Tomorrow I am going for an interview that, if it goes well, will generate the funding I need to go to Africa. If it goes poorly I will not get to go and will actually mail out all the cover letters I've been writing this week and do what I can to find a mid-year replacement teaching position here in the East Bay. I have not chosen to ask my family for their financial support, both because I am afraid they would not offer it to me and because I am too stubbornly proud and independent to admit that at the age of 34 I am not asking for a loan from my parents because I am getting married or having a baby or buying a house--all normal, grown-up things to want to do--I want to go live in a refugee camp in Ghana. Not as worthy a pursuit, perhaps. And since my days of millionaire partners, delicious as those times were when I was living in them, are long over I am realizing that my plan for the year is almost certainly about to be derailed right here.
I had to sit down and have a serious talk with myself, and then cry for awhile, yesterday because in my mind this trip has come to symbolize many, many things--some realistic and some not. If I do not go, it does not mean my plan was not sound or I have failed. It just means I am not going.
But, the man with whom I scheduled my interview was very warm and funny and positive and although we have never met one another we know a lot of the same people and when we were trying to find a date and time that worked for both of us to meet, and found one, he said "Ah! Winner winner, chicken dinner--we found our appointment. See you Friday at two."
That's a great expression and bodes well, I hope.
Have I mentioned I am losing my mind over this? I don't know if I should go to REI and buy a mosquito net to hang over my Ghanaian bed or to Kinko's to buy more resume paper. I am also struggling with the concept of distribution of wealth because, while the amount of money I'm interested in seems like a lot to me (i.e., more than one of my teaching-salary paychecks but maybe that's not saying a lot) and is a fortune in the economic lives of the people I want to go serve, it is not that much more than the price a parent in the class of one of my colleagues paid for a pair of shoes. How do I know? Because that parent, when asked to send in a shoebox for a project, sent one in with the price tag still attached. Mm hmm.
This post is crabby and should not get published but I might not be able to control myself. "How's the blog coming?" Mark asked just now on his way to go watch Lost before bed. "Snarky," I said. "Like you're getting your frustrations out through writing?" he wanted to know. "YES--exactly," I replied.
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