Africa!
June 1, 2012
I am in Africa! After the longest trip of my life, I arrived in Maputo, Mozambique yesterday! We left the hotel in Philly at about 2:45am and arrived at JFK Intl. Airport at around 4am. Since South African airlines didn’t open til 7:00, we basically took over the area and set up a camp. It was pretty epic. Imagine 31 volunteers, each with about 2 check-in bags, a backpacking back pack, and a personal back pack. Some had a little less, and I completely envied them. What was I thinking bringing all this heavy shit all the way to the other side of the world?! Hmm, whatever. It makes me feel good knowing that I will leave 95% of it behind when I return to the states after my service.
Anyway, we arrived at the Maputo airport after a 5 hour lay-over in South Africa. We were picked up by the Mozambique country director and Peace Corps staff. They brought us to a really nice hotel in a snazzy part of town. All of us are taking it all in, knowing that this will be the nicest place any of us gets to stay in for the next 27 months.
Today, we had orientation from 10am until about 5ish. We went to the PC office, which is walking distance from our hotel, and met our support staff that will be helping get us oriented in the next few weeks. Although it moved pretty slowly, it was a pretty intense day. We had language interviews (yep, an entire interview in Portuguese), medical interviews, and our first round of shots. Some people were freaking out about shots, and I thought it was pretty amusing, until I ended up being the one with the most soreness (or so it seemed). The shots themselves weren’t a big deal- well, except for one that stung as it moved into your blood stream … but the soreness afterwards was ridiculous.
We got a crazy Medical kit with TONS of medicine for every possible ailment, and about a 12 wk supply of Malaria pills (which I will be taking once a week). Some people were prescribed daily Malaria pills. Word on the street is that these pills give you crazy nightmares… so, I guess we’ll see how that goes, LOL.
We also had an intense security briefing, which … as fearless as I am (or so I thought), scared the living SHIT out of me! LOL!
There’s no doubt in my mind that this is going to be the adventure of a lifetime, and that I am probably the most vulgar person here, ahahah, jk. But I think I have only heard like 2 other people curse.
*correction for my previous post: there are actually 8 boys in our group, not 6.
Até logo!
I am in Africa! After the longest trip of my life, I arrived in Maputo, Mozambique yesterday! We left the hotel in Philly at about 2:45am and arrived at JFK Intl. Airport at around 4am. Since South African airlines didn’t open til 7:00, we basically took over the area and set up a camp. It was pretty epic. Imagine 31 volunteers, each with about 2 check-in bags, a backpacking back pack, and a personal back pack. Some had a little less, and I completely envied them. What was I thinking bringing all this heavy shit all the way to the other side of the world?! Hmm, whatever. It makes me feel good knowing that I will leave 95% of it behind when I return to the states after my service.
Anyway, we arrived at the Maputo airport after a 5 hour lay-over in South Africa. We were picked up by the Mozambique country director and Peace Corps staff. They brought us to a really nice hotel in a snazzy part of town. All of us are taking it all in, knowing that this will be the nicest place any of us gets to stay in for the next 27 months.
Today, we had orientation from 10am until about 5ish. We went to the PC office, which is walking distance from our hotel, and met our support staff that will be helping get us oriented in the next few weeks. Although it moved pretty slowly, it was a pretty intense day. We had language interviews (yep, an entire interview in Portuguese), medical interviews, and our first round of shots. Some people were freaking out about shots, and I thought it was pretty amusing, until I ended up being the one with the most soreness (or so it seemed). The shots themselves weren’t a big deal- well, except for one that stung as it moved into your blood stream … but the soreness afterwards was ridiculous.
We got a crazy Medical kit with TONS of medicine for every possible ailment, and about a 12 wk supply of Malaria pills (which I will be taking once a week). Some people were prescribed daily Malaria pills. Word on the street is that these pills give you crazy nightmares… so, I guess we’ll see how that goes, LOL.
We also had an intense security briefing, which … as fearless as I am (or so I thought), scared the living SHIT out of me! LOL!
There’s no doubt in my mind that this is going to be the adventure of a lifetime, and that I am probably the most vulgar person here, ahahah, jk. But I think I have only heard like 2 other people curse.
*correction for my previous post: there are actually 8 boys in our group, not 6.
Até logo!
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