Staging

If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me? For I must be traveling on now, ‘cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see.
-Lynyrd Skynyrd, Free Bird


For the past day and a half I’ve been at “Staging” in Philadelphia, which is the pre-departure orientation that all volunteers go through before they get on the plane! I’ve met the other people from my group, and they’re awesome! There are 12 of us, we’re all health volunteers, and we’re all female! That latter characteristic usually never happens, but for some reason is the case for this group. I have to say that it’s kind of exciting, but also a little disappointing. Being in a group of really empowered women who are going to learn and give and grow so much is wonderful! On the other hand, I think that having as many perspectives as possible is key, and I feel like gender is a really really important perspective to have represented.

That being said, I love my group! They’re all really great people, and I’m so excited that these women are the people who will be my new friends. There are all of the normal anxieties, but everyone is really positive and everyone seems to be here for all of the right reasons. Whew!

During Staging we’ve been going through a lot of policies, talking about sustainability, talking about our hopes and fears, talking about community integration and acceptance, thinking about what it really means to be a volunteer, and getting to know each other. Today we had the “staging capstone,” where we self divided into groups based on our talents- Sarah (another volunteer) and I were the “musicians and poets” group, and our assigned theme was community integration. So, we made up a song about integrating into our new communities, and performed it for the group- it was great! We’ll all be singing it for the next two years. Other groups drew a picture, did a skit, did body sculptures, etc- it was really fun to see what everyone came up with! Tonight most of us went out to a really great dinner, and now we’re all in the midst of packing up to get ready for our trip tomorrow!

We leave to take a bus to the airport tomorrow at 1pm! I should have internet access for the first couple of days I’m there, so I’ll post again to let everyone know that I made it safely!

Here are some pictures from today:

This is our group, with our two trainers:

Back: Angus (trainer), Nora, Tiffany, me, Amanda, Christina;

Middle: Hannah, Alexis, Brett, Sarah, Kapila (awesome trainer!)

Front: Carrie, Erin, Courtney

Some of us at lunch today:

Sarah, Christina, Hannah, me, Erin, Amanda

Taking our first malaria medicine:

Me, Erin, Amanda, Sarah, Christina, Courtney

The words to the song that Sarah and I wrote. It's sung to the tune of "I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony..."

At dinner tonight:
Tiffany, Me, Hannah, Alexis, Sarah, Carrie, Amanda, Brett, Erin, Christina