Stranded in D.C. (Sept 17- 23)

It was 9:55pm when my plane landed at Dulles airport in Washington D.C. Sept 16, 2010. Starving from not being able to eat anything all day from the nerves, I arrived at the Holiday Inn hotel in Georgetown with only one thing on my mind… Comida. Unfortunately by the time I checked in and lugged my “body bags” (literally can fit a body in it) of luggage to my room, it was close to 11pm and find out that almost everything in Georgetown is closed at that time on a week night. But it wasn’t so bad, for by the time I unlocked the door to my hotel room, the adventure of Peace Corps volunteer began.

Her name is Meredith Maynard and she’s my roommate for the night. I learn from she’s from Arizona, so we’re on the same time zone. We both talk about how nervous we are for tomorrow’s staging, we have no idea what to expect other than “bring your registration forms”… I feel like I’m in school again.

Rise and shine, its 8:30am and we need to get ready and eat breakfast before we meet down in the conference room area at 11:30am. When we head down to the lobby, there are quite a few people barely checking in (since only a few were fortunate to fly in the night before). After breakfast, we meet back in the lobby, where at by this point there are 20-something people meeting and greeting. Finally we head in to do our paperwork and get split up into alphabetical order… which reminds me how I detest being categorized almost towards the end of the alphabet with my R last name (and you’ll see why).

After almost 6 hours long of staging (peace corps pre-training), the staff is so kindly to inform us that not everyone in both groups (A-L & L-Z) were able to get their visas cleared on time, therefore staying behind… guess who was in that group???? I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t all that disappointed because that just meant an all expense paid vacation touring D.C by P.C., I’m down for that. I was a little sad to be separated from Meredith though, since she was the first person to meet on such a nerve wrecking day. You always remember your first ANYTHING. So 50ish left and 30-something stayed behind.

Making a negative into a positive-
By Saturday afternoon, the bigger group had left, leaving us 32 (I think) time to bond and hang out. So a few of us figured out the bus system and visited Capitol Hill. Eventually I wondered off to meet up with one of my uncle’s old time friends (who has known me since I was at least 8) and went our separate ways. It was great to see Olga, especially since I hadn’t seen her in over 10 years. But since I didn’t want to miss out on the PCV (Peace Corps volunteer) bonding, so I stuck around the next day and visited the Holocaust Museum and Washington Monument with Danny & Jackie.

Monday rolls around and we’re eager to hear back from staff about what’s going on with our visas. Fortunately, they got a few more in BUT only 14 visas out of the 32 people. Guess who wasn’t in that 14??? So shortly after the mini conference, a few of us decided to relieve our stress with a picnic and Frisbee games… I mean there’s only so much touring you can do in a city till you get tired and just want to relax.

By sun down, I had realized that in the short period of time, I had gotten close to a handful of people, one person I did more so that night. It really is amazing to hear about people’s background, learn of where they come from, where they’ve been, what they’ve done and what they wish to do next. Such people inspire me and motivate me… which I think is highly important while encountering challenging situations.

Is it possible to miss someone you hardly know?? –
Tuesday rolls around and I am confident we’re ALL leaving today. Meeting at noon in the bar/lounge and there’s good news… they got more visas. At this point there’s only 18 of us left so there’s no way some are left behind. Come to my surprise, 3 are left behind and guess who’s in the bottom 3???? I feel like I’m on a game show of survival in D.C. and I’m one of the last contestants standing. When I heard this news, my heart broke a little. It broke for various reasons, but like Summer says in that movie (500 days of Summer)… “Life happened”.

Will I see them all again now that we’ve been separated? Will I be able to bond just as well with the first group of people that left on Saturday (original day of departure)?? It is now Wednesday September 23, 2010, almost a week later and Andy, Andrew and I are finally taking off with are visas/passport. All I know is if its meant to be, it’ll happen… because that’s how life works.