Sneaky Style
In just over a week, as in on February 7, I’m leaving Houston. I’m driving back up to Seattle with my mom, and then will proceed to try and fit my life into two pieces of luggage that way 80 pounds together. Oh wait. I forgot to include the extra 14 pounds I get in a single carry-on. Basically this means that I have to pack, unpack, then pack again. On February 16 at 9:00am I leave Seattle for my staging event in Washington DC. Staging will be essentially my introductory training, but is really just an excuse to get the group of us who are going to Namibia together for one flight. If I wasn’t flying from the west coast, I’d probably leave on the 17th, but I have to be ready to start by 12:30. No plane can fly that fast. The big day is on February 18. I get on a plane at 5:00pm that flies from Washington DC (IAD) - Dakar, Senegal - Johannesburg, South Africa. We’ll stay the night in Johannesburg, and have the chance to sleep, shower, and dress ourselves up for our arrival in Namibia the next day. The flight from Johannesburg to Windhoek, Namibia is only two hours, but we have to be ready to start our first day as soon as we get off the plane. In other words, it’s happening, and it’s happening soon.
The waiting is the hardest. I like to just jump in and go, as everything else will work itself out. Now I have time to think about everything, but there’s really no point because I won’t know anything until I actually get there. I’m just trying to focus on being as prepared as I possibly can be. In the last week I just finished reading An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action for the Twenty-First Century by James Orbinski, whom is the former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders or MSF). While I’ve had the book for a while, I never really had the time to read it. When I was placed in Namibia to do Community Health and HIV/AIDS work, I was told explicitly to prepare myself for the death and dying aspect. I was reminded that it would not be at all the same as working with HIV/AIDS in the United States, and if I didn’t come at least prepared I may easily be traumatized. So I read the book. While it’s not explicitly about AIDS to any degree, there are some absolutely brutal accounts of events and experiences as a humanitarian relief worker in Somalia, Rwanda, Zaire (which is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Malawi, and more. However, I found more relief as I read than anything because for the first time, no matter how tragic the events were, I really figured out that other people are thinking on the same wavelength as I am. The question is never “why would I go?”, but instead “how could I live with myself if you didn’t?”. Orbinski makes the argument that it’s not heroic, it’s human. In this, I could never agree more thoroughly.
On a whole different note, if you want to send me something while I’m in Namibia, I should probably tell you how. After training this information will change, but I’ll update it as I know more. For the next couple of months mail should go to:
Patrick Culver
Peace Corps Office
P.O. BOX 6862
20 Nachtigal Street
Ausspannplatz
Windhoek
Namibia
Everything is starting to happen. I will write more soon.
2 years ago - read more...
