T-minus 13 days...

Having just passed the two week mark in my countdown to departure I'm floored by how quickly things have gone! It's incredible! Yet, a lot of the previously mentioned issues (such as struggeling to find enough time to visit family) have found ways to remedy themselves.

Last week my mom and I spent 2 solid days cleaning out my disgusting apartment! Unfortunately Jason and I cannot be classified as 'clean' people...thus necessitating the deepest cleaning sessions imaginable! We really wanted our $300 deposit back :). So blessed my mother's heart, we cleaned until our fingers bled (seriously, mine bled!). This included stripping and waxing every linoleum surface, polishing and bleaching the walls...and using some chemicals that must be illegal to clean grime out of stoves and showers. I then spent an extra day organizing what remained of our stuff (which I, more appropriately, would like to call JUNK) and packing it into my mom's van to take to our various storage spaces. This incredibly hard work did result in a full refund of the deposit which made it all worth it! All that to say it was a fantastic way to spend some quality time with my mom...knees bent and rear ends pointed skyward as we scrubbed floors!

Well, to update...we received more information from the Peace Corps as to what the next three months of our lives hold in store for us. I'll post it here for information's sake!

We leave from SLC at 9:30 on July 16 arriving in Philadelphia for our 3 day staging assignment. (We will have time to tour the city!) We'll receive initial vaccinations at staging plus be introduced to members of our group. We will then drive to JFK in NY for our flight to Frankfurt, Germany which leaves around 10pm July 19. We arrive in Frankfurt at 10am July 20 and are going to be allowed to leave the airport as we have a 12 hour layover! Yay for a day in Frankfurt! We then reboard a plane heading to Johannesburg that leaves at 10 at night. The flight to Jo-burg is 10 hours 45 minutes long...and should serve to wear me out beyond belief.

I have learned that upon arrival at O.R. Tambo International Airport in Jo-Burg we'll then be drive 2.5 hours to Mankwe Education Center in Rustenburg (mind you at this point we'll have officially been traveling for 48 hours STRAIGHT). We'll stay in a 'dorm' for the first seven days in-country, thereafter we'll be introduced to our host family.

Our first week will consist of a series of interviews, introductions, and lessons. Including safety and security trianing, medical sessions (with more injections!), history and geography of SA and intense Afrikaans language training (this is, of course, the Peace Corps' attempt to confuse the crud out of us after we've spent the last 3 weeks studying SeTswana).

On Saturday, July 28 we will then move to our homestay family's home which will be located outside of the rural village of Zeerust. Zeerust is 120 km from the Botswana border and this is where the SeTswana language will come into use. They say that we are to enjoy meals with our families and try as much as possible to become integrated into their daily activities.

Once in Zeerust we will enter the Pre-Service Training (PST) phase which consists of 5 components: language, technical, cross-cultural, health and safety and security. We have been informed that six languages will be taught to us: Sepedi, SeTwana (which we've already begun studying), IsiZulu, IsiSwati, Xitsonga, and Afrikaans.

A sample day during PST (which will be from July 28 - September 20 2007) will be:

7 - 7:55 breakfast with host family
7:55- 8 walk to public meeting place
8-10:30 language training (in small groups 3-6 people)
10:30- 10:45 tea break
10:45-12:45 walk to local shop and practice language and observe culture
12:45-2 return to host family home to have lunch
2 - 4 regroup to meet with members of school governing board
4 - 5 language
5 - return ot host family home

Come September 20, 2007 we will all be expected to pass a language competancy exam with a score of "Intermediate Low" before we can be officially sworn in as volunteers. If we are selected to be sworn in we will be the 10th group of PCTs to be sworn in in SA and as such there will be a large ceremony with "140 currently serving Volunteers and numerous dignitaries will be present to recognize a decade of Peace Corps Volunteer service in the country. " And, we will pass so let's not worry!

One thing that is important to note is during this first 3 month period it will be highly UN-likely we will have much (if any) access to the internet. So write us letters! I will keep a journal and pull selections out of it to write in this blog when I do get to the internet. For information's sake letters can take up to 6 weeks to reach us...so don't worry if you don't hear from us very quickly. Hooray for instant isolation! (This is going to be the hardest part) Here is our updated and CORRECT address you can send letters to during PST:

Dani and/or Jason Stout
Peace Corps
PO Box 9536
Pretoria 0001
South Africa

These letters will be sent to the PC HQ and then delivered to us...somehow! :)

All that to say...we are SO excited! It's incredible that we're finally GOING. Hooray!