5- Staging

Remember that first day of High School, where you walked around attempting to maintain an aloof air of detachment while secretly hoping that someone would come out of nowhere like a scud missile and declare you their new best friend? Remember being so painfully aware of your own idiosyncrasies that you find your self debating the validity of the advice, “just be yourself”? Remember meeting your best buds and mortal enemies for the next two years? Yeah, the first day of staging was just like that.

I spent the first half of the day thinking the following:
-Why am I so red and sweaty?
-Is my bag weird looking?
-My vest makes me look like a gay cowboy, but my shirt was wrinkled, and it covers up the sweat stains.
-That guy is looking at me. He hates me.
-Is there going to be free food?
-I hope that I filled out my forms correctly.
-Why do I need to list so many emergency contact numbers?
-Do I need life insurance… they know that this is the PEACE corps right?
-I DON’T SPEAK ALBANIAN!
-That lady is looking at me. She hates me.
-Seriously, why am I so red and sweaty?
-I think I need to pee, but I don’t want to because I might meet someone new at the urinal and then I won’t get a quality first impression… Or a quality pee.
-All of these people have real degrees, as well as international experience… I should lie to all of them about both of those things.
-I really want to take this vest off, but I believe that I have sweat through my shirt.
-I shouldn’t have gotten a haircut. I look like Harry Potter.
-I look like a sweaty gay cowboy version of Harry Potter. Crap.
-Why is that dog looking at me? That dog hates me.

Needless to say, I was just a tad nervous to meet the 41 people that would be joining me in Albania for the next two and a half years. I was fortunate to arrive at staging a night early, where I met some other volunteers, but the day of staging was one of the more terrifying days of my life.

The first part of the day was registration, a sadistic process of filling out and turning in complicated forms*. If you neglected a single section or didn’t date a signature, you were mercilessly sent to the back of the line. The line was long too. I was sent to the back of the line four times, and was amongst the last to register. In my defense, one of those times was because that I had the wrong form. Still, every single time that I went to the back of the line, I doused my shirt with another coat of nervous sweat, as if everyone were looking at me, thinking he can’t even fill out the forms… and he looks like a gay cowboy version of Harry Potter.

When I finally turned in the forms, the girl behind the desk said, “You’re officially a Peace Corps Trainee, you can make yourself a name tag,” while gesturing triumphantly to a sharpie and pad of sticky name tags. I have never been more proud to slap a nametag on. I picked up the sharpie and I wrote with pride.
I took a seat and we began.

*Incredibly simple forms, I just kept messing them up.