Tomorrow

Well, I am actually leaving tomorrow to start the long journey to my final destination in a town in Guinea. How it is working is I am flying to Philadelphia tomorrow morning at 9:30 am. When I get there, I will be meeting a few of the volunteers at the airport, and we will be traveling to our hotel. Before I can even check in, we will be having our orientation and meeting the rest of the volunteers coming with us.

In the next couple of days we will be taking a bus to the JFK airport where I we will get on a flight to Dakar, Senegal. That serves as a kind of hub for a lot of Africa. then we will fly into the Capital City of Guinea, Conakry.

After a few days there, I think we will be taking another bus to a town called Forecariah. this is where most of the training wil occur. It should be about 2-3 months there where we learn about the language, some of the culture, including some of the subtleties, and abou our actual assignmants. from what I understand, some of the current Peace Corps Volunteers will be doing some of that training for us.

So, this marked my last thanksgiving for a little while with my family. It was incredibly sad to see my Uncle, Aunt and cousins leave. They are some of our closest relatives, and i can't believe I will not be able ot see them for my stint in Guinea.

Now I am facing the actual reality of leaving my Parents and my Brother behind. i think up until just about now I have not really grasped the fact that I am leaving what has always been a safety net for me, my family. i can't even imagine how hard it will be tomorrow when I get on the plane.

I also realized yesterday that I watched my last Bills game for 2 years... considering how they did, it is probably more of a relief. no more crushing defeats on Sundays.. no more masochism of following a team that continues to destroy your hopes and dreams. I don't know where I will ever find all that disappointment that I lived with for the past 11 years...

I digress... As tough as it will be, the adventure ahead is really exciting. As I try to avoid imagining what it will be like in Guinea, I can't help but thing of all of the great and crazy challenges that we will face there. I also can't wait to meet all these new people even though it will be difficult right off the bat.

ok, that's enough. the next time I post will most likely be when we have finally landed in Guinea. If it isn't then I will quickly edit this portion of the post out and deny that it ever existed!