Staging

So, an explanation of what staging is.  This is where the Peace Corps (PC) gathers all the Peace Corps Trainees together in order to do paperwork, review what PC does, the three goals of PC, and what we can expect once we get to Tanzania.  Staging begins midday on Monday, 4. June.  We can ask any last minute questions that are annoying us, get to know the other volunteers, and anxiously await our actual departure.

So here’s our schedule for leaving the U.S.: We take a bus at 2am on Tuesday morning (maybe they’re trying to help us adjust to the time change….) from Philadelphia to JFK Airport in New York (I have no clue why they decided to do this.  I’m just going to sleep, so whatever).  Our flight leaves from JFK at 11am, and we have a 15 HOUR flight to Johannesburg, South Africa.  We then have another 3 hour flight up to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  I’m going to assume us volunteers use this annoyingly long flight as an opportunity to get to know one another.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be going abroad with such an established program.  I’ve loved the past programs I’ve gone to Germany with, but those were for student exchanges and not work/volunteer experience.  Peace Corps has got its stuff together.  Yes, it’s been around long enough to know what it’s doing (it was established in 1961 thanks for an executive order from President Kennedy—that senior history paper about the Peace Corps and its connection to the Cold War has made me freakishly well informed about PC’s early years.  Thanks Dr. C!).  But PC has worked out many kinks that other programs may still be struggling with.  They also have a reputation that is respected in many developing countries.

So now I'm off to hang out with other volunteers.