Multiple choice: What is that sensation on my leg?

Imagine this as though it were a flow chart I'm too lazy/busy to put together:

• Oh thank God, it’s just a fly >>  shrug, shake or brush away.
• Nothing there   >>> “Whether paranoia or an emerging neurological disorder, this can’t be good.”
• Just hair blowing in the wind >> “Guess I’ve finally found a compelling reason to shave regularly.”
• A mosquito >>  “Die *profanity of choice,* die.”  Engage in a dance composed of a variety of contortions and slaps in the air in an attempt to assassinate the *profanity* in question. 

I hate mosquitoes with an undying irrational passion. Hate them. Insects I’m fine with, blood I’m fine with, but the combination of the two disturbs me to no end.  Yet they seem to find me, more than the average person, just delicious.

Now I hate them more than ever, because mosquitoes carry malaria, and malaria kills people here. Daily. Unnecessarily. I am sleeping with a bed net and taking anti-malaria drugs, and thank the heavens every day for them.

Fair warning, they will probably be a recurring theme here.  I apologize in advance.

A GINORMOUS spider discovered only postmortem.
I'm posting it because it was cool (when dead), and because
spiders and all other creatures that eat mosquitoes are pretty much
 my favorite animals, ever.

GREETINGS FROM THE WORLD’S NEWEST COUNTRY

Hello all. . . I know I have a serious case of Continental drift. I have  been transitioning between Geneva and South Sudan by way of Rome, and between loose ends, logistics, and an unfortunate accident that has incapacitated my laptop and limited internet access overall, I haven’t had the time or technology to update this.  It also took me 2-3 days to be able to function with the change in weather from cold and rainy to hot, humid, and rainy.  

Making friends by having cool toys and speaking
bad Arabic.

In any case, I have been safely here in South Sudan for just over a week.  I’m living on a Salesian compound in a village called Gumbo just outside Juba.  The compound consists of  a Catholic Church, a primary school run by the Salesian sisters in my community (K-8), a secondary school and Vocational Training Center run by the Salesian Brothers with the help of some other American volunteers.  The latter offers training in automotive maintenance, electronics, computers, with more to come.   The compound is still developing, with new residences, educational buildings, and more going up every day.

First Impressions, for hopeful expansion on everything later)

• To grossly generalize the greater part of a continent, Sub-Saharan Africa is both exactly how it seemed from TV, pictures and movies, and nothing like it seems.   It's also beautiful. 
• If Lewis Carroll had lived in Sub-Saharan Africa during the rainy season, the line would go as follows: Sometimes I've  believed killed as many as six impossible things mosquitoes before breakfast.-- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
• Pretty much everything in this country comes with an acronym of some development agency. . . UN, USAID, UKAID, EU, etc.   The amount of money being invested here is quite remarkable.  Time will tell how it pans out.  The creation of a new country here is definitely a unique experiment in development. All I can do is observe, wish, hope and pray for the best, and give my work here everything that I’ve got.  
• I have witnessed how possible it is to live, and fully/happily, without electricity and running water, but I feel so lucky each and every day to have always had these things. 
• More than anticipated, this is a welcome return to my time studying and opportunity to use Arabic, which I have forgotten volumes of, but still believe it resides somewhere between my ears.  A dialect of Arabic is the main spoken language here, although with the secession from Sudan, they are increasingly transitioning to English.   It’s not dissimilar from Egyptian Arabic, and when I do try to speak I am identified as speaking “masri.”  I am hoping to spend some of my free time sitting in on Arabic classes at the school trying to recapture what I have lost.
• My mental self-preparation for 3+ months of being hot, sweaty and dirty all the time will not have been in vain. 

Mandatory foreigner-in-Africa picture of goats. 

OK, there’s a start.  What do you want to hear more about?   Leave comments, they make me feel loved and important.

Taking stock: an entry in transit

It is strange,  I landed in Cairo with far more trepidation than I did in Juba.   My friends know I compare most everything,  inevitably to dating.  Cairo was like seeing an ex again after some dramatically change,  bringing g up all the baggage that I had with her and uncertain how it would come up.  And I left her on decent terms,  knowing she's different now,  someone who I will probably not know again the way I used to but hat a solid foundation exists for new ties if we did have the chance to become friends. But I didn't know that going in and so landed with great anxious anticipation.  I had somewhat similar sensations returning to the US after my semester abroad.

But Juba is different. Juba is a more or less complete unknown.  Turning to her feels inevitable and important. Less anxiety than a determination to write my story upon her in clear,  fine letters. Not in a white savior mode. . . . I do not aspire to save or change her in any grand way but to just serve to the best of my ability,  offer up whatever skills I have that might make an impact for the better however small.  And to in turn be written upon, but hopefully not in such a way to be unrecognizeable to myself after.  but to be a better version of myself.   So not anxious but curious determined ready for the unknown things that will come from this choice I have made. And opporturnity I have accepted.

Ever thought about what your past self would think of your present? I have pondered this while in transit this week and all in all feel like I am doing ok presently. . . .this is in some way what my college self had in mind.  I am volunteering in an Arabic speaking postconflict country have a few years of marketable work experience that have clarified my skills and interests,  and am en route to a masters degree that will lead me closer to desired skills and developed interests.  Its maybe not perfectnor the maximizing of my potential, whatever that might mean.  I would like to be speaking fluent Arabic rather than the sad version mixed either Spanish and Italian I'm stuck on after Geneva.  Maybe I could have a more prominent job or career path lined up.   Maybe maybe maybe.

Whether I have always chosen the best possible way forward?  Almost certainly not, but will never know otherwise. Have I gotten the life that I had wanted and chosen the life I have gotten? Yes, I recently realized that I had.

I'm filling in the rough sketch of goals and ideas I had a few years ago, have left my values and ideals more or less intact,  have done some pretty memorable things, have chosen my next steps forward of my own free will.  When unpacking I found 4 different currencies and public transit tickets from 6 different cities (Geneva, Paris, Rome, Lyon, Amsterdam, and Chicago/South Bend).  I have lived with people from a dozen different countries. This moment in life feels right even if some bends in the road took me by surprise or were sharper than I anticipated.  And I feel very fortunate,  

I will take it, mosquito bites and all.

Ciao Geneva!

So tonight is my last night in Geneva.  I am heading from one of the oldest, richest nations in teh world to the newest, and one of the poorest, by way of Rome. I do not know what exacty awaits me.

I didn’t get to write everything I wanted to here. There’s plenty more to say, but the time was taken

Getting my nerd on at CERN!

up with other things.  All in all, this has been great. Exactly what I needed at exactly the right time.  I was able to experience some once-in-a-lifetime things at the UN Human Rights Council, work with and meet some incredible people, use my powers of English writing and editing for good, have the time and connectivity to plot my future upon my return to my continent of origin (starting a Master’s degree in Chicago), see Paris, Rome, Amsterdam and more.  Recently,  I saw where they found God (CERN).   At the end, I got to pass the baton to my VIDES USA replacement.   I wouldn’t go to Geneva again without good reason, but was happy to call it home for a while.

I’m also a bit more open as a person, and above all, ready for what comes next.  After listening to diplomats talk ad nauseum for several hours a day to often-dubious effects, over the course of several eeks, I’m so ready to get my hands dirty and make a substantial impact on someone’s life.  Even if I only teach one person one thing, it will suffice to be a welcome change, worthwhile step and much-needed challenge.