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!

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.

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!

Advice, and Hardships

I think I am at the point where most everyone I know is aware that I am going to be leaving for Malawi in the next month.  This has led to the most amazing outpouring of advice I have ever seen.  I think this is mostly due to the fact that everyone I know has traveled outside of the US...I haven't.  That is not to say I never go anywhere.  I have seen most of the US, been all the way to the tip of the Florida Keys, and slept on more floors than I care to remember.  When I was a baby we drove from Alaska to Florida but since I do not have a stamp in a passport from that, I don't think it counts.

I am not claiming to be a traveling savant, and everyone knows this, so advice has been about the first things to do when you get somewhere, safety tips, how to keep luggage safe etc.

And it's not that I'm not grateful but the tips, however, are coming from people who hole up in resorts as soon as they touchdown in country.  Their tips are about traveling, not living.  Travelers want to live the same way they do now, just somewhere else.  Livers (not the organ), actually LIVE!

Example:

Traveler

"Oh Muffy you're back! We missed you at the club this past week. How ever did you find Mexico?"

"Why, Dash I turned South in Texas! Hahahaha! The worst thing happened though, the bar ran out of Pina Colada mix!"

"Muffy, surely you jest!"

Liver 

(once again, not the organ, although from the sound of it, were this Muffy's liver I'm pretty sure it would sue for separate custody) 

"Dude! You made it back!"

"No kidding, the doctors say it isn't Malaria and shouldn't be too life threatening after the next week, oh yeah, the cactus spines should work their way out in a year or so.  I'm just glad the camera is showing signs of life."

I guess what I am trying to say is pick your sources well, Muffy and Dash wouldn't know a hardship if it came up and slapped them on their cashmere clad butts.  But I can't say I'm a whole lot better.  Currently the top of my hardship scale has been trying to keep a certain little mouse from eating a hole in my backpack to get my trail mix.  My method was to wake up every 5 minutes when I heard him gnawing at my pack and make some vaguely human sounds threatening his existence and wave my hand in an attempt to ward him off.  Ultimately, I fell asleep and failed and the Marmots moved in, they took the entire bag...furry little vermin. No trail mix for a 7 day backpacking trip, yup, that is my hardship.  Oh well, at least I know enough to know that Muffy and Dash would not be sources for advice of any kind.  But this seems to be the only local advice I can dig up.  To make matters worse, I keep hearing about people taking longer to come out of culture shock than others.  

This could take a while............

  

Packing lists, among other disasters

Packing is a pain, packing for two years is like moving, and packing for two years for a foreign country has never been done before (not in this house anyway). Trying to figure out what to buy and whom to buy it from instills in me a sense of impending doom.  I only have 6 more weeks to get all of this hashed out! I do have some things, I will say that.  A couple journals, nalgenes, a money belt, hand crank flashlight and a few other odds and ends.  Mostly though, I think my pile is lacking.  The last time I packed a lot of stuff was for a 10 day backpacking trip, and I thought that was a challenge!

I still don't know how I am going to get it all over there either.  For those of you who don't know, packing is going to be like a bizzar game of tetris.  Everything has to fit in two checked bags and one carry on.  The two checked bags cannot have combined length, width, and depth of over 107" and cannot weigh over 80 lbs and no one bag can weight over 50 lbs.  To make matters worse...I was never very good at tetris. 

I have my 75L Venus backpack by REI which I am planning on bringing but otherwise I don't really know.  Possibly a duffle maybe a suitcase of some form.  I think I'm more worried about the weight requirement.  From past experiences electronics weigh a lot so I am going to try and bring them with me in my carry on bag.  Stuff like my netbook, ipod, solar charger, adapters etc are expensive and I don't want them to get crushed.  If I can keep more heavy stuff with me then I can fit more lightweight stuff in the other bags, I hope. 

I wish there was someone else in Colorado going to Malawi, I need someone to bounce ideas off of.     

Guess who is going to Africa!

Me! To Malawi specifically.  For some of you this is no shock, you have been in on things since the application started.  Some of you may not know, for that I am sorry, I'm sure I meant to tell you but something probably happened.  For those of you I don't know, welcome to my blog.

Back in December of 2009 I submitted an application to the U.S. Peace Corps.  Then entire year of 2010 was devoted to two things, graduating from college and Peace Corps.  I was impatient to graduate.  Imagine a road trip *cough cough mom cough* where you only get to pee at every other rest stop when you stop for gas...and you forgot to go on the last one.  That kind of impatient.  Waiting for Peace Corps, that was worse. 

For those of you who may have missed the whole process, you start out with an application that is roughly 90% questions about your current health state.  I can only assume this is to ensure you will not flop over in the dirt if you are more than 10 minutes from a Walgreens pharmacy or your doctors office.  You must also submit references, one from a work supervisor, a volunteer supervisor, and a friend you have known over 2 years (thank you Megan). 

Next comes the phone interview, mine was about a hour and a half but I think I asked as many questions as she did.  If you make it past the phone interview you then get fingerprinted and do a security check.  Make it past this and you get to level one up! Wooh! Now you get the medical packet.  

I think this would have been less of a pain if I wasn't 300 miles away from the only place my insurance works.  As a result I was poked, prodded, and drained of blood over Spring break and over other various three day weekends.  There is also a dental part and eye exam, that is right everyone, you get the full work up.  Then of course you will probably have to make a few trips back to the hospital to get things signed that weren't and finish other blood work and vaccinations.  

After the medical clearance you wait...and wait...and wait. But when things start to happen they really happen.  You interview with a placement officer, send transcripts and talk with other people about what program is really right and why you can't go to a tropical island (sorry Catie).  You are waiting on pins and needles for something, anything, that says where you are going.  Then over the course of one final phone call you are told congratulations, you are accepted, now wait for the packet that tells you where.

As my roommates can attest, I was more than a little impatient.  I don't think I checked the mail that often since I thought Santa would write back.  But it did come, on the 10th of December, earlier than I thought it would.  And the country is Malawi!  Where is Malawi you ask, simple, South East-ish Africa. It is a long skinny country right next to Lake Malawi.  

What am I doing there, well the simple answer is that I will either be a Community Forestry or Community Parks Extension volunteer.  Right now that is as specific as it gets.  I should know more once I get there.    

So sit tight sports fans.  We are entering the final 6 weeks prior to departure.  There is a lot to buy, pack, learn, and stress about before February 24th and it has only just begun.