Gratitude and Logistics

Attitude of Gratitude
I have many thanks to extend. First to my Mom for throwing me an amazing surprise going away party! I don't know how she managed to get it all done and not have me find out, probably because my mind is in about 1000 places right now. Also, thank you to my sister, aunt, Dad, and stepmom for their help. And to all of the people who showed up from near and far. I feel that I am going to Kenya very loved, so asante sana! Big thank you to my BFF from middle school who flew six months preggo to see me off and stayed up until 3am helping me pack. She is a RPCV in Dominican Republic and she made me halve my clothes and take about 1/4 of everything else. She also told me pretty bluntly that I will need to take my hygiene down a couple of notches because I had a suitcase full of wipes, soap and deodorant. I'm sure my back will thank her again as I lug all of my bags through Kenya. :-) And of course, thanks to you, my readers, who overlap a lot with the aforementioned group but nevertheless I thank you for your words of encouragement, prayers, and just for reading.

Logistics
Tomorrow I leave for Philly where I will meet the other wonderful volunteers. We have an orientation of sorts and then Tuesday we take a bus to JFK and say kwa heri Mmarekeni! I'm not sure about flight logistics but we arrive in Kenya on Tuesday, I believe. Then I will start training, which will continue until July 22. During this time I will be living with a host family and learning all I can about Kenyan culture, KiSwahili, and technical training. At the end of July, inshallah, I will be sworn in as an official volunteer and go to my site where I will be living for the next two years. That is pretty much all that I know. Here's what I don't know: availability of electricity, availability of Internet access, what exactly my job role will be, where exactly in Kenya I will be living, and probably any other question you might have. Hopefully I will have better answers in the coming weeks but I don't know how I will be able to communicate things to you all. Stay tuned though!

Mailing address
One other thing I know is how you can all get in touch with me: snail mail!!! My address during training will be:

Megan Browder, Peace Corps Trainee
P.O. Box 698-00621
Village Market
Nairobi, Kenya

If you and I will be frequent pen pals, they do suggest that you number your letters so I will know if one got lost. If you choose to send a package, please don't send anything that is expensive, the chances of it not making it or me having to pay a hefty "duty" on it are pretty high. PC recommends using a padded envelope rather than a box (less conspicuous I think). When I get to site I will have a new address but you can also use the above address throughout my service.

Ok, now that I have written this blog post I have 99 things left to do so I'm going to get on that. I probably will not have internet access while in training so if you don't hear from me, don't assume the worst. Enjoy the summer everyone!