Thursday, February 21, 2008

Zambian adventure part USA!

hey everyone! I'd like to first of all say thank you to everyone who came to my Par-tay on Saturday! It was so amazing to see friends and family. I feel so lucky. I also never realized how much work it is to be the center of attention/the party girl. Haha. I was perty tired. Also thanks to my parents, Lori, Julie and other family and friends who helped prep for the par-tay. It was so fabulous.

Okay now for info about my PC journey over the last few days. The night before I left I got 2.5 hours of sleep because I was up so late packing. My stuff weighs about 70 lbs and that's 10 lbs under what we are allowed. So I don't know how that happened but I have always been a "light" packer. If that's what you want to call it (It IS 70 lbs). It is really hard to manage as it is, so I'm glad its not 80. I immediately realized I forgot some essentials: hairbrush, nail clippers, towel. These I have since purchased, luckily. So I flew out of Nashville after some tearful goodbyes and cried as I looked at the beautiful Nashville skyline for the last time in the near future. I wiped away some tears on the flight hoping that the lady next to me wouldn't notice...

I arrived in DC, hauled all my luggage onto a shuttle, dropped my crap off at the hotel in Georgetown and went downtown to have lunch with Corinne and Stephanie!!! Highlight of the trip so far. They are my roommates from senior year at Vanderbilt and it was fabulous to see them right before leaving. So then back at Holiday Inn G-town, the orienting began. So far everyone I've met has been really cool and I can tell we have a great group. There are 52 people in all going to Zambia. Most are around my age, some a tad older. Today there was more orienting, group collaboration, sharing, feelings, anxieties, aspirations, etc. After lunch, a surprise! Vaccines! Well just one, yellow fever at THE dept of Health and Human Services. How many people can say they've been injected at the Dept of Health right next to the Capitol? Cool, right? And as a bonus, we basically got a mini-tour of DC as we drove around. Oh and a special note. There was no soap in the bathroom and I wouldn't say the restroom was especially tidy. However it was a nice building. I hope its not against PC policy to diss another Government organization in a blog.

So after getting vaccinated, we returned for more sharing and learning. Then we held hands and chanted. Not really, but i wouldn't have been surprised. In a small group we were assigned to write a song about our coming experience. One guy brought a guitar so we changed the words to Sweet Home Alabama to Sweet New Home in Zambia. It was pretty swweeeet. After all that was over with Corinne came and picked me up! We stopped at Target to pick up the aforementioned items that I forgot. And now i'm in Corinne's apartment blogging and skyping with Renata!! Since we got our shots earlier today we get to sleep in tomorrow! Woot! we leave at 11:30 for the airport and our flight leaves at 5:20 pm. If everything goes smoothly then we'll arrive at 9:00 Zambia time on Saturday night. I think that's about 2:00 BG time. Well I need to be heading back to the hotel now. I'll blog again as soon as I can but it might be awhile! Stay tuned! I miss everyone!

Love, Caitlin

Friday, February 15, 2008

Leaving in 5 days...Zambia in 7!

Today was my last day at work and it was kind of sad. I've really enjoyed working there and truly loved all the people. Plus I was getting pretty adept at rolling silverware in my downtime. I am starting to get both really pumped and a little nervous about leaving. I still feel like I have a lot left to do and get before I leave. Hopefully over the next few days I can spend as much time as possible with everybody! I got my new iPod this week so I'm busy loading it up with movies, music, pictures and such!