Saturday January 28th 4:00 PM. We have finally arrived in Saint Lucia for Pre Service Training. After a year of the most challenging process I have ever undertaken I am finally starting. I don’t remember any of the journey after not sleeping the night before, I passed out like a Snorlax on the plane. While arriving in a foreign country and going through customs is usually a hassle for most travelers, because we are Peace Corps Volunteers we are ushered through customs swiftly. Even though I grew up in the Caribbean I have been very infrequent with my visits; so the bus ride to the property we are staying at was very unfamiliar. It felt as if we were going at breakneck speed through the winding thin roads, up and down the mountains of Saint Lucia. After we arrived I met the staff for dinner and afterwards quickly ushered my tired body to bed.

Friday January 27th 5:00 AM. That is the time that we arrived at Miami International Airport. We had to be checked out of the Crowne Plaza Hotel by 4:30 AM. Most people in my Eastern Caribbean 84 class were able to get about two to four hours of sleep. A few, like myself, did not sleep at all. My fear was that if I went to sleep at 2 AM I would not wake up in time to check out. Instead we went to a small 24 hour diner a few blocks from the hotel to grab some food and chat. At the diner I ordered Tres Leches, only to find out that its not cake but a painfully sweet pudding. Everyone had a good laugh at my lack of knowledge about Spanish desserts, good thing I am not stationed on a Spanish country. After our moment of humor we began to have a serious conversation, and to my surprise I began to learn that many of the volunteers did not have a background in international development, but rather many had a education background. I hope that I can learn more about interacting with the youth considering the other members experience. We finally headed back to the hotel to pack when the waitress started to make angry faces at us.

Thursday January 26th 1:00 PM. This is the time I got to meet all the other volunteers in my group. It is as if I was in a room with 27 clones of myself, most 22 to 27 years old with two older volunteers. I have never met such a large group of people that I bonded with so quickly. This was the part of the process I was most nervous about. Meeting a new group of people that I will be required to make an emotional connection with in order to survive in an unfamiliar land. While the ice breaker games we played seemed petty, they helped to start the conversations and take away some of the nervousness from the group. The volunteers are from all over the country. No specific region was more represented than another. I have heard from numerous Return Peace Corps Volunteers that a great deal of success depends on the support you get from your group of volunteers, I can tell already that this group will be extremely supportive. I hope this leads to us all been effective volunteers.