5 Days.

Its December 4th, and I have five days left. I’ve been in Windhoek For the past ten days finalizing my Peace Corps contract- taking care of medical, returning official PC effects, and signing documents.

And I’ll admit – I’ve anxious. I’ve gone through quite a few things in my life so far, but its quite obvious I’ve never attempted anything on this grand a scale before. Because for the first time in my life, I’m experiencing the full weight of stress. Granted, there are reasons. Visas, entry requirements, figuring out places to stay, contacting PC volunteers in other countries, negotiating the Sudan, figuring out the Egypt-Israel-Syria-Turkey route…there’s plenty on my plate.

And now, to show for it, I’ve developed an impressive rash of blisters across my hands. Just the fingers and my palm so far. All the literature I can find indicates a type of eczema, caused by both stress and heat.

Great. Nothing like an itchy plethora of sores on your hands while getting ready…

Peace Corps has us down in the capital almost a week before we’re supposed to, thanks to the national election this past weekend. They would rather have us in the capital and not driving or finding rides during this period.

Which means that right now, I’m not really doing anything. Currently, I’m sitting in my comfy chair in my hotel room listening to Simon & Garfunkle and wondering what in fact, it would feel like to be the last living boy in New York.

Chaz and Natalie are both here in town with me getting ready to depart. Natalie’s mother arrived in a today, Nat will take her out and show her this country for what its worth – Chaz and I are leaving on the 9th, with a car to Botswana. And the trip begins.

The beginning has begun to mold - Chaz and I successfully received our Visas to both Egypt and Kenya. Now just Mozambique and Tanzania... We're heading down to Mariental tomorrow to bond with Eric - and further plan where exactly in Mozambique we're going to meet him.

And oh, at the time of this writing, I've officially finished my two years with Peace Corps. I'm now officially a "Returned Peace Corps Volunteer." - an RPCV. Cheers.

So, 5 days. Here we go.

(Update - hands healed.)

A Tentative Schedule

So here are: a VERY brief and tentative schedule, what the coming trip will look like, with a few additions on things that must be done. The exhaustive list is being prepared now. But so everyone knows:

► AFRICA
1) Namibia, Nov 2009 - THIS IS RIGHT NOW!!! Chaz and I will start here, soon.
2) Botswana, Dec 2009. Swim in Okavango Delta. Maybe pet a hippo.
3) South Africa, Dec 2009. Try not to die. Drink some wine.
4) Lesotho, Dec 2009
5) Swaziland, Jan 2009
6) Mozambique, Jan 2009, Meet up with Eric and Natalie in Maputo. Travel along the coast, cross the Zambezi River and enter Malawi.
7) Malawi, Jan/Feb 2010: Get schisto in Lake Malawi?
8) Tanzania, Feb 2010
9) Kenya, Feb/Mar 2010, See Kilimanjaro. Probably climb 2 steps. Return later in life.
10)Rwanda, Feb/Mar 2010, Visit Mass graves
11)Uganda, Feb/Mar 2010, Visit Ruth and Embassy
12) Ethiopia, Mar 2010. Avoid land pirates.
13) Eritrea, Mar 2010. Fly across the Sudan to Egypt, hoping to not get shot down. Will probably skip, will leave out of Ethiopia
14) Egypt, March 2010: Cairo. Visit the pyramids. Attempt Sphinx riddle for universal knowledge. Leave for the holy land, Israel.

►THE MIDDLE EAST / EURASIA:

15) Israel- March 2010 – April 2010: Jerusalem and The Dead Sea, part ways with Chaz? Maybe. No idea yet. Go to Meggido, see if I'm the one that starts apocalypse.
16) Lebanon and Syria… Maybe skip - I really want to go to Damascus...perhaps reevaluate later. Say goodbye to Natalie and Heather.
*Maybe talk eric and chaz into going to Turkey, just for Istabul. or Constantinople. What it's calling itself these days. Crazy kids.

►EUROPE:

17-18) Greece, Italy
- April 2010: Take a boat or fly from Middle East. Eat tons of Feta. Visit Eric's girlfriend in Italy. I'm probably going to drag him to Messina. And Cinque Terra. and Rome....and....well, you get the idea.
19,20) Spain / France
- April 2010: At least Barcelona! May fly through. Want to see Nice, Paris, and Madrid too.
21) Belgium
- April 2010 – May 2010: Brussels sprouts. and Chocolate.
22.) Netherlands
- May 2010: Debauchery in Amsterdam. Meet up with Eric's buddy. Probably some of mine too. Go see Van Gogh Museum again. Stare at "Wheatfield with Crows" again for at least an hour.
23.) England
- May 2010 : Have a pint. Breathe. Probably take advantage of the health system and get a dental exam and physical
24,25) Scotland/Ireland
- May 2010: Massive Celebration. Swim in Guinness. Play wingman for Eric so he can mack on some redheads. Drink more Guinness. Fly back to the states drowning in debt. Remember to take Guinness home with me.

fin.

Go Big, or Go Home.

If you know ANYONE in ANY of these countries, willing to put up with me crashing a night or two, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me know. it would help me out SO damn much.

T-minus one week. Jebus.

What I Dream About

Thanks to anonymous source that sent me this, I've posted for you all to see. For those that obviously don't know, I work at the Cheetah Conservation Fund of Otjiwarongo, Namibia. Which makes something like THIS so enjoyable... Behold, the things dreams are made of.



"Professor Sangbae Kim designer of the Stickybot and a Robotic designer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Is trying to understand how he can replicate natural animal mechanisms by creating a robot inspired by the cheetah.

The idea is to build a prototype robot from a construction of lightweight carbon-fiber-foam that will then be able to match the cheetah's speed of 70 miles per hour.

Over the next 18 months, Kim and four other MIT graduate students are going to start constructing the prototypes. Starting with a computer model of the robotic cheetah to establish the optimal limb length, weight, gait and torque of the hip and knee joints.

It's an ambitious project. Current wheeled robots are efficient, but can be slow in rough terrains. For instance, iRobot's PackBot, which is used by the U.S. military, can only travel at speeds of up to 5.8 miles per hour."

I have to turn my head and WHAT?

So I sat and documented and took inventory of my first aid kit. The important reason why I’m posting it, is that hopefully someone could suggest something they think would be beneficial or something important that I’m forgetting. Got it? Good. I also plan on bringing a book on first aid, as well as the U.S Army Survival manual given to me by Professor Urcuyo. Thanks! Here we go, please make comments and suggestions.

Instruments / Applications
- Latex Exam Gloves
- Surgical Tweezers
- Adhesive Tape
- Bandage Scissors
- 2 Instant Cold Compresses
- Single Use Thermometers

Bandages / Wraps
- Sterile Dressing Pads
- Trauma Pads
- Sterile Eye Pads + Patch
- Fabric Bandages
- Ace Bandage
- SteriStrip Skin Closures
- New Skin Liquid Bandage

Wound Dressing/Ointments
- Neomycin Ointment
- Equate/Neosporin Ointment w/Pain relief
- Burn Cooling Gel w Antibiotic
- Sterile Swabs
- Alcohol Prep Pads
- Athletes Foot Cream

Water Purification
- Silver Dihydrogen citrate (Chemical)
- Steri-pen (UV light)

Antibiotics + Fever reducers
- Tylenol Liqui-gels
- Extra Strength Non-Aspirin
- Doxycycline (Also my anti-malarial)
- Ciprofloxacine
- Vigamox Eye Antibiotic

Thats it. Any suggestions would be incredibly useful. Thanks Guys.

Its the beginning!!!

So we've ended the last lap - I've got a little of a month over until I finish my Peace Corps experience and begin something a little different. I've begun packing, which I will keep everyone updated on, so hopefully, someone can give me advice on something I'm forgetting or should bring along.

To begin us off, I've got the first thing packed. let's kick start this - I've packed my towel. Why? Well, theres a quite a list on the usefulness of towels. In fact, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels...

"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."


One thing, Down. Next - I'll probably post the current state of my first aid kit.
Cheers.

Random Quidbits

So little funny things I wanted to share. The first could be my letter. You see, each PC volunteer has to write themselves a letter in the future. You write it at Reconnect, (3 months in,) to be opened at COS. Since I went to my Completion of Service meeting last month, I got my letter. Here it goes:

Dear Future Nick,
Congrats. If you're reading this, you've survived Peace Corps. I'm impressed. Really, not even I thought you would make it all the way through. But you survived it. Since you've heard about Peace Corps for long enough, I'll not be like everyone else and write down what you want to get done, cause let's face it, what are the odds of that? I don't really have any words of encouragement, because now the hard part begins. Grad school? MCATs? Foreign Service exams? If Karen hasn't found someone better than you, at least you have her going for you. Good Luck figuring it out - I'm just glad I'm not you. Cheers,

Past Nick

--------------
Man, I'm such a wiseguy - even to myself. My past self is such a dick. I wish I could be like Calvin and go back in time to beat up my former self.
--------------

The second thing is that I have a conversation with my father couple days ago on the phone, when I admitted a problem. I think I have an addictive personality.

Me: "Dad, here's the issue, I think I have an addiction.
Dad: How so?
Me: I've always wanted adventure. And each time - the experience gets much bigger and more erratic. First one was Road trip across America with Shannon and Amy. Then came wet caving with Ish and Karen. Then Skydiving. Then Bungee jumping. Then two years in Sub-Saharan Africa. And Now I'm gearing up for another one!! Backpacking and Hitchhiking across Africa.
Dad: Well, you WERE always like that. Whats going to be next after that, you think?
Me:At this rate? The next adventure would have to be.....The Moon
Dad: Well thats....wait, what?!?

Not going to lie - starting to get nervous. I found this quotation from Mark Jenkins I love.

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.”

I've been there before. And I'll be there again very soon.

Stranger even still.

So two months since a post. Almost my longest absence. But if you had internet like I had, you'd understand.

So lets see, since last time, I've become scheduling master, volunteer coordinator, and been handed more and more responsibility. Its somewhat interesting to see how the health care debate since my last post REALLY hasn't changed since July.

So my Peace Corps completion of service meeting was two weeks ago. I'm done... well, almost. I finish here November 26th. After that, well, we'll get to that.

But two years, don't they go by in a blink? The definition of bittersweet - many friends are finishing their Master's - I've hitchhiked across the African Savannah. Friends are getting married - I've participated in traditional medicine services.

Unbeknownst to you, I never thought I would actually have lasted two years. Seriously. Two years without Karen, my brother, parents, and friends by my side? How I made it, I'll never know.

So its becoming around that time where I need to conclude my affairs. I need to start to anding over my responsibilities and duties to other qualified volunteers and staff.

I also need to start preparing...for my journey. Yes, theres another one on the horizon. Its becoming clear to me that neither Karen or my parents have been filling anyone in - but I'm not coming home come December. Not right away at least.

Current plan? Be interested; Be interesting. It looks like Chaz and I may have a ride available to us, and spend some time around botswana, zambia, zimbabwe, SA, Lesotho, and Swaziland. After that, We'll meet up with Natalie and Eric and keep heading north.

This should be fun.
or as my mother remarked, "Please come back alive, smarter than you are right now."

One can only hope.