Summer and Autumn

     I know it's springtime, or almost if not, but that's not what I mean. Yesterday group 83 met their host families. Our country director, Carla Ellis, made it a fun game where we each got a piece of paper with a word or words on it and we had to find the person who had the word that went along with it, my word was "Toots" and I was glad that the other person knew what she was looking for because I had no idea. This person would be our host family and we would be their trainee. I felt like a puppy finding a home when my host mom said to her friend "look, we got good ones." It was cute though, and she was joking of course, and we were all excited and happy. But let me back up a bit and let you know how I got to this point from when I left LAX at 1:15pm on Monday.
   
      The plane ride went smoothly and I arrived in Atlanta on time and met up with two other girls to share a towncar together to the hotel. I know what you are thinking... towncar? Fancy right? Well we decided not to take the limo (which was offered if we came within a 3 mile radius of the hotel). Orientation was the next day at 12:30pm so I woke up at 9:30am to eat breakfast and get ready, and that's when the long few days began. I fell asleep a little late and had my alarm set for 1:25am to make sure I had time to get ready for our 2am checkout. I ended up waking up way too early and not being able to fall back asleep so I only got 1 hour of sleep. 2am was checkout and 7am was our departure from Atlanta to Miami. We didn't have much time in Miami to get food, but at least we didn't have all of our luggage to carry (36 people with 2  years worth of luggage), we had just enough time to go to the next terminal and wait a little. We got to Kingston and are taken straight to the PC office where we fill out paper work, turn in information, got a little money and finally eat some pastries and finger sandwiches. After, we were taken to the hotel and finally had our first real meal of the day at about 5:30 (6:30 Atlanta time), I think. It's still not time to rest though. We were taken back to the PC office and there were some speeches, some singing and dancing. We've arrived in Jamaica on their 50th anniversary as being an independent country and it's also 50 years that Peace Corps has been in Jamaica, so that was what this party was for. Everything was really nice but I almost fell out of my chair a few times because I was falling asleep (only 1 hour of sleep). We left the office around 9 (I think anyway) and we were all finally able to fall asleep to wake up at 6:30am and get ready for the day. We had training on Thursday and Friday; we set up bank accounts, got phones, shots and lessons on money, safety and health. That brings me up to date to last night and meeting my awesome host mom and her daughter Summer... See??

      I have more to say on my first day around town and my thoughts and feelings about being in Jamaica but I'll save that for another time. Tomorrow, the beach!