Hey everyone!
So Monday was Day one of my new life and it was a 10 out of 10!!
Packing was a nightmare. But, we made it really fun and funny and took pictures and packed and weighed the bags and repacked and weighed the bags. My body is definitely sore from lugging the 170 lbs of luggage I ended up bringing though. I'm sitting here at the Georgetown Holiday Inn in DC getting ready to ship more stuff home so I don't break my back in the oppressive heat in Mali lugging around more than I weigh!
If you are a future Peace Corps volunteer...abide by the PC weight limits!! It sucks dragging around all that luggage!! And pack two weeks in advance. I wish I had packed earlier and I wish I had been weighing my stuff in my luggage as I bought it...I would have saved a lot of time, stress but especially money.
And as a Peace Corps invitee, the packing, medical tests and peace corps forms get really expensive, so any time you can save money, definitely do.
With that said, yesterday was so great because it was the first day of my new life. 6 AM flight out of Wichita. Turns out my mosquito bug hut tent...well, I tried to sneak it into the plane without checking it :) and they caught me!! Right before I boarded the flight, the flight attendant told me I had to pay ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS to check it...Idk if you know this, but that's HALF of my income per month as a Peace Corps trainee...and just a lot of $$$ in general.
So the flight left at 6 AM and I couldn't help but think...Hello world!!! And as cheesy as it may seem, one of the mottos the Peace Corps has is "When life calls role, answer 'Present." And I felt present.
Once I got to DC, we got there at 12:40 with some delays and the Peace Corps staging registration began at noon. We ended up getting to the hotel where staging takes place at 2:40 (the people I refer to as "we" are the two other Wichitans who are also going to Mali with me!! Small world, huh?)...and just missed the Peace Corps director speaking.
Just so you know, having the Peace Corps director at your staging event is a big deal. Unfortunately, I barely missed him.
Staging was fun, and it helped to relieve some of the anxiety I was feeling about flying across the world to live in Africa. We did a lot of teamwork activities, such as tacking big pieces of paper on the wall and working in teams to jot down as many anxieties and aspirations as we could. Mine personally: Anxieties - learning and speaking the language, strict gender roles, building credibility in a new country. Aspirations - Befriending Malians, befriending PCVs, learning, being able to accomplish anything after the Peace Corps.
After Staging, a bunch of us went out to our last dinner in the USA for 27 months (unless we come home). We went to a Thai/Indian restaurant and the food was delicious. After that, it was figuring out my packing nightmare.
Basically, on Tuesday morning, the day we left for Mali, I ended up mailing 30 lbs of stuff to my sister to send to me later. My body was aching and sore as hell from lugging around 170 lbs of luggage around the airport.
We got our Yellow Fever shots and went to the airport five hours early. Good thing we did, because it took the 62 of us almost the entire time to get through baggage and security and figure things out. The airport misplaced my bug hut tent...and they're sending it to me in a couple of days. We were all lined up along the front of the airport switching one person's stuff into another person's bags so we didn't have to pay the $100 for an extra 10 lbs of luggage.
After the pizza and beer I had for the last time in a while, I had to head to American Airlines to figure out my bug hut tent sitch. They're sending it to Mali...which saves me $200 in extra baggage costs. Then it was time for final goodbyes in the last couple minutes before my plane took off.
It wasn't a sad or scared feeling. It was more numb. But not numb in a bad way. Numb in an open-minded, excited to learn what's ahead and arms-wide-open kind of way. If that makes sense.
I knew that soon enough, I'd be stepping my little size 7 shoes on the dusty red ground in Mali, West Africa and that was a really cool feeling. Soon enough, I'd wake up and actually be in the place I'd researched and thought so much about.
Next post: Waking up in Mali...literally :)
Thank you so much to everyone for the support...it's going to keep me going and motivated. Love you all!! Next blog post very soon!!!
So Monday was Day one of my new life and it was a 10 out of 10!!
Packing was a nightmare. But, we made it really fun and funny and took pictures and packed and weighed the bags and repacked and weighed the bags. My body is definitely sore from lugging the 170 lbs of luggage I ended up bringing though. I'm sitting here at the Georgetown Holiday Inn in DC getting ready to ship more stuff home so I don't break my back in the oppressive heat in Mali lugging around more than I weigh!
If you are a future Peace Corps volunteer...abide by the PC weight limits!! It sucks dragging around all that luggage!! And pack two weeks in advance. I wish I had packed earlier and I wish I had been weighing my stuff in my luggage as I bought it...I would have saved a lot of time, stress but especially money.
And as a Peace Corps invitee, the packing, medical tests and peace corps forms get really expensive, so any time you can save money, definitely do.
With that said, yesterday was so great because it was the first day of my new life. 6 AM flight out of Wichita. Turns out my mosquito bug hut tent...well, I tried to sneak it into the plane without checking it :) and they caught me!! Right before I boarded the flight, the flight attendant told me I had to pay ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS to check it...Idk if you know this, but that's HALF of my income per month as a Peace Corps trainee...and just a lot of $$$ in general.
So the flight left at 6 AM and I couldn't help but think...Hello world!!! And as cheesy as it may seem, one of the mottos the Peace Corps has is "When life calls role, answer 'Present." And I felt present.
Once I got to DC, we got there at 12:40 with some delays and the Peace Corps staging registration began at noon. We ended up getting to the hotel where staging takes place at 2:40 (the people I refer to as "we" are the two other Wichitans who are also going to Mali with me!! Small world, huh?)...and just missed the Peace Corps director speaking.
Just so you know, having the Peace Corps director at your staging event is a big deal. Unfortunately, I barely missed him.
Staging was fun, and it helped to relieve some of the anxiety I was feeling about flying across the world to live in Africa. We did a lot of teamwork activities, such as tacking big pieces of paper on the wall and working in teams to jot down as many anxieties and aspirations as we could. Mine personally: Anxieties - learning and speaking the language, strict gender roles, building credibility in a new country. Aspirations - Befriending Malians, befriending PCVs, learning, being able to accomplish anything after the Peace Corps.
After Staging, a bunch of us went out to our last dinner in the USA for 27 months (unless we come home). We went to a Thai/Indian restaurant and the food was delicious. After that, it was figuring out my packing nightmare.
Basically, on Tuesday morning, the day we left for Mali, I ended up mailing 30 lbs of stuff to my sister to send to me later. My body was aching and sore as hell from lugging around 170 lbs of luggage around the airport.
We got our Yellow Fever shots and went to the airport five hours early. Good thing we did, because it took the 62 of us almost the entire time to get through baggage and security and figure things out. The airport misplaced my bug hut tent...and they're sending it to me in a couple of days. We were all lined up along the front of the airport switching one person's stuff into another person's bags so we didn't have to pay the $100 for an extra 10 lbs of luggage.
After the pizza and beer I had for the last time in a while, I had to head to American Airlines to figure out my bug hut tent sitch. They're sending it to Mali...which saves me $200 in extra baggage costs. Then it was time for final goodbyes in the last couple minutes before my plane took off.
It wasn't a sad or scared feeling. It was more numb. But not numb in a bad way. Numb in an open-minded, excited to learn what's ahead and arms-wide-open kind of way. If that makes sense.
I knew that soon enough, I'd be stepping my little size 7 shoes on the dusty red ground in Mali, West Africa and that was a really cool feeling. Soon enough, I'd wake up and actually be in the place I'd researched and thought so much about.
Next post: Waking up in Mali...literally :)
Thank you so much to everyone for the support...it's going to keep me going and motivated. Love you all!! Next blog post very soon!!!
YAY!!!!!! I was so excited to see that you had written another post when I woke up this morning!!!
ReplyDeleteI am glad I got to talk to you a little bit last night! Sorry my internet went out and I couldn't figure out how to get back on.
So... let me get this straight about the whole left hand thing... There is no toilet paper? Nice!
Talk soon! MISS YOU!!!!
Thanks for keeping us in the know on the first phase of your grand adventure. I hope your bug tent arrives shortly after you do in Mali. Can't wait for your next post!
ReplyDelete