Staging - Day Two

Today both clarified and confused things further. We discussed PC policies and legal stuff and did various skits and activities for further ground breaking and overviews. Our skit was by far the best with "learn and adapt" set to Sir Mixalot, but you would need to have been there to appreciate it. Things got interesting when we finally got the scoop on the next three months. Tomorrow we’ll be getting the first in a series of many, many vaccinations, and then we’re bussed off to the airport, then on to Kenya and on to our training post. I’ve been told the Internet access I’ll have over the next few months is "slow, frustrating, and unreliable" so posts may be few and far between for awhile. I’ve also been told I won’t have access to a phone for the first two weeks in country, so initially be assured that no news is good news. I certainly hope this will change over time but I can make no guarantees. My host family is expecting me so that promises to be exciting, especially since there’s little hope they will speak English. I foresee a lot of miscommunication and body language until I understand things a little better! So I’m nervous, scared, and sad to leave everyone behind, but really excited and ready to see what things will be like at the same time. It’s hard to believe that after all the years of wanting to do this it’s actually happening. It looks like I will have a great support structure through the volunteers and staff, so I’m not as worried about my well being as being able to retain everything I’ll learn during training and in turn use that to actually be helpful in Africa….oh, and having all my stuff stolen would suck too.

Anyway, that’s it for now. It may be two weeks before I can post again so hope for the best….and expect things to get interesting from here on out!