How long are you going for?

About this time last year I started applying for the Peace Corps, when it was just my summer project that kept me productive on the weekends. Now I am months away from moving to Ghana, and a bit overwhelmed about where I will be purchasing my Teva's, wondering how in God's name I will be paying off my loans, flirting with the idea of learning Twi (time would be better spent downloading the lessons and actually learning it), and figuring out what it means to serve people. I have been formulating answers to the endless questions: "How long are you going for again?" "Do you even have training to be a health worker?" and my favorite, "So you aren't going to be a missionary?"

My college roommate Heather called me a couple of weeks after graduation and asked if it had all hit me yet. With the exception of a panic attack while reading The Poisonwood Bible (who wouldn't between pages of that one before venturing to Africa?), it really hasn't. It isn't quite real. I can close my eyes and try to picture myself in some village eating fufu, but with my AC blasting and MTV in the background it has hardly become my reality. 

"You know what is going to happen," she promises me. "One day you are going to wake up and be in Ghana. One day you will be here and the next you will be there."

I'll take that.