And away we go

Greetings from Johannesburg! I probably won’t be able to blog again for a little while, so I am taking advantage of having internet access in the hotel to write a quick update.           

It’s amazing to realize that I have made it this far. When I got to the airport in Vermont and strapped on my giant hiking backpack, on my way to our two-day staging event in DC, that’s when it really hit me: I am finally a Peace Corps volunteer. I’ve been talking about it and planning for it for so long (3 years? 4 years?) that it always seemed like such an abstract idea—until now. And then when I arrived at the hotel in DC, it suddenly hit me that the feeling of foreignness I was experiencing, just by being in a different city and strange hotel, was going to be one that will pervade my life for the next 2+ years. I know that once I get my site placement and am well settled there, it will start to feel like home, but there will always be a sense of foreignness, and that is scary to think about.

The staging event itself was fairly low-key, and it was great to finally meet the people with whom I’d been talking on Facebook for the past few months. It’s funny to think that although none of us know each other very well yet, we are undoubtedly going to become incredibly close, mostly by virtue of  proximity and necessity.

On Tuesday we all boarded a bus to Dulles to catch our 17-hour flight to Johannesburg, and despite everyone’s stress about packing and bags being over the weight limit, we checked in without any difficulty. The flight itself was not as bad as I thought it would be—I’ve had worse long-haul flights-- though it was funny to be getting on a plane at sunset one day, and then go through another cycle of sunrise/sunset, all while still in the air.  I’m doing pretty well considering the time difference—I’m about to take a couple Tylenol PM in order to drug myself into the right time zone and get some sleep!

Because of flight schedules, we are all spending the night in an airport hotel in Johannesburg (the Southern Sun—it’s actually quite nice) and then we board a flight to Madagascar at 10 AM tomorrow.  The local Peace Corps staff will be picking us up from the airport in Antananarivo (the capital of Madagascar) and driving us to the Peace Corps training center in Mantasoa, about 20 miles away. Then we stay there for 1-2 nights, and then we go to our host families!

I sent an email to my Peace Corps recruiter yesterday, just thanking her for helping me get to this place and sending her my blog details, and she sent this a really amazing piece of advice that I thought was too great not to share. She said:

My go-to advice for departing volunteers is always this: imagine every small (and I mean, TINY) accomplishment as a tiny pearl, or jewel of your choice. Imagine that each time you achieve one of these pearls, that you string it on a necklace. And on those days when you feel like you have gotten nowhere and wonder what the heck you’re doing there, take a look in the mirror at the necklace and realize that Peace Corps service is not one, big project that is either successful or unsuccessful. It is an accumulation of minor, small, incremental adaptations, words learned, habits formed, etc. And the proverbial necklace you wear is your evidence of that.

Top Ten NYC Memories

As I've been preparing to enter a new phase in my life, I've spent a lot of time looking back on this phase as it comes to a close. During my month at home in Vermont, I've been working on a long-delayed project to scrapbook all the fun mementos from my New York life: concert tickets, restaurant business cards, etc. (And when I say "scrapbooking" I don't mean the crazy-crafting-lady type... I am basically just pasting things in a book and writing notes about them.) Doing this has reminded me how many wonderful opportunities I have had and how blessed I have been, both career-wise as well as in my personal life. So, I thought I would write a blog post to honor these incredible experiences, as well as give credit to some of the wonderful people who have made my life what it is.

My Top NYC Memories:

10. I started out my adulthood with only very basic cooking skills, and I cringe when I think of some of the things I used to cook when I was 22 and first living with Claire and Jess in our apartment in Hoboken. But along the way, I started to love cooking-- I became inspired by it and really enjoyed experimenting and trying new things, and I grew to love hosting people for dinner in my Brooklyn apartment that fortunately had a dining room. I have recipes in my binder that I remember tearing out of the NYT Dining section or Gourmet, and being so daunted by them, but thinking "someday I'll make this". Those recipes that seemed so difficult are now things that I can confidently make, such as 24 hour brisket, challah, princess cake, lattice pie crusts, and many more. It's something I'm eminently proud of, because aside from some inspiration and basic instruction from my mom (and inherited baking skills from Grandma Lillian), I'm entirely self-taught.

Latticed and braided pie crust.

 9. When I was in high school and college I was interested in connecting with my Jewish heritage, but didn't really know where to start. I attended a Shabbat dinner at a friend's house in high school, and explored Passover during college, but it wasn't until I was 24 and someone told me about Birthright Israel that I really got involved. Until that point I thought it was only for college students, and I'm so glad that someone told me otherwise. I went on a trip when I was 25, gained an amazing friend and future roommate (Bridget), and was really inspired by everything I'd learned. I wasn't "brainwashed", as some people accused-- mostly I was energized by getting this crash course in Judaism and Israel, especially when I learned about the ideals of tikkun olam and chesed. Ultimately, learning about these ideals helped me become the person I wanted to be: I had wanted to do more volunteer work and get involved in my community, and soon enough, I did. (I also credit these ideals with pushing me to finally pursue the Peace Corps.) In 2009 I went back to Israel on the Israel Diplomatic Fellowship, a short-lived program of the Israeli Consulate and Birthright Israel NEXT. I wasn't originally planning to apply for this, but I am so thankful that I did, because I made such incredible friendships that last to this day, and the knowledge I gained during the classes and subsequent trip helped give me a much greater worldview.

With my IDF trip gals, at Jesse's "funky hat" birthday party.

8. As mentioned above, in my mid-twenties I found myself really wanting to do more volunteer work, which I was heavily involved with in high school. Gaining inspiration from the Jewish ideals of chesed and tikkun olam, I started volunteering with City Harvest and later joined their junior board, "Generation Harvest". I also joined the junior board for Gilda's Club (now Cancer Support Community), started volunteering with the Greenpoint Soup Kitchen (I baked desserts nearly every week for their Wednesday night dinners), and became a volunteer leader with Met Council, where I ran a lunch program for low-income seniors and helped with job training workshops. New York is a city that is rich with opportunity for helping others, and my volunteer experiences were so rewarding. It was one of the hardest things to say goodbye to.

With 3 desserts that I helped create for the soup kitchen.

 7. When I lived in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, I was fortunate enough to have a great group of friends who lived in a house with a backyard just a couple blocks away. The boys and girls at 166 Newel- Devin, Wells, Ben, Peter, Amerah- threw some incredible parties that formed the backbone of my social life from 2006-2010. They were usually themed, always had one of them DJing in the front room, and made great use of the backyard. When they moved out, it was like the end of an era.

With Wells and Jess at a 166 holiday party.

6. Although New York is a place for meeting new people, I also loved that I could stay in touch with old friends, too: fortunately my grade-school buddies Laura and Zena both moved to New York a few years after I did, and my college gals Jess and Claire both moved there with me in 2004. I have so many great memories of movie and cocktail date nights with Claire and Jess, dinner parties with Zena and Laura, running in Central Park with Zena, seeing shows with Claire, and just generally loving having my old friends around in the big, sometimes scary city.

Zena helping to celebrate my birthday last year.

5. My first job out of college was working for a record label, Astralwerks, and that afforded me some truly epic musical experiences: attending CMJ every year (standout memory: closing down Southpaw with Tobi and Gilad as we danced to Diplo's DJ set), seeing Kraftwerk and OMD, taking bands to radio sessions (Royksopp to XM, Phoenix to WFUV, Candi Staton to the Wendy Williams show, where she sang me a new song she'd written, Dust On My Pillow), going to SXSW and having a keyboard stand fall on my foot, then being bandaged up by a member of Hot Chip and going dancing all night anyway.... there are too many great moments to list.

Backstage bandaging.

4. My next career after the music world was working for Food Network, where more amazing experiences came my way: appearing live on the Pix 11 Morning News to promote FoodNetworkStore.com (thanks Alexis for being my PR trainer!), being in an episode of Food Network Star,  getting to partake in the New York City Wine & Food Festival, and just generally having the best coworkers you could ask for: Deb and Angela keeping me sane with grammar and spelling, trading goofy pics with Alex, my cubicle quad girls Danielle/Dria/Clay, and working on Good Food Gardens with Carrie and Sarah. I also worked for some really great people (Bob and Lia), and I can't believe I was lucky enough to call this place home for 4 years. 

I said "uh huh" way too much, but in general I think I did ok on live TV!

3. As my culinary acumen expanded, I began to partake in as many of New York's gastronomic offerings as I could afford. I was fortunate to have had some truly epic dining experiences: buying myself a birthday lunch at Jean-Georges, going to brunch at the Waldorf-Astoria with Phil, joining Chelsea for Sasha's gajillion-course birthday dinner at Maialino, having dinner at Momofuku Ko with my former coworker Tom (I walked over to his desk and asked: "what are you doing Tuesday night?" Tom: "oh, I have some show to go to, kind of have plans...". Me: "I finally got a reservation at Momofuku Ko. Wanna go w--" Tom, cutting me off: "YES. I AM THERE."), and right up until the end, my transcendent experiences at Minetta Tavern. Sure, I'd have about 50% less credit card debt if I ate in every night, but some of those tastes and memories are just priceless.

Meeting Marcus Samuelsson at a different one of Sasha's birthday dinners.

2. I will never forget the feeling of being 22, newly transplanted in New York and on my own for the first time, and finally getting my very first adult paycheck. I felt like the world was my oyster (even though looking back, I can't believe how small that paycheck was), and it was a feeling of finally being on my way in life. Then, several years later, I will never forget the memory of moving into my very own Manhattan apartment, something I had worked so hard to achieve. It was tiny, but I loved it, because it was my own. During the year I lived there I worked harder than I ever had in my life, and on days like the one where I got into work at 5AM to launch a website, and didn't get home until 6PM, there was nothing like being able to close my own door to the world for a little while.

My cute little living area. I miss this apartment.

1. My #1 New York memory, and perhaps my #1 memory in life, is unquestionably my experience training for and running the NYC marathon. I started preparing for it nearly two years prior, when I spent 2008 running nine NYRR races to get myself a guaranteed spot for 2009's marathon. I then devoted my summer to training, which became a second job, but the training runs were almost as rewarding as the race itself. I have so many wonderful memories, like doing a 10 mile run with Tori from Harlem to Battery Park, and seeing the tourists turn in shock as we high fived and said "yeah, 10 miles!" I loved doing 14 mile long runs with Laura, going from Greenpoint to Manhattan over the Queensboro bridge, then running down the west side and back into Brooklyn over the Williamsburg Bridge. And I loved my Wednesday night tempo runs, where I would run home 6 miles from work, and I found myself actually looking forward to a commute for once. And although I was sidelined in August due to an SI joint problem, I was able to run (ok, run/walk) the marathon thanks to intensive physical therapy. It was so incredible to see my friends and family (Jess, Wells, Brad, Brooke/Roz/Haley, Bridget, Sasha) cheering me along on the sidelines, but probably my favorite memory of the entire marathon was coming off the Verrazano Bridge and going into Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I was wearing my homemade "Emily From Brooklyn" shirt and and my Brooklyn Dodgers hat, and the cheering I got nearly brought me to tears: everyone from old salty Brooklyn guys to hipsters to little Hispanic kids to Orthodox Jewish ladies saw me and said "yeahh Brooklyn!" I got more high-fives than I'd ever had in my life. And it that moment that made me love New York more than ever.

I think I started crying right after this.

Elephant bird

I just happened to read that Madagascar once had a species called an "Elephant bird" on the island, but it is sadly now extinct.

 

Doesn't this look EXACTLY like the bird from "Up!"? Hmmm....

"Where aaaare you going? The Peace Corps?"

Does everyone know that there was a fairly terrible 80's comedy movie made about the Peace Corps? It is called "Volunteers". Set in the early 60s, it stars Tom Hanks as a rich-boy Yale student whose dad won't pay his gambling debts, so he gives his roommate his car in exchange for taking his place on a Peace Corps assignment to Thailand. Basically, he shows up at the airport and jumps on the plane, which should be a laughable notion to any of my fellow volunteers who have experienced the long, drawn-out agony of the application process. I stumbled upon it serendipitously when browsing the movies that HBO had on offer this past fall. Also in the cast are Rita Wilson, John Candy, and the guy who played Long Duck Dong in "Sixteen Candles"!

Here's the trailer. When I'm in Madagascar I expect to be like Rita Wilson at the 2:16 mark, except holding a lemur instead of a monkey.

The best part of the movie is at the very beginning when Tom Hanks brings his snobby date back to his room, and she looks at his roommate and says in the bitchiest, most condescending tone: "Where aaaaare you going? The [snort] Peace Corps?" This is my new slogan.

National Geographic feature

This article and photo essay is a really good primer on Madagascar and the ecological and economic challenges it's facing.

18 days and counting

Where has the time gone? That's really all I can say as I look at my blog posts from summer, reminders that I pitifully haven't updated this at all since August. After a summer of agonized waiting, finally getting my Peace Corps invitation brought about such a wave of relief and satisfaction that I sort of felt it necessary to take a break from this. And then there just became too much to say, and the idea of updating became daunting. So now that I am finally doing this, be forewarned: this is long.

When I got my invitation I was in the midst of trying to figure out what to do with my life during the waiting time pre-departure, because I already knew I wouldn't be leaving until 2012. I already had an agreement with my job that I would leave in September (because that's when I thought I'd be departing for Peace Corps), but with my revised departure date of 2/28/12, I suddenly had 6 months to kill. I got a great part-time opportunity (thanks to Tanya and Angela!) to do some freelance work updating FoodNetwork.com while they worked on filling a job vacancy, and I could do that remotely from Vermont. I was also able to go back to my very favorite place on earth, Shelburne Farms, for some cooking work during September and early October, and that was fantastically fun and exhilarating to be able to get away from a computer and get in the kitchen again. But the restaurant is seasonal, and the FN job was filled by October, so I had to find something for October onwards. By some stroke of luck or kismet, my former Food Network colleague Allison happened to be reading this very blog via one of my Facebook links, and she saw my earlier plea for ideas on how to fill my time. And so because of that, I got another offer to come back to Food Network once again (thanks Allison and Deb!), this time back in the New York office, my old stomping grounds, to cover for Allison's job while she went on maternity leave from October until February. The timing could not have been more perfect given my situation, but I was hesitant at first about going back to New York. I felt like I had already said my goodbyes to the city and had some closure. I also was worried about where I'd live and if I could save any money while there. And frankly, I had left New York and spent the summer/fall in Vermont for a reason, because I thought it would help me transition into the Peace Corps lifestyle a little better. (Going from Manhattan to rural Africa would be a pretty huge shock, but rural Vermont to rural Africa? Not as huge.) Ultimately I decided to take the job, because I decided that it was going to be the best opportunity that would come my way. And I wouldn't need a car if I went back to New York, which would have been an issue if I'd tried to stay in Vermont and work. Additionally, because I'd be working for a company where I'd previously worked for 4 years, I knew it wouldn't be as daunting as going into a brand-new environment where I would have to learn the business and the culture from scratch, and then have to turn around and leave.

I figured it would be a snap to go back to New York, a city where I had lived for 7 years and already had a strong support network of friends. But I won't lie, being back in NYC was much harder than I expected. I thought it would be all lighthearted fun and spending more quality time with friends; that it would be easy and chill since I had already packed up my apartment and left my stressful job-- I had done all the difficult stuff already. But I was very wrong. The biggest stressor was housing: I hadn't expected it to be so tough to find a 3-month sublet for someone like me, but there I found myself, bouncing from housesit to sublet to housesit, until I realized I had moved 5 times in 3 months. I also became deathly ill for nearly the entire month of December, was spending way too much money on going out and buying things for Peace Corps, and then stressing out about how I was going to pay off my credit card before leaving. The final blow came was when I was kicked out of apartment #4 for inadvertently breaking co-op rules by subletting my friend's apartment. I once again started to look for a new place, but was just so defeated by the whole ordeal that I said to myself, "I just can't." I found a friend's place that I could sublet until mid-January, and then made an arrangement with my boss that I could finish up the job remotely from Vermont. Ultimately, I think it worked out for the best in the end. My fears about transitioning to Peace Corps from NYC became even more acute, and the longer I spent there, the more detached I felt from my upcoming giant reality change. How can you prepare yourself for a slow-paced life in rural Madagascar, in a town that probably doesn't have electricity or running water, when you have 24 hour Duane Reade on the corner and your reality embodies the very idea of the New York minute? I found myself in a weird headspace-- I was trying to not have too much fun in New York, but also trying not to look forward to Peace Corps too much lest it (god forbid) not happen for some reason. Towards the end of my time I loosened up a bit and just went balls-out with restaurants, bars, socializing, the works. I felt like if I really burned myself out socially, it would help me embrace a slower-paced lifestyle. I'm paying for it now (hello, Amex), but I think it helped me go out with a bang and really feel like I could say my goodbye to New York.

Now I'm ensconced in the quiet Vermont countryside, where my big outing involves a trip to the grocery store, and I am generally practicing what it will be like to not have my friends quite so available. That was another concern I had about being in New York, that I was relying on my friends too much when I'd soon not be able to talk to them more than once a month. So this time in Vermont is allowing me a gradual draw-down of my connectivity, and a ramping up of my level of independence and self sufficiency. I'm able to spend time packing thoroughly and thoughtfully, take care of loose ends like a 401k rollover and obtaining property insurance, and also spend time with my parents. I'm also carefully packing up the last bits of my current life, paring down my belongings and saying goodbye to things I won't see for 2+ years, until all I'm left with are two packed bags and a drawer full of old clothes that I can wear until I throw them out before I hop on the plane.

So here we are, 2012, which seemed so foreboding and far away just 6 months ago. I was so adamant about not wanting to depart for Peace Corps in 2012, because it seemed light years away and I was worried the delay would derail me from my path. But six months later, I'm still here and on track, and parts of me are even wishing for a bit more time before I go. We finally got our travel information, and on Sunday 2/26 I leave for Washington, DC where we have 2 days of staging with our whole group, and then on 2/28 we all board a plane for Johannesburg. After an overnight there, we take another flight to Madagascar on March 1st. And then the adventure begins.