Leaving Nyanza...

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

Tomorrow’s our last day in Nyanza and it’s just unreal right now! A bit scary that we’re completely out on our own soon… a bit unbelievable that training is over… and really exciting that we’re going to be actual Peace Corps Volunteers as of Wednesday! I’m definitely going to miss it here. As much as it has driven me crazy from time to time to have more than 35 people around all the time… there are some amazing people here and I’m going to miss them. I’m going to miss our house of 17 people, my three roomates… and definitely the staff here. Our LCFs (language and cultural facilitators) have taught our classes and answered our questions and just been there to talk to us. They’re all close to my age and they’re definitely friends and colleagues… so I’m going to miss them. Our training director is Mupemba… and I can’t even begin to describe him… he’s Papa Mup to all of us here… and he’s incredible. He runs training and takes a ton of crap from our group… from our complaints about classes, our worries about tests and site placements, to our basic complaints about the food here. We get sick, homesick, stressed out, and cranky and he takes care of us all while running the logistics of an intense training program that supports more than 50 people. And he does an amazing job and really does care about each and every one of us. I can’t imagine having had this experience without him.

And here shortly we’re out into the real world… but before that we get to run around Kigali… eat decent food and shop… not to mention getting sworn in at the Ambassador’s house! Now if I can just manage to pack everything up in the next day or so… which is more of a task than it would seem since it won’t stop raining long enough for my clothes to dry on the line outside! I’m definitely much more aware of how amazing many of the creature comforts we have are… washers, dryers, and refrigerators in particular… let me just say that ice cubes are going to make me ridiculously happy in two years!