I am clearly in the honeymoon phase, and I haven’t even left for staging. Somewhere in all of the Nominee literature that I’ve read, I received the cultural competency book containing the four phases of PC service. I’ll grossly over-simplify and paraphrase: 1) the honeymoon phase, when we PCTs/PCVs believe everything is marvelous, quaint, and that we’ll be loved and embraced by everyone. [Come on, now . . . who’s not going to revel in this phase, insanely naive though it may be?]; 2) the overwhelmed phase when we believe that we are totally stupid, don’t comprehend anything, and will never get it; 3) the phase where we still recognize that we’re totally clueless about so many cultural differences, but we’re beginning to function in our assignment and grasp the reality of cultural differences; and 4) the get me home phase [which is impossible to currently imagine, thus demonstrating that I’m totally immersed in the honeymoon phase]. I have no expectations. Well, that’s not exactly true. Intellectually, I believe that these four phases exist in some theoretical form. And I expect that learning a local language will be very difficult. And I expect to get sick from water and food, at some point. Other than these reasonable expectations, I have no others. So what will it be like, day-to-day? What will be the challenges of working in a completely different culture? We can only speculate . . . except that I’m not even going to bother. For the first time in my life, I’m going to experience it minute-to-minute with child-like wonder. I’m not even packing food items. Burkina Faso cuisine? Bring it! I am a piece of flotsam adrift on the PC sea. And I’m wildly happy.