I've met my people!

I spent a gorgeous few days with my grandparents on my way out, in order to spend some time with them, and then say a proper goodbye. Grandma and I went to the beach, where I stepped on the business end of a jellyfish, and half-drowned myself in waves because, like a six-year-old, waves are the best thing ever. Grandpa, after making fun of me for my obsession with lizards, helped me spot them.

Here's one!

Another one!

Can't hide, silly lizard.

I can't tell if this one is flirting, or telling me to back off.

The short hop-skip flight over from Orlando to Miami was delayed slightly due to a storm, which we then flew right through. There was some turbulence, as might be expected, and a few short drops. What wasn't expected was the screaming. The dips were just enough to put your stomach up into your throat, but not plummeting-from-the-sky type falls, though from the reactions of the passengers, you'd certainly have thought we'd been struck out of the sky by lightning. There was screaming and sobbing and hysterics, and the most frantic praying I've ever heard coming from one of the seats behind me. We landed safely and smoothly about fifteen minutes later, none the worse for wear.

Now I'm at "staging" for the next few days, to meet my cohort, fill out some paperwork, sit in conference-style information sessions, and drink obscene amounts of coffee. My luggage is scattered all about the hotel room, despite my best efforts. Repacking is going to be a nightmare. 

My cohort is lovely. There are ten of us; six boys and four girls. The girls are all tattooed. Not that it makes any difference, but it gave us a bonding moment as we all showcased our artwork. One of the boys is also from my grad school. So far (and yes, it's only been three days, so in a week or a year I may despise them all) they've all been fun, funny, intelligent, and friendly.

Even better, we're all complete animal/environment nerds. A lizard skittered by as we were all walking out for lunch, and ALL TEN OF US got all excited and jockeyed for a better look at it. I have found my people, and we're all incredibly weird.

PS: This is the view from my hotel room balcony. Be jealous. And yes, of course I suggested holding the informational meetings IN the pool. 

Correction: goodbyes are in fact worse

Now that the horrors of stuffing too many things into suitcases is over (and yes, I'm already discovering things I've forgotten) it's time to say all my goodbyes. I've left my home in NH, and cut a swath of teary-eyed farewells as I make my way from NH to NY and finally FL before the final plane ride to Georgetown, Guyana.
Some of those goodbyes were harder than others, because they might be permanent. Ajax, the 150-pound lapdog extraordinaire, is 8-years-old and the model of a perfect dog. I'm holding out hope he'll still be around when I get back, but two years is a long time for an old dog.

 My favorite chicken (yes, that's a thing you can have. Some chickens are particularly cool) is even older than Ajax. Here you can see Vacuum Chicken eyeballing my phone and wondering if it's edible. I wonder if pet chickens are a thing in Guyana. I'll keep you updated if I manage to acquire one. Be assured that I will get way too emotionally attached to it if I do.

I'm now off on the final round of goodbyes: family. My dad gave me a machete lesson (the agricultural tool of choice in many subsistence-farming regions) and a sharpening tutorial. He told me to make friends with someone who is good at that sort of thing, because it takes hours. I'd hate to spend three days grinding away at an edge, just to ruin it and start all over, but it's a good thing to know, and I guess I need the practice. More on that later. Also, he says that's the souvenir he wants. I guess when I come home in two years, my suitcase will be stuffed full of machetes. Aaaaaaand I'll have to be prepared to be detained and searched repeatedly, because that looks a bit suspicious to airlines.

As a going away gift, my dad gave me a magnifying glass. Why? They're light and easy to pack, and very useful. You can use them to read, or look at bugs, or dig out splinters, or start fires. I was never the burn-ants-with-a-magnifying-glass type kid, so this was my first attempt. Turns out, that's something that you can need practice at too. Let's hope I don't need to start any fires out in the jungle in any sort of emergency situation.

My mother gave me a vegetable peeler and a can opener. Why? Because they were on the list, and I'd neglected them. I can almost hear her rolling her eyes at me. I read that list through a hundred times, and even had it out when I was stuffing my suitcase, and I STILL forgot things. She's probably pretty convinced at this point that in my 100 lbs of luggage, I've forgotten everything useful. She's probably right.

I come with baggage

Between my two bags and my two carry-ons, I have exactly 100 pounds of luggage, if the bathroom scale I borrowed is to be believed. This seems a bit extreme. I just finished a book about the history of Mountain Men, and I can't help feeling they would think I was incredibly vain and excessive.
Speaking of mountains, I still seem to have an unusually large pile of stuff still to get rid of. I would like to just throw it away or have a huge bonfire, but I can't shake the guilt about how wasteful it is, and probably not environmentally friendly.
Since I'm being sent to an impoverished area to do environmental education, it seems like a bad way to start is "yeah, so I had a TON of perfectly good stuff, so I just set it all on fire to make sure that silly ozone hole doesn't get any funny ideas about shrinking."
One more day before I leave my house. Exactly when should I begin panicking?

Hey look, you can keep in touch!

Directly from the information packet they sent me:
"Communications

Mail service between the United States and Guyana is fairly reliable. Airmail letters from home usually take two weeks to arrive in Guyana and four to five weeks to arrive in the United States from Guyana. Surface mail may take months. The further Volunteers’ sites are from a large city, the less dependable and frequent the mail service.
During training, your address in Guyana will be 

Carolyn Rohdenburg, PCT

Peace Corps

PO Box 101192

Georgetown, Guyana

South America

Some Volunteers and their families sequentially number their letters to keep track of how many were sent and received. This is one way of knowing whether someone is just too busy to write or if letters are not arriving. 
As for packages, Volunteers are responsible for paying import duties on items mailed to them from outside the country. The customs process for obtaining sent items is often lengthy, although the duty on items is generally minimal. Customs will notify you directly if you have been sent a package. Peace Corps/Guyana cannot help get these packages released from customs. Small padded envelopes are recommended over boxes.
One alternative to shipping packages through regular mail is to send items through a service, such as DHL International or FedEx. Both companies have offices in Georgetown, but their services are expensive. You can have items sent through these companies to the Peace Corps office in Georgetown, but you must provide the street address and phone number. (The street address for the Peace Corps is 33A Barrack Street, Kingston, Georgetown, Guyana. The phone number is 592.225.5073.) Another alternative is a local company, Laparkan, which offers relatively inexpensive air freight service to Guyana from New York, Toronto, and Miami. Surface mail for packages takes four to six weeks.
We do not recommend that family or friends send money, airline tickets, or other valuables through the mail. Airline tickets can be paid for in the United States and picked up in Guyana by using a reference number. There are also several travel agents in Georgetown to facilitate the purchase of airline tickets. "

Packing is the Worst

The general rule of thumb with packing is pack what you need, then take out half of the clothes, and put in twice the money. That'd be great, if I had any money, and I hadn't been given a list three pages long of things I'm going to need.

As it is, for the first time ever, I'm bringing two full checked bags and both the allowed carry-ons, so I look like some sort of crazed, traveling hoarder, hauling more luggage than person around.
Included in the myriad of things now stuffed into my over-stuffed bags are a full-sized pillow and a set of sheets. Yes, they were both on the list. I basically have a whole bed in my suitcase.
A bit of traveling advice: If you are going for less than a month, there's no reason for a checked bag. Six months: one checked bag and one carry-on. Two years in who-knows-where, and I'm going to pack whatever the Peace Corps recommends... plus a kite. Because you should always bring a kite. You never know when kite flying will be necessary.
They also said to bring a few things to remind you of home, so I brought two tiny stuffed birds (a chickadee and a purple finch of course) that make bird noises.
I have enough sunscreen to drown in, so I figure that'll last me a week or so. Not on the list, but definitely in my bags are a mosquito net to go over the bed I'm hoping fits the sheets they told me to bring, and a water purifier. Nothing takes the shine off a new adventure like getting horribly sick from sketchy water. Other than those two things, I didn't go too overboard with the survivalist gear. This isn't camping: I'm going where people live all the time. If they can do it, surely I can, right? If not, don't tell me, because that's not helpful. Just be on the alert for the SOS signal I'll have to send message-in-a-bottle style, and then come rescue me.

This is what two years of clothes looks like, according to the Peace Corps:

Here's what that same pile looks like when you're severely limited on packing space:

Packing tip #3: 

Split your clothes between your bags. That way if they lose one of your bags, you're not stuck with all your tee-shirts, but none of your pants. Also, put at least a day or two in your carry-on, and your toothbrush. No one likes stinky breath while they're waiting for the airline to maybe find the suitcase that has the pants. It's bad enough you'll be standing around in your undies. Have some dignity and some toothpaste.

Well, I've got my flights, I've got my luggage, and I sort of have a half-baked plan. Now all that's really left to do is say a bunch of goodbyes. 

Welcome to my page!

A couple years ago, when I worked at an elementary school in New Hampshire, I was teasing one of the kids on the playground by pretending I didn't see her on the swing. I acted like I was going to sit on her and flatten her, because seven-year-olds find that sort of thing hilarious. I pretended to sit on "my surprisingly cushy swing" as she giggled and shrieked, and then, amazed that she was not immediately crushed, she exclaimed "you're so light!"

"Well of course," I answered. "I'm filled with helium. What did you expect?"

She frowned disapprovingly at me, and you could see the wheels turning in her first-grade brain as she sought to catch me in my lie.

"If you're filled with helium, how come you don't float away?" Touché, little kid. 

"I'm also filled with pudding. It keeps me from floating like a balloon, and makes me all squishy."

She thought about that for a minute... and then licked my arm.

"Ewww! What'd you do THAT for?" I yelped, wiping the toxic child-slime off my arm.

"I wanted to know what flavor of pudding."

I'm fairly certain there must be more than helium and pudding, so I've set off for the Peace Corps, to find out what I'm really made of. Probably just the standard fragile bones in a meat-suit, but maybe we'll all be surprised and there will be something worth writing about in there too. In the mean-time, if you're reading this, be prepared for the musings of a slightly terrified grad student with no clue what she's doing, and only a vague idea where she is.