First day of Peace Corps: Staging

Today is the day we regular folks become Peace Corps trainees. After nearly 3 months of successful pre service training, assuming we pass the technical and language skills, we will be sworn-in in Tanzania at the United States Embassy and become Peace Corps volunteers. Finally after 11 months, today I start Peace Corps.

Professional dress is highly emphasized and outside the hotel ballroom posts a sign of what we can and can not wear. According to Peace Corps, today we enter this organization; therefore, we must act and dress the part. No slouch need apply. I wore my black polyester dress, my formal wear on sale for $20 bucks at Kohl.  Good deal.

Eight hours of covering integration, mitigation and all the core values of the Peace Corps. Towards the end, I couldn’t keep my eyes open as I felt sleepy. It’s not because the presentation was boring; it’s because I’m emotionally drained, sleep deprived, and so worry about Fendi’s emotional well-being. I found myself very vulnerable and at any moment’s notice, I could cry at the snap of a finger. For a brief time when I would think about Fendi or any trigger that resembles family, my eyes began to water and God forbid I lose it in front of 41 people. Oh Jesus, please don’t let others see you cry…this is not good. Nobody’s going to believe that you have an allergy, because obviously you look straight up sad!

I am feeling stressed as how to divide and recalculate my now 3 check-in baggage. I am clearly over the weight limit and I dare say out of 41 people in my group, I am bringing the most things but regret nothing. A very helpful fellow Peace Corps buddy will be “owning” one of my 3 baggage as his in order for me to be allowed to bring it in to the country. Max is a rock star, the only person in our group who brought 1 baggage! My hero.

After staging has ended, I returned to my hotel room and immediately called Fendi as she has been on my mind the entire afternoon. The emotions I have been repressing had finally hit me and like a dam, it’s free flowing and it’s not a pretty sight. We skyped and a friend who was with her left the room to give us privacy as he saw Fendi’s mother crying on the other end of her computer screen. Oh gosh, a grown woman sobbing while covering her face…I better give the mother and daughter some private alone time. To my joy, Fendi was okay. Perhaps having a helpful friend  install her newly delivered Ikea furniture was a good distraction or witnessing me break down allowed her to see that it’s all okay. To put it in perspective, she perhaps may realize if anything, I need to be in “peace”.

After taking a break with Fendi, I telephoned my mother. Earlier today, I received an e-mail from brother telling me that mother was sad and that I should call her. I called mother dearest and as her usual self, she was very excited, loud, and full of energy. I answered all her questions and she asked if I saw cousin Steve. I recounted our evening to her. After speaking to the two women in my life, hunger struck and it was dinnertime. As I am walking the small restaurant row, I am wondering what kind of food I should eat for my last dinner in USA. Chipotle, hmmm…I’ve not had Mexican for a while, not a bad idea. California Pizza Kitchen, typical American...maybe I should do that. Nah, not in the mood for pizza, or Pei Wei, fake Asian cuisine. I’ll go for Pie Wei; I crave something like sweet and spicy. I ate by myself in a small booth while many trainees went off together to dine and socialize. I needed my alone down time to reflect and calm my nerves. I’ll be seeing these good folks during the duration of training but to be in solitude to contemplate will be challenging until I live alone in my own house in late December. Strange, my fortune cookie was empty. What does that mean?

I returned to my hotel room to take my possibly last luxurious American hot shower. I’ve decided that a hot shower is a luxury on a global scale. Definitely, no question about it. As a matter of fact, just to have water coming out from a spigot attached to a wall is amazing shit! Get ready, Wendy Liu, for another fun period of bucket baths…no, no, no…this can’t be the last. Tomorrow I’ll get up ultra early just to feel hot water running down my face. I will miss the heat and simply letting my arms just dangle besides my body.

As I currently write this post, I am enjoying the air condition, Green Mountain coffee from a Keurig coffee machine, lights, internet, and clean luxurious bedsheets with not 1, 2, 3 but 4 pillows on my bed from my business hotel room in Philadelphia, the Crowne Plaza. For once I wake in the morning, the next time my head will hit a pillow will be in Tanzania, and only Lord Buddha knows how that'll be like. I'm wondering if I should swipe the hotel shower cap and wear it to sleep as not to contract lice???

I am equally enjoying reading comments, posts, and messages from friends wishing me well. Honestly, nothing pleases me more than to hear support at a time like this where I'm ditching comfort and family for discomfort and the unfamiliar.

Tomorrow, the bus arrives at our hotel at 10:00 AM to pick our group of 41 people who belong either in the Health or Environmental sector for departure from Newark airport to fly overseas to Tanzania. First transit stop is Amsterdam, then Kilimanjaro to finally Dar es Saalam. Trainees for Education and Agriculture have already departed months back. Peace Corps Tanzania is awaiting for us as they have been preparing for our arrival. I have already heard their voices from a conference call and now I can see a face to what I heard.

I am looking forward to grow with my new family: fellow Peace Corps volunteers to be. Upon meeting everyone today, I think each person is super nice and super cool in their own way. There are two married couple, in which one couple is of an older age range and about 5 senior ladies. I belong smack right in the middle. I am neither a post graduate college student nor a grandparent yet. I am the token mid career person in our group. I love the inexperienced naivete of the younger crowd because of their ready excitement, yet the older folks are great with their experience and maturity as they are stable and exercises good judgment and wisdom. I genuinely look forward to learning from both.

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