day 1 complete

So day one is officially completed. I think I got a full 4 hours of sleep to get me ready for my first day of shock (aka what am I doing??), so I’m feeling a little out of it. Once I said goodbye to my uncle and my mom at the airport, it got harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking toward security. I’ve never questioned whether I wanted to do this or not, I’m just realizing more and more how hard it is to actually go through with it. Once we took off, I had to hold the tears back as I watched the Pacific coastline disappear, knowing that I probably won’t see that again for a very long time. I felt like the whole day I kept going through waves of different emotions ranging between excitement, dread, curiosity, fear and sadness. For a while I had to shut my emotions off so I wouldn’t find myself freaking out on the plane. But, all that said, my plane landed safely, I got to the hotel, and I was able to hold myself together the whole time… well, almost the whole time.
Tonight I had my first Peace Corps “event.” It wasn’t really so much an event as it was a turn-in-your-paperwork and get-your-passport-back type of thing. (Yes, that’s right. I have not had my passport since I sent it to the Peace Corps in November.) I think in the midst of turning in paperwork and signing more paperwork I met about 15 new people. Problem is, I don’t think I remember anyone’s name. Luckily for me, that seemed a common trend so I guess everyone is ok with telling everyone else their name 10 times because no one can remember anything at this point. A pretty large group of us walked across the street for dinner/drinks and started to get to know each other. I can’t say how comforting it was to find out that everyone else seemed to be in the same boat. Forgot all your Spanish? Good, me too. You still don’t feel like you know what you’re doing so you keep telling people stuff like, “you know, I’m teaching them about washing their hands,” silently praying they don’t ask anymore questions because you still don’t know the answers. Awesome, that’s what I’ve been doing too. You feel like you forgot something? Yah, me too… oh no, I actually did remember my underwear. How did you forget that?? Everyone still seemed in a little bit of a shock trying to grasp the reality of how long 27 months really was and what that meant while at the same time wanting to forget reality for just a little while longer.
But, ready or not, we are leaving tomorrow night!! Less than 24 hours and I will be on my way along with my newly found friends (even if I can’t remember any of their names) to Paraguay! In the mean time, I’m going to try and catch up on some of that sleep I should have gotten last night.