here we go

it is 8:50am here in nashville, and i am slowly waking up. two and a half hours from now i will arrive at the nashville airport to meet my team. i have spent the last two days trying to wrap my mind around the fact that i am going back to south africa. it quite literally blows my mind, and to be honest, i am having a difficult time believing it is true. i won't believe it until i am sitting safely on my (18 hour) flight out of washington on my way to johannesburg. then it's just a short flight from joburg to cape town.

i have also had to continually remind myself that this trip will be vastly different than last year. for one, we will be in ocean view and not red hill this year. i didn't realize that until last night, and it made me kind of sad. i am not worried about it because i wanted a different experience this year. however, i had it in my mind that i would maybe get to see pastor clayton, mama zuleka (though i had heard that she was on the eastern cape with her ill father), shawn, hopi, ronald, and so many others. but this is how it is, and i will jump in at ocean view just as i did in red hill.

with this being a service learning/study abroad trip, the dynamics will be very different as well. yet for me, i think my purpose is going to be the same as of any global outreach trip with belmont. my goal is to go and support the already existing organization (living hope) and to provide encouragement. i know that there is so much more that i can learn from these people than i can teach them. so my heart is open. i have my rand (money) from last year so that i will be ready to go once we land.

i also have all the texts for the two classes this trip encompasses. for both "questions that matter" and "third-year writing" we are reading things fall apart by chinua achebe. in addition to that for "questions that matter" we are reading tracing the footsteps of god by c.s. song. third-year writing texts include country of my skull by antjie krog, kaffir boy by mark mathabane, and no future without forgiveness by desmond tutu. so, basically, i have a ton of reading to do. i also have to keep a journal for each class which i am actually pretty excited about. it means that my trip will be completely chronicled from two different perspectives the entire time because each journal requires different things. those journals will most likely make up a good bit of this blog.

well, i've wasted enough time on here this morning. my flight leaves at 1:13pm. africa, here i come.