9 days!

It's now 9 days until I leave for DC, and then Bangladesh. Things are starting to come together; I bought bug spray yesterday, and my Bengali textbook arrived on Saturday. My suitcase is sitting half-packed on the floor of my room. I have to learn the Bengali writing system before I leave, so I've been working through that section of the textbook. The first word I learned was "am," meaning "mango."

I received my international itinerary last night. After the orientation in DC, we leave on the night of the 4th, fly to Qatar, then to Dhaka, arriving around 5:30 am on the 6th. It's about 18 hours in the air, with a 2 1/2 hour layover in Qatar. I've been told there should be about 15 of us going. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone!