Friday, February 25, 2011

Breathe Deep the Scent of Philadelphia

Finally made it!  After saying goodbye to Mom, Dad, Catie, Robert and Megan at Denver International Airport I wound my way through security.  Thank goodness they didn't make me unpack everything in my backpack.  If they had, I think I would have started crying, packing sucks.  Once I got to the terminal, I was found by Mary Hansen, a fellow Malawi PCV who is also from Denver.  Thankfully we were flying on Southwest, so we didn't have assigned seats and I had some company on the flight. 

After we landed in Philly we heard someone a few rows back say, "yeah, 2 years is a long time."  Now, when you are in the Peace Corps, "2 years" is a magic number so we perked up but didn't see anyone, and wouldn't meet them until later.  So we hauled ourselves to the baggage area and forced our way out to where the shuttles pick you up to go to different hotels.  In a world of black rolling luggage, PCVs have a tendancy to stand out.  You see a small group of 20-something year olds wandering through an airport weighted down under about 80 lbs wirth of stuff and you put two and two together.  So that is how we found, Ross (the mystery person on our flight), Robert, Cassie, and Katie while waiting for a bus.

During our check in we found out that the PC gives all the volunteers $120 to get them through the weekend.  Wooh!! So several of us went and walked around near the hotel to find a place for dinner.  It's interesting here, to the left of the hotel you are in the Asian district of Philly, but if you go right you are surrounded by Irish pubs.  I bet St. Patrick's Day is pretty interesting around here, the jokes probably all start with, "A priest and a buddhist walk into a bar...".  Anyway, we found a pub not too far away and had steak, really good steak too.  The last decent steak I am likely to have in two years, let us have a moment of silence for our dear friend. *sniff*

Today we got up bright and early and went to get our Yellow Fever vaccination.  Let me tell you, there is no early morning eye opener quite like a shot of live virus in the back of the arm, forget espresso.  Which brings me to now.  It is about 11am and we are having a break before going back to pre-service training until 6:30 tonight.  Then it is going to be a mad frenzy of stealing as much toilet paper and tiny soap bars from the hotel as we can and packing for a 15 hour flight...yay.

So, until 2am I am in the City of Brotherly Love where it is rainy and windy.  Don't expect a whole lot in the way of blog posts or email until mid April. Want to get a letter? Then I need your address, unless you already gave it to me. If you come across someone who was not aware of my departure make sure they know that rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.  

Love you all very much!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Packing Defeated (Pack All The Things!!)

I have defeated packing. Long live the Eagle Creek Packing Cube.

I can't believe no one has mentioned these before! They are perfect! Ever wondered why Hannable couldn't conquer the Roman Empire? He didn't have packing cubes.  If he did, he could have loaded all his elephants in one or two, chucked them over the Alps and picked them up on the other side.  Ever wondered how Lewis and Clark were able to send so much stuff back to President Jefferson? They HAD packing cubes.  Someone has been holding out on me.

Anyone remember the computer game Oregon Trail? You could go hunting for extremely pixilated deer and buffalo, shoot as much as you want, but you could only bring back 50 lbs of meat.  That is like packing for Peace Corps.  Look over every posession in your life and bring only those most needed.

Seriously though, if you are in the PC and are getting ready to go, then you undoubtedly know about the packing limitations and are losing sleep over it. We have very specific size and weight limits and they make a difficult task seem impossible.  To me, packing just about everything you will need for 2 years is tantamount to summoning up a miracle, (i.e.- Mary! Go to the moon and back before supper!) I just can't think under that kind of stress. 

I have been packing, unpacking, and repacking for the past couple of days trying to decide how best to roll, fold, or stuff my clothes so as to allow for as much room as possible for other things.  No matter how I arranged all the clothes they took up a heck of lot of space in both the duffle and backpack.  Then my sister came home for a visit. She has a couple of the cubes and boasted the claim that they would solve all my packing problems, bring about world peace, stop global hunger, and begin instituting harsher punishment for parole violaters (kudos if you understand that reference).  To me it sounded something like this:

"Excuse me little girl!"
"Yes?"
"I understand you need to get to the moon and back before supper."
"Uuuhhhh....."
"Well this tiny little bag of canvas will solve all your problems!"

It did, savor this moment Catie; you were right. We were shoe shopping, and passed a display of Eagle Creek packing cubes, on sale.  I stopped, looked and ended up buying one. After we got home, Catie began shoving all kinds of clothes into this itty bitty thing.  So yeah, that one physics law that says no two things can occupy the same space at the same time, totally broke it.

In that first cube went, 2 skirts, a dress, 4 shirts, one pair of leggings, one pair of bike shorts and three pairs of underwear.  And it all came out to this 9"x13"x5" little package:
It takes up way less space than just throwing clothes in a duffle and hoping you can press them down really tight.  You do all your squashing here and then these fit in the bigger bag and you pack around them.

Anyway, I promptly went back and bought two more cubes of this size and one smaller double sided cube. Then I went from all of this taking up loads of space:

 To this:
Now, I am not saying packing is now 100% worry free.  You still have to find a way to get in the rest of the stuff which, when combined, is about the size and shape of a dead yak, and roughly as cooperative.  However! Having 99% of all your clothes in nice, neat, easy to move around, cubes makes things tons easier.  I still need to rearrange what is in the cubes, I want it all split as evenly as possible.  Once everything is situated all you have to do is pack around the cubes.

I know how it sounds, an entire post devoted to the idea of putting a bag in a bag, but trust me on this one.  They will ease the hurt. I know it is last minute too, we leave in 6 days.  I was blessed enough to find mine on sale at a store.  However, since PCV do get really good discounts through the Eagle Creek website it would probably be worth it to get some and have them rushed.  I promise you will not regret it. 

Packing before the cubes is like riding a tricycle, getting cubes is like being upgraded to a space shuttle.  You still can't get to the moon and back by supper but you will eventually.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Elves and Farewells

You know the story about the shoemaker and the elves? He can't finish the shoes so the elves come in at night and do it. I have a similar problem with a different twist. I can't organize all my Malawi gear without the elves wreking it. My elves are destructive.

When I first started buying things for Malawi everything was simply contained to two boxes. Nothing was spreading out or cluttering up the rest of my living space. As time has gone on I have obtained more and more things for the boxes, and because only so many things can occupy the same space at the same time, I was forced to spread out. I think this is what attracted the elves. As the boxes were abandoned, I had a few well organized piles. One was for things that were definitely going, another for electronics, one for clothes, etc. and this seemed to work.

Gradually, almost imperceptivly, things started to shift. Piles had been moving and spreading out, invading the surrounding spaces of other piles. War crimes were being committed, the bed sheets had taken the socks hostage and would only release them if the water bottles promised not to harm the solar charger. Why exactly the sheets and solar charger had a treaty, I have no idea. In fact, none of it made sense. I couldn't explain how everything was becoming so disorganized, there could only be one logical explaination...elves.

They were sneaking in and making eveything a mess. Mom suggested it was my lack of organization skills. Shows what she knows, she put a table in my room for everything to go on. The elves saw this as a challenge and, as a result, the mess is now a couple feet up in the air. So far, all attempts to stop them have met with failure. My final option is to coat the legs of the table with, either, glue or vasaline. Then again, elves are supposed to be good, maybe I am dealing with Gremlins. Regardless, my only hope of escape is to pack it all and leave the country. 9 Days to go.

On a different note, over the last month or so I have been going about the business of saying goodbye to many people. It's weird saying goodbye and you really haven't left yet. It seems like goodbyes should always be said in an airport or parking lot, right before someone leaves. Otherwise it feels like you really aren't going anywhere. For instance, you know you aren't going to see someone from now until you leave in 2 weeks. Your only option is to say your farewells for 2 years..and then you drive 20 minutes home. Kinda anti-climatic, or like you don't mean it. I didn't realize that there are still people who don't know I am leaving. That is alway interesting, you have to fill them in and say bye all at once.  If you happen to be one of those people, I am really sorry! I'm also getting everythying together for my horse, Lance, so mom and dad know what to do and who to call. It feels like I am handing over the keys to my car. I have never been more than a few hours from him since he was 2 and he is almost 8 now. I am gonna miss him. Otherwise things are running smoothly, I'm still waiting for a few things to get here but it's almost time for wheels up!