To Staging and Beyond!

 
Whelp...

Today has been a bit emotional, a bit sad, but mostly exciting. Leaving my family was rough, and there were some tears, but I am excited for what's to come. Speaking of what's to come...

As of 7:30pm this evening, I am officially a PCT, or Peace Corps Trainee. This is our designation until our swearing-in ceremony in September when we will become full-fledged PCV, or Peace Corps Volunteers. (If you couldn't tell from that sentence, acronyms are abundant in Peace Corps.) Right now, I am at staging in San Francisco, which is basically where all of the PCTs get together in one place for a bit of training and get-to-know-each-other bonding before heading to their country of service. Peace Corps Cambodia has both health and teaching volunteers, and we are both heading over in the same group.

To get to Cambodia, we have a 16-hour flight to Singapore and a quick jump to Phnom Penh, the capitol city of the Kingdom of Cambodia. When we arrive in-country, we will spend a few days on medical exams and safety training. After that, it is on to our training villages where we will live with a host family while attending language, culture, technical, and safety training with a small group of other volunteers for nine weeks. During this time, access to the Internet might be sporadic, but I will do my best to keep this blog updated. Following the successful completion of training, we will have our swearing-in ceremony and move to our permanent placement where we will live and work for the next two years.


Meeting all the other PCTs today was great; it was nice to commiserate about all the weird questions we have been asked by family and friends, our hopes and worries about living in a new country, and how much we will miss cheese (or other foods). A lot of us have similar personalities, which is not very surprising, but it lends itself to a very loud and chatty registration area. All in all, my first day in the Peace Corps has been a good one.

Look out Cambodia, K10 is coming!
(Our group is called K10, because we are the tenth group to go through Peace Corps Cambodia)