Hello Boston! Yesterday Josh and I arrived at staging...but not without a few "bumps" in the road (it wouldn't be our adventure with out it!). We got to the airport around 1:20 for a 2:50 flight, which turned out to be a very good thing. When we got to the kiosk and looked up our ticket, they couldn't find us in the system. So we checked with the ticketing agent, who informed us our tickets had been cancelled and refunded. Yay. Apparently another "miscommnication" about us going to Cape Verde. They reserved two seats for us quickly and then we got on the phone with SATO Travel, the agency that handles our travel arrangements, with the understanding that "if you get us your payment information within 10 minutes we can get you a ticket, otherwise we'll have to move you to another flight, and those are all booked too." Fortunately the ticketing agent was patient and understanding, and SATO was able to figure out the mess up quickly, and we got on our flight.
Last night was great. We met up with Dani and Evan and headed to the Publik House for some Belgium brews and mac and cheese. Yummmm. Then we basically crashed.
Today was filled with paperwork, malaria medication, safety information, ice breakers, and meeting a lot of very, very cool Peace Corps Trainees (PCT's, which we are now called). There is one other married couple, two people fluent in Portuguese and a host of folks from all over the country, of all ages from fresh out of college to fresh into retirement - 29 of us total. Everyone seems enthusiastic and open, and I think we both feel like we're part of a great group of people. There is a maturity with this group of people that I didn't really get with everyone at my Pre Service Orientation with VISTA, probably because this decision is much, much bigger and takes a lot of contemplation to make. I've been really happy at the closeness that we've all had so far and that we are all sharing the same fears and excitements; it makes the process a lot easier when expeirencing it with 28 other people.
Tomorrow we're in for a special treat: Peace Corps has arranged a lunchon with local Cape Verdeans so we can meet them and they can wish us well as we start on our new adventure in our new home. There are more Cape Verdeans (and their families) living in New England than there are living in Cape Verde currently, hence the direct flight and all. This is a pretty rare experience and I think we are all very fortunate that someoen thought to set this up for us. Thanks Peace Corps!
For the benefit of my fellow trainees, I'm uploading the photos we currently have of staging and will add more tomorrow, so that their parents can see us acting like goofballs too :o) There are a few, so again I'm posting them on Flickr; I'll add more tomorrow if I can before we get to the plane, but for now, enjoy! (oh yeah, a note to all the parents and families who are new to the blog: I'm not great about editing photos, I don't really have a lot of time to go through and pick the best ones at the moment, so I'm just posting all of them. Sorry for any bad/upside down/crooked etc shots in advance!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/doveandjoshua/sets/72157606194740637/
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It is so fun to read your blog! I am already over here in Cape Verde as a youth volunteer in Fogo. I can't believe you all will be here maybe even before you read this comment! Have a great flight over; eat something delicious in the airport! Hopefully i'll be able to visit training in september!
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