Tuesday, June 7, 2011

I'm a PCT!

I am officially a PCT or Peace Corps Trainee!!

I have spent that last 24 hours in Philly going through my staging (aka orientation).  I have met the rest of my group, of which there are 39 of us, and we are all working in either community health or non-formal education programs.  We spent the morning going over what it means to us to be apart of the Peace Corps and how we can incorporate the Peace Corps' 10 core values into our time here.  Then after lunch we took a field trip to the clinic and received our Yellow Fever vaccination.  We will get the rest of our shots once we get to Swaziland.  Then we finished up talking about things that we are going to face and how to handle them.  Of course training will be much more in depth once we get there, but staging is meant to be a reflection to make sure we were all still committed to service.  We have the night off to spend the rest of our govt sanctioned food money and get packed because we leave for JFK airport at 3:00 am tomorrow morning.  I will definitely enjoy my last night in a real bed!!  We are staying at the Hampton Inn, which is ironically located next to the Travelodge (funny for those of you who remember my experience with the Travelodge in Phoenix).  I am feeling much more at ease now that I am here and with my group.  I am excited after orientation today and just want to get there.  Training is going to be intensive, stressful, and uncomfortable at times as we learn how to emerge into a very foreign culture, but if I do it right, my 2 years will be phenomenal!!

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