Sometimes I wonder if once I get to Botswana all the stress and worry will dissipate.
Will I finally be able to breathe?
To just enjoy the fact that I made it?
Not that I let those thoughts into my mind too often.
I have to make it to Botswana before I can even think about enjoying it.
And that's no small feat.
The day I received my invitation to serve in Peace Corps, I barely ate.
All I knew is that a Placement Officer was going to call me at 1:30pm to discuss my future with Peace Corps.
Yes, I had finally passed all the medical tests. I was finally cleared to go!
But that didn't mean anything. In the very email my Placement Officer set up our phone conversation, she also warned that there were too many volunteers for the programs available, and thus Peace Corps cannot accept everyone.
And I knew that my original nomination was no longer a possibility, as I had missed the deadline.
By 1:25pm, I had shut myself in my room, told my roommate I was expecting an important call any minute, and nervously paced my room.
By the time she called (1:31pm), my hands were shaking, and she could sense the nervousness in my voice. I was taken aback when she started asking me the questions I was asked at my interview almost a year before. I answered them the best I could, trying to recall what I had said at that interview. Then she told me about a program in Sub-Saharan Africa that started in September. She told me the volunteers would be School and Community Liaisons for Like Skills. Basically the volunteers would be stationed in schools and would teach HIV/AIDS Prevention as well as simple hygiene matters.
I listened to her describe one of my dream jobs, and when she asked what I thought of the program, I couldn't keep back my enthusiasm as I told her it sounded amazing. And then she told me she would send the invitation in the mail that day.
After a year of applications, medical clearances and road block after road block, I had to ask her to repeat herself, as I couldn't let myself believe that she had actually told me I was in.
That next week, when my invitation packet arrived, I learned I was going to Botswana. I felt a tad bit of disappointment at first. Botswana is so close to South Africa, and I was hoping to travel a little farther up Africa.
And then I realized how ridiculous I sounded. First of all, I was being given the opportunity to go to Botswana for two years. Something most people will never get to experience. And secondly, I was the lucky one here. Seeing that Botswana and South Africa are so close to each other, they have similarities that will only make my transition and acclimation to my new life easier.
However, while I thought my worries about Peace Corps were over, they weren't.
Shortly after, I got kidney stones. Lucky me. While they didn't last long, Peace Corps wanted all the documentation as well as extra tests. And as test after test piles up, I'm again realizing that nothing is certain. Peace Corps could decide not to send me anytime before I'm to depart. One returned volunteer told me not to get too excited until I'm there. She had the misfortune of being called a day before she was supposed to head to Mozambique, and her trip was delayed 9 months. She looks back at it as a blessing in disguise, as she was able to spend more time with her family. But it definitely took her a long time to see it that way.
It seems that every time I become more terrified than excited, every time I start thinking about how my friends are starting their lives, while I'm moving half way around the world, in a vortex that none of them will ever understand. Every time I wonder if it would be more prudent if I just got a job instead. Every time I wonder if I'm doing the right thing, moving away from everything and everyone I know for two years. Every time those worries start to clog my mind, something happens to threaten my place in Peace Corps. Whether its a kidney stone, or stubborn white blood cell counts, each time something threatens to keep me away from Botswana, I remember what I really want.
I want to move to Botswana. I want to be a School and Community Liaison for Life Skills Volunteer. I want to leave everything and everyone I know and love. I want to be thrown into a completely new culture with a new language.
And this is when my dad calls me crazy.
Which is probably true. I don't know many other people who want to do any of these things.
So instead I worry.
I sit and wait, hoping that I can pass each and every hurdle Peace Corps throws at me.
I count down the days until September 11th, 2012, when I depart on this new chapter of my life.
I wait and hope I won't be denied and devastated by Peace Corps before I can reach Botswana.
Because I would be devastated. I would survive, and I would be fine.
But I would be devastated, and that's how I know I've made the right decision.
