The eagle has landed
This is the second post in the series Hyomi’s (Peace Corps) Adventures in Swaziland. You can read the first post here.
June 26th-27th, 2013:
As I sit at the boarding gate for South African Air, surrounded by the 33 people with whom I will be volunteering over the next two years, the haze of surrealism has not yet lifted. People have asked me if the fact that I’m leaving has really hit me yet; if the sadness, the nervousness, the excitement has sunk in. Truthfully, the primary thoughts on my mind leading up to this moment have involved a mixture anxiety that I would be charged for overweight baggage and the anticipation of a fifteen-hour flight that would undoubtedly leave my joints aching. It may be too daunting a task for me to envision what the next two years will hold for me at this present moment, so I may have defaulted to just dealing with the most immediate concerns, such as getting on and off a flight in one piece. Within the next couple of weeks, I may come to a point where I can properly identify and articulate my jumble of emotions, which will likely fluctuate with every good or challenging experience, although I make no guarantee.
The half-day of staging, or the “send-off” orientation, if you will, gave myself and the other volunteers the opportunity to acquaint ourselves with one another, and feel out who we would be taking our Peace Corps journeys with. I noted that 28 female trainees were present, and a whopping 6 men. The demographic ranged, with two married couples, two retired women, some with their master’s degrees, and some having just graduated college. I was looking forward to getting to know everyone, and to hopefully make some lifelong friends here.
Flying into Johannesburg with limited time to catch our connecting flight was a bit hectic, but we all managed. We had been told time and time again that it would get cold in 
Swaziland, and that we should arrive in layers. Fortunately for me, my upbringing in New Hampshire had prepared me well. By “cold,” they were referring to the equivalent of about 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a typical spring day for Americans living in Northern regions. The weather that greeted us in Matsapha, Swaziland was about as perfect as I could have hoped for, and I took it as a sign of good things to come.
We loaded up our buses and set off for IDM, the International Development and Management Training center. This would serve as our base for our Pre Service Training period for the next nine weeks. After a week, we were told that we would be assigned a host family to live with during PST, in order to help us integrate further. There is no better way to learn a language, in this case siSwati, than to fully immerse yourself in the local community. I’ve heard that passing the Peace Corps language evaluation at the end of the 3-month training period is not always easy, so I’ll need to practice and study with my host family and Language and Culture Facilitators as much as I can. The staff are calling us to gather, so I must be off. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
