Consolidation Drill

Things were moving right along last week. I finished building the list of Habitat for Humanity USA affiliates – that took much longer than I thought it would, but it’s good that I did it, because it’s possible nobody else would have ever had the time to do it. The list is much bigger than I thought it would be, which is also good. I’m still compiling the list of Filipino-American organizations; this work doesn’t require my full brain wattage, so it’s been perfect to do in the mornings while listening to the baseball playoffs.

I also had a meatier assignment, to help prepare cover letters for the now-ready-to-go funding proposal for the EU (European Union) and UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). This required some research into what they fund and how, so that I could target the letters. Even more exciting, I was invited to come with the Co-Chair of Friends of Habitat (the former Miss Universe) to the UNDP presentation.

I was preparing for that when we got the call from our warden – consolidation exercise; drop everything and go to the consolidation point. It was somewhat disruptive (in addition to the UNDP meeting, I had made pasta sauce the night before and hadn’t had time for yoga that morning – in other words, a busy afternoon and evening ahead!) but I take these things seriously – just in the time since I joined Peace Corps, they’ve evacuated several countries – Georgia, Bolivia, Kenya (those volunteers went back), Mauritania, Guinea and maybe others I am not thinking of now.

There are many steps to the Emergency Action Plan, consolidation being the final one before evacuation. We never had a consolidation exercise in Morocco but we had several other tests – cell phone drills and land line drills – and a couple of times I had to call people in my warden group to report a terrorism incident or see if people were all right after flash floods.

If we were really headed for consolidation, we would have packed two weeks’ worth of clothes and everything we would have wanted with us in case we weren’t going back to our sites. For the exercise, I brought clean underwear, my t-shirt-and-shorts PJs, and toiletries. I forgot my passport – the most important thing! – but to my credit I remembered it right away and texted my warden to find out whether I should go back for it or not (she said no, but I probably should have, because I felt that as a former warden I should live up to my own high standards). Our consolidation point was the pension where we stayed when we first arrived – ironically, my second time there in a week; I had come down on Wednesday morning to have breakfast with Travis, who was COSing. I hadn’t seen the PRCV guys in a while so it was nice to spend some time with them; also met some of the current PCVs whom I hadn’t met yet (including the ones who have volunteered for our Habitat for Humanity build week, now rescheduled for the week of November 16!). We had a really good meeting with the Peace Corps staff member who checked us in and the Regional Safety and Security Director. It’s interesting to think about all of the issues involved in keeping volunteers safe.

When we arrived, Mary, Mercedes and I shared the air-conditioned room. Now that we’ve been here a while, no more of that – instead, it was the dorm room, where there are eight sets of bunk beds. It’s not easy for me to sleep with that much karma in the room, but it was nice to take a hot shower!

It actually worked out well that I was at the pension, since I was planning to be in the area the next day. I walked over to the Embassy Bazaar – looking for (and finding) some craft items that might make lovely pasalubong (items that you bring home for people after you travel) and/or lovely things for myself! I also went to the Kultura Filipino store in the Mega Mall to buy some items I had scoped out earlier. I know not to leave all my shopping until the end! I’m not going crazy, though – so far everything I’ve bought will fit in one box.