The night before...

First of all, welcome to my blog! As you can tell by the URL, I am not usually a huge fan of blogging, but I thought this would be a much more efficient way of letting everyone know what I am up to while I am in Mali, especially since I have no idea what the internet access will be like! I am currently in Philadelphia, where I have just finished staging. This was basically a day and a half of sessions to at least give us some idea as to what living in Mali will be like. I also actually got to meet and somewhat get to know the people I will be spending the next two years of my life with! One interesting thing, at least I thought, is that I am the only person from Florida! How weird. This whole staging thing has only made me even more ridiculously excited to get there, and now it is almost time!!! We are getting up MUCH earlier than I had been before staging haha to go the clinic tomorrow and get a yellow fever shot....WOO HOO! Not. After this wonderful morning activity we will be driving to the airport and waiting around forever until our flight finally leaves and we are on the way! My brilliant plan is to sleep the ENTIRE way so as to not be too tired when I actually get into country, which will actually be on Thursday night (after about 13 hours on planes total, blech). We shall see if this actually works.

Other highlights from Philly: I saw and took my picture with (you should be proud Mom!) the liberty bell, walked past the US Mint, and did a few other touristy things. I did eat a delicious philly cheesesteak too!

I will hopefully be able to update somewhat regularly at least in training as Tubaniso has wireless (yay!). Too bad my giant computer battery only lasts about an hour before death.