Staging in DC

I left San Francisco early Saturday morning, on my way to staging in Washington, DC. The sunset from the plane at my layover stop in Chicago was gorgeous.

Now I'm in the midst of the Peace Corps staging meetings at the hotel here in Georgetown (DC). For the last two days, my group of 29 Environmental volunteers have all been getting acquainted, and involved in discussions about health, safety, and Peace Corps policy during our meetings. It's been reassuring talking with everyone and just knowing that we're all in this together.

Right now we're all busy with the final reorganization and repacking. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who had trouble sticking to the 80 pound limit. The big challenge with packing was knowing that we could only bring one of our checked bags with us to training, while the other stays behind at the Peace Corps headquarters until we eventually move to our individual sites in May. It's been funny to prioritize my life accordingly. I'm realising each time I reorganize maybe I didn't quite need everything I ended up bringing along.

Tomorrow we start our 15 hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa (we stop briefly in Dakar, Senegal to refuel). We'll be spending Wednesday night in Johannesburg, and then another four hour flight to our final destination of Antananarivo (aka "Tana"), Madagascar on Thursday afternoon.

As soon as we arrive, we will head directly to our training site in the Anjozorobe Village of Mantasoa, which is about 3 hours from Tana. We'll be getting some immunizations, a quick language briefing, and then we're handed over to our host family for the night. There we will spend three months in Malagasy language, cultural, and technical training while living with our host family in the village of Anjozorobe.

I've been told there won't be electricity or running water (much less internet access) during the first three months while we're in training, so this could be my last post until April or May. I will be officially sworn in as a volunteer (assuming I pass all the evaluations) on May 2nd.
With any luck, I'll find a computer sometime before then. In any case, keep checking in, and send me a letter!! (It only costs $0.84!). Hope to hear from you!