Staging

Hey everyone!

Greetings from my hotel in lovely Georgetown (aka Washington, DC)! My roomy Rebecca and I have a great view of the Washington Monument in all of its glory. I have just completed my 2 days of “staging” with the Peace Corps. It’s been a lot of sitting and listening to presentations about Peace Corps policy and how to integrate into our host communities, and logistics for our hectic next few days of travel. I absolutely love everyone in my group—Peace Corps Peru 12! There are 47 of us from all across the nation and we are all bringing different things to the plate for our jobs. We are all Health workers, Environment workers, or Water and Sanitation Workers. So to just sum up, they are good people!

Well landing in DC was quite the adventure—I had never been on such a small airplane! The woman sitting beside me actually asked if it was my first time flying. I guess me holding on to the arm rest for dear life wasn’t playing off how much I HATE small airplanes very well…oh well, I made it to the ground in DC and as my dad says “once you land its merely a bus wreck.” The original plan was for me to meet 2 other Peace Corps people at the airport, I had an amazing sign and everything made up. Well by Murphy’s Law I was unable to find Sasha—apparently our baggage claims were in different terminals…and the people who work there were clueless as to where Northwestern actually lands…go figure. But using the sharp wit that will come in helpful as a Peace Corps Volunteer I assumed the 2 guys I saw attempting to carry 4 very large pieces of luggage around the terminal wearing chacos just might be Peace Corps Volunteers—and I was right! So we found our way to the hotel on a shuttle (the driver HATED us due to all the luggage we had. His eyes quiet literally jumped out of his head when he saw the bags) and then started staging. It’s been a long 2 days, but it’s been a fun 2 days! It’s so great meeting everyone, and I’m actually starting to remember most of the names!

But for now I must go, we are going to find a park and play outside before we spend ALL day tomorrow in the airport. Seeing as how we are leaving our hotel around 6am and arriving in Lima around 9:30pm…YAY! I’m suddenly so happy I brought all the games I did.

Love you all, miss you all!

-Jenny