I personally have been counting down to my approaching departure on a roughly bi-daily basis for the past month or so, but luckily for anyone who actually feels obliged to read everything I write here I decided not to update the site quite as regularly. I can imagine there may be people who are curious about what my experience in Samoa is like, but substantially fewer clinging to news of my pre-departure psychoses. Although my mom has sent me very supportive and encouraging emails about all of my posts so far. Thanks mom, my self-esteem appreciates your substantiation :) That being said, it is officially two weeks before my staging commences, which I feel is monumental enough to share. In NYC public school terms, it’s a “chain-worthy” countdown period. So staging. What is staging? On October 10th, all of the volunteers in my cohort (group 75 for anyone curious as to how many training sections the Peace Corps has sent over to Samoa since its first program there in 1967) will be meeting at a hotel near LAX for a 36 hour period of registration paperwork, opening workshops, and hopefully some really stellar ice-breaker name games. Then we’ll all head over to the airport where we will get to take a 9 hour flight directly from Los Angeles to Samoa. I’m quite sincere about “getting to”- there is only one of these flights a week, and a common alternate route if one doesn’t happen to depart on the right day is through Aukland, New Zealand. I don’t have flying phobias, but overshooting my destination by 2000 miles isn’t my ideal flight path either. So the plan is to arrive in Apia (the capital of Samoa, and also incidentally where my placement will be) sometime in the middle of the night on Tuesday/Wednesday and begin training the next morning. The first ten weeks that I am in Samoa I will actually be a Trainee, not officially a volunteer yet. My group and I will undergo intensive language, cultural and job training to prepare us for our individual placements. During this fall we will spend some of the time living with families in a village for language and cultural immersion, I believe some time shadowing other volunteers for job skill training, and also some time in Apia. I have ascertained this from what I have read so it is obviously subject to alteration but gives a general idea of the kind of stuff I’ll be up to. After the ten week training period there is an official swearing-in ceremony where our acronym changes from PCT to PCV. Then volunteers are dispersed to their individual placements for the commencement of their 2 year appointments. I have, at least tentatively, been assigned to work as a teacher trainer at a small Special Education school in Apia to assist with curriculum development and assessment protocol, etc. More on that once I have a further developed notion myself. So… needless to say I am quite excited and am glad that my anticipation doesn’t have to hold out for all that much longer at this point! I have all of the million things I decided I “couldn’t live without” for the next two years strewn across my bedroom floor. In the next week or so I’m going to perform an amazing magic trick where I make them all fit inside my duffel bag and frame pack and weigh less than 80 pounds combined once everything’s in. Short of Mary Poppins landing on my front door step in the next few days I’m not sure how in the world I expect to be able to pull this feat off, but there it is. Feel free to start sending me mail at any time- I’ve heard it takes about three weeks for a letter to make the journey from the states. I’ve already sent myself a couple of things just to ensure that I don’t feel like a total loser, but it’s always nice to get mail from “other” people as well. Mailing address is to the left. I’ve even included general postage to make sure it’s super easy. HINT. And there’s also an ultra-convenient link on this page to the USPS postage rate charts for Samoa that some incredibly thoughtful (and charming) young lady created so that if you felt the overwhelming urge to send her packages you’d have easy access to the information regarding that as well!
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