Staging
The overall feeling: Anti Climactic. You get all packed, tie up all the loose ends you can, make your final goodbyes, get on a plane…
And at the end of the day your in a hotel in Detroit.
Your looking out over a huge parking lot of cars, meeting a bunch of people you don’t know, whom I’m sure are all really amazing people, but right now we’re all reduced to the same old getting to know you conversations. “Where are you from?” “What did you do before the Peace Corps…”
That, and Staging isn’t exactly the most enthralling info. It’s the broad, non-country specific, picture of the Peace Corps to get our brains moving in the right direction and to start to meet or fellow volunteers. For what’s its worth it was run quite well, but I’m definitely jumping to move on.
The ups and downs of meeting 78 new people have been quite interesting though. Trying to find the people who share some core values and ideas or are at least interested in some of the same things is a bit challenging. In some ways I also find that thought revealing about myself as well. It reminds me that I’m already sorting out who I want to invest time in and who I don’t. That efficiency part of me that doesn’t want to be left standing all alone, but also doesn’t want to be just satteliting in a group of people BSing about sports or whatever the small talk of the moment is. Especially because we will only be together as a large group for a little over a week before we split down. (More on that later.)
At times its hard not to let everyone else’s insecurities seep in and feel lost and unstable. For example, my roommate, Adam, who is a great guy, didn’t exactly pack well at 90 lbs of gear and was stressing about it which caused me to question all my own packing choices. It definitely took me the next couple hours to reaffirm my choices. The hardest of which is still the 8 lb. laptop I’m writing on now. I’m still glad I have it. Even if I do beat the odds and end up at a site with no electricity (which I would be elated about!) I’ll just donate this beast somewhere in the Capital and be on my way.
The highs are great too. And quick and sudden and random. Like Karen, who I had not met yet but was reading the paper about the Shavio case and we jumped straight into a interesting conversation about the politics of the whole deal. Life is good. And then take Mike, who I was not very impressed with day 1 but over dinner turns out to be a very interesting outdoors, wanderer type. Life is good. But I still can’t wait to get in Country.
And at the end of the day your in a hotel in Detroit.
Your looking out over a huge parking lot of cars, meeting a bunch of people you don’t know, whom I’m sure are all really amazing people, but right now we’re all reduced to the same old getting to know you conversations. “Where are you from?” “What did you do before the Peace Corps…”
That, and Staging isn’t exactly the most enthralling info. It’s the broad, non-country specific, picture of the Peace Corps to get our brains moving in the right direction and to start to meet or fellow volunteers. For what’s its worth it was run quite well, but I’m definitely jumping to move on.
The ups and downs of meeting 78 new people have been quite interesting though. Trying to find the people who share some core values and ideas or are at least interested in some of the same things is a bit challenging. In some ways I also find that thought revealing about myself as well. It reminds me that I’m already sorting out who I want to invest time in and who I don’t. That efficiency part of me that doesn’t want to be left standing all alone, but also doesn’t want to be just satteliting in a group of people BSing about sports or whatever the small talk of the moment is. Especially because we will only be together as a large group for a little over a week before we split down. (More on that later.)
At times its hard not to let everyone else’s insecurities seep in and feel lost and unstable. For example, my roommate, Adam, who is a great guy, didn’t exactly pack well at 90 lbs of gear and was stressing about it which caused me to question all my own packing choices. It definitely took me the next couple hours to reaffirm my choices. The hardest of which is still the 8 lb. laptop I’m writing on now. I’m still glad I have it. Even if I do beat the odds and end up at a site with no electricity (which I would be elated about!) I’ll just donate this beast somewhere in the Capital and be on my way.
The highs are great too. And quick and sudden and random. Like Karen, who I had not met yet but was reading the paper about the Shavio case and we jumped straight into a interesting conversation about the politics of the whole deal. Life is good. And then take Mike, who I was not very impressed with day 1 but over dinner turns out to be a very interesting outdoors, wanderer type. Life is good. But I still can’t wait to get in Country.
posted by george at 10:09 AM
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