Invitation

After over a year of working towards my Peace Corps experience, I have received my invitation. It's difficult to explain the exact feelings this brings; from moment to moment I can't decide if I want to dance or vomit. Generally, it's a bit of both (the vomit-dance! Messy. Awesome). Often it's relief. After spending hours filling out paperwork, sitting in the offices of doctors or dentists, researching, getting my hopes up, holding my breath, and then waiting more, there is both an end date and destination.

Ghana:
The first country to host Peace Corps in 1961, a beautiful country in West Africa, my new home beginning in February. I'd heard initially that I would be placed in Asia, so responses when I told my family and friends were tepid; "are you disappointed?", "do you think you'll go?", "I'm sorry to hear that." Well I'm not. I am a Denver girl who has never lived further than a few hours away from where I was born. And now I am able to go to Africa. The birthplace of humanity, cultures that pre-date the origin of my country, languages I've not only never heard, I've never heard of! Now I feel like doing the vomit-dance again.

Unfortunately I do not simply get to hop on a plane. Emails from the medical department are coming in at a rate of a few per week. Messages from my Placement officer come with numbered lists of things that he recommends I do. I have ninety days, and in that time I need to turn in all of my paperwork (filled out flawlessly, or I risk being the only volunteer without a passport), get my shots, compile and make copies of my legal paperwork, get shots for my pets and get them situated with their foster families, pack up my apartment, get rid of years of accumulated junk, move in with my partner, buy everything I'll need for the next 27 months, and somehow fit all of it into two pieces of checked luggage and one piece of carry-on.
This is a blessing in disguise. Every time I have a moment to slow down and actually think, I remember that in less than a hundred days I will be pledging two years to service in a country I've never been. Thank god they're keeping me busy or I'd be going absolutely crazy!

And now to pack. Or do paperwork. But probably just dance-vomit.

KJ