Friday, August 14, 2009

Staging in DC and Leaving for Nicaragua

With only two weeks to go, I'm working full time on getting all of my possessions down to the 80 pounds allowed on the flight to Nicaragua. It's amazing all of the things that I've discovered while going through boxes of papers long forgotten. It really does help you discover what is really important to you. I've scanned special papers so that I will have a record of them. Most things have gone to the shredder, the recycling bin, or the trash. It's almost time to call the Goodwill truck.

On Monday, August 31, I leave for Washington DC where all of us new Peace Corps trainees will receive a day of "staging" in which we will be given a quick summary of what we will be doing during our two years of service. At 1:30 AM on Wednesday, Sept 2, we check out of the hotel in DC, get on a bus for the Reagan airport and arrive in Managua around 11:45 AM. At that time I will begin 3 months of job and language training. Sometime in November I will hopefully be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer and be assigned a town in Nicaragua where I will be working for the following two years.

It's the beginning of a new life!