The Journy Begins!

My family going away dinner

 

All the siblings & myself. Left to right, Abdul, me, Khadijah, Rasheeda, & Faruq (Anthony in spirit)...the fab 5

My neices & nephews (not all) Safiya, Huston, Aminah, & Walter

Me & Ab on my way to Raleigh the day before staging in Philly

My good friends Danny & John in Raleigh the night before Philly

It's been an eventful last few weeks. I really want to thank all the friends and family who took the time to see me, call me, email me, and send me cards to wish me luck, and wish me well.  As you can very well see this is the first post that actually has corresponding photos. I wanted to share the love I got from my family & friends w/ everyone.  It's bittersweet b/c you're happy to see faces you haven't seen in a while, but also somewhat sad b/c you won't see them again for a few years. 

I'm all packed up & ready to go.  I wish it was that simple.  It aint easy packing for 2 years, and being limited to 80 pounds of check in bag weight.  It's like playing tetris & doing calculus at the same time.  I've got 80 pounds of underwear alone.  What makes it even more difficult is I don't know what part of Ethiopia I'll be stationed at yet, so I'm not sure what climate to prepare for.  Popular belief is that all of Ethiopia is hot, but b/c there are a lot of mountains & some areas are highly elevated it can get really cold some places.  That means I had to pack for all situations.  My brother enjoyed the fact I couldn't pack everything & took the opportunity to "take care" of some shoes for me.

I fly to Philadelphia tomorrow for staging, basically orientation, where I'll meet other volunteers going to Ethiopia.  Staging will be from about 1-7pm.  Then on Tuesday we're taking a bus from Philly to JFK airport in NY, where we will be departing for Ethiopia at 9pm that night.  We're scheduled to reach Addis Ababa 9pm Wednesday night local time.  I think I'm more relieved than anything at the moment to be able to actually get things started.  It's been such a long process & having to move out this week and get everything packed up to leave has really wore me out.  A few people have asked how to send things to me when I get out there.  Here are the directions the Peace Corps sent me to pass along for mailing items.

Sending mail during Pre Service Training (PST)

Peace Corps Trainee’s Name
P.O. Box 7788
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia


Sending packages
Both parents and Volunteers like to send and receive care packages through the mail.  Unfortunately, sending packages can be a frustrating experience for all involved due to the possible theft and heavy customs taxes.  Please do not send any electronics (cameras, computers, hard drives, etc) as these items have extremely high custom taxes (often times as much, if not more, than the item itself) and the Volunteer will not have sufficient funds to pay these taxes and the item will have to be shipped back home to you.  You may want to try to send inexpensive items through the mail, but there is no guarantee that these items will arrive.  We do not recommend, however, that costly items be sent through the mail.  Even though Volunteers choose to get local post office boxes, you may use the following address to send letters to your family member at any time during his or her service:

John Doe, PCV
U.S. Peace Corps
P.O. Box 7788
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

We recommend that packages be sent in padded envelopes if possible, as boxes tend to be taxed

I plan to continue to take & upload plenty of pictures as I go along.  I'm not sure how long it'll be before I'll be able to post since I'll be traveling, starting tomorrow.  Hopefully the next post will be from Ethiopian soil.