So it's now my 3rd day on Togo but I'm going to try to recap my last week.
Last Tuesday, I left very early in the morning and headed to the airport. I first flew to LAX and then had a connecting flight to Philly. The second flight was almost completely full but I had a window seat and nobody in between me and the aisle seat. I saw it as a sign of good luck for the rest of the journey. At first, I was a little upset that I didn't have a direct flight to Philly (as I know other people were on it) but it was kind of nice to see LA from the window and kind of say goodbye to it too. Also, Jerime Anderson (current UCLA basketball player) was on the plane too. It made me smile.
The next 2 days were spent in Philly where I met the rest of my Stage (name for the group of us going to Togo together). We were given some walk around money and it kept us very well fed (and hydrated...)
Thursday we took a bus to JFK airport and caught a flight to Paris. There was some initial confusion because our flight status online was cancelled. It turned out that we had just been moved to an earlier flight and we had arrived early enough so there were no problems. Both the flight to Paris and the second flight to Togo were pretty uneventful. I can proudly say that the last movie I watched before arriving in Togo was Justin Bieber's life movie.
We were ushered onto a private bus after getting off the plane and taken to a receiving area normally reserved only for the president of Togo, visiting presidents and high ranking officials. It definitely made us feel special.
The last two days have been full of shots and meetings on health and security. I feel like we're living in a bubble. We're currently staying at a hotel (hotel is a very generous description as I've stated at way nicer hostels before) and all of our meals are prepared for us. The food has actually been very good but you can tell by the excitement of current PCVs that the food is not a good indication of what I'll be eating over the next 2 years. We've met quite a few PCVs from all of the four sectors and they've all been really nice and helpful, although some have made it obvious that we gave a very long and difficult journey ahead of us.
Tomorrow we move to a village called Tsevie and Internet access is going to be very scarce and expensive for the next two months but I'm going to try to update as often as I can. I'll get a phone tomorrow and I'll post the number on the contact page of my blog. Tomorrow also will be our real introduction to life in Togo as our bubble will get a little bigger and the toilets will become holes in the ground. Wish me luck!
I'm missing all if you terribly but know that things are going very well!
