Sarah Goes to Moz

It was quite a long journey (~26 hours) but we finally made it to Mozambique. Some great things have happened over the past few days, so instead of giving you a play by play of the journey over here, I’ll highlight some moments. 

Baggage Claim in Philadelphia

Via the “Moz 25 facebook group” I learned who would be landing about the same time I did in Philly for Staging. Once I got to baggage claim, I group messaged those peeps letting them know where I was. One person responded that he was on his way to baggage claim too: His name is Zachary and he has long hair (per fb). I was really confused when, moments later, a very tall man with next to no hair approached me, asked if I was with Peace Corps, and introduced himself as Zack. Turns out, same Zack, different hair. 

It’s surprisingly easy to pick out PCVs in the Baggage Claim area: we are all wearing shoes that belong in Colorado, hiking backbacks, and guaranteed to have two giant suitcases along with the packs. Our lives stuffed into 100#, in whichever way we could. 

One dude there had my exact same REI 45L pack (which I picked out solely because it was green and on sale), and I yelled to him across the room asking if he was Peace Corps even though I already knew the answer. 

I shared a cab with a girl named Kirsten and it was nice to know that we were feeling about the same mix of excitement, anxiety and uncertainty. 

There were 5 of us in total that met at the airport that day, and it was the first time I had felt like I was with “my people”. I liked it. The faces were familiar even though I had never seen these people before. 

First Session in Training

The first session in training we learned a lot about Peace Corps history and current statistics. 

The idea of the Peace Corps was first spoken of by John F. Kennedy on October 14th, 1960 during a late-night campaign speech at the University of Michigan. On March 1st, Kennedy signed the Executive Order and the Peace Corps became an official thing. That’s less than 5 months since the idea of it was ever spoken. Today, it takes years and years and years to make any new idea a thing, and this happened in less than 5 months. That’s pretty freakin’ special. The Peace Corps was formally authorized by congress that same year in September and within just 2 years over 7,000 PCVs were serving in 44 countries.

I also learned that this year, 2015, Peace Corps received over 20,000 applications and accepted about 3,000 of those. Whoa. There are many people who want to be in my shoes but aren’t, because Peace Corps saw something in me specifically. That’s a great feeling. 

We “Get It”

I’m not exactly sure when this realization happened, but I’m really glad it did. For the first time since March when I accepted my invitation, I am amongst a whole bunch of people who know what I’m doing and where I’m going, and do not have the inclination to ask “why”. While everyone surely has their own reason for wanting to serve in Peace Corps, the "why" question doesn’t get asked. We are with “our people” now—people who are willing to put their lives on hold for two years in order to do good on another continent. Yes, it’s true that I have a lot to learn about the 62 other people that are in this hotel with me right now, getting some rest before our second round of shots tomorrow morning, but I can already relate to them on a very real level. We all have something in common that immediately connected us, and that thing will stay true for the rest of our lives. I’m extremely thankful for that.

Airplane Movies

The flight from JFK to Johannesburg was 14 hours. I slept for the first four (typical). Then I watched Pitch Perfect 2 (hilarious albeit cheesy movie—highly recommend!). I was scrolling through the list of other movie options and found Birdman and American Sniper. Both are movies I’ve heard great things about and wanted to watch. But I was sleepy too. In debating whether or not to watch or to sleep, I thought to myself “I can just sleep now and watch them on the return flight”…

Wrong.

The return flight isn’t for over TWO YEARS. There will be other “New Releases” out by then.

The return flight will not take place for over TWO YEARS.

The return flight is NOT BOOKED YET. 

Whoa. How’s that for a change of mindset? I’ve been saying, “I’ll be in Mozambique serving in Peace Corps for 27 months” over and over and over again since March. But that little movie situation on the airplane made it real. In a good way, but also a “whoa” way. This is real.

PS: I didn’t watch the movies. I slept. You shouldn’t be surprised.

Anxieties and Aspirations

One of the activities we did during staging was getting into groups and drawing pictures that represent some of the groups’ points of worry and hopes for success throughout service. There were lots of common ones. Below are lists of the things that showed up multiple times, and my additions to the activity are highlighted in purple.

Anxieties:

• Getting sick (illustrated by green vomit spewing out of sad stick figures)
• Disease (illustrated by mosquito)
• Lonilness (illustrated by sad stick figure by itself)
• Dihhrea (illustrated by a toilet)
• Language Barrier (illustrated by a stick figure with a word bubble with question marks)
• Shots/Mediciation (illustrated by an Rx bottle)
• Being a bad teacher (illustrated by a confused stick figure)
• Robbery (illustrated by a stick figure with a hood)
• Living with a host family (Illustrated by a house)

Aspirations

• Not dying (illustrated by a dead stick figure with a circle/slash through it)
• Adopting a puppy (illustrated by a cartoon puppy) note: Zack wants to adopt chickens and Ariana wants to adopt cats
• Distributing family portraits to families (illustrated by a stick figure family portrait)
• Adventure (illustrated by mountains)
• Being a good teacher (illustrated by a not-confused stick figure)
• Making new friends (illustrated by lots of stick figures)
• Good weather (illustrated by sunshine)
• Starting up “mathlete”-esque competitions for students (illustrated by mathematical operations symbols)
• Finishing the Mozambican Marathon (illustrated by a Finish Line)
• Beach/Ocean/Scuba Diving (illustrated by a scuba diver)

I agree with everything on those lists (and you can probably guess that the aspirations I added are unique to me). When you’re in a room with over 30 other people who have similar worries and similar hopes, your worries seem more bearable and your hopes seem actually possible. That session was probably the most beneficial for me because it made me realize that these near-strangers, who I know now as  “my people” and who will become some of my best friends and eventually my family, are on my team. And I’m on theirs. And I feel really good about that.