Culture Shock and Events Happening

Okay. So I am currently sitting in an airport in Houston, Texas. I have maybe 30 minutes before I should consider leaving the safety of this place I'm in and going down to the gate, so I thought I'd write a bit. I find myself in the First Class (thanks to mom and dad) United Lounge (otherwise known as United Club) which has such a fancy door that I was kind of scared to go through it for fear that I would be mocked as a usurper and dragged out by very well dressed security guards who would do it all without breaking a sweat because sweating would be inappropriate in such a place. Seriously, though, the door was like a giant wooden wall, and when I got close it just opened for me automatically and there was a line of people in suits who looked back at me in my bright green t-shirt as if I was an alien. I had an urge to ask if this was the line for the bathroom, but I thought better of it. I am being somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I really did consider leaving the moment I walked through the door, thinking to myself that I couldn't possibly be in the right place. Fortunately I decided that I should at least check in with the woman (who seemed to be checking people's ID's with more scrutiny than you see in the actual airport security) before running out with my tail between my legs, because as it turns out, I WAS allowed in. She was doubtful though, making sure that I was involved in some sort of International travel before allowing me up the escalator to the wonders above (OH God I just remembered that there's a third floor that I haven't explored, this is going to have to get cut off sooner rather than later).

Once given license to enter, I decided that it would be fruitless to try to pretend like I belonged there, had any idea what I was doing, or had any sense of propriety that would keep me from asking the question, "So what stuff is free?" I was slightly ridiculed by one of the bartenders when I told him that I had never been in a place like this before, but it was worth it to discover that there was a wide selection of free alcohol, of which I could have as much as I wanted. As I write this I am sipping from a glass of free red wine, and it tastes so much better because it was free.

Ah, so the point of this was supposed to be that I was not really mentally prepared for this kind of luxury, because well, never in my life have I experienced it before, and I'm coming out of living in a room in Guatemala in which I grab bugs off of my wall multiple times a day because if I smashed them all my wall would be mostly brown by now (I smash the spiders unless they're above a certain size which will mean that they will leave a mess bigger than a silver dollar, at which point I spray them with Raid). One of the weird thoughts I had that I wouldn't have had before I started in the Peace Corps is how wasteful it is that each of the snacks that they offer in here is individually wrapped in plastic. I mean, everyone knows that plastic takes between 50 and infinity years to decompose, right? Anyway, it's been interesting. I did sit down with a lovely older woman who works in international training in all sorts of places, and she seemed to be living a quite interesting life, but then she had to leave, so I didn't get to learn as much as I wanted. One other thing that I noted was that the place was probably at least 80% men, which I'm not used to these days (Peace Corps is about 40% men, and much less where I live), and which reminded me that we haven't quite reached equality still.

On to past events in a quite abrupt segue. Last week we hosted an accreditation ceremony for seven of our schools who were able to achieve all the goals necessary to reach Health Schools Level One. If they were video game geeks they would be pumped to level up again, but I'm not sure they would get that reference. Anyway, we had a good showing, with some important people showing up and some other people as well. Overall it was a rousing (is this the word that comes before success?) success and got us a bit pumped for next year.

Okay, I now need to investigate the third floor of this establishment before I catch the plane that will take me back to the lovely PNW for the next couple weeks. Sorry for the lack of transitions in this post, I just didn't have time...