My 30 item, including shoes, capsule wardrobe for Peace Corps Ethiopia is almost complete. I still need a nice pair of pants, a solid color skirt, rain jacket, rain boots, teaching shoes, and a blazer. The pants, skirt, and blazer, all need to match.

Everything selected will get me through staging, ten weeks of PST (pre service training), and my first semester of teaching. After that, most of the items above will be too large or too small for me. My first go round, I dropped twenty five pounds. That would have been great, if I didn’t start at 126 pounds. Peace Corps Kenya made me leave site, once a month, to hop on their scale, in Nairobi. I was overjoyed!

My second time in Peace Corps, I arrived in Armenia at 237. I dropped over fifty pounds, by the end of my service.

So now, I only pack for six months. I also never take anything that I would ever need to bring back to America. Two years of hand washing means toss it in the Peace Corps recycle bin, on my way out the door.

The vast bulk of my luggage will be … you guessed it … skincare products.

And … just today, I made a new purchase, Tarte’s pout prep, at Sephora. It’s Peace Corps, people. You need to bring what makes you happy.

I’m going to spend all day tomorrow packing bag one. Peace Corps allows two checked bags (50 lbs each), a carry-on and personal item.

I was planning on the latter being a tote and a small backpack. Then, my pop up tent arrived …. way too big! Should have read (reread) the Amazon listing. There’s no way an airline is going to allow this monster on a flight. Plan B: buy another tent. I need to shop for the other items anyway. The best laid plans …. GGT