charles has an email address along with mailing address and a telephone number. I am not sure how in-depth we are going to have to get with our new contacts so I thought it might be helpful to have multiple ways to get in touch if I needed to.

The second person I chose to try and get a hold of was Siobhan Fitzpatrick from Ireland. I chose this person for a few different reasons, the first being that I know that I can have an open line of communication with this person based on our language similarities. I know that you can use the translators online, but when asking questions and trying to get ideas across, from personal use, they are SO not correct. The person reading can get the gist of what is being implied/said but it is not accurate. I also wanted to have someone in a country that I might be able to visit in the future. I have family friends who live here and have more of an opportunity to be able to go observe later in my life's journey.

The hardest part for me this week was trying to figure out a professional way to introduce myself to a total stranger, who has no idea that I will be contacting them. I sent out emails to the ones that were provided on the website asking them if they would be okay with giving knowledge of their education system and helping me to better understand the policies, expectations and programs that they offer in their countries. After I figured out how to construct what I wanted to say, I sent out about 6 emails, all of which were returned as bad email addresses. This worried me, until I realized that I know several people who live in other countries and I decided to get a hold of them to see if they had an contacts that I could pick their brains. I am waiting for responses at this time, but I will update once I have an answer. FINGERS CROSSED!