The road to K-stan

I'm in DC in a Holiday Inn enjoying the last air conditioning I'll be feeling for some time. Reality is beginning to sink in that I'm finally really doing this thing, and that tomorrow I'll be taking up residence in a strange and faraway land.

There are 74 Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) in the Kaz-22 group (Peace Corps lingo for the 22nd group of volunteers to head to Kazakhstan). Most volunteers work in the Education (EDU) program, while the rest work in Youth Development (YD) program. I'm a YD trainee, so after 3 months of rigorous language, business, culture, etc. training I'll be placed with a host organization to do an as of yet undetermined job. Youth Development volunteers in K-stan seem to work across a vast spectrum of youth organizations and non-profits. It's all a bit unclear, but once I get to my site, I hope to have a better sense of the job description.

Tomorrow we leave at 12:30pm for Dulles Airport where I'll lug my 4 unruly bags (2 checked, 2 carry-ons) through security to hop a flight to Frankfurt. After a 6 hour layover there, we'll hop another flight to Almaty, KZ. We'll arrive in Kazakhstan at about 1am, and need to be at training at 7am that morning. It's going to be a few days of exhaustion and stress, but at least there's 74 of us in the same boat. And I think we're all up to the challenge. Or we're really good at faking it.