So it seems like everyone and their mama has been asking me if I'm ready for this...how can I possibly know, I think? I've never done this before. I have a nagging suspicion I'm forgetting something really important, but then I calm myself by realizing everything plays out as it's supposed to, this transition is no different.
In the past year things have been unfolding, leading to this transition. Someone whose lecture I had attended and spoken with (very briefly), like, five years ago sent me a friend request. He founded a non-profit, Voices of Rwanda, which intrigued me. When I received the friend request from him, it started my mind spinning, thinking about the possibilities of moving to Africa and helping with his project. That caused me to investigate other avenues and opportunities for working with aid groups overseas. But everyone seemed to want people with experience. Justifiably so. But how on earth do you get experience working in an aid situation? Then I checked out the Peace Corps. Seemed like the perfect way to gain experience and get my foot in the door!
In May of 2012, I submitted my application. Within a few weeks, I was sitting in front of a recruiter for a 3-hour interview, which kind of blew my mind. The application was quite extensive in itself...what more could he possibly ask me? But I guess some people look different on paper than in person, and I must have made a decent impression, because at the end of the interview he said he was recommending me for a position with the Peace Corps Yay! With visions of establishing community gardens with drip irrigation and chickens and goats somewhere in sub-equatorial Africa dancing in my head, I listened to him say, "I'm recommending you for the business track in Central Asia." Huh. NOT what I was expecting. At all. But then, my foot was in the door; now all I had to do was make it through the selection process.
Over the next few months, there was a long medical questionnaire to complete and lots and lots (and lots) of waiting with no word one way or the other. I connected with the Peace Corps online and saw other applicants post gleefully about receiving their invitations. It was a lot like waiting to get into university, and every bit as emotional. Finally, somewhere toward the beginning of December, I figured they just didn't want me. After all, they only accept about 30% of those who apply, so maybe I was just too old. Or radical. Whatever, you know? I'd just get on with my life and figure out something else. Then the email came. My invitation to serve was for Azerbaijan (where??) and, should I choose to accept, I would leave sometime in early April. There really was no choice to make...this was it...I was going!
Then came the fun. I was bombarded with information, forms to fill out, MORE forms to fill out, medical appointments to make, immunizations to receive...I mean, it was just crazy! And then there was the road trip my kids and I were making for the holidays; 4,000 miles of fun in the car, right smack in the middle of all of it. I let my friends know, I notified my employers, my family seemed genuinely thrilled. I just needed to do something with my house and all of its contents. I decided to wait to sell my house, leasing it in the meanwhile. Storage facilities cost an average of $125/month for the amount of stuff I had, so that didn't seem feasible. ($125/month may not sound like much, but I wasn't really going to have any income to speak of for more than two years, so....) So I decided to just get rid of it all. And once I decided that and started packing things away, it got easier and easier. I had enjoyed my house and its contents for many years, but it was just stuff, really. I would have more stuff someday. Eventually.
So I let my kids take first pick of everything, then I put things for sale on Craig's List, had a couple of yard sales, and made a LOT of donations. Probably the easiest thing to get rid of were my six chickens. The most difficult was my male cat, Cheetie, who had been with my family since he was two months old. THAT was the heart-breaker. My ex-husband was gracious enough to not only take all of my daughter's choices of furniture, etc, into his own home until she can get her own apartment, but he also offered to store some things for me. Thank god, because discarding baskets and decor and clothes is one thing...but decades of photos with their negatives is something else.
So here I sit, one precious week away from leaving the US for who-knows-how-long, and my active life now consists of two suitcases and a backpack. And that's it. It's liberating. And daunting. And people keep asking me if I'm ready.
....as I'll ever be.
