Heading out

Okay . . . I'm heading to the airport in less than two hours and I'm due to arrive in Nairobi in less than 40 hours. It's been a nice, calm past few days. I've had the opportunity to catch up with a lot of friends and I've had some amazing experiences. I'm not excited but I'm also not scared, so I'd rather feel this way right now. I just feel ready. It's time to go. I've organized the shit out of this trip and I feel both incredibly prepared and the most unprepared I've ever been. I have spent most of my life organizing and perparing for something so it feels good to have a lot of unknown ahead of me.

I've received a lot of great advice from people in the past few weeks and I wanted to share some of it. It has really helped to motivate and encourage me. (Most of this comes from Pilar Siman, Eddie's amazingly cool younger sister).

1. Listening is so much more important than finding solutions: Regardless of what you actually end up doing, being a witness to the experience of someone else, especially someone who may not ever have the chance to really share their story, is so valuable. You may often get frustrated becuase you hear such difficult realities and want to immediately find a solution, but that's not your role. You aren't from the country and don't know the way things work, but you can listen.
2. It's ok if you feel totally inadequate. You may not know the language or understand the culture and feel more like a burden then a help, but it's so important for all of us to feel like that sometimes because it is so easy to think we are great.
3. Go to as many events and homes as you are invited to, and even if you are not invited, if you have time, ask if you can spend some time in someone's home, just chatting. Spending time with people in their own context improves your relationship with them.
4. Be natural and easy - just do what feels most natural and be easy with yourself. You will probably expect so much more from yourself than anyone else and even if you feel like you havent really made any kind of difference, just the fact that you have witnessed another reality and will then go back home to share it is enough
5. This is going to be a great opportunity to learn how little you need to live.

I'm heading out now. I hope to make another entry in a few days. Enjoy New Years Eve and enjoy a glass of champagne for me. I wish everyone a safe and happy coming months.

Take care for now.
Love,
Ann

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young
- e.e. cummings

Shots and Pills Galore

So that's probably a little bit of an exaggeration, but I spent my morning trying to finish up my medical requirements before leaving. The travel clinic was actually very neat - they took my itinerary over the phone before my visit and then when I arrived they had a whole book together for me which included CDC and State Dept health warnings for all the countries I'll be visiting. Even though I have done a lot of research and knew what I was getting myself into, there were kind of a lot of warnings . . . Just to give you an idea, they recommended the following shots and vaccinations: Polio, Tetnus, Hepatitus A, Hepatitus B, Yellowfever, Menengitis, Measles, Typhoid, Rabies, Influenza, etc. Luckily my parents believed in health care and I had most of these vaccines or shots growing up. I was spared today and received my Hepatitis A (2nd dose) and then I was able to receive the Typhoid vaccine via a 4 series doseage of pills. I also received a prescription for doxycycline, an anti-malara treatment, and Cipro for the always awesome travel diarrhea. I won't go into the Cipro too much, I'm sure I'll have many stories about that in the future. I also had another appointment today to get a Tetnus shot and some other basic prescriptions but my doctor cancelled due to the snow storm. That was rescheduled for the day before I leave. But in terms of health stuff I am pretty ready. I have decent health insurance coverage while I am gone. The last item is Medevac insurance, for flight evacuation in the case of dire emergencies, but I am still choosing between buying that or a new ipod . . . sorry Dad!

Giving Thanks

Since this is my last week I have had the honor of being treated to a number of lunch dates, dinner dates, cake, coffee dates, and fake birthday celebrations in order to get a free sombrero. I wanted to acknowledge all of those wonderful people who have made working on the Navy ERP project a worthwhile time. Thank you to Mary DuPont, Jennifer Bandola, Cindy Smith, Frankie Dos Santos, Kim Waterman, Shameka Jones, Nusrath Mohammed, Glen Pasco, everyone at the DoubleTree hotel including Charlie, Claudia and Carol, Rob Holmes, Tom Reddy, Anthony Hatala, Ken Honer, Patrick Gordon, Kris Youngblood, Bob Tomlin who unknowingly let me use his tab at the bar last night, Byron Wood, John Donahue, Curt Knudsen, basketball Eric, Davey Yu, Josh Calloway, Paul Barsamian, Tom Seymour, Chris Villamour, Jeff Bell, Maya Peters, Anna Memmo, Brian Boswell, Phil Lindogan, John O'Mara, Alexander Carmichael, Casey Hean, Alain Makris, Jim Hazam, Amer Afzaluddin, Eddie Siman, Debbie Ernst, Dave Shanahan, Zach Silvey, Lynn Bernard....,....,... and the list goes on. THANK YOU.

Travel Itinerary

I've received a lot of questions about where I am going and when so I've added my current itinerary - but remember this can always change!

12/31: Depart for Nairobi via London
01/02: Arrive in Nairobi
01/02 - 01/07: Spend time in Nairobi and meet with Michelle's host family
01/07: Depart for Madagascar
01/07 - 01/21: Spend time traveling southeast from Antananarivo and visit with Derek's Peace Corps friends
01/21: Depart for Nairobi
01/22: Take a 12+ hour bus from Nairobi to Dar Es Salaam
01/22 - 02/20: Spend time volunteering with TAWE in Dar Es Salaam, Dodoma and Morogoro
02/21: Head to Zanzibar for a few days?
02/25: Meet Tim at Mt. Kilimanjaro Airport, Tanzania
02/26 - 03/08: Visit Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, Ngorogoro Crater with Tim
03/07: Tim departs for home
03/08 - 03/22: ?????
03/23: Arrive in Nairobi
03/24: Depart Nairobi for Chicago via London

Getting Ready

On December 31, 2008, I leave for a three month trip to East Africa. During my time abroad I plan to visit Kenya, Tanzania, and Madagascar and I will also spend a month of my trip volunteering with TAWE (the Tanzanian Association of Women Entrepreneurs).

I've been planning this trip for several months but I feel like I've been preparing for it for years. When I was in sixth grade I studied Madagascar and since then have always wanted to visit Africa. Sometime later in middle or high school I wrote myself a letter which included a list of things I wanted to accomplish by the time I was 25. I wrote the letter, stored it among my personal items and promptly forgot about it. Then, in early 2008, when I was home visiting my parents, everything started to fall into place. My parents had just put my childhood home up for sale and I had a lot of boxes and mementos to sort through. I came across the letter I had written to myself over a decade ago and discovered that I was supposed to have visited Madagascar, Kenya and Tanzania by 25 - and I was set to turn 25 in June 2008! I think I could have easily let that moment pass, kind of discarded it as a silly relic from the past, but I was also seeking some balance in my professional and personal life. I had just moved to Chicago and was struggling with having to fly to Annapolis for work each week and not having time to be home and make new friends. I had also recently signed up for a career coach (Phil) at Deloitte. After several weeks of discussions with Phil all of these factors came out and it became apparent to me that planning this trip was very important to me. I spent a few weeks taking care of administrative and permission granting activities with Tim, my family, and Deloitte. Once I had all the support in place, it was just a matter of planning the trip and finding an organization to volunteer with. Again, through a series of lucky circumstances, I ended up forging a strong relationship with Heartland International, a Chicago-based NGO that worked directly with TAWE and was looking for a volunteer on the ground for several weeks. I had many meetings with Bev (from Heartland), and eventually that relationship was in place as well.

I've spent the past few months planning, buying, packing, and preparing for this trip. I've had my flights since September, I've been packed since November. I'm still working with a wonderful network of people to complete my trip itinerary, but I trust that will fall into place soon. I'm nervous and sometimes my doubts knock me down, but in my heart I know that I am ready and will be able to face any challenges. AND, if I can't handle it, I have a pretty great support system of people who can help me handle it.

As my new favorite song by the Killers says, "And sometimes I get nervous/When I see an open door/Close your eyes/Clear your heart/Cut the cord." So here it goes . . .