Two Flights Down, Two to Go

Well, tomorrow Matt and I are off to Kazakhstan. Or, er, Frankfurt. And then Kazakhstan. After a very long wait.

Both of us are feeling much better today than we have up until now about this departure. We had been feeling very ambiguous, and we still do in a lot of ways, but I think a large part of that was just the fact that we have been waiting for sooooo long to get started on this. One of the ways I get through waiting is to not get myself wrapped up in the thing I'm waiting for. If I spend a lot of emotional energy on it, I won't focus on my present and I won't appreciate all the good things that each day can bring. So I think about things, but keep myself distant from them at the same time. It helps. In this situation though, I've been doing it so long, I can't get worked up one way or another.

Today, however, we were feeling good. The days of hard good-byes are past and we're on to the doing. One thing we are not looking forward to, though, is that we won't be able to live together during training. I knew this was a possibility with PC, but it seemed like all the other couples in KZ didn't have to separate so I thought the same would be true of us. Wrong. We'll get through it, but it's hard to suddenly adjust to that new reality (which we weren't given more than a week and a half to deal with).

Our staging (PC slang for pre-departure orientation) was today and it was fine. It consisted of really general, really typical basics about Peace Corps and it's goals and then we had to write about our aspirations and anxieties and blah blah blah. Considering the subject matter, they did a really good job with it. I even still liked our presenter by the end of the whole 5 hour she-bang, so..., there's that.

Don't get me wrong, I actually do think it is important to take a moment before we go and focus on our reasons for doing what we are doing and on what our new employers expect from us. It's just very typical orientation stuff and there aren't any real big fascinating moments. I did appreciate that my new colleagues were very game about it, though, and helped the whole thing along with a good attitude. And I appreciated that I myself, when told we had to perform a skit based on a scenario that highlighted specific core expectations from the list of 10 we were given, didn't make any audible retching noises.

I'll try to connect tomorrow and/or soon after we reach Kazakhstan, but my internet connection is up in the air from here on out.

Peace Corps Loves Us, Finally

Well, Matt and I are gearing up to leave for Kazakhstan with the Peace Corps in just a few weeks. For those who don’t know, we are scheduled to begin staging on August 17^th in Washington D.C. and we actually leave for Kazakhstan in the evening of August 18^th.

Staging is PC slang for pre-departure orientation. We’re basically supposed to learn some need-to-know info about what to expect as soon as we get into KZ. For those of you who are interested in stalking us or for future PC applicants who can’t get enough of stalking PC blogs (trust me, we understand), the schedule looks like this:

KAZAKHSTAN Staging Event

Holiday Inn Georgetown

2101 Wisconsin Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20007

Phone: 202-338-4600

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

12:00 PM

Registration

Official registration as Peace Corps trainee -- turn in completed forms

2:00 - 4:25 PM

Who We Are

What's Expected of You

4:25 - 4:45 PM

Break

4:45 - 7:00 PM

• What You Expect

• What's Next

• Closing

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

12:00 PM

Check out of hotel

12:30 PM

Bus arrives for loading and departure to Washington Dulles Airport

5:45 PM

Flight departs for Kazakhstan

INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT ITINERARY:

18 AUG 10 - Wednesday

Washington Dulles to Frankfurt

Air United Airlines FLT:8826

LV Washington Dulles at 545PM AR Frankfurt 740AM (on the 19th)

19 AUG 10 - Thursday

Frankfurt to Almaty

Air United Airlines FLT:9116

LV Frankfurt 145PM AR Almaty 1205AM (on the 20th)

Notice that we have a 6 hour layover in Frankfurt. Word on the street is that we can’t leave the airport during that time. Oh. Joy.

We don’t have a lot of expectations for our lives in KZ. We like to travel like that. When we went to Japan, we just didn’t know what to expect and I think that actually prepares you to be ready for anything. The people I met in JP that had the most trouble were those who had fixed notions about the country. It didn’t matter whether the notion was that the entire country looked like Tokyo or that everyone sat around watching anime in their kimono while eating sushi or just that everything was going to be generally wildly exotic. Real life is real life everywhere you go and sometimes, it’s just not that thrilling, which can be a real downer for people. Soooo, we’re just expecting to meet some people, do our jobs and freeze our asses off 9 months out of the year. Sounds like a good plan to me!