A day at a time…

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007
A day at a time…
My second day as an official Peace Corps volunteer draws near an end and I am at a loss of words to describe my current state of mind. I am both physically and mentally exhausted from the lack of sleep and the overwhelming bombardment of emotion. The last two day’s have been my staging event in Washington D.C. During this time the Peace Corps does its best to introduce us to their policies, but most importantly, each other. I can already see the beginning of friendships in other, and feel connections with others myself. While we all have very different stories up to this point it has become quite clear that many of us will insert the same pages into our book of life. This bond is ultimately the foundation upon which we build our relationships. The thought that these people I’ve known for a couple days will become my closest friends is still surreal. Perhaps the connection stems from our deep resounding desire to do something good, to learn something new, and to fulfill an intense curiosity of the world and the people living on it and these qualities all brought us to the Peace Corps.
I’ve learned a lot about my colleagues over these last few days and it’s been very invigorating to be exposed to so much creativity, and so many bright minds, and people who share the same passion about this as I do.
Yesterday we were so lucky to have the Ambassador to Albania grace us with his presence. He spoke for several minutes and throughout expressed so much excitement, so much enthusiasm, and so much energy. This one man possessed so much optimism; at that time it seemed difficult to believe that Albania needs us at all. Above all these qualities the love in his voice towards his country and towards the volunteers committing to serve his country for the next two years spoke the loudest to me. This man seemed to hold us in such high esteem it was difficult to not be flattered.
Before I came to D.C. and even throughout most of staging leaving never really became real. Living in a country that speaks another language never sank in until just a few hours ago. It’s interesting to digest. I have nothing in my life that I can relate what I will experience over the next two years to, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. It makes me feel so alive.
It is pushing two o’clock in the morning and we have a long day of traveling tomorrow so I suppose I should try to get some sleep. Hopefully getting all this out will help shut off my mind and allow me to actually fall asleep tonight.

Until we meet again.