Arrival, In-processing, Housemates, Acclimation

Alright, so as I expected, I won't be able to update daily. My guess is I'll be doing this once a week or so.

So I'll start with the arrival. Tuesday morning I was up and ready to go. Once at the airport, I met up with three other Corps members also scheduled for the same flight. Our nerves and excitement were evident in the fact that we already started taking pictures.We caught our flight (hour and 1/2), and arrived in Baltimore Washington Airport where we met up with some AmeriCorps Team leaders and a few other folks who were also arriving around that time. Two van-loads took about 15 of us to the campus.

The campus, Perry Point, is located within Perryville, Maryland. It is essentially its own community on a peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay. Needless to say, its a beautiful view.



The above is a view from the field in between housing units. About 5 minutes from here is the VA Medical Care Center, where "in-processing" occurred. Since our group arrived relatively late we didn't go through it until the following day, which is when that picture was taken.

There are about 130 of us, known as Corps members, and we make up what is called Class XV (for its 15th year). We live in houses in the village and have generally 6-8 housemates. I havce 7 other roommates, a great group of guys, all very different, and all from different states in the U.S.: Missouri, Kansas, Rhode Island, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, and there may be one other that I can't remember right now. We each share a room with one other on the second floor, and on the first floor we've got a living room, kitchen, dining area, and the basement underneath where our laundry is.

So in-processing went well, took a while, but was worth it. Filled out mounds of paperwork regarding the Red Cross, banking, and more, and soon received my uniform! I've yet to take a picture of it all yet, but on my next entry I'll be sure to include it. It includes the gray t-shirts, long t-shirts, khaki pants, khaki shorts, fleece vest, sweatshirt, hat, and polo. There are about 2 or 3 of each of these that we keep in a red pack. We also picked out a sleeping bag, which will be used on our "spike" projects (projects not in the area where we'll stay for weeks at a time, in most cases the Gulf Coast).

The following day we received our welcome, learned some of the ins-and-outs of what's to come, the big of it being CTI, which stands for Corps Training Institute. For the next month, starting Monday, we will be training 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, which will consist of PT (physical training), team development, CPR/Red Cross Training, and classes. Yes, I will once again be a student. This should be interesting..

In addition to that, there are some additional trainings I'll be taking part in, which include the test and training to become a Wildland Firefighter (which I have tomorrow: an endurance test where I'll be doing 3 miles in under 45 minutes with a 45 pound pack on). More on that to come..

On Monday, we will all be finding out our Teams. These are teams of 8 people who will be traveling, working, and training, and living together on spikes for the entirety of the year. In the meantime, we've been in Pods, which has been our temporary team for the first week. So far we've been traveling together in our van and with our team leader for our scavenger hunt (which was a blast!). And today we traveled as a team to Delaware, where we we had our physicals. There we had our drug tests, hearing tests, etc, etc... to make sure we're fit and healthy for the upcoming year. No need to go into the details of that, except that was an all morning activity, and we were all glad to be finished at the end. :-)

As far as food, each of us is given $5 a day for food as a budget. The way it works: Each house pools their money, two Corps members van out to the grocery store, and we shop for the week. Doesn't sound like much, but if you shop smart and buy in bulk, you end up with plenty. Tonight's taco soup, and funnily enough, my housemate just called me to tell me dinner is just about ready! (I'm currently across the street at another member's house (they are located near the computer lab, which has Wi-Fi, and they receive a signal. (Computer lab doesn't open until 7pm each night.)

In short, life is good. I'll update more later.