12 hours to departure

This is a pretty difficult period to put into words. I'll do my best.

How does one approach the idea of being transplanted from familiar, comfortable territory to what is for all intensive purposes a new world? a different order of life?

I'm pretty calm about it. I don't know why, but I've never gotten terribly excited about traveling, the act itself. Usually the fact that I went to Germany, or Greece, or France sank in after the event itself. I was in data collection mode for a few days, and then processed all of the information afterwards. in Ghana i think if i go into data-collection mode I'm going to burn out after the first month, because of how much work that would be to maintain. Instead i need to seriously *live* there, and figure out how to do that quickly. And this is significantly different than people I know who have moved to places like China or Japan or other places. I have a set goal and precisely 3 and a half months to do it in. There's no leeway, I can't take a leisurely pace to the macro-scale of analysis, I need to hit it hard and fast and understand it as quickly as possible so that I can have an impact.

That's what I want, but realistically that might not happen, and might not even be what needs to happen. Maybe that macro-scale analysis should wait like it always has till afterwards, and I should just focusing on gathering the information despite the difference in time. But again, I'd like to be more... aware that I'm in my placement, rather than just disassociated from my physical self for it. For that I think id need a clear understanding of the culture and everything before I did the hard work.

so its sort of a problem for me... id rather that i got 2 months to observe the culture and come to understand it first, and then dive into the work. instead im doing both at the same time. this is trouble for how my brain handles complex situations like this i think.

in any case, id like to think about something else...

where am i right now? who am i right now? what am i expecting?

im feeling ready academically speaking, as in we reviewed a lot of technical information that will come in really handy. but as for psychologically preparedness for traveling, i was in better shape at the start of the week. i seem to have an unconcious preparedness system in place for traveling, and coming to a giant city instead of hitting up a hot desert threw me off by a big margin.

im very eager and hopeful, but im remembering myself a bit. all my social science training is kicking in, slowly but surely, and im remembering what questions to ask and when and how. its tough recalling stuff from that long ago though. its also tough putting myself in the margin of space i want to be. so instead of being deliriously optimistic, i want to be practically realistic but hopeful. not quite there yet. thats sort of what my previous post was about. we were asked to write out our commitments to the people we were working for, i wrote 2, the first being an ideal and the second what i would probably actually do. i wrote the second because i realized the first was simply not going to happen.

i feel as though ive kind of wiped my mind of expectations, though im not terribly sure why. i think this was a concious decision to some degree, because i dont want to have so many preconceptions about what im getting into. rather i just want it to be as though im exiting one river and entering another, changing flows and finding my new rhythm with a new stream of life. expectations feel like theyd get in the way of this, as though id be expecting certain rocks in the river to direct me in certain directions, or as though im expecting bends in that river where they may be none. why go through that trouble when i can let the rest of the river steer me in the right way when i get there? it just means asking a lot more questions of a lot more people i think.

on a side note, i think my doxy is messing with my stomach in some unpleasant ways. not too terribly sure what to do about it, other than hope it tides over. its been a bit better the last day or 2 anyways. hopefully i wont have to switch.