Let The Staging Begin

I have arrived in Los Angeles to begin a process called staging, in which I will meet my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and be provided tools and resources to begin my service. Tomorrow, I will fly to Vanuatu via New Zealand, arriving in Vanuatu on Sunday around 9:00am (hopefully). I write this blog post from my hotel room near the main airport in Los Angeles awaiting the other Volunteer who will be sharing my room. My mind and body are racing with enthusiasm, somewhat similar to the night before I left for Turkey last year. However, with this event comes an additional thrill: Never before has my vocation required me to travel and provided a hotel for me. This is, essentially, my first business trip! Traveling for business has always struck me as among the most adult activities. Everything I have done up to this point--moving to New York for college in 2004, reading with first-graders in Harlem in 2005, studying abroad in India in 2006, working with incarcerated youth on Riker's Island in 2008, working in a summer youth program for low-income kids in 2008, painting a mural with Harlem teenagers in 2009, working with emotionally-disturbed youth this year--has brought me to this point. This is proof of the law of karma. Giving to others results in future gifts we rarely anticipate.