Howdy, y'all.

Okay, so that’s probably not how the Texans really talk, but I needed a title, and I’m still in the air, so that’s all I could come up with. I have about an hour left to go in the flight, and I thought I would use the time to update my lovely readers since I will probably be kept busy this week with orientation-type stuff.

Let’s begin from the beginning:

This weekend was full of some really sad goodbyes, but also some really fun times with my family, my boyfriend Alex, and some wonderful friends. I said all my Gettysburg goodbyes on Friday—aka, I waved goodbye to my adoptive Latino family in the Burg until Christmastime. I said goodbye to the College and my lovely friends there. I also stopped by York to see 5 of my favorite kiddos on my way back to Lancaster. As always, I had a wonderful time seeing everybody, even though we were all a little sad.

Alex spent a long weekend at my house—Thursday through Monday. We had a great weekend of catching up with friends, hanging out with my family, eating out (I had to hit all my favorites because it was “my last week in America!” DUH), and watching movies. Monday night was tough, with lots of tears and hugging and a terrible car ride to take him back to Gettysburg. Luckily my shista (aka, Sam) was there with me and drove partway home since I was blurry from crying. I also got to see Genesis, one of my fave girls, one last time, as well as the rest of Alex’s family. So, all in all, a successful night.

After all those goodbyes, I feel like I’ve been sent off to Costa Rica in the best possible way – with the love and support of a lot of people who truly care about me and whom I truly care about.

Now, a brief detour in my story—SPOILER ALERT: This part is gross. Proceed with caution if you have a weak stomach. About halfway through last week, a very weird, very large bump emerged on my chin. Now, if you know me, you know I tend to have very weird allergic reactions to things on my face. I’ve had mysterious swollen lips, enlarged eyelids, etc. You name it, it’s happened to me. I thought this was either something like that that would go away on its own a normal breakout. I was wrong. The right side of my face was literally disfigured (go ahead, ask Sam if you don’t believe me, she’d be happy to laugh at me again!) It got red and puffy and pussy and painful and all sorts of other fun things, so my wonderful grandmother squeezed me into the dermatologist’s office where she works as a nurse. Turns out, it was a cyst that had gotten very badly infected and which, according to the doc, very likely could have turned into a staph infection if left untreated. So, at first, I was scared, thinking I might not get to leave for Costa Rica on time, but then I realized I should be grateful, because if I hadn’t gone to the doctor Monday, I probably would have ended up in pain and in a Costa Rican hospital far from home. Now, I am feeling much better, and my face has returned to a somewhat normal shape. THANK GOD it happened like this! J

ANYWAY, back to the story. This morning, my parents and I got up at the ungodly hour of 4:30AM to drive to Philly. We said goodbye at security. I could tell my mom wanted to cry, but she was a good little soldier and held it together. About five minutes later, though, I wanted to cry MOMMY after I ran into a problem with my boarding pass. I was using an American Airlines mobile pass, which security should have been able to scan from my cell phone. It didn’t work, and the security guard did not seem too concerned about whether I would make it to the plane or not, despite my obvious anxiety. Of course, I was making a mountain out of a molehill (shocking, eh?) and I got a paper boarding pass printed pretty quickly. Since then, it’s been smooth sailing. I should land in Dallas in about an hour. By this time tomorrow, I’ll be in Costa Rica. Until Sunday, 2/25, I’ll be in a retreat for new volunteers. On Sunday, I get to meet the family that I’ll live with for the next 11 weeks. And then training will begin. 

All is well here.

Much love,

Rachel

PS--Staging (aka, today) was pretty run-of-the-mill, orientation stuff with cheesy ice breakers and a bunch of info we already read in the handbook! C'est la vie. Now we are all going out to dinner to celebrate the fact that we are officially PEACE CORPS TRAINEES! :)