And so it begins.

"All news out of Africa is bad. It made me want to go there, though not for the horror, the hot spots, the massacre-and-earthquake stories you read in the newspaper; I wanted the pleasure of being in Africa again. Feeling that the place was so large it contained many untold tales and some hope and comedy and sweetness, too -- feeling that there was more to Africa than misery and terror [...]" 

-- Paul Theroux*, in the opening lines of Dark Star Safari (2002)

Thesis statement for the next two years, right there. 






*Interesting side-note: Theroux (a wildly talented travel writer and novelist) was a member of one of the first volunteer groups sent to Malawi in 1963, and he became one of the most controversial figures in Peace Corps history after being declared persona non grata by Hastings Banda's regime. I don't intend on following in his footsteps.

The Things She Carried

I leave in about a week and the scales and calculators of my brain have been working hard -- weighing the benefits of bringing quinoa against the lifeblood necessity of packing Nutella, chasing down the shapeshifting mirage known as "business casual" (which I've decided is actually a mass cultural delusion that doesn't exist), and having little logical glitches where I say things like, "Okay, tell me honestly what I should do here, because if I don't bring a towel I think I can fit like, six more books." And, at least a few times a day, I've been feeling the heft of the next two years -- trying to glimpse them through the haze, and marveling at all the possibility they contain.

If there's one really, truly, supremely maddening paradox about this whole moving-to-another-continent business, it is this: in order to live with fewer possessions, one must first acquire more possessions. And if there's one parallel skill that helps when squeezing your life into 2/3 of your bodyweight, it's being good at Tetris.

Good news! I'm pretty okay at Tetris.