…is a pretty good summary of how I’m feeling right now. Excited? Of course! Terrified? You bet. Right now, sitting at my desk at home a safe 16 hours before I leave for the airport, the sheer magnitude of what I’m trying to do is finally starting to come home to me. I’m proposing to go to a country half-way around the world, where the culture and language are totally foreign, and become part of a new family, all while taking the same number of credit hours I do in the United States. I get terribly homesick just from leaving Chicago for Georgetown. Every time I leave my family I feel like I’m dropping a lead weight around my neck. So I’ve decided to go… farther away?
Part of my mind is simply rejecting the notion that I’m going at all. That part of my mind is exclaiming, “Surely you’re too timid to do something this different from your normal routine!” But, to be honest, one of the reasons why I’m going at all is to squash that part of my mind down flat. I’m going to prove to myself that I can accomplish incredible things, even if they seem overwhelming at first. I’m going to redefine my limitations, my opinions, and my relationships. And I am going, last but certainly not least, to have an absolutely amazing time, gd-it!
The thing that I’m most apprehensive about right now is meeting my host family. My family is such an important part of my life at home that I just can’t imagine getting through my study abroad experience without some sort of familial support. Therefore, one of my biggest goals is to forge relationships with the members of my host family that will transcend the time that I spend in the country. I would love to keep in contact with my host family after I leave Senegal, and I would love to have the kind of relationship with them where I could come back to visit them on my own time. While I know that I’ll have almost four months to get to know the family that I’ll be living with, I desperately want (and already am beginning to worry about) to make a good first impression. Which brings me to the subject of… gifts.
One of the first interactions I am likely to have with my host family is to give them gifts in thanks for their hospitality. These gifts aren’t supposed to be anything particularly fancy, they’re more like tokens of good will. But there is a hitch: we don’t actually know anything about the host families we’re going to be staying with yet. The best that you can do is to try to get things that anyone or any number of people can enjoy. Since everything that I’ve read says it’s a good idea to bring things that represent your home town, I have a CD of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing Dvorak’s New World Symphony, a Chicago Bulls mug, and a Great American Landscapes Calendar. I also have a frisbee that I can give to any kids that might or might not be in the host family, but if there are no kids all that happens is that I get a frisbee. While I think I did a good job of choosing gifts that anyone could enjoy, I’m still worried about it. Gift-giving is a very personal thing; the kind of gifts we give reflects a lot about who we are, what we have, and what we think of others. I hope that my host family will approve.
On the plus side, my packing marathon earlier this evening has left me too tired to do a whole lot of worrying. I now fully understand why my program director recommended that we pack a few days early. Not only have I tired myself out by leaving the packing this late, but I’ve also only left myself a 4-hour window of opportunity tomorrow morning to get the emergency provisions that I had forgotten about. Right now I have one large suitcase sitting at just under 50 pounds and my back-pack as a carry-on. If all goes well, I will also arrive with one large suitcase and my back-pack (I’ve heard that checked luggage often goes awry en route to Dakar). A bientot!
