On Sept 13, 2009 Group 22 landed in Port Vila, Vanuatu. We were the largest group in the history of Peace Corps Vanuatu to begin Pre-Service Training. I was honored to be part of the 41 eager Volunteers to be greeted by my new Peace Corps family. After what seemed like a million hours since we boarded our plane in Los Angeles and transferred in Auckland, New Zealand (in reality it was about 17-20 hours) it was exciting, invigorating and a bit overwhelming to walk out of the airport to a line of a dozen Peace Corps folks (Staff and current Volunteers) clapping and cheering us on. After spending so much time on a plane all I could think of was how good it would feel to shower, but I settled for being wrapped in a new sarong (aka lava lava in Vanuatu, a salusalu (lei) and drinking coconut water straight from my very own coconut and bendy straw. After the initial shock of having arrived (finally!) my next thought was "if this is how we'll be treated regularly in this country I can definitely get used to being a Volunteer."
