So Far So Great!

The Ethiopia PC volunteers & myself having dinner. That's my roommate Wayne in yellow

What's up guys! Well yesterday got off to the an interesting start! I was scheduled to fly out of Raleigh at 6:40.  The problem is that when I tried to check in, the locator number on the itinerary wouldn't work.  I called the agency & it turns out they never issued my ticket to Philly. Talk about having an "OOOHH F@%K!!" moment.  They put me on hold for about 15 minutes, during which my life flashed before my eyes. Did I really get dismissed before I even started, what am I going to tell everyone, I'm going to have to work at Chuck e Cheese for money...etc.  I guess it would be like being pulled out of line the day of graduation, very embarrassing.  Fortunately, they get back on the line with a new ticket on another airline departing a few hours later...early enough to make staging.  I was relieved to say the least.  Since then it's been nothing but great.  Got to Philly, checked in the hotel, got lunch (philly cheesesteak of course!), & met my roommate Wayne.  He's a really cool dude.  He just finished hiking around 40 miles a day for the last few months. If you did the math, yes that is over 2,000 miles! Dude is a freak of nature.  All the volunteers I've met are like that, just super awesome.  It's 20 of us in my class going to Ethiopia, was going to be 21, but one dropped.  There's also another group here going to Kenya.  I'm the only one from the south.  Everyone else is from all over, Texas, California, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, Connecticut, & a few others I forgot.  Texas & Cali are represented the most.  I'm also one of the older members of the group, probably around 3rd oldest or so.  Everyone thinks I'm in my mid-to-low 20's though, guess I still have that new car smell.  One volunteer is a little over 60.  He's really cool too.  He sold his business to follow his passion, you have to respect that.  All the guys are really nice w/ open, warm personalities.  They have all types of backgrounds. Some in biology, business, a few in natural resources, one guy was a Chinese studies/language major...the Chinese speaking Ethiopian community will be stoked.  We were staging today from about 1-6:45pm.  It was all useful.  We learned a lot about what to expect, how to carry ourselves, how to handle certain situations...mostly as a volunteer in general, the Ethiopia specific training will start when we get there.  It's been exciting & fun so far.  All the volunteers are excited.  Everyone has extensive travel experience, a lot of which is study abroad programs.  Some have lived in Australia, Tanzania, Dominican Republic, Korea, Ghana, Guatemala, & some other places I forgot.  It makes my little traveling seem like a glorified road trip.  We all went out to eat last night w/ the money the PC gave us, which more than enough for expenses.  Everyone but 5 volunteers are in the picture.  So tonight we leave for the motherland!  I'm not sure how often I'm going to be able to blog after this, or if at all.  I found out that blogs are subject for approval for security reasons, which is understandable.  I also had to add a disclaimer as well.  Hope to post again soon, w/ some pictures of Ethiopia next time!