Staging In D.C.

Of course I arrived late and was flustered at all the registration nonsense I had to complete while everyone else was mingling and meeting. In fact all the other volunteers were working on an icebreaker that only made things worse – The idea was to introduce yourself and sign off on a printed sheet of random facts about certain people everyone received. So you meet and find your fact and sign their sheet in order to get all 73 signatures. When confronted about this I didn’t know what was going on and was told to find my fact. Worst. As I read through them I was so incredibly intimidated it made me sick. Everyone had such rad facts like “fought wildfires”, “taught at a university for 38 years”, “raised $30,000 to conduct research in the French Guiana” etc… mine, was “worked at a hotel” SERIOUSLY?! That sounds so lame!! This daunting feeling of inadequacy was only heightened exponentially when I sat down at my orienation table and the girl next to me was inquiring to a staff member about the possibility about adopting a child during service.
After things settled down I felt much more comfortable. It was so amazing to find out that all these people had all the same fears and anxieties I had been stressing over for the past few months. And the staff even squashed some unfounded claims (i.e. we will not be forced to eat horse…rest easy Abernethy!) And everyone was so down to earth and hip and smart, they were almost solely responsible for getting me pysched enough to actually be excited when stepping onto the plane.
The staff kept us intensely busy these few days in D.C. Between orientation and repacking (of course you were right Mom! And thanks Doug) I almost didn’t have time to drop Vick from my fantasy squad…relax, I did though. In the free time we did have, it was well spent as the Peace Corps allotted us a phat per diem. After buying leather suits and looking like really cool idiots we all enjoyed very nice meals in Georgetown and even got to check out the bar scene (“this round is on the government” was a common phrase heard) also I got to meet up with my buddy Alan who had just returned from Senegal so it was sort of serendipitous timing, only sans John Cusack. So that was it in America for the next two years…