Leaving tomorrow!

Hey everybody!

So this is my new blog, which I hope to be updating regularly from Africa. I leave tomorrow for Dakar, the capital of Senegal, where I will spend the next 39 days helping out at the Maison d'Espoir, or the House of Hope for those who do not parlez-vous francais. I am a combination of excited and nervous. Excited because I am traveling to a new place, will be meeting new and different people, and because I feel that God has prompted me to undertake this journey and that if I am open to listen, He has some (or hopefully many!) interesting things in store. Nervous because I am traveling to another continent by myself to a country very different from my own or any other that I have ever visited. Once I board the plane at JFK, in less than 8 hours I will go from being in the majority (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in America) to being very much a minority (a tall English-speaking Christian white boy in a country of black French-speaking Muslims). Needless to say, I am going to stick out. I don't really like like attracting attention to myself, but I think it might be inevitable in Africa. And once I open my mouth and attempt to speak French, it will become unmistakable that I am very far from home.

Fortunately - I am very happy to report - my excitement far outstrips my nervousness. Right now anyway, haha. We'll see if I still feel that way if the Senegalese cuisine doesn't quite agree with my digestive tract right off the bat. Maybe its naivete, maybe ignorance is bliss. There's so much I don't know - what will the people and the boys I'm working with be like? what will my housing be like? how will the food taste? (and will my stomach accept it??) how quickly will I catch on to speaking French? what will fill my days? did I bring enough bug spray? Part of my excitement is not knowing everything. But I do know the most important thing - that God has prompted and provided for me to undertake this and that He'll be with me. I'm so excited to meet the boys living at the House and to get to know them!

Anyway, back to packing. Shorts are a no-go in Senegal, so I've been told that scrub pants are my best bet for keeping cool. I guess in Senegal wearing shorts is perceived as juvenile. But wearing medical pants - even if I have no medical training beyond the Boy Scout First Aid merit badge and it's not Halloween - is ok. Hmmmmmm... Here's me modeling my new wardrobe: