Off the grid already! kind of..

On the bus ride from Philly to JFK, I got so excited about going to Africa that I wanted to get a jump start on falling off the grid, so I dropped my phone in the bus toilet and watched as the toilet magically immediately flushed it straight down. If you really want to know how it happened, my phone was in my shirt pocket, I was leaning over the toilet, the bus hit a bump, and it slipped right out and straight down the little hole. AWESOME. That's a little bit of a bummer to me as I'm sitting here writing this post in the airport, because there were a lot of people I had hoped to call before departing, and now I will only be able to reach a handful of them using the pay phone. I was also looking forward to all the good luck texts I was sure to get from all the people who regularly comment on my blog posts... ;)

Another little bummer of the day was arriving at the airport. We got to JFK at 11:30, about 6 hours early for our 5:30 flight. Apparently, you can't check in for an international flight more than 2.5 hours beforehand, so we're waiting by the check in counter, chilling on the floor. Oh well.

On a brighter note, last night was a great send off night with Noah, Ryan, and Laura coming to Philly. After a good dinner and lots of drinks, we were treated to a bit of entertainment when a drunk cyclist ran a red light and got nailed by a taxi. He'll be ok, but his head was bleeding rather nicely. I guess that's what you've got coming to you when you make the decision to a) ride a bike in downtown Philly b) late at night c) drunk d) without a helmet. The only person I felt bad for was the cab driver. I suppose it was lucky for him that he had us as witnesses, and a cop came right away and took our statement. Hopefully everything is okay.

Moving on -- I'll be getting a cell phone in Conakry, hopefully in the next few days. Seeing as I no longer have any numbers, please e-mail me yours if you'd like a call/text. Since it can cost up to a few dollars a minute to call from Guinea to US, but a text is only 25 cents or so and a call from the US is only 19.2 cents a minute, it's best to call me instead of me calling you. I can send texts to people and then they can give me a call and it's free for me - booya! I set my mom up with a calling plan through www.tel3advantage.com, which seems to have good rates. If you have any interest in talking to your long lost friend in Africa, you should check it out :) (If you want my number, send me an e-mail with yours, that way I don't have to post it in the wide open internet).

PCT

As of this moment, PCT has a completely new meaning to me. Instead of the horrific 'Patent Cooperation Treaty', PCT now means "Peace Corps trainee; I am no longer a Peace Corps Invitee. So long as I make it through the training, on September 26 I will officially become a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV).

The morning got off to a good start when I was able to bypass a large check-in line and got away with some overweight bags. The day turned a little sour, though, when my suitcase with ALL of my clothes failed to arrive in Philly. Supposedly, it's in Philly now and will be here by the time I wake up tomorrow. I'm sure it will be - but can you imagine if they really lost it? Talk about screwed!

We spent about 5 hours in orientation today, and there seem to be a lot of genuinely good, fun people here. I can already tell they will be good people to work with over the next two years. Seeing as I only slept about two hours last night, I should get some sleep, but I wanted to get some kind of post out on my day with the Peace Corps.

Wooka!

Picasa!

For those of you asking where I'll be hosting pictures during my Africa Adventure, the answer is here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/hunter.dreidame

I just uploaded some pictures from the cruise and from home in Kentucky. I'll be editing/deleting a bunch of them in the next day or so, so if you want to see the really horrifying pics, you'd better check 'em out today ;)

Where to send me nice things

Here is my mailing address in Guinea:

Hunter Dreidame, PCT
Corps de la Paix
BP 1927, Conakry
Guinée (West Africa)

The mail system in Guinea is somewhat corrupt, so it's not uncommon for packages or letters to go missing. Here are some tips to help stuff get to me in one piece:

- In red ink, draw large crosses and things like "DIEU REGARDE" (God is watching you) on the box - they are very superstitious
- Write 'LIVRES" on boxes; it means books and the postal people won't have any interest in stealing books.
- Men in Guinea are terrified of tampons, so if you send something in a tampon box they won't touch it. That said, I don't really want a lot of tampon boxes lying around my hut either... I'm just sayin'.
- If you're sending a postcard, send it inside of an envelope because people handling it will see the nice picture, take it home, and hang it on their wall.
- When sending letters, number them (July 10, Letter 1; July 14, Letter 2; etc.), so that if I get letters 1 and 3 but not 2 (because it's been lost or stolen), I can acknowledge such in my reply and you won't think I was just ignoring your last letter.

My e-mail address in Guinea will be the same one I've been using the last few years:

hunter.dreidame@gmail.com

Once I am sworn in and dropped off in my village, I most likely will only have internet access once a month. During that time, I'll try to update this blog as best as I can in a most entertaining fashion, so that my life will sound really exciting and you will keep coming back for more. If you e-mail me, I will do my best to e-mail you back, but given that I may only be on the internet one or two hours a month, it's not a guarantee I will get back to you right away. HOWEVER, if you send me snail mail, I promise I will write you back my next free moment.

Ok, now for the most important part - my birthday!! My birthday is July 27th, about two and a half weeks after I get there. For those of you planning me a surprise party, now would be a good time to start looking at airfares, hotels, etc. ;-)

You can eat my air triscuit.

After a long absence from the homefront, I always find the least exciting part of the house to be the kitchen pantry. Once upon a time, I was naive enough to open the door and let a smile grow across my face as I reached for a box of cookies or a tin of fancy crackers, only to be let down upon discovering an empty box (or maybe some crumbs if I was lucky).

Now I know better. Sometimes I'll still peer into the pantry out of habit, but not in expectation. This time, though, my sister and I discovered the motherload of empty boxes/containers. Not only was there an empty toffee box and an empty cookie tin, there were also two empty boxes of fiber crackers. These days even the stuff I don't want to eat is a fake! When confronted on this, my mother at first feigned ignorance, but later retracted her statement, saying "I like to keep a few teasers in there."

Moms are great.

PS - this isn't the great post you've been hearing about; it will be a few weeks in the works and will include the word 'Swift' in the Labels...

Get Ready

Soon, very soon, there will be a post on here the likes of which have not been seen since 1729...

The hard days

Saying goodbye never gets any easier.

As my time in DC drew to a close, I kept pushing the unavoidable to the back of my mind, hoping I could just cruise through without a tear or thought of regret. It was good having some of the farewells spread out - the ones before my last weekend were no problem at all; we'd finish dinner or drinks, shake hands, hug, and part ways. But I was still returning to my same apartment at the end of the day, and it didn't feel like I was really leaving.

Then last last days arrived, and it was really time to go. The reality of the departure hits you like a punch to the gut as you load the last boxes and return to the empty bedroom in an apartment still occupied by two of your closest friends, friends who aren't leaving. And then it's time to say goodbye. You give your hug or your kiss, and you turn to leave. This time, though, you're not going back to your apartment to watch TV and b.s. with some friends; this time you're going to a big truck, filled with everything you own, ready to leave everything you've worked so hard to know the last two years, ready to leave the ones you love thousands of miles behind.

So you pull out of the driveway, wipe the tears from your eyes, and think "I'm glad that's over, it'll all be easier now." But it's not.

Now I'm home in KY, sitting alone in the kitchen, waiting to be shipped off to the Lost Continent. There's so much to get done, yet still not enough to get my mind off of all the questions wandering through it: Am I making the right decision? Will my friendships still be the same after being gone two years? How many of those friends will I ever even see again?

In college, I spent eight months working in Connecticut as a co-op. When I returned, I felt like an outsider, looking in on a world that had left me behind eight months before and not looked back. But that was only for 8 months, only a $200 flight away, and with regular telephone and internet access. This time I'll be a thousand times less accessible and gone for two years. How could I possibly expect anything or anybody to wait for me? I guess these things are just the price I have to pay for wanting to take this path in my life. I pray every night that I'm making the right decision and that I'm not leaving this all behind for nothing.

I love you all, you've helped make me what I am today. Please, don't let me fade away..