And We're Off!

Hello all!  Here I am, writing my very first-ever blog post.  Once I hit Uganda, I do hope the excitement surrounding this blog will increase greatly, but for now, I'm sitting in my parents family room by the fire on a quiet Sunday evening, my dog is lying on the floor next to me as I type away with very bright lights overhead and all the American luxuries we take for granted every day easily available.  Not that this isn't a great life, it just doesn't make for a very exciting blog post....

For this inaugural blog post, since I don't yet have any crazy third-world adventures to write about, I figured I'd tell a bit about why I'm doing what I'm doing.  Almost exactly a year ago, one of my older brothers sent me this article about a woman named Lisa Shannon and how she changed her entire life to help Congolese women.  I replied to him saying, "I'll admit, I've thought more than once about quitting life altogether in the US and going somewhere I'm needed....This Lisa character is pretty inspiring."    Don't get me wrong, I haven't always been a "save the world" humanitarian type, much to my own chagrin.  I could see the importance of it, I just couldn't always get myself to care about it like I should.  I could certainly feel a pull from the find-a-cause realm however, and it seemed the older I got, the stronger the pull.  In the following months after reading that article I told my roommate several times I was just going to up and join the peace-corps.  Fantastic hyperbole with an awful lot of earnest truth and desire behind it.  

Then there was the morning in April where I woke up and just knew that was exactly what I wanted to do.  Well, not join the peace-corps per-se, but I wanted to go and see the world I had never seen.  The world that is so easy to forget about when I'm sitting in my family room.  By the fire.  With my dog lying on the floor next to me.  I wanted to go live in a tent for a year and help people dig irrigation ditches or build homes or volunteer in a fistula hospital.  It seemed like a very irrational and emotional decision at the time, so I kept it to myself for a week.  The desire just wouldn't go away however, so I started calling family and telling a few close friends.  Much to my surprise I encountered nothing but wonderful support from everyone I told those first few weeks.  Many said they thought it fit me perfectly or it was the best idea they'd ever heard from me.  No one tried to talk me out of it.  (That did come later however....)  So it became official, I was taking off next year to somewhere I was needed, somewhere I could be of service, somewhere I could put my own life into perspective (i.e. I'm an awfully lucky and blessed woman when compared much of the world.)  Now I just had to figure out where I was going and what I would do when I got there.  

Being a woman, I felt a strong desire to work with other women who haven't been given the same opportunities I have.  I also, for the first time in my life, felt an unreasonably strong desire to work in Africa.  I honestly had never even had a small aspiration to see Africa, even for a safari.  (I know, what's wrong with me?!)  But now, NOW, I could hardly think of going anywhere else.  I seemed drawn to sub-Saharan Africa in-particular.   Thus began the search for the right organization in "somewhere like Uganda," I would say.

I was overwhelmed with the amount of non-profit organizations out there.  O-ver-whelmed.  And I was amazed at how many wanted to take volunteers for two weeks, which translates to "we want your money."  And then there was the load of organizations where volunteer testimonials talked about how great their travels and the scenery were, with the afterthought, "Oh, and that one time we poured the cement slab for the school was really neat too."  Bah!!  I wanted to MOVE somewhere, I wanted a real job where I could actually put some time in, trying to make a difference in someone's life.  Then came the blessed day I walked into my karate dojo (now Potomac Kempo for those living in Alexandria and interested) and met Rebecca.  

Rebecca is a brilliant emigration lawyer who makes you feel like she's your best friend the first time you talk to her.  She immediately got excited about my plans and so very graciously e-introduced me to several contacts, including Barbara, the head of the NGO, Voices for Global Change.  A few days later, Barbara and I were on the phone chatting for the first time and she spent the better part of an hour describing her wonderful work with women in Uganda.  She told me of her current initiative with former refugees making and selling jewelry, how she was trying to put the whole process into their hands, how she hoped to get them housing, how she hoped to sponsor their daughters to be able to go to school.  Ah!  Here was an organization I truly felt worth-while.  I hung up the phone knowing I had just made the contact that would get me to Africa to work with women.  Whether it was working with Voices for Global Change directly or not, I had a great feeling about this organization. 

A few short months later I found myself in Barbara's office in Old Town.  She began talking with me seriously about becoming her next project manager.  

     "You don't have to give me an answer now," she said. 
     "Can I give you an answer now?" I asked.  I didn't need to think about it, I'd known this was what I wanted for some time and I couldn't imagine it any other way in that moment.  

And so it was that I moved home to stay with my parents for a few months until I flew off to Uganda.  The original plan was to fly out on New Years Eve (turns out it's quite cheap to fly on a holiday.)  Potential unrest in the Sudan regarding their referendum put my plans on hold, however.  Gulu, the city I'll live in once I reach Uganda, is about forty miles from the Sudanese border and who knew what could happen when the south tried to become their own country?  Luckily, amazingly, things have gone fairly peacefully thus far, so Barbara decided (and I wholeheartedly agreed) that we should carry out our plans for me to head to Uganda.  The date January 29th has been decided and I was finally able to purchase those plane tickets to Entebbe (the Ugandan airport,) making it feel very official.  

So here I am, 13 days away from leaving the good ol' U.S.of A. and embarking on an adventure that, while I've tried to watch a zillion movies, read books and scour news articles galore to prepare, I feel rather like I have no idea what is in store for me.  I cannot wait to see more of the world, to experience culture and people like I never have before, but mostly I'm excited to be fully converted to the cause of helping those who can't always help themselves.  This is something I truly want to be a large part of me for the rest of my life, and I feel this is just the beginning.  

Thanks for joining me on my new blog, I hope you'll stay with me for the craziness to come.  Here's to an amazing new year!