Greetings from Philly

We arrived in Philadelphia last night after a teary goodbye (for Amy) at the Phoenix airport. We'll be starting our pre-departure staging today where we'll be introduced to the Peace Corps and our fellow volunteers. Except for a brief encounter in the hotel elevator, we don't know anyone we'll be going to Burkina Faso with yet.

We'll be taking care of paperwork and attending clinics until Tuesday when we'll fly out to Ouagadougou (waga-doo-goo). We'll spend two days in Ouaga before heading to Ouahigouya (why-hee-goo-ya), where we'll be for the three months of training.

Arizona has definitely spoiled us, weather-wise, because this Philadelphia humidity is horrible. We're staying in the college section of town, which is way too hip for us, but the food is good. Unfortunately we won't have much time to see the city during the day. At least we'll have time for cheesesteak. We'll let you know how staging went before we leave.