Hello from Arlington!

Staging has been intense, with very long days, but it has definitely been lots of fun. There are about 37 people in my group, and so far everyone seems really great- very smart, excited, fun people, and I'm really looking forward to getting to know everyone in the next few weeks!

Tonight, I have to totally re-pack my bags, since one bag will be going into storage for the entirety of pre-service training. We'll be able to get to it, but it won't be easy, so we'll need to have everything we'll need for the next 10 weeks in one bag. This bag will go with us to our homestays. Tomorrow, we have to be in the hotel lobby and ready to go at the brutal hour of 7 AM. From there, we go to the health clinic for our shots, and then we check out of the hotel and go to the airport for our 24 or so hour flight!

In Nairobi, we'll be staying at a guest house for a couple of nights, and then we'll move on to the town where we'll be doing our training, Kitui. After a few days there, we'll be sent off to our homestay familys! That's definitely nervewracking, but I'm expecting it to be interesting, and hopefully fun. I've told them that I really like kids, so hopefully I'll get a family with some kiddies to hang out with.

In training, we'll be doing mostly community-based training, where apparently a lot of training, even language classes, will be happening out in markets, clinics, and other places outside of a classroom. I think this suits my learning style really well, so I'm excited about that.

We've been told that we will probably not have internet or phone access for a while, so I'll try to get online and on a phone as soon as I can, but if you don't hear from me immediately, don't worry! Know that I'll be fine, and that I'm thinking about all of you and hoping that you are all well!