Well, it's definitely been a long couple weeks. Not at all in a bad way, more in a wow-everything-is-new-and-I-have-literally-nothing-to-compare-it-to way. It seems like a lifetime ago that I was hanging out on a rooftop in Haiti with Patrick drinking a beer. Philadelphia and Peace Corps staging also feels like a world away. It all started with a long trip, here's a quick summary of how it went:
Durango to Dallas for a layover.
Dallas to Philadelphia for Peace Corps staging.
Two days in Philadelphia of general Peace Corps information and preparation.
2 1/2 hour 2.00 a.m. bus ride from Philadelphia to JFK airport.
11.00 a.m., 15-hour flight from JFK to Johannesburg South Africa for a 4-hour layover.
Hour-long flight to Maputo, Mozambique (the capital, situated in the south).
Two days in Maputo for more country-specific information and training. Very introductory stuff.
Finally, a two-hour bus ride to Namaacha, where we are more or less situated for our 3 months of training.
Our time here in Pre-Service Training consists of language, health, technical, history, Peace Corps structure, culture and security lessons, occuring at various times and in various ratios each day and week. The general breakdown is class from 7.30-12.00, lunch until 13.30, sessions again until around 17.00, then time with our host families in the evenings. A cool tidbit of information is that in early June we will be finding out our personal site placements, where we will be serving the entirety of our 2-year stint. We will also have a 3-week period during this training period where we will stay in our future site and get a feel for the area.
I realize everyone is interested in details and probably have a ton of questions. However, this is where I'm going to end this post (never forgetting the photos of course!) and I'll go over more specific topics such as language, host family, culture in future, more focused posts.
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Sunrise while flying over the coast
of Western Africa |
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| Lounging in the Johannesburg airport |
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| Everyone's stoked to finally get to Namaacha after such a long trip...This selfie was taken before the second group's bus broke down though. |
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| A section of the grounds of the Hub, which is the Peace Corps training center |
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| Mozambique's climate is tropical |
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| Thanks to my amazing sister, my wall is covered in photos of my beautiful family |
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| Snapshot of my room. Mosquito nets are ultra important in a country with malaria and many other tropical diseases |
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| The view from my family's front porch |
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| On the road to the Hub |
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| Namaacha sunset |
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| Another section of the Hub. The building in the photo is the covered shelter where we have our training sessions |
