The Big Day...

Well, this is it -- my last post from the United States. Michele and I are checked out of the hotel and are preparing for our flight to Paris tonight. After a day in Paris (yay!) we begin the trek to Bamako, Mali.

Here in Philadelphia we met up with the rest of our group --- all 78 of them. It is a much larger group than I anticipated. We won't be a large group for long though. They plan on splitting most of us up into tiny groups after the first few weeks in Mali. Much of the anxiety that I felt before coming to staging is not there any longer after seeing so many other people (most my age) running off to some crazy place like Mali in the middle of summer for 2 years. I am really excited about making new friends in the upcoming months. This whole thing is going to be one hell of an experience.