One Month

It is about one month before I leave for my trip, and the anticipation is beginning to get to me. This will be the longest I will have ever been away from Minneapolis. Three and a half months is a pretty long time to be away from home, and there are going to be many things that I will miss for sure. I do not know if there will be such an awesome chain of lakes to roll around in Namibia, but I'm betting against it. At least I will not have to worry about snow emergencies while I'm there.
The program that I am traveling with is offering what seems to be some great opportunities to learn about the history of the region and also interaction with people who have or have been effected by the previous government structure. Apartheid history is very interesting to me and this trip will hopefully grow my understanding of this period in history and how things have changed since apartheid ended.
Keeping this in mind, my main goal of this trip is to connect with the people of the countries I visit. Not only the leaders and government officials, but also the average person. This may seem like a cliche thing to say, but the truth is that many people go on these types of trips thinking they are going to do the same thing, only to be shocked and traumatized to the point where the effects of what was seen are lost. My hope for myself is that this does not happen to me, and my previous trip to Cape Town may help in not getting messed up by what I see. Yes the conditions are poor for many of the citizens of southern Africa, and yes there are things that upset me about how and why these conditions persist. The greatest lesson that my first trip gave me is that there can be joy found in almost every situation. My intention for this blog is to capture this joy anywhere I see it and share it with you. Hopefully someone out there reads it. I am not about to burden the readers of this blog with sob stories and rants about how terrible things are. There are enough of those kinds of things on the Internet and TV. Hopefully my blog has a more positive effect because of its positive nature.