Flying tomorrow

Ok, so you thought the last post was goodbye, but this is really goodbye . . . It's only been a day and a half of staging but already I feel like it's been two weeks. The Assistant Director (think I got that right?) of PC came to speak to us, and will visit Ukraine in a week - and said that by that time we'll be essentially a year older. I believe it (so much to absorb, so overwhelming) - and yet, the country director (also visiting our staging, both visits are unusual and special) said that on the plane ride over, somewhere between Frankfurt and Kiev we transform from functioning "adults" to two-year-olds. And I believe that too. Partially because we'll have about that ability in terms of language, partially because the next 12 weeks will be meticulously planned out for us by the PC, and partially because we'll be living in host families who, no matter what the volunteer's age (even if it's 60) will carefully supervise us and make sure we are warmly dressed and very well fed.

We have 110 people in our group, which is HUGE for a PC group, but I gather not completely out of the ordinary for Ukraine. We'll spend the next twelve weeks in "clusters" of five, learning the language and culture and participating in "internships" (I opted for no-English immersion classes, we'll see how that goes) . . . and I'm not sure about internet access, which is part of why I decided to go ahead and pay the high hotel cost for wireless tonight and get my internet fix one more time. We'll be taught in our language facilitator's home, and meet with another cluster every Saturday to discuss how everything's going. All this concrete detail is making things v. real for me, and I try not to miss too much of the lectures by staring off into space thinking Holy crap I am actually leaving and doing this and aaah. Sometimes the details make me incredibly excited (I may work in summer camps!! I've always wanted to be a camp counselor!!) . . and sometimes anxious (hadn't worried about a whole host of things until we all listed our fears today) . . and sometimes inexplicably emotional (it's like I'm pregnant, every stupid video we watch, and every cute story about our Staging facilitator's life in Paraguay sets me off). But overall, especially after calling home after the incredibly long day, I'm feeling ok about things.

I also heard from Katie A., my PC twin starting off in Mozambique, and despite a general absence of giraffes in her life so far, she is doing well. So we'll all be fine. So thank you all for the calls, visits, e-mails and blog comments in these last weeks before I leave . . I think I'm ready. And, along with the feeling that I've been here for two weeks, I do miss you all a lot already, so we'll have to keep in touch as much as possible. Ok. Goodbye for real, now. And as my baby neighbor Owen will say (when prompted), take care!!