On My Way

Now you’re all very important to me, but I’ll admit that I’m writing this mainly to keep myself entertained on my first of many long flights. Currently, I’m on my way to Amsterdam, where I’m hoping that the airport will have free wireless so that I can upload this. Once in Amsterdam (only another 2 hours!) we’ll have about an hour layover before catching our flight to the city of Kilimanjaro – a nearly 11 hour trip. Jeesh. Then another precious hour of being able to use the lower half of my body, before one final flight to Dar Es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania.

I’ve spent the last two-ish days in Philadelphia for pre-departure orientation. The orientation agenda consisted of lots of paperwork, some sessions on expectations and guidelines, and lots of talk about safety and security while in country. Sounds pretty boring, I know, but it was really more an opportunity for my training class to group up and get to know each other than anything. We’ll spend three months together in training, which according to many returned Peace Corps volunteers is the most arduous piece of service.

My training class is amazing. For real. There’s about 40 of us, and it seems one person is more interesting than the next. One girl recently completed a masters in computer science at a competitive university, and then became a competitive belly-dancer. Another has spent the last several months biking across the county, with ukulele in tow. Other have been working with Somalian refugees, overseeing construction on schools in Ghana, and working for senators. There’s another Cornell grad (!!) and my roommate just happened to be from Elk Grove. We’re an incredibly diverse group in terms of age and ethnicity, and we come from all across the US. And yet, for all our diversity and varied experiences, we all have so much in common. Everyone is anxious about learning Swahili, and taking malaria pills, and the lack of communication with home, and being eaten by lions, trampled by wilderbeast, rammed by rhinos and all the same things. Knowing that you’re not alone in your anxieties has been such a huge comfort. But even better is that everyone has the same spirit that made them join in the first place. We all truly want to improve the quality of life for the people we work with, and believe that’s worth giving up some comforts like facebook and Starbucks. And cable and hot showers. And reliable transportation and familiar food. But I digress.

It’s possible that we’re all just a bunch of naïvely optimistic fools that have no idea what we’ve gotten ourselves in to. I’d even be willing to swap out possible for probable. But the palpable energy that shoots through the air wherever we congregate, and the instantly recognizable look in all of our eyes just completely take me in. I feel extremely lucky to be surrounded by such an incredible group of people. And knowing that we’re all there for each other, knowing that we’ll all share the tough times and the rewarding times of service, knowing that I’ve got 40 people I can legitimately call friends after only two days, well, that all goes down in the major win category of my book.

Let’s just say that if I wasn’t completely sold on doing this before I left Sac, I’m definitely all in now.


"Yeah it’s overwhelming, but what else can we do? Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?"