First day of Peace Corps Staging

August 19, 2009

I couldn’t believe when I woke up Wednesday morning that August 19, 2009 was finally here! I have been waiting a whole year for this day. So I slept in North Wildwood… and said my final good bye to my sister and my cousins. It was really nice that they got up early to wish me good bye before I left for my four hour drive.

My Uncle Mike drove me with my mom, grammom, and Aunt Donna. We drove to the Holiday Inn in Georgetown Washington DC at noon! I was really nervous that my bags weighed tooooo much!... and that they did. I weighed them on my scale and one weighed 70lbs and the other 50lbs. The Peace Corps baggage advisory was 50lb and 30lb so I knew I was over… however, I think it is cheaper to pay the luggage fee rather than having my Mom ship it to me later.
So when I arrived I was also super excited. I saw other volunteers, but I waited for my family members to leave before introducing myself to the other Peace Corps trainees. My Mom and Grammom were crying (crying is usually my style) however, I was more excited than sad. I did not cry.

So I introduced myself to the other trainees and they were super nice and friendly. They were from all over… California, Alabama, Texas, Florida, Denver, New York… etc. I was the only trainee from New Jersey (in which they picked on Jersey drivers)…
So we trainees couldn’t get into our rooms right away. So we went straight to staging/orientation. We finished all the paper work. I had my loans deferred and papers signed. I received cash back since I drove to Washington rather than flying. (Everyone else flew to Washington DC). I received 50 cents to the mile… and it was 192 miles.

We went through staging from 1:30pm to 6:30 pm. I was impressed how interactive it was. We did lots of group work, skits, and drawing. All components I would include in a lesson plan as a teacher. We covered the mission of the peace corps… my favorite part was how they stressed how the Peace Corps promotes world peace and friendship! We discussed and charted our anxieties and aspirations. That part made me actually even more nervous… discussing the bugs, frogs, snakes, scorpions, and dogs with rabies.

My group did a skit on Internet posting policies. I had lots of questions because I love love love pictures and I don’t want to get in trouble for posting inappropriate pictures… inappropriate meaning… having other volunteers in the picture and a sign of where we are… it supposedly can hurt their safety.

We talked about logistics of when and where to meet. All of us had to meet in the lobby at 1am to leave for the airport. So after staging was finished we took all our bags to our rooms and then eleven of us went to dinner in Georgetown. It was a delicious last meal in the U.S. for a while.

After dinner I bought some more sunscreen because I burn easily and I will be below the equator. Therefore, I stocked up on a couple of bottles of sunscreen… even though the Peace Corps supplies sun screen and bug spray in the medical kits that each one of us receives.

When we went back to my room… my roommate and I finished our last minute packing. Then went to bed for two hours 11pm-1am. We took a nice bus to the airport. We had to wait at the airport for a while because American airlines did not open until 3:30 - 4ish.

We got our boarding passes and then got in line to weigh our bags. I was the only one that had to pay 100 dollars for the extra 20lbs of weight… which I was prepared to do. Then we went through security which took me maybe an hour. They made me put through my bags several times. They said they saw liquid pills that I wasn’t allowed to have. I knew I did not pack liquid pills… so we never found them and they let me go. However, they went through my whole back pack to search for my swiss army knife. I knew I misplaced the one I bought… so my dad bought me one before leaving. Well my security guard took everything out of my bag…. I mean everything and it took him a half hour to find this hidden (by accident). They searched all my stuff and then left it all out on the table for me to repack… not fun what so ever. Also, he ended up just throwing away my pocket knife.

Next we got on our flight at 6:05am. Arrived at Miami at 10:15 am then off to Belize and arrived there at 10:30 am… bc there is a two hour time difference hahaha the time was pushed back. I slept the whole time on both flights… and I am known to sleep anywhere at any time.

Once we got out of the air plane it was sooooo amazing it gave me the chills. All the Peace Corps volunteers currently serving in Belize were clapping and cheering and had a huge banner welcoming us! It was sooo great!

Many of us trainees expected to be on a crapy school bus. However, they had a really nice bus (with air condition) waiting for us! They said be grateful now because we will never have this again. Lol

We then ate at a cute Belizean outside cabana style restaurant…. I sat next to my awesome pen pal pcv that I was so excited to finally meet. We all had a traditional Belizean meal… rice bean and chicken with watermelon lime juice… which was all delicious.

Then we went to the Peace Corps office. The Peace Corps director and managers lectured us for a little but had empathy because we were all sooo tired.
We went back to eat at a Chinese’s restaurant… that was a PCV (Peace Corps volunteer) favorite. It was good too. I had seafood fried rice… probably so fattening! Uhhh
After dinner we hung out and went to a local bar and took tons of pictures. Then I went to bed… in Belize for the first time.




Disclaimer
This website expresses the views of Grace Boswell, who is entirely responsible for its content. It does not express the views of the United States government, the Belize government, the Peace Corps or any other institutions named or linked to on these pages.