First Days in Comoros

Wow, the past few days have been both fun and quite busy. First off I am officially in Comoros, going into day 4. So far it has been a wonderful experience as well as a learning one. But let me start from the beginning, staging in Washington DC.

The Beginnings

So last Friday I left Indiana. After saying goodbye to everyone I headed on a plane to DC, where I would spend one evening. In DC I also met for the first time the other 19 PCV in Training that would be serving in Comoros with me. Once I arrived to DC I was greeted by one of my fellow cohorts and we proceeded to go to the hotel. Once all settled we decided to enjoy the free time by exploring our nations Capital. So we headed into to downtown and walked around the National Mall for an hour or so. Although I have been a few times to DC and visited the important places, it was great to be able to see all the monuments again, especially since it has been a few years since my last visit. After we walked around a little we headed back to the metro and hotel to meet the rest of the group. As a group we hit it off really well, everyone was super nice and open to getting to know one another. Upon completing our staging activities, we headed to a tapas restaurant for dinner. There I was greeted by an old friend from University. The food was amazing and the company even better. When we finally finished our time eating, I said goodbye to my friend and the remaining volunteers and I headed back to our hotel to get ready to go out in DC for the evening. Since I had another friend, whom I had met in Italy 6 years ago, living in DC me and two other volunteers went to meet up with her for a little. After a wonderful time catching up with her we headed to U-Street to meet with the other volunteers. It was a very interesting, but fun time with everyone. Finally, after a while we decided we needed to get back to the hotel to shower up, as we had to be down in the lobby at 5am and leave at 5.30am to the airport.

In Transit

The next morning (well really a continuation of the day before) we all grabbed our belongings and headed to the Airport to begin our roughly 21-hour journey via flight to Moroni, Comoros. Once we checked all of all our bags, entered through security, and located our gate we realized we has about 5 hours to kill at the airport. So we ended up hanging out until the time came to board the plane. Our first leg of the flight was a 12-hour plane ride to Ethiopia. Our plane ride was quite different than other planes I have been on. Since it was such a long flight many people just stood up and stretched and hung out in the aisles. Although I managed to make it through the flight, from personal preference, I highly do not recommend taking a 12-hour flight, if at all available. Once we finally landed we all celebrated that the longest part of the flight was over and we continued on to our next gate/flight, which was to Nairobi, Kenya. This flight was a quick two-hour flight. Once in Kenya, we had a little time to kill. So we all just hung out (Personally I kept secretly hoping our flight was cancelled, and that we spent a night in Kenya, but in a positive way it was not). Then it came time to board our last flight that would take us to Comoros. We all hopped onto the plane and waited to see the first views of our new home. When we finally arrived it was a little cloudy to see much from up above, but we did see some when we started to descend. It was beautiful what little we saw. When we landed we were greeted by some of the country staff, and quickly went through customs and onto the cars to head to the hotel. When we arrived to the hotel we completed some basic logistics forms and sat down for our first meal in Comoros. After a wonderful meal we all said goodnight and headed to our beds for a full night sleep.

In Country

The first day was full of interviews, particularly in relation to establishing where we would be serving for the next two years as well as beginning our lessons in Shikomori, which is the language spoken here on Grand Comore. In the middle of the interview point the staff arranged for a vendor to come up and we were able to buy bobos (a local dress) and scarfs (as during Ramadan women must cover their heads). Upon completing the interviews and all we decided to take an adventure off the hotel property and visit the local village. It was quite an experience and the hills we walked were definitely something that will take adjusting too, especially since nothing is quite that flat here. However, besides that it was nice to walk around and get our first insight as to how the villages look in Comoros.

The following day was met with more meetings, but this time at the end of all the sessions we had a fun break and went into Moroni, the capital, where we broke the fast with the Peace Corps staff (note us personally were not fasting, just the staff). This was truly an incredible experience, and there was so much food that we did not know what do with ourselves. Everything though tasted amazing! Upon completing dinner, we packed into the cars and headed back to our hotel for the evening.

On Wednesday our day proceed as normal, with language lessons and technical sessions. Followed by dinner and passing out for the evening. Thursday continued for the same in the morning, however the evening was a little different. With Friday being our last day in the hotel and all together we decided to celebrate by watching the sunset all together and following dinner watching a movie as a group. It was a great time, especially having us all together just relaxing one last evening before we head off to our host families for the next 3 months.

Today, Friday will be a day that is both exciting and a little nerve racking. We will learn our island assignments (There are three main islands here in Comoros and there will be a volunteer on each island), as well as we will be meeting our host families that we will be staying with for the first 3 months. This will be an interesting experience as majority of them speak only Shikomori, and we all only speak about 5-10 words in Shikomori. However due to France colonizing them we may be able to get by with some french, which I speak none of, but could at least utilize my Spanish/Portuguese/Italian. So let’s see how that all will play out.

So far though my time here has been great. Besides learning some basic things that are realities for Comorians everything is going quite well. Of course we have been lucky enough to be living in a hotel for the first week. So let’s see how it goes upon going with a host family and all. Though I rather look forward to the challenges that I will be faced with.

Until Later