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So I joined the Peace Corps, and on the 23rd I'll be heading to South Africa to start training. So long as I don't wuss out, I'll be moving into some kind of township in September. Right now, I'm in a hotel in Washington DC (man, Matt was right, the buildings are short here), and the douchebag baggage attendant in Cortez refused to put my luggage on the plane because I was 10 minutes late for check-in (apparently you have to be there 45 minutes before boarding). That might make marginal sense for a medium sized or large plane, but this was a 15-seat cropduster, half empty. The baggage check was literally 30 yards from the plane. I walked out on the runway and got to stare at the wide-open baggage compartment, then sit on the plane for 15 minutes. So of course they sent one bag to LAX and the other to Tajikistan or something.

Anyway, I hope they show up eventually--though I think I could probably survive without them. I anticipated this would happen and brought the bare minimum of toiletries and so forth in my carry-on. I'd just have to replace my entire wardrobe.

They say that we will have very limited access to cell phones and the internet for the three months of training, which ends September 17th. Reports are mixed as to whether or not that's actually true, but in any case I probably won't post too often here until I get out in the field. I'll try to do a weekly I'm-still-alive post at least.

My cell phone from the states won't reach me anymore. I'll update when I get a South African number.
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