A Whole New Chapter

Staging

After a 45 minute plane ride in the SMALLEST commuter jet ever, I finally made it to Philadelphia to visit Laura for a night before my Staging for Peace Corps began. It was great to see this lovely lady and her family before leaving for Rwanda! She brought me to Valley Forge Park where Washington had fought in the Revolutionary War; it was really cool to see this little piece of American history before transitioning to a new country and culture with its own unique background. The following day, Laura dropped me off at the hotel and I began my Staging!

Although our Staging event was only a day, it was a great opportunity to meet the Rwanda Educ. 7 group and to learn some basic information on the Peace Corps and its program in Rwanda. I met some really great people and got to know a few of them over our last dinner (The Last Supper) in the United States for quite some time. After a good meal of pizza and lemonade it was time to lay awake in bed and get excited about our flights!

Travel to Kigali

So after three hours in a bus travelling to JFK, we arrived at the airport and found out we couldn’t check in for our flights for an additional hour. After MORE waiting, we finally got through and got on our plane… just to find out that they hadn’t fueled the plane yet and we would continue to wait in a cramped plane for an additional hour and a half before take-off. Brussels involved more waiting and late take-offs, but after the 8 hour flight we FINALLY made it to Rwanda around 7pm local time. You’d think the chaos would end there, but no… Imagine trying to organize 47 jet-lagged, sleep deprived Americans (each with at leastttttt 2 bags) and load them onto buses in the dark. Needless to say, I don’t think I have ever slept better once we got to the hotel and I climbed into bed. 

PST and Arrival in Rwamagana

The first few days of Pre-Service Training (PST) have been filled with paperwork, discussions on health and safety, and a bit of language training to get us started with our host families all while we are fighting the seemingly endless jet lag. On Sunday, we loaded up our things, decided what was to be stored and what we would bring with us, and we got matched up with our host families! My host dad came to pick me up while Momma Violette stayed home with the children. My new Rwandan parents are awesome and my host siblings are ages 5 and 1 ½! We had dinner together and I went to bed nice and early. Today, I spent 3 ½ hours at the Zion Temple for Born Again Christians for a church service with my host family.. I felt bad because I am so tired and couldn’t help but start nodding off, but the service involved lots of singing and dancing (much more fun than any Catholic service I’ve been to).

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. Overall I am healthy, happy, and super excited for the next few weeks of getting to know my host family and learning Kinyarwanda in PST!