And So It Begins

I'm packing up for my trip tomorrow. I'll be taking a overnight flight and arrive in Amsterdam on the 30th. I'll stay with my Uncle Grant for the day and then fly from there to the Kilimanjaro Airport. There will be a driver from Cross Cultural Solutions waiting for me once I get there.

Right now should be the moment when I get that fluttering feeling in my stomach, but there's nothing. I haven't genuinely been nervous at all in the preparation for this trip. Maybe because I've been keeping in the present, building a cardboard robot with Justin and helping with the filming of the MC Lars "Guitar Hero Hero." Maybe when I step into the airport I'll finally get the dropping feeling of leaving home for a foreign place.

But what's more likely is that I won't get nervous at all because I don't truly have a home right now. I mean, there's my parent's place, but ever since I left for college it was never really my home any more. A house is the building that you use for shelter, but a home is the concept of a place that you live in, a place that is yours.

I also like to tell myself that I'm not going to experience any culture shock in Tanzania. Although, deep down I know that I am going to have culture shock, but I feel like I might not go through shock as badly as some of my fellow volunteers. My concept of what causes culture shock is when someone is used to a normal way of life and when they go to a foreign place they either can't deal with the change or they expect everyone there to live by their concept of a normal way of life. My way of life isn't normal even in my own country and so I think I might have an easier time living among the Tanzanian way of life.

Lastly, I think that I have been a little anxious about my trip in that I've been overly irritable lately. So if I have snapped or lost my patience with anyone lately, I'm sorry, I don't want to leave on bad terms with anyone if I can avoid it. Also, if anyone would like me to contact them please leave me you email or home address. I can't make outgoing calls to the US from the Cross Cultural Solutions home base, but I'll do my best to send you post cards or emails as often as I can.