From Detroit to Tanzania

So it turns out preparing to move to Tanzania for two years is stressful. 500 cool points to my mom for being her awesome self and dealing with me.

Anyway. Here is a head's up about where I'll be and when...

(Mon) June 14th - Fly out of Detroit at 7am, arrive in Philadelphia, schlep ass to hotel, do Peace Corps Staging all day. This will probably consist of meeting the other volunteers and lots of paperwork... and if all goes well, some camp-style ice breakers. I am pumped.

(Tues) June 15th - Leave hotel early in the morning, get a bunch of shots, ride a bus to JFK Airport in NYC, flight leaves in the evening.

(Wed) June 16th - Layover in Zurich, Switzerland, but mostly just flying all day. Arrive in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in the evening. Counting the bus ride, that is about 33 hours of travel. Yum.

Next 8 days will be spent in Dar es Salaam doing...something.

After our time in Dar es Salaam, we'll travel up to a town in north-east Tanzania, where we'll be living and learning until Swearing In day, in mid-August. We'll be split up into groups of 5 (out of our group of 45ish) and put into villages which as far as I can tell are basically simulation Peace Corps sites. The people are real people, not simulation people, in case that wasn't clear. The simulation part is that we're in a group of 5 and not all by our lonesomes, like we will be after swearing in. And also that we have Peace Corps staff helping us. Our training includes 5 categories: Technical (so for me, Agriculture and Environmental stuff), Language (Swahili), Safety and Security, Cross Cultural, and Health.