peace corps day one

Prologue (Staging)

Getting to DC on Monday was interesting. Because of thunderstorms and major rain in Dallas early in the morning, everything was messed up. Well, it just so happens that I needed to fly through Dallas to get to DC. Here’s the rundown:
- Upon landing in Dallas, there was a wait for gates because of all the delayed planes showing up at once. We waited on the tarmac for a little more than an hour.
- I got off the plane about ten minutes after my connecting flight should have departed. However, because of the delays, that flight was running late as well so I miraculously made it.
- Upon landing in DC, there was a wait for gates because by this time, the screwed up weather had affected airports across the country. We waited on the tarmac for half an hour for our turn at the gate.
- HOWEVER, when we got to the gate, a lighting storm started and the ground crew wouldn’t come out to deplane us. We waited another half hour.
- In the airport, the shuttle folks told me I might have to wait up to TWO HOURS to get in the shuttle (it was certainly 11 pm by then and I was at the Portland airport at 630 am, so this was not an appealing situation.)

Blah blah blah… I eventually made it to the hotel and got checked in without further problems, other than I had had zero real meals that day and all the food options were shut by then. I was so hungry that when my roommate at the hotel offered me her doggie bag from dinner, I took it! IT WAS A TUNA FISH SANDWICH. Point One for the Kira-Eating-Weird-Things Contest.

Alright, so staging was essentially four 3-hour sessions sitting in a meeting room at the hotel. We talked about safety, security, policies, logistics, our aspirations and fears, medical concerns, the Peace Corps mission and so on. Since I was an early arrival I had Tuesday morning free, and then we all had Tuesday and Wednesday free from dinner onward. Not too much to say about staging other than it was a lot of good information, if a bit overwhelming. And learning 53 names and faces at once is impossible.

The Good Stuff
Here’s a rundown of today (FYI: current time: 820 pm)

145 am: Wake up, shower, pack up, etc.
230 am: Hotel checkout and baggage dealing-with
330 am: Board busses and leave for airport. Check in, go through security, wait at gate.
715 am: Leave DC for Miami. Take off with ALL airplane blinds closed for some reason, and become rather motion sick. Stinky airplane bathroom makes problem worse.
10ish am: Bond with Emily in airport bathroom because she’s in the stall next to me and knows I’m yaking, and is extra nice to me. J
1010 am: Board plane for Santo Domingo
1 pm: Arrive Santo Domingo. Go through Immigrations, Customs. Board teeny bus with lots of people and stuff and drive to where we spend our first night, at a retreat center outside of Santo Domingo (probably, oh, 4 pm by now).
4 pm: Snack, dibs rooms at the retreat center. Get THREE mosquito bites in first 3 hours in country.
4.30-6: Listen to PCDR staff talk and tell us stuff. Pick up mosquito net. Pick up mosquito repellent. Get first RABIES shot. Take first dose of ARALEN (for malaria. If you have any questions about this, ask Dan Beigh).
630-8: Hang mosquito net. Find first COCKROACH UNDER BED while doing so. Eat dinner. Take first cold shower. Immediately slather myself in mosquito repellent again.
8.10: Spend ten minutes trying to get into bed with the laptop, water bottle and other end-of-night entertainment.

Haha… that’s all. I’ve been up since before 2 am today. We are exhausted but happy to be here. Tomorrow they take us to Pantoja, which is the town outside of the capital where we will be having the urban part of our training, and we’ll see the training center and meet our host families, and tomorrow is our first night with our host families.

Whatelsewhatelse. Still doing great. I was a little under the weather today for a while but since I’m feeling all better I think it was probably more motion sick than nerves getting to me. I’m so excited and looking forward to this experience, and I’m excited to be able to share it with all of you. We’ve had so much information thrown at us in the last 72 hours that we feel a little muddled, but we’ll sort it out.

The other people in my training group are great so far. I’m looking forward to bonding with them and really getting to know each other and building the support system that we all know we’ll need while we’re here.

More later!

Oh yeah, can someone look into getting me something (a chemical, probably a spray bottle) called Permethrin? The info they gave us says that clothes treated with it provide maximum protection from the DENGUE and MALARIA infested mosquitoes, which, incidentally, take shifts preying on us and are on duty 24-7.

Another thing I’ve heard of is a supplement called Vitamin B Complex,
which is apparently very helpful in deterring mosquitoes as well. I’d love a bottle!

Thanks, love you!
Kp

…. Off I go to my vivid, technicolor dreams… wish me luck.