I created this blog because many people have expressed interest in following my adventures while I'm working in Ghana as the first person in a hybrid IBM / Peace Corps Response role, focusing on the "Let Girls Learn" initiative. However, I think I'll learn a lot so it's also a way of forcing me to process various personal and professional lessons resulting from this experience. Hopefully others find some of these lessons useful or at least entertaining.
I have worked with the Peace Corps before on TechKobwa technology camps for girls in Rwanda. During that camp I teach a module about internet safety and, in that module, explain why sharing too much personal information can create vulnerabilities. I've been torturing my brain to determine how to write a blog about my overseas adventures without letting the entire world (or the small fragment of it that happens to read this blog) know that I'm overseas and thus, not home. I'm drawing a blank because it's difficult to write a travel blog without giving away your hand that you're traveling. So, instead, let me say that if you are a ne'er-do-well reading this blog in search of homes to invade, please be aware that someone is still staying in mine. Let me also say that I don't know what you'd find of value in my house anyway unless you have a strong interest in 20th century self-assembly, particle board with faux wood veneer furniture. I just recommend you invest your efforts elsewhere.
So, with that preamble, let us begin...Lesson 1: 3 weeks or 3 months. I entitled this article as such because aside from the various paperwork and shots, I've been a bit occupied with packing for the past few weeks. Prior to this adventure, my longest trip has been for a little over 3 weeks. When I first began my mental packing list for a 3 month visit, I envisioned stacks of suitcases that could keep me competing garment for garment, case for case, astride the likes of Lady Mary Crawley from Downton Abbey. However, the reality sunk in rather quickly that I will not have a lady's maid in tow so unless I want to double as a pack mule on this trip, I needed to simplify.
As I sit at t-2 days from departure with my one checked and one carry-on bag packed, I realized that there is a magical break-point at which the duration of your trip is immaterial. For me, that point seems to be somewhere around 3 weeks because the luggage I have assembled is about what I take on a 3 week journey. I've had this revelation: the major difference between 3 weeks and 3 months of traveling is simply the number of times you do laundry not the volume of stuff you bring. You take basically the same volume of stuff and then do laundry more times between your departure and return.
So, my bags are packed and I'm ready to go aside from the pesky detail of my passport with affixed visa stamp not yet being repatriated with me. I'm looking forward to learning many additional and more profound lessons as I work with the Peace Corps, the rest of my IBM Corporate Services Corps team, our partners, most importantly the Ghanaian people, and most especially Ghanaian girls. It is a distinct honor to be invited to help increase girls' educational opportunities. Coming from very humble economic circumstances myself, education dramatically changed my stars, my fortune and my life. It is my turn to do for others what so many did for me.
I have worked with the Peace Corps before on TechKobwa technology camps for girls in Rwanda. During that camp I teach a module about internet safety and, in that module, explain why sharing too much personal information can create vulnerabilities. I've been torturing my brain to determine how to write a blog about my overseas adventures without letting the entire world (or the small fragment of it that happens to read this blog) know that I'm overseas and thus, not home. I'm drawing a blank because it's difficult to write a travel blog without giving away your hand that you're traveling. So, instead, let me say that if you are a ne'er-do-well reading this blog in search of homes to invade, please be aware that someone is still staying in mine. Let me also say that I don't know what you'd find of value in my house anyway unless you have a strong interest in 20th century self-assembly, particle board with faux wood veneer furniture. I just recommend you invest your efforts elsewhere.
So, with that preamble, let us begin...Lesson 1: 3 weeks or 3 months. I entitled this article as such because aside from the various paperwork and shots, I've been a bit occupied with packing for the past few weeks. Prior to this adventure, my longest trip has been for a little over 3 weeks. When I first began my mental packing list for a 3 month visit, I envisioned stacks of suitcases that could keep me competing garment for garment, case for case, astride the likes of Lady Mary Crawley from Downton Abbey. However, the reality sunk in rather quickly that I will not have a lady's maid in tow so unless I want to double as a pack mule on this trip, I needed to simplify.
As I sit at t-2 days from departure with my one checked and one carry-on bag packed, I realized that there is a magical break-point at which the duration of your trip is immaterial. For me, that point seems to be somewhere around 3 weeks because the luggage I have assembled is about what I take on a 3 week journey. I've had this revelation: the major difference between 3 weeks and 3 months of traveling is simply the number of times you do laundry not the volume of stuff you bring. You take basically the same volume of stuff and then do laundry more times between your departure and return.
So, my bags are packed and I'm ready to go aside from the pesky detail of my passport with affixed visa stamp not yet being repatriated with me. I'm looking forward to learning many additional and more profound lessons as I work with the Peace Corps, the rest of my IBM Corporate Services Corps team, our partners, most importantly the Ghanaian people, and most especially Ghanaian girls. It is a distinct honor to be invited to help increase girls' educational opportunities. Coming from very humble economic circumstances myself, education dramatically changed my stars, my fortune and my life. It is my turn to do for others what so many did for me.
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