The past few days have been an absolute whirlwind, so for the benefit of interested parties back home (and for the sake of my own memories), I’m taking time while waiting at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport to try to recollect the staging and flight process.

I arrived in Philly at around 10AM on Thursday. No snafus there, except for a $35 taxi ride (ouch) and leaving my cell phone in said taxi, only to realize it about an hour later. While it has been really hard to say goodbye to everyone, on the plane and at the hotel I felt only positivity and excitement and looking towards the future. I got there a little early and was able to check in prior to staging, which didn’t start until 12. In the lobby I met some PC-Mali-ers I had talked to previously on Facebook, and the anticipation was palpable. I could tell I was around some like-minded people.

Around 12 the Peace Corps staff formed us into two lines (all 80 of us!) and got started processing our registration forms. This should be a simple process, but of course, nothing is simple with 80 people, and they literally had to go over every single form and be sure that all the signatures were there, dates were correct, and information was legible. Welcome to the world of government bureaucracy! Registering 80 invitees (and thus turning them into trainees) took about 2 hours.

Then came about 5 hours of discussions, activities, and presentations designed to get us to reflect on why we are really here and whether we are ready to live up to the expectations Peace Corps has of volunteers. The commitment to service is one Peace Corps wants everyone to take very seriously. We went over the Peace Corps mission and had to write down in our workbooks which aspect of the mission we felt was most important. We also got to introduce ourselves and our project sectors (The five projects in Mali are Health Education, Water and Sanitation, Education/Community Development, Small  Business Development, and Environment/Agriculture. Sector specific training will occur in country.)

After all of the presentations, we got pre-loaded debit cards (with quite a generous amount) that we could use for our food or other needs while en route to Mali. Tired and very hungry, a group of about 8 of us walked the streets of Philly for a bit until we came across a bar/restaurant with a lot of variety. With the PC allowance, I was able to splurge on a really delicious four-cheese tortellini with cream sauce, pesto, chicken, sun-dried tomato and spinach (my “last (non-airport) supper” in the States). Bed came shortly thereafter; training made for a long intense day.

The next day we had an early morning yellow fever clinic; since I already have my vaccinations, this involved waiting for an hour before being told I could go back to the hotel. Waiting, it seems, is a common theme of many Peace Corps experiences, but in this case it actually turned out to be a really great thing. There are so many of us and we know so little about each other, that every bit of downtime that we have is a chance to get to know someone you haven’t already met.

We had some time to catch the World Cup game, get some lunch and relax prior to a 3-hour bus ride to JFK Airport. We got on the flight to Paris with no major issues, enjoyed the wine gratis on Air France, and are now waiting for another couple of hours for the flight that will take us to Bamako to begin our service.

My impressions? I’m more excited than ever to become a Peace Corps volunteer. I’m also more nervous about the enormous tasks and challenges that lie ahead, in terms of keeping up in training, mastering the language, and becoming confident with the culture. But I believe Peace Corps will give me the support I may need along the way, and I’m really happy to be a part of a group with as much idealism and energy as our trainee group seems to have.

More soon!