ARC + PCV

I leave tomorrow! You know it is official because I have a vest now :) I thought it would be kind of fun to read back over the post I put up before I left for Bots; I was so incredibly nervous, and didn't have a chance in hell of understanding what I was about to do. This obviously feels different because it is different. It's three weeks instead of 27 months, and it is relief work instead of development, but I'm still nervous. When I visited Botswana this year I brought back two cans of chakalaka which is one of my tswana favorites. I ate the first one almost immediately and decided to save the second one for a special occasion...guess who ate chakalaka tonight? I'm a total sucker for poetic justice and symbolism so I can't begin to describe how comforting it was to be eating a meal that I had so many nights in my house in Ramokgonami. It all just felt really right, at a time when things haven't really felt right in a while.

Exhibit A

The apartment is a bit of a mess at the moment, but I have been able to find pretty much everything I will need, and probably a bunch of shit I won't. The biggest win of the evening is that while running around looking for sun glasses, I found the solar charger I had given up on two days ago. In case you were wondering what it looks like to pack for three weeks of disaster relief, behold exhibit A. I know it looks like a hot mess, but I actually am pretty proud of it. It will all fit into my pack, and I can't really think of much that I can't tackle with this gear. I also didn't need to purchase much, which was delightful.

I'm really excited to meet the other Volunteers in this group. There are 13 of us, and by the looks of things we have served all over the place. I sorta assumed that it would be mostly South or Central American Volunteers, who spoke Spanish, but we have folks that served in Burkina Faso, Kyrgyzstan and Rwanda. When I went to go pick up my Mission Card and vest, the people in the Disaster Relief unit there were incredibly confused as to how I got "roped into this." That has been a pretty common question throughout the past week actually. The truth is, I can't imagine having this opportunity and not taking it. Service has always been such an important part of my life, and it costs me very little (we can talk about emotional toll in another post, but even with that I feel like I come out in the black.)

I need an adventure, and as nervous as I am, I couldn't be more excited for this, whatever this unknown, unplanned, unexpected thing that this is.

MSP ---> JFK ---> SJU

Peace Corps + American Red Cross = Adventure

~Claire/Tlotlo