We said goodbye to our parents and Sammy yesterday. It was hard, but we know serving in the Peace Corps is going to be worth being away from them. We sat next to a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) who served in Namibia, Botswana's neighbor to the west. It was interesting to hear her stories - her experience was very different than what most PCV's probably expect. She lived in a "mother-in-law" apartment owned by white Namibians. She mostly had a positive time, but she was honest about her experience. Almost 50% of the PCVs left early. Many of them left during training due to the effects of the anti-malarial drugs. Luckily, Botswana doesn't have such a high ET (early termination) rate. She visited Botswana and loved it. She thought the people were more friendly and the landscape was beautiful. It was such a nice coincidence to sit next to a RPCV!
We arrived in Philadelphia around 5:00 on Monday, settled in to our hotel room and headed out to get a Cheese Steak. All of the hub-bub of the last week or so must have really tired us out because we slept until 10 a.m. today! We had some grand plans of checking out the Liberty Bell and walking around the city. Oh well, the real reason we're here is for staging, aka pre-departure orientation.
Staging was just like any other big group training. It was great to meet everyone and put faces to names. We were given a lot of information, but nothing truly new. Tonight, we are heading out to dinner and drinks with other Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs). We leave very early tomorrow morning (2:15 a.m.!) and will take a bus to JFK. Our flight leaves for South Africa at 11:15 a.m. It will be about a 14 hour flight, so that will be interesting! We have to remember to walk around every once in a while. We look forward to heading to Botswana.
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