The Peace Corps Personality Bootcamp

Preface: Friends, family, fellow-volunteers, facebook stalkers, fretting PC applicants and future volunteers.  This blog is all about my intense emotional process here and so I want to preface by saying I am fantastic, Inhambane is fantastic, the weather is fantastic and I am very happy to be here and that I made this choice.  Mozambicans are generally a wonderfully welcoming people and the work the PC does here is inspiring.  That said, adjustment to a whole new life in Africa is tough and below is reflective of the more difficult and personal aspects of this process.  If you’ll indulge me this overshare, I’ll be more focused on the place and work in the next one.

So the 2^nd of this month was my four month anniversary in Mozambique, which means I'm now almost half a year into my service.  I have to admit, during staging and training it is easy to listen in an abstract way to everything that they tell you about what your emotional process will be like during your service.  And it’s easy to think, “yeah, but they don’t know me!  I’m just super happy to be here and I will handle it all with grace and always be positive because I am so grateful and in awe!”  Truth is our fellow volunteers gave us a “map” of the emotional stages that we would go through at every part of the process, and so far, I would just say that they do know me, and probably every single one of us.  Our past experiences, our sites, houses, jobs, communities, friends, organizations, environments are all very, very different, but our reactions to them are pretty much the same.

For me, the honeymoon period is over, and now I get to wrestle with the hard reality of being here for another 23 months, and I will say it isn’t pretty or easy, and it challenges everything that I thought about myself and who I would be here when I was immersed in the fantasy of being here from the safety of the states. I miss things I didn’t even realize I would miss so badly. Food (I’ll spare you the specific list, it’s longer than this blog entry), anonymity, my family, my friends, the rain in Olympia, a lazy day snuggled up with someone watching movies, speaking my own language, driving, camping, cold weather, sweet potato fries, a night out drinking and dancing with friends, showing my knees without shame, a gym, can’t believe it’s not butter spray, real coffee, toasters, tap water that is safe to drink, phone calls, washers and dryers, hot showers (yes, fellow volunteers, I do have a shower with a converter so I’m lucky, but it’s rarely more than barely warm), everything accomplished by the feminist movement, fitted sheet sets in attractive patterns, well cared for animals, being in the same time zone as my loved ones, noise ordinances, watching grey’s anatomy and eating ice cream with my parents, a bank account with money in it, hair salons, used clothing stores organized by size, whole wheat bread, mustard, meat (oops, getting onto food here), my keyboard and guitar, roller skating, Netflix and Hulu, fast internet, hugs, customer service, clean and free public bathrooms stocked with toilet paper, mothers who tell their children not to stare, pea coats with scarves, a giant selection of tea at the grocery store, the smell of fall, bike rides, an oven, microwaves, used book stores, soy milk, and a refrigerator.

I am facing the death throes of my past life as everything I went through to get here has taken a running leap at my brain and heart with fangs bared.  It’s as if to fully be born into this new life I have to see my old one flash before my eyes. All my past relationships and friendships have resurfaced in some way, and I have had to face any pain or guilt or disappointment and try to find a sense of peace.  The fact that I am turning thirty in a couple of months and am doing something that people in their early or mid-twenties generally do leaves me feeling old and behind after a life of feeling young and ahead.  It has also become intensely real that I am not likely to have a romantic relationship, casual or otherwise, for over two years and that puts me single and facing the dating world again at 32.  My identity as a professional is challenged because I cannot speak well, and as a result, my colleagues and community members talk to me and treat me like a child.  All of my ego and pride about being accomplished and well-paid and doing important work means nothing here, no one knows me and I have to start from scratch to earn even a sliver of respect.  I have always been the top of my class, always the number one or number two student, but in training, I was in the lowest language group and now I have watched my younger colleagues as they rocket ahead of me with their Portuguese skills, challenging my identity as an awesome scholar. I have always felt optimistic and inspired about community projects and here I see all my colleagues jumping in with boundless ideas and enthusiasm, and I’m finding that I’m more hesitant and tentative (though, admittedly, it’s better to sit back for a while and get your bearings, even according to the PC). I have only received serious professional or academic criticism once or twice in my life, and the most severe and personal tongue lashing I’ve ever gotten, I got in training from someone who didn’t know me at all.  In addition to eating my way out of the U.S. (my own personal three month good-bye party courtesy of my friends Butter Chicken, Korean Barbeque, Cheese, Pizza, Ice Cream, Sushi and Pulled Pork Sandwich), food has also been my go-to coping mechanism for all the stress of the past four months and so I’ve gained something like 15-20 pounds in the last 7 months, and I’ve lost all the strength and endurance I gained in derby and in physical training, so my identity as a fit and toned athlete (and a sexy one to boot!) has gone out the window with the rest.  My identity as fashionable and hip also no longer exists because in addition to an extremely limited wardrobe, ¾ of which is either falling apart or no longer fits me (either too saggy from hand-washing and line drying or too tight from the all-carb Mozambican diet) and a lack of hair dryers, products or curling irons, Mozambicans dress extremely well and when you don’t they notice, either by telling you, or by blatantly and relentlessly glaring at whichever thing they seem to find personally insulting and offensive, generally my shoes or my hair. Because I am usually the only white person, it is incredibly unnerving how people just openly stare with this shocked look on their face as if you are an animal in the zoo, scabby and with all your hair falling out taking a bath in your own feces. Added to that, for the first time in my life I have neither a plan nor a clue as to what I want to do after this giant step.  I’ve always had a five year plan and a very clear idea about how what I am doing fits into what I am doing next and what I am passionate about and what I believe and now I have lost all that focus. I have a good idea of who I’ve been, what I’ve been passionate about, what I believed, but it’s like I am floating in a stormy sea and all of those things are life preservers floating around me and I have to choose which one to swim to before I drown but I’m paralyzed by the thought of choosing the wrong one.  Peace Corps was my last ditch effort to figure it out and so I showed up just hoping that this experience will bring me some clarity and focus and direction.  What I’ve learned so far is that once the novelty of being a heroic and jaunty adventuring social activist living in a foreign country wears off, you are left with the same you that you started with. So now, here I am just sitting in the unknown, or as Pema Chodron says (and my mom recently reminded me) “Standing on groundless ground.” 

All of this is just the most extreme manifestation of every single one of those little fears and doubts we all carry around, they have just gotten magnified in the microscope of this incredibly unfamiliar environment.  Don’t get me wrong though, I am glad to be facing them, it’s just quite a bit more intense than I expected.  It is wave after giant wave and once I think I’ve ridden one out, here comes another one rolling in.  But I’ve been calling them death throes, because they come with a feeling of urgency, like all those self-illusions and delusions and aspects of my personality have realized that this is their last chance to hook me and pull me under and I can see that it’s hilarious and sort of sad how desperate they are.  It is a time that is ripe with potential change, and I can actually see it happening and I can see all the falsity and ego-clinging for what it is and I can see for a moment at the crest of each wave that there is sunlight and peace on the other side of the squall.

They tell you that you will feel isolated, and I do when I walk around my community because I am so obviously out of place.  There is nothing like being catcalled and taunted by groups of 13 year old boys to make you feel like its junior high all over again. But unlike some of my colleagues, I have immensely enjoyed my time alone in my house.  I’m not frightened of the boogey man or rats or spiders or giant grasshoppers or ninjas (word here for thieves), or of the dark. I like washing my clothes and cleaning my house and cooking my food. I sleep like a baby, aside from the rooster who always wakes up at midnight to announce that dawn is five hours away. I haven’t been truly alone in my own space or with myself for any period of time in almost thirty years, and getting to know myself with no one else watching to impress or accommodate has been like getting to know someone that you’ve seen every day for decades and never said even “hello” to and then one day you take the time.  Turns out, they have all sorts of interesting stories, and they are quirky and a little weird, and they like art and music and writing and cooking and you have all sorts of things in common and they might just turn out to be your new best friend and you can’t believe you went this long without getting to know them. 

I am loaded with Pema teachings and PC books and resources to help me cope with all of this new stuff and so I’ve been working my way through them. Thanks to Pema and a meditation practice, I have seen how little (if ever) I am actually just present and how much of my time (if not all) I spend in my mind flying around in the past and the future and in fantasy and fear and guilt and judgment and self-abasement and anger and regret. I’ve learned that we are all the same in this regard; it is simply the nature of our minds.  I think that if we could externalize that voice and just listen to it babble on, it would be hilarious to hear the narration out loud as we jump around the neural pathways we’ve built and then reinforced in our minds that connect one thing to another to another to another to another.  But we can’t, and the voice carries so much authority that somehow a passing and vague desire for ice cream sweeps you away into this 10 minute rollercoaster ride that takes you on a tour of the theme park that is your life and lands you smack in the middle of your biggest pain. Then you come to shaking your head and sweating and with your heart racing as if you’ve been woken from a bad dream.  I’ve found that I love with a passion the stillness and calm that comes in the few seconds that you actually sit in the now and be.  It feels like coming home exhausted from a long, stressful whirlwind of trip and curling up into your clean warm comfy bed and laying your head on a cool pillow and thinking you have never ever in your life been this comfortable or content or relaxed or been so happy to be home. I want to make those fleeting moments longer.  So I’m practicing with meditation to not always run away with the narrator in my head (who I’m pretty sure has ADD and is simultaneously sado-masochistic) who would prefer me always waiting in line for the next crazy roller coaster ride.  

Thanks to the PC books,  I have an idea now of who my heroes and role models are and why (my mom, my step-father, Ani Difranco, Melissa, Ann Lamott, Pema Chodron); I know what kind of life I want to have and where I am undecided (Kids or no kids?  Married or unmarried? City or country or other country? Job or another Master’s degree? Pacific Northwest or warm sunny climate?); I have done quite a bit of short term and long term goal setting and identifying the things that could keep me from reaching those goals; I have recognized some patterns in thought and behavior that I’ve carried with me mindlessly repeating for a long time;  I have realized that while I’m still not fully grounded in who I actually am, I understand that is not the pretty image of who I wish I would see when I look in the mirror or who I want to tell myself or others that I am, but that it doesn’t have to be disappointing because I am pretty lovable, interesting and cool nonetheless.  So long story short. Need personality boot camp?  Join the Peace Corps.

The great news is that I have a plan and I’ve been doing it! I get up at 6 every day. I am six weeks into my running program, I’ve been meditating every day, eating healthy, doing yoga, writing almost every day, keeping a clean house without an empregada, taking long walks on the bay, getting Portuguese tutoring, making art (by the way, I can sketch pretty well, who knew?), cooking complex and delicious meals (vegetarian….did I mention I miss meat?) for dinner-parties where I am the only guest in attendance and presenting it on a single plate as beautifully as any OCD alpha-cook can, and I’ve been saying “yes!”  I’ve laid out my goals for this first year on a giant poster.  And I have made a list of all the places I could decide to go and all the things I could decide to do after the Peace Corps, all the paths that my life could take, and it has made me realize that there are lots of exciting options and it is really up to me. Somehow, finding peace with life after this experience is allowing me to feel engaged and inspired here with this work even though what I will be doing is as of yet vague and unformed.  So it is really my life, and it’s happening right now and all I need to do is to be patient, stay engaged, keep working and follow my soul.

Settling in in Inhambane: 3 Months in Country, 3 Weeks as a PCV

I've been out of training for a few weeks and right now, I wake up pretty much every day just astounded by my good fortune in the lottery that is the Peace Corps site placement process.  Cidade de Inhambane (see-dah-day day in-yum-bahn-ay) is a beautiful place. This blog is all about all of the wonderful things I have discovered so far about my new home and jobs for the next two years.

It is a bona fide city (at least in the Mozambican context) which means that it has paved roads, side walks cross walks, multiple stores, what we here call "Chinese Walmart", a beautiful central market with crafts and lots of yummy fruits and veggies and spices, restaurants that serve pizza and gourmet salads, espresso (albeit the previous three things are things I cannot afford on a regular basis) and a chapa (shah-paw) station with benches and signs and all other sorts of citified types of things.

My city features many beautiful, well maintained concrete buildings that are painted pretty colors and is surrounded on three sides (it's a peninsula) by a turquoise bay of the Indian Ocean called "Flamingo Bay."  Next to the water there is a path with benches and palm trees that I can walk on my way to work and I can sit and stare at the water while I study portuguese or write or read (or simply just sit and stare with a crazy smile on my face).  There are gorgeous mosques and large churches and schools and government buildings and all are very well maintained.

It's very safe and well lit here and there are lots of foreigners living here that are working at various agencies and aid organizations as well as boat loads (literally, most people access the city by boat from Maxixe) of tourists coming through on their way to Tofo and Barra.  What this means is that unlike Namaacha (or many of the sites of my fellow volunteers), the cries of "Mulungu!!" are few and far between and the staring and teasing and taunting is much more manageable.  People are just not that surprised to see a white person walking around and generally once I say bon dia (bong gia) they smile and move on.  My larger annoyance so far is that I am assumed to be a tourist headed to Tofo every time I walk by the chapa station.

I've also heard that it wins the "cleanest city in Mozambique" award every year, which is wonderful, because every where else I've visited in Mozambique so far is plagued by piles of trash and trash strewn everywhere and the smell of burning trash on the wind and in your clothes.  This city has a bona fide garbage collection system which makes me want to find and hug the city administrators.

Okay, and obviously, Tofo beach is 30 minutes away by chapa.  And it is gorgeous!!!  I have been three times already and met wonderful people and I've seen more whales in this past two weeks than I have in my entire lifetime.  The ocean is a lovely temperature and is that clear aqua blue of all of my tropical fantasies, the sand is white and soft and squeaky (yes, like squeaky cheese) and it is relaxed and slow paced and all of the things you would hope of a beach town.

I am in a temporary house now, well, technically a "dependencia of a dependencia" meaning that I have a room attached to a mother-in-law apartment of a larger house.  For the past week we haven't been sure where in the world I was going to live after the 17th of this month and the only leads were not ideal situations and while doable would have been very challenging for two years (for example, a single room in another dependencia of a dependencia with no kitchen).  But today, we signed the papers for a two bedroom house with a living room, a kitchen, running water, a hot shower, grates on the windows, a front porch, my own concrete laundry sink outside, and a little space for my own machamba (mah-shahm-bah) (garden).  I have lots of neighbors, some foreigners and some mozambicans in a secure fenced compound with a security guard.  My dono de casa (landlord) seems like a nice, organized man and there is a swing set in front for the kids that live in the compound to play on.  It is beyond ideal!  Plus, as I learned when I had friends over this weekend, sleeping four people in a single room is not a comfy situation.  Now I will have a place to put all of those Inhambane visitors!

One of my organizations, Bios Oleos de Maxixe (by-owesh oh-lay-osh day ma-sheesh), is a natural body products company with a focus on community income generation that has brought me in to help with community initiatives like permaculture.  Right now I am working on putting in a demonstration permaculture garden on the property, helping to make soap out of local products, looking at using recycled glass packaging, and just generally getting to know the organization.

The other organization, MONASO (Mozambican Network of HIV Aids Organizations), has wonderful people working for it, and so far, the work I have been doing is reading all of their documents and slowly but surely translating them from Portuguese to English.  The good news is that I can actually do that, the bad news is that it takes a lot of time.  But their basic role is to help with funds management and capacity building for local organizations and my co-workers seem wonderful so I'm looking forward to the projects I will get to do with them.

All in all I am ecstatic!  I love it here and am so excited by the work I will be doing!  I hope that this blog finds you all well.  I love when you leave comments because then I know that I am writing to someone real and it makes me feel closer to all my folks over there in the U.S.!  More soon.

- The Wanderlust Queen

Okay...7 Weeks in Mozambique

Hi there!  So it's been a while, apparently it is much more difficult to blog in Mozambique than I imagined, at least during training.  I do have an internet phone, which is amazing for checking my email, but today I have accessed the first wifi on my computer, which is amazing!  To set the scene, I am sitting in a place called "Mundos" in Matola in Maputo Province, it is a little crossroads town outside of Maputo on the way to Namaacha.  To get here, Jenny, Tiffanie and I had to cram into a chapa, which is a tiny van, meant to seat 10 people, plus a driver, that actually seats 19 or 20.  Needless to say, it takes about five minutes for some significant body part (or multiple!) to fall asleep.  We arrived at Mundos at about 8:30am and are all happily munching on snacks and working on our laptops.  It is clean here and the waitstaff are friendly (more uncommon than you would expect) and there are clean bathrooms with running water and flushing toilets.  I would truly like to just live here and sleep under one of their tables for the next three weeks of training, but alas!  I cannot actually afford more than a single afternoon at Mundos :)  I will attempt to catch you all up with highlights on the past 7 weeks...

WEEK ONE (staging, arrival in Moz and travel to Namaacha):  See my previous blog.  We arrived in Mozambique and were greeted by PC staff and taken to Kaya Kwanga, where we checked into our hotel and began the process of getting oriented to Mozambique.  We had a few days of orientation, shots, language tests (yeah, I had no idea what the examiner was saying, AT ALL).  After a few days, we were packed into vans again and transported to Namaacha, and given a sheet of handy phrases in portuguese, featuring such tidbits as "Eu nao sou um bebe!" (I am not a baby).  And "Muito obrigada!" (Thank you very much)... In Namaacha, we were greeted by our new host families.  I was greeted by Ceclia, my 19 year old host sister, in English, which was exciting and disconcerting, and she proceeded to lead me to my new home.  I live the farthest out of all the volunteers in Barrio B, off a dirt path in a modest Mozambican home.  Ceclia has given up her room for the 10 weeks I am here and it is very spacious.  My mom, Laura, Cecilia, my cousin Lina and my neice Laurinha share a bed in the separate reed house that also serves as a kitchen.  My room is spacious and safe and lovely, and is connected to the family/dining/living room.  I've posted some pictures on facebook of my home and family here.  After settling in, we had the weekend to get acquianted with our families and then the official training process began.

TYPICAL SCHEDULE: I am to overwhelmed by the prospect of updating in detail on all my time here so far, so instead here's a typical day, I wake up at 6am and get ready for school.  I might eat some delicious namaachan bread and have some ricoffe with hot water prepared for me on the carvao (charcoal stove) by my family.  I leave for language class at 7:15am and until 9:30am work on speaking, conjugating and learning the ins and outs of portuguese (pouco a pouco....little by little).  at 9:30 I walk to the "hub" a house rented by the peace corps for technical training, which ranges from organizational development to hiv-aids education to mozambican history to coping with grief and loss, to international development theory to healthy coping mechanisms to understanding and identifying and treating medical issues.  it runs the gamut depending on the day.  At 12 I walk home, which takes about 20 minutes and have lunch, which usually consists of rice and couve (a delicious peanut/coconut/veggie dish) or salad and beef or some other mozambican delight.  At 1 Iwalk back to the hub for more technical training and then from 3:45 to 4:45 I have language tutoring.  After class, I either go hang out for a little bit with my colleagues or go home.  When I get home, I clean my room, including my xi-xi bucket (pee bucket) and then I either talk with my family or study portuguese.  We eat dinner around 7:30pm (see list of lunch options above, it is generally leftovers) and then directly after dinner I get ready for bed.  I usually study or read for a bit and then turn out the lights around 8:30 or 9pm.

On the weekends, oftentimes the peace corps has activities planned for us, but when they don't I wash clothes (lavar roupa) in buckets, clean my room, talk with my family, hike around namaacha with colleagues etc. 

MAJOR HIGHLIGHTS 

Unfortunately, I didn't pass my first language test, so I am working really hard to make sure I pass the final.

I took a trip to Chokwe to visit a fellow volunteer and had a wonderful time seeing the work that she was doing and preparing delicious food.  We made homemade raviolis stuffed with carrot puree and served in a cream sauce with bread and lots of veggies.  What a treat!  I also found some very expensive granola in the south african store and so I have a great treat now that tastes like home.

But the good news is that we got our site placements!!!  I am so so so so happy!  I will be living in Inhambane City, which is right on a sheltered bay just minutes from the Indian Ocean and one of the most famous beaches in Mozambique.  I will be working with a national aids alliance doing organizational development and capacity building and also working with a socially-conscious body products business that works with women and familes affected by HIV/AIDS and other issues to develop locally sourced market ready body products.  I posted more info and links on my facebook page for those of you interested!   On a final note about that, I have been placed within a couple of hours of my closest friend here, so I honestly could not be happier! 

There are three weeks of training remaining, although the final week is mostly final details!  Once I get settled, I will renew my promise to post weekly or at least write a weekly blog in more detail.  I apologize for this broad overview, but hopefully I've captured the most important points!

PC Staging in Philly...countdown to Mozambique

June 4, 2011

PST: Orientation, Week 1

Monday, May 30

After 6 hours of travel, I arrived in Philadelphia where I met up with Vicente, a fellow Trainee on my flight, as well as with Dylan and Morgan.  We took two taxis to the hotel.  After checking into my room, I found Maddy, my Philly roommate, who had arrived at 1pm reading on the bed.  We introduced and then I changed my clothes (92 degrees and 100% humidity), and then wandered down to the convenience store to pull out some cash.  Coming back to the hotel, it was evident who the other volunteers were coming in, they were all slightly wide eyed and loaded down with tons of luggage.

At 6pm we headed to check-in and began the process of becoming official trainees.  We turned in the rest of our paperwork and received our walk-around allowance, all the while chatting with the other trainees in the line.  As soon as we finished the paperwork, we agreed to all meet up and head to dinner.  Once everyone finally arrived in the lobby, we took off down the streets of downtown Philadelphia, a long line of gawking, yakking and laughing new friends.  After much aimless wandering we found a little Irish Pub, and they set us up a long table in the back.  Part of my mission while in Philly was to consume a Philly cheesesteak.  I have to say in retrospect that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to have my Philly cheesesteak experience take place in an Irish Pub.  The meat was dry and there was very little flavor. All in all, my cheesesteak experience was a disappointment.  After dinner and a couple drinks, exhaustion set in over the crowd and we wandered back to the hotel.  Both Maddy and I were extremely exhausted, so sleep set in quickly.

Tuesday, May 31

We had to be in the lobby at 7:15 to head to the clinic, so we woke up at 6:15 (4:15am according to my body).  Breakfast was bad fruit and semi-passable coffee and then it was off to the medical appointment.  Another long line of gawking tourists wandering down the streets of Philly.  Our hotel straddled the edge of downtown and the poorer section, and our walk took us down a pretty interesting street.  We ended up at a government building where the lot of us headed through security.  It was very much like being on a field trip in elementary school.  After security, we lined up against the wall in alphabetical order (again, elementary school), and were split into two groups.  One group of us headed to the cafeteria to wait and one to the clinic.  I was in the first group, so I sat in the cafeteria getting to know some of my fellow volunteers.  There was much swapping of medical mishaps and it was a relief to realize how many people had so much more trouble than I did.  There are also quite a few people who had been nominated to programs in Latin America or had been nominated to education programs but ended up being invited to this program at the last minute.  After about 45 minutes we headed up to the clinic where we signed some more papers and waited for our shots.  To our collective relief, it was just a single shot today for yellow fever.  It went quickly.  The clinic ended by 9:30am and we were told to meet back up at the hotel for staging at 1pm.  Set free, I headed back to the hotel to change and then met up with Maddy and Jack to walk to the Liberty Bell.  I’m not much of one for history, and I hadn’t really made the connection as to how patriotic of a city Philly was (which makes sense when I actually think about it), but it was interested nonetheless to see such historic landmarks.  The line for the bell was long, but luckily there was a viewing area from outside, so we could see it and read about the history.  The main thing that struck me was that the bell was meant to represent liberty, and cracked almost immediately upon arriving to the United States.  I found it to be the most perfectly ironic metaphor.  We wandered around Independence Hall a bit and then headed back through the city to our hotel to meet some other volunteers for lunch.  For lunch we ate at Terminal Market, where I had some last minute Mexican food.   Maddy and I sat with Joe, another volunteer, who is taking a hiatus from his work in the health field and got to know him a little bit over our food.  We then headed back to the hotel for our afternoon meeting. 

Headed into the room, it was filled with tables covered in markers and name-tags and staging notebooks and we spent the rest of the afternoon in that room discussing the kinds of issues that may come up, how to deal with stress, our fears and anxieties about service, and reviewing what it means to be a peace corps volunteer.  Afterwards, the group of us headed to Red Robin for dinner, where the management gave us a box of Hershey’s chocolate to celebrate our upcoming service.  After dinner, Maddy and I to a little walk around Philly to digest and then headed back up to our room to begin the process of repacking for what felt like the millionth time.  We had a number of last minute things to do to get ready to take off and ended up going to sleep at around 1 am.

Wednesday, June 1

At 2:30 am the alarm went off and we got up, grabbed our heavy bags and headed to the lobby to load up on the bus.  By 3:30 pm we were in our seats and headed down the road.  A fellow volunteer, Eric, forgot his expensive new international phone in the lobby of the hotel and spent the beginning of the bus ride trying to figure out how to get it shipped to Africa.  I slept off and on for most of the 3 hour bus ride, but woke up as we entered New York City, the first time I had been there besides a brief stop at Newark Airport a few years ago.  I enjoyed getting to travel through the city so early in the morning, and was craning my neck trying to absorb as much of the cityscape as possible.  We arrived at JFK at 6:30 in the morning and spent a confusing 30 minutes trying to figure out what gate we would be flying out of.  Once we established that we would be checking in at South African Airlines, we unloaded all of our baggage and the whole group settled in to wait for the ticket counter to open.  Most of us spent this time weighing our bags at the unmanned ticket counter and shifting things around to fit into the weight limit as well as searching for coffee and snacks.  When the ticket counter opened, we all lined up to start the long process of checking in only to be told that our tickets weren’t valid and that we would all need to go to another place to get the issue resolve.  We soon discovered that someone at the airline had accidentally voided our reservation and the next 45 minutes was a chaotic mess of bags and confusion in the line as they reprinted tickets one-by-one.  After that mess, security was a breeze, as was waiting for the plane.  I have never been on a huge international flight, and walking down the gangway to the huge plane was a surreal experience.  We settled into our seats, and into the reality that we were actually going to be flying to Africa in a few minutes. 

I'm going to cut this short, because as I write this, my cousin Lena is staring at the screen seemingly fascinated by the fact that words are appearing on the page as I type, so I think I will wrap this up and add more later!

I'm Up in the Air, But At Least I'm No Longer Up in the Air

I am writing this from the plane to Philly, hovering somewhere over Nebraska (thanks to online tracking and in flight Internet), and with really bad red onion breath resulting from the turkey (onion) sliders (onions) that I had for lunch.  I didn’t eat at 5:30 this morning and then made it into Salt Lake City only minutes before my connecting flight, which was conveniently departing from the other side of the airport.  Whatever happened to free in-flight meals on long flights? Cheapskates.

Anyway, I wanted to get some thoughts down about this day before my computer dies and before the feelings lose their freshness, or get drowned in the rush of the next, well, two years. 

It feels so monumental.  So momentous.  And at the same time I am filled with an almost eerie calm. This was a major departure (pardon the pun) from the previous week or so of high anxiety and roller coaster mood swings. 

The images and thoughts coming into my head while I was driving to the airport this morning with my Mom and Phil was like watching the movie of my past 7 months.  I could remember so clearly driving into Boise when I moved, pretty emotionally wrecked and overwhelmed and with a vague sense that I was going to be leaving at some point (when???) to start this new adventure that I had ripped my life to shreds to be able to do.  I remember holing up in my parents’ house and watching a lot of bad TV and sleeping late and trying to sort out what I would do for work.  I remembered finally finding a job at the Idaho Botanical Gardens, which turned out to be the perfect opportunity for me.  Then meeting Phil and getting to revel in having a new close friend for the last few months of my stay.  I remembered the long application process and every single moment of enthusiastic excitement and joy at things gone right, and every moment of utter crushing despair when things went wrong.  I so clearly remembered the angst of waiting and having no other plan and no idea when I would finally know something.  I remembered all the friends and family who cheered me on through the process, always telling me that it would work out, that I would know something next week, or the following.  Anyway, much of this is already detailed in previous entries, but I got to re-experience the entire movie reel of it all as I travelled to the airport, checked in and prepared to board my flight.

And now, like I said, I’m oddly calm.  Oddly relaxed.  It’s not just the lack of sleep, but this overwhelming feeling of relief, and freedom, and excitement, and that it is right.  It just feels right.  So the good news is, my anxiety has faded into the background and been replaced with joy and sense of looking forward.

A note to you all.  I have so many amazing people in my life that have been there for me, oftentimes better than I have been there for them.  Some have been my rocks and my champions in a big way during the past few years, such as my Mom and step-father Kesh and my close friend Melissa P. There are also all the wonderful people who contributed to the fundraiser to help send me to the Peace Corps.  Added to that is a huge groups of amazing friends, family and acquaintances that have been on my side and so excited and curious about my adventures. There are so many of you in my life that even though we don’t talk or email, still post Facebook comments in support of my dreams, or simply “like” my blog or photos, those little moments of support are noticed and meaningful to me, so thank you.

To all of you reading this, I know that this isn’t a forever kind of goodbye, but two years is a long time and I want you to know that your support and encouragement and faith in me has been beyond just appreciated.  You have contributed to helping this dream come true and keeping me pushing towards it no matter what the process looked like.  Any single one of you is welcome to come and visit me!

Countdown to Staging (38/52)

Things are getting exciting around these parts.  And VERY VERY real.  I have only 14 days left before I leave for staging in Philadelphia.  This is my last week of work, which is kind of blowing my mind.  And the stuff in my room is slowly making its way into boxes for storage.

I have added a some info to the right of my page that has a wish list that I will keep updated and the instructions for mailing care packages (Meaning:  You care and I will appreciate packages!  Please send!!).  I would also love pen pals, so please write me letters, I will definately write back!

I have spent the past week reading the blog of a former Peace Corps volunteer in Mozambique (I haven't finished it yet), called "Every Week in Mozambique" This determined man wrote an entry every single week about his experience, from training to the end of service.  Given that one of my personal goals is to write about this experience, I've decided to do the same. Please forgive me in advance if some of the entries get a bit tedious. At times his tended to focus excessively on food and Frisbee playing.  That said, you can consider this my public commitment to write an entry each week (although there might be some delay in the posting depending on my access to Internet).

For those of you curious about how this works, here is what the next few months of my life will look like:

May 30-June 2:  I will fly to Philly to meet up with the other 29 volunteers in my Health Program group.  We will stay the night at a hotel, and then will have a full day the next day finishing up paperwork, having medical appointments and getting oriented to the Peace Corps and each other.  The following day (June 1) at 2:30AM we will load onto a bus and be driven to Newark Airport.  At 11am we will get on a plane to Johannesburg (flight time 15 hours and 20 minutes), have a five hour layover and then a one-hour flight to Maputo, Mozambique.

June 2-June 5: We will stay in a swanky hotel in Maputo for a three-day in-country orientation and then will be taken to Namaacha, Moz where we will be placed with host families for the next 10 weeks.  We won't be told where in the country we will be placed for our two years of service until a couple weeks from the end of training.

August 12: Training ends and we are sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers (rather than "Trainees") and taken to our new sites.

Let the adventure begin!

Countdown to Staging (Day 29/53)

24 days to go!

Well, it’s been a little while since I’ve written.   My world has gotten so surreal!  I continue to go to work, do my laundry, see my family, hang out with my delightful friend Phil, and basically go about my daily life. These are short moments of “normalcy,” because every 5 minutes or so I remember that I am leaving for Mozambique and either it feels like a dream (as if it is happening in some alternate reality of which I am not actually a part) or I really get it that I am actually leaving and feel a rush of excitement like a bolt of electricity running through my body.

I’ve decided that I can’t think about the reality of it too much, because I don’t think that my immune system or mind could handle the constant state of high excitement and anxiety that accompanies moving to a country so far away, to live in an unfamiliar culture, with an unknown language, in an unknown place within the country doing unknown work.  My motto with this whole adventure has been to get the stone rolling down the hill by doing everything I need to do, until ultimately I get off the plane in Maputo and there is no turning back.  The goal is to do this without worrying too much about what it will actually look like once I’m there.  I’m sure it’s beyond my ability to accurately imagine it anyway.

Because of Facebook, I’ve been getting a sense of at least some of the folks I will be training with as well as some of the volunteers in country.  The current volunteers seem to love it there!  And more than one has told us that we have hit the Peace Corps jackpot in terms of assignments.  I’m taking this as a very good sign.  Apparently we (Moz 16) are the first group of solely health program volunteers to arrive in country.  I am assuming this is a part of the new expansion of the health program in Mozambique, but true to the Peace Corps modus operandi, it’s all a mystery to us. It seems like there are some wonderful people from all over the country out there preparing for this same adventure and I can’t wait to meet them all!

I’ve also been stomping my way through my list of different tasks and have been doing a great job of getting things crossed off.  It’s amazing that it’s already been a month since my invitation, but I feel good about the progress I’ve made.

Packing is a huge pain.  It’s amazing how quickly 80 pounds of luggage adds up, and trying to decide what I need in training and what can be stored until my placement and what I can fit into a carry-on bag is like solving a Rubik’s Cube.  I keep trying to tell myself that all of the things that I “can’t bear” to not take with me are likely to seem like unnecessary extravagance once I get there.  But seriously, in my head, I DO need 15 pairs of pants!  I DO need 5 dresses.  So I’m waiting for one of those special moods that I get into where “stuff” seems unnecessary to trim down my piles of packing (I used one of these moods to consolidate all of my stuff into a single carload for the move to Boise, so I know that it’s possible).  The photo below shows just the clothing portion of my draft packing adventure…there is a whole huge suitcase already full of other supplies.

Other notes:  I found a Portuguese tutor, so that is helpful, and he is going to help me get ready for the basic navigation I’ll need to do before training begins.  Also, I sold my car, so I am a biker babe now, which is actually fun (minus the watery eyes and sweaty pits that I seem to have every time I get to work in the morning!). 

Well, that’s my update!  I’ll try to update at least one more time before I leave with instructions for sending care packages and letters, wish list items, etc.