Two More Sleeps

I am writing with only two more sleeps left in my childhood home.  In about 36 hours, I will depart to Philadelphia, where I will undergo a two-day orientation, then it’s on to Istanbul for a short layover, and then to Katmandu, Nepal. 

It’s hard to fathom the change I am about to undergo.  I have moved across the world before, but this time feels different.  In Thailand, the goal was to have fun, even at the risk of life and limb, but let’s not get into that here.  I never made a concerted effort to truly integrate myself into Thai society.  I never REALLY learned the language, and many of the people I would spend time with outside of work were Westerners.  Of course, I did live with a Thai woman for about 8 months, but she was meeting me where I was, culturally speaking.  We spoke in English, went to the movies in English, and when we hung out with her Thai friends, we danced to English music. 

The reason this next chapter feels so different is because my goals have changed.  Whereas before I was committed to having as much fun as possible, and taking as many adventures as I possibly could, my goal this go-round is to be of service to the community in which I am living, wherever that may be (I still don’t know even 36 hours before leaving for 27 months), and to truly integrate myself both culturally and linguistically.

I do not doubt that I am going to have fun in the Peace Corps, but with it will come great mental and emotional strain.   For the next three months, I will be living in a city called Panauti with a host family, doing intensive language training, as well as technical teaching training.  It will be a full-time job, 8 to 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, not to mention the time I will likely spend studying outside of class.  To be honest, I only vaguely know what I am getting into.   There are so many question marks, which I hope I will be able to answer in the blogs to come. 

Behind me, are all the things I will be bringing with me to Nepal for the next two years.  I have all the things you might expect, but also some less obvious items.  These include travel rummicube (which I hope to play with members of my Peace Corps cohort and my host families), waterproof cards, hackysacks, a hammock, a Fujifilm X-T20 mirrorless camera (which I intend to use for populating this blog with photos), oven mits with a map of Michigan on them (as gifts for my host family), two toy 1967 mustangs (another gift for my host families as an icon of the Detroit auto industry), and over 600 stickers to give to well behaved and attentive students. 

I feel ready to make this next big step.  I try not to think of the massive commitment I am making, and all that could go wrong.  I have a philosophy that has never failed me, and I intend to follow it until I arrive at Katmandu.  That philosophy is this: in the face of remarkable change, it’s all you can do to pull out of the driveway, get on the plane, or do whatever the first step is for truly beginning your next chapter. 

You can always think of a dozen reasons why not to do something, and they may all be valid.  But you will never know why you should do something until you do it, and meet the people who will change your life, see the thing that you will never forget, and experience the inner change that will redefine your identity. 

While I am certainly nervous, I am excited more than anything.  Once I get on that plane, you best believe I won’t be looking back.