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.

The invitation has arrived! Mozambique!!!!!!

It’s here!!!!  My invitation arrived in the mail on Tuesday, and I’m going to Mozambique!!!  It was a beautiful moment because it was late, after 7pm, and I’d given up on it arriving.  Both of my grandparents and my aunt and uncle and their kids and my parents were outside at the house to look at my car, so I had this big pile of family around me when the UPS truck showed up with my invitation.  When I opened it, I yelled and jumped up and down over and over and over again!

It’s taken me this long to update because I have been so busy scrambling to get everything done as fast as possible.  I am so close to the staging date that I don’t want to risk having something go wrong with my paperwork and the invitation packet is so full of information and forms and various steps that even I (the paperwork queen) am having difficulty keeping it all straight.

So how do I feel?  I feel like I’ve won the lottery in terms of my assignment.  Literally.  I had images in my brain of Lesotho (the other potential country I could have been placed in) and from the various blogs I’d read, it is a chilly mountain country just going into winter and volunteers were talking about being freezing cold all of the time.  Plus, when I had imagined where I would like to serve if I could choose, climate-wise it would be somewhere warm and tropical (at least most of the time), but I also hoped for a place faced with challenges where I could feel like I could use my knowledge and skills to make a difference.  I was very (very) drawn to Africa.  So Mozambique is a perfect fit and I am absolutely ecstatic!

What will I be doing?  My placement is as a Community Health Promoter, which is slightly different from what I imagined, but I am still thrilled!  It sounds like there is a lot of work in NGO Advising (my specialty) within the program, working around issues of HIV/AIDS, orphaned children, outreach and education and other health issues.  I’m slightly intimidated, because health isn’t my area of expertise, but I am so ready for this challenge!

What language will I be learning? An added bonus is that one of my concerns about serving in Africa was learning a language that would be extremely geographically specific.  In Mozambique, there are local African languages, but the primary language is Portuguese, which transfers very well to learning Spanish and spoken in a number of places.  When this girl gets home, she will be tan and fluent in Portuguese.  Can you believe it?!

So what now? Well, I’ve sent off my Peace Corps passport application, visa application, PR materials, updated resume and aspiration statement to the country staff and have a packing list.  I am assuming that I will be flying to Philadelphia for staging on May 30.  Thanks to my lovely employer, I have work through the week before I leave (which is a massive blessing financially).  In addition, I have a huge running list (growing faster than I can check things off of it).  Including:

·         Sell my car;

·         Sort and pack my things for storage;

·         Buy the supplies I’ll need;

·         Pay off my credit cards;

·         Save as much money as I can;

·         Start daily Portuguese language training at LiveMocha;

·         Sell some other miscellaneous stuff;

·         Read up on Mozambique;

·         Finish recovering a chair and an art project that I’ve started;

·         Pack, pack, pack and pack!

The long and short of it is that I am beyond thrilled.  I am so excited and relieved and happy and nervous and I’ve been walking around with a huge smile on my face randomly screaming “MOZAMBIQUE!!!!!” at the top of my lungs.  So life is good.

Waiting and Like to Read Ahead? Get Your Peace Corps Documents Online!

This will be brief, I just wanted to share a resource that I've been using.  It's called, Scribd, and if you're not familiar, it is a great source for documents from agencies that you can't get on their sites or anywhere else.  For example, in advance of receiving my packet, I've been able to read instructions for completing my aspiration statement and updated resume, as well as download training resources and the welcome book for both countries that I could be invited to.

Hope you enjoy!

Scribd Peace Corps Documents

I've been INVITED!!!!

I’ve been invited!  I will blog again when I have the invitation in my hand, which is hopefully today or tomorrow, but wanted to put something up here. 

On April 6, I realized that it had been a month since I had been told that my file would be preliminarily reviewed and so I emailed my placement assistant to inquire about the status.  This is what I received in return:

Serah,

I hope that this finds you well.  I would like to inform you that your file has gone through our preliminary review and is complete.  I will now pass it on to a Placement Specialist for further review to best match your skill set to an available program departing in the coming months.  You can expect to hear from her in approximately 4-6 weeks regarding possible placement options that best match your skill set.  I encourage you (as I do all of our applicants) to take this time to continue to gain additional professional/volunteer experience relevant to the program in which you were nominated to.  This will allow you to stand out as an applicant and also make you a stronger resource in a future host community.

I was feeling really distraught about the email, because I had been thinking that this email would be the one that told me where they were considering placing me and instead I was facing another month and half of the unknown.  I assumed that this meant that it would be five months at least before I would be leaving and had to create a new plan.

So, I started looking for other jobs.  The next day, I set up an interview (thanks to the help of my Mother’s extensive net of local contacts) for a summer job, and resigned myself to more waiting.

Then, later that afternoon on the 7^th, I got a phone call from a 202 area-code and I didn’t recognize it so I didn’t pick up.  I listened to the message when it finally registered in my brain that it was a D.C. area code and it was a Placement Officer asking me to call her back that day.  I called back immediately and she apologized for the short notice and then asked if we could talk for a little bit.  My heart was pounding out of my chest, but I didn’t want to dare to hope. 

She asked me a number of questions similar to those I was asked in my initial interview. She was mostly just checking-in with me about the challenges of being a volunteer and my expectations of my Peace Corps service.  Then she asked me about geographical flexibility and any preferences I had, and then when I was prepared to leave.  I explained that I knew I wasn’t supposed to make any major life changes until I had my invitation, but that I’d had to, and so I was simply waiting for my invitation to leave.  She said “Well, I’m very glad to hear that, because congratulations, we would like to invite you to serve in Africa leaving on May 31^st in non-profit advising!”.  I immediately started bawling and when I asked her if people regularly cried on the phone with her, she responded that they did and that sometimes they screamed.  I literally cried through the rest of the conversation, but she had a great sense of humor about it. 

I checked the wiki almost immediately and learned that there were two programs leaving on May 31, both of which had non-profit advising programs.  Lesotho and Mozambique.  I’d initially thought that Mozambique had a French-speaking requirement, so was convinced it was Lesotho.  A friend corrected me though and I realized that it is a primarily Portuguese. 

I’m crossing my fingers for Mozambique, but either way I am absolutely THRILLED!  I will update more as soon as I have my invitation.

Here’s to all those applicants out there hoping every day for their placement.  There is HOPE!  And it doesn’t always work the way that they say it will, so stay in touch and stay positive!