My Life in Luggage

Packing was way harder than I thought and I brought way too many clothes. Like, I’m pretty sure I packed at least double what the packing list says. Why? Because I like options. And if you know me, you know that I change my clothes at least twice before I leave the house—pretty much every time I leave the house. And yes, I wear workout gear in public a lot. And still. Gotta have options. There were a lot of things I needed to pack too. I would guess in terms of weight, it’s about 55% clothes 45% non-clothes. Some notable non-clothes things I brought and know that I will use a whole bunch:

1. A frying pan. Pretty much every current PCV over there said to bring one. I barely use a frying pan at home, but I imagine that’s going to change really quickly. The things I currently know how to cook via a frying pan: eggs; grilled cheese; broccoli. I know they don’t have cheese, so at least one of those things will be impossible. Hopefully my host mother can teach me a thing or two, or else broccoli eggs (egoli? breggs?) it will be (assuming I can access either of those things). Good thing I already know peanut butter is easily accessible, eh?
2. A tent. Tent sleeping isn’t fun to me. You sleep on the floor. And you don’t have air/heat or even breeze really. And there isn’t much room for anything besides 1.5 humans (and I usually share a tent with Dave, so comfortable isn’t exactly the word I would use to describe that situation). But one volunteer said that she pitches her tent [insert frat joke here] in her front hard to get stay cool. Where I come from, a tent is the hot option, and sleeping inside with air conditioning is the cool option—but we ain’t in Dallas anymore. Her house doesn’t have much breeze so she sleeps in her tent to escape the heat of the house. When I read her Facebook massage saying that, I said, “mom, we gotta go get a tent”. And we did. I will likely use my yoga mat as a mattress on those hottest nights, so thank you Lululemon, in advance. A tent as the cool option and my yoga mat as the most comfortable sleeping option…life is about to be very, very different. I’m weirdly excited about opposite-of-comfy sleeping situation.
3. The biggest container of parmesan cheese you’ve ever seen. And here’s a secret: I don’t even like parmesan cheese. Current PCVs say to bring it whether you like it or not because you will not only start to love it, you will start to need it. Food there is bland and this will be the closest thing to “normal food” I’ll have for the next two years. Thank you, Steven, for the great gift. (LOL! In what world does parmesan cheese=great gift?!).
4. Peanut butter and Nutella. Do I really need to explain myself? Didn’t think so. #nom
5. Knives. When I told Lauren that current PVCs recommend I bring really sharp knives, her response was (and I quote): “OMG that’s sooooooo scary!!! Are you enrolled in self-defense classes?!”. No Lauren, I mean for cooking. Hahahahaha. Apparently, you can’t get nice knives there. That’s all. I won’t need to stab a perpetrator to survive (I hope). This need for a knives makes me realize I will be cutting up food stuffs to make meals. I hate doing that. Like seriously, homemade salads are the bane of my existence because cutting veggies is the worst task ever. Looks like I’ll either be eating potatoes like apples, or I’ll have to suck it up and use the knives. And if you’re a Mozambican reading this—don’t even think about messing with me. One of the knives is huge and I’m not afraid to use it.  #kiddingkindof

Oh, and shoes: Brooks running shoes, Vibrams (brand new, because I wouldn’t make any new friends with my old stinky ones), Tevas (aka hiking sandals), Birkenstocks (aka teaching sandals); brown flats; black flats; flip flops. 7 pairs of shoes. For 27 months. That’s less shoes than I bring on a vacation to the beach. In this sense, I won packing (but probably backed 3 more pairs of shoes than most other volunteers). 

Acquiring the things I need and packing them was a huge task, given my inability to make decisions, my desire to procrastinate, and the questions I have that just simply cannot be answered until I get there. I finished packing around 9pm on Sunday, the night before I left for Staging. We tried weighing the bags before we got to the airport but my mom’s scale changes what it says based on how you distribute the weight in your feet, so the thing was as good as worthless. She leaned a certain way (holding the bags) and we thought we were in the clear—until we got to the airport.

Bag #1: 54lbs. Well, shit. That was the lighter of the two and I thought for sure it was under weight. In a panic I open the bag and start taking heavy things out. I give my mom back about 50 packs of chocolate vegan Advocare protein powder and lots of nail polish and weigh again. 49.5. (Don’t worry I still have some protein powder so I won’t starve). Note: the nail polish was for future kiddos, not my high maintenance girly self (ha!). 

Bag #1: 57lbs. DOUBLE SHIT. Shit the size of Lucy’s shit. I don’t have 7 lbs to spare. Like, I need everything in this bag. My mom tried to sweet talk the lady at the counter but 7 pounds is 6 too many to be overlooked. Shit shit shit shit shit. I gave mom two bottles of shampoo, two bottles of conditioner, two containers of face wash and two tubes of toothpaste. Weigh again: 53 lbs. Better but still need more. I shove some shoes in my carry on. 51.5 lbs. One bar of soap. 51 lbs.  “Good enough” says the lady. Thank. Goodness. 

[Please imagine my mom and I at the airport. My mom came prepared with a giant trash bag in case this exact scenario happened. Mom standing there holding a Glad Stall and Sturdy and me dumping my gateways to cleanliness and sustenance in it like I’m willing to be dirty and hungry forever. We were also in everyone’s way so people were saying excuse me and stepping over my piles of stuff and I was cursing them under my breath. I will look back on this in about 2 months and think it was hilarious but right now thinking about it still stresses me out. That betch should have let me on the plane with 11 extra lbs.]

Guys, I overpacked by 11lbs. ELEVEN. Not like, four. I over packed by double digits. That’s hilariously Sarah. My “I literally need everything that’s in these bags” very quickly turned into “get this shit outta here, I gotta get on the plane!”. And now, I firmly believe that I have everything I need. 25 pairs of underwear and 8 sticks of deodorant and everything else is moot. Am I right? (pretend to agree, I leave for the airport in approximately 9 hours from right now so there’s no going back). 

Finally, after all that nonsense and checking and rechecking and triple checking that I have all the things, I realized yesterday that I forgot something pretty freakin’ cruicial: hair ties. I. Forgot. Hair ties. Are you kidding me?! I am an athlete. Athletes don’t workout with their hair down. Shit.

Thank gosh there is a target next to our hotel so I just trotted my little booty over there and grabbed some. 

Now I’m ready. Here I go. In 9 hours I will leave for the JFK airport and 5 hours after that I will board a plane whose return flight doesn’t happen for 27 months. And I will have everything I need, and likely many things that I don’t. 

PS: Here is my luggage situation. Two 50b bags and that hiking backpack weights about 25. 125# for two years. Is that a lot or a little?