It only seems fitting that we 39 new Peace Corps volunteers to Swaziland should wait at JFK to board our flight to Johannesburg this morning. As we learned in Staging yesterday, President John F Kennedy founded the Peace Corps in a stirring speech made to students at the University of Michigan fifty years ago.
It's only 10 in the morning now but it's already been a long day. After a couple of beers and fish n' chips at a great Irish pub in Philadelphia last night, my roommate Kelly Root and I hit the hay after midnight only to rise again at 1:45 am. We all met in the lobby of the Hampton Inn at 2:30 and then boarded our bus for the two hour drive to JFK. Then, hours more waiting in the front of the terminal until the South Africa Airlines staff manned the counter at 7:30 a.m. But all went without a hitch. Many of us were worried stiff about exceeding our 80 lbs. luggage limit but the airline staff just waved us all through without so much as a mention of a fee. Apparently the airline allow more luggage than we were told. Yipee. Maybe I could have put in that Stanford sweatshirt in afterall.
This may be my last post in over a month. We are told that when we arrive in Swaziland, we will be given a chance for one cellphone call to tell our families we are safely in country. But, after that, there may not be internet access for two months. So I'm getting my last wi-fi in at the airport with gusto. I've Skyped with Emma, played all my Scrabble games on Facebook and checked Jeff Frank's column today in the North County Times. Thanks Jeff for the mention!
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/columnists/frank/article_bfa6ad5b-5122-5091-87f4-4b1360b85b13.html
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