When 4 Days Can Feel Like a Month

Hi Everyone!!

So Since the 24^th and staging and Philadelphia my life has been a whirlwind of change and information overload... and I don't think that is going to stop for awhile. 

Staging in Philadelphia was very overwhelming LOTS of new faces.. Information... and the weirdest part was for me, that I hadn't really even left home yet. Even just walking to dinner with some of my fellow stagees I ran into Erik. Which made me very happy.. but also a little sad. 

On Monday morning we left the hotel early in the morning the PC stage facilitators loaded us onto our buses for JFK and thus commenced the many hours of travel. Our flight from NYC left a whole hour late (after we had already boarded).. the flight out of Brussels was right on time, but I did not like the Brussels airport at all. We arrived here in Benin in the evening on the 26^th collected all of our bags (with I believe 67 of us.. there are a lot of bags) and then loaded up on to buses to head to St. Jean-Eudes where we stayed until today. I wasn't able to get to my camera at the time... but I really wish I had been able to take a picture of what I mean by “loaded up on the buses.” Very crammed. 

Once at St. Jean-Eudes we ate dinner and found our rooms and went to sleep. The 27^th was full of information sessions literally all day long. Really just lots of information, on everything. Thursday was interviews, we were at the PC Headquarters in Cotonou and met with our doctor, our sector manager, had a language level interview, a bike session, and had time to connect to the work station WIFI to check emails and send some messages home :)

Last night was our last night at SJE which means starting tonight we are living on our own (with our new host family) away from all of the other volunteers/ our support network from the last few days. We meet our host families later this afternoon... I am not at all prepared for this. My family has 3 people in it Mama, Papa and a Sister who looks to be in her teens. Wish me luck!!

Z