Happy Thanksgiving charlie brown!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I am so thankful today because we got a day off and we were taken into Kampala to go to the Peace Corps office and be fed an amazing feast! Chicken instead of turkey and no cranberry sauce to be found but amazing green beans, stuffing, and mashed potatoes and PIE made the day wonderful! There were volunteers from all the other cohorts so it was a big group and a great substitute family for the day. 

Every party needs an american flag tent, Right? 

The Peace Corps Office!

Yummy Food!

Look! Friends!!

Katie!

Margeurite, Tahrima and Cara!

So now it is back to the grind. We are doing lesson plans for our practice teaching next week. Wish me luck! 

Guess who is team player of the day! O and I have pictures to share!

Are you proud mom and dad?!?! Last week a trainee of the day and a team player started to be named every day and I was todays team player for organizing a movie night and probably for my sick dance moves 

And here is a picture of my mentor, Linda! She is so proud of me!

And here is a picture form when we went to visit a Primary Teachers college and a primary school. All the students put on a welcome dance for us! 

So thats all for now! Tomorrow is thanksgiving and we get the day off to go to the peace corps office to have an american thanksgiving ugandan style. I'll take more random pictures!

Made it to Uganda!

Start at 5:00 pm at JFK on Tuesday November 11. 7 hour plane to Brussels. 3 hour lay over in Brussels where I fell asleep (see picture below). 10 hour plane to Rwanda, brief 50 minute layover on the ground. 30 minute trip to Entebbe, Uganda landing at 11:00 p.m. on Wednesday November 12 Uganda time which is about 3 p.m. Eastern Time.

Brief sleep and then dive right into training. We stayed at a beautiful farm but unfortunately did not get much time to explore. Lots of team building and getting to know one another. I had some trouble figuring out technology and had to make some extra calls to get my iPhone unlocked but it is all working so please WhatsApp or viber me!! my uganda phone number is in the contact part.

Today we moved from the farm to a primary teacher college for "teacher bootcamp" for the next three weeks. After that we go to homestay for our language training. We found out our placements a few days ago and I found out I will be in the central region north of Masaka which is what I wanted!! I'm going to have to look out for Zebras!

So they have been keeping us busy and apparently we stay that way for the next 2 and a half months so I apologize for not posting as often but I promise when I am at my sight by myself and lonely and homesick I will post all the time!

This is what packing looks like...

Me, my mom, and sister watching my last Washington Capitals Hockey game at home

So it's the night before I leave Maryland. Tomorrow, my mom, sister, and I will drive up to Philadelphia. We are going to spend the night in Phili and then staging is set for Monday at noon. Staging is a series of sessions and then we spend Monday night in Phili and our plane leaves from JFK on Tuesday. 

I was bracing for impact today emotionally. Packing is not my strong suit. So across the past months at home I have been slowly setting things aside and taking over my sisters room as my packing staging area. I am so thankful to both of my parents for being so supportive and helping me get prepared. Lots of shopping trips meant that I had a lot of equipment and clothes to pack. My mom has ninja packing skills and managed so squeeze all of my belongings into two duffels and a carry on. We all made it through the packing process but once it was all cleaned up, we all started crying. We knew this day was coming but it is still pretty unreal to imagine me leaving for 27 months. 

So how did we cope? Wine and dinner of course! Then home for a hockey game, so lets go Caps!