In the last few months I have been trying to do as much as I can to prepare myself so that the next 2 weeks will be as easy as possible for me..
Obviously before going to any country one would like to be informed about that country, so I have tried to read as much about Rwanda as I can handle... Everything from tour guide books to personal blogs, essentially anything that could give me some insight to not only what the culture is like, but also about the history and present. I think like many Americans there is one major thing that comes to mind when one hears Rwanda, so of course I read about the Rwandan genocide. I figured that if I am going to be there I have to read about it and try to gleam even the smallest understanding for myself. Now as much as I 'liked' these books I must say most were at times 'difficult' to read, as in I found myself choked up or crying as I read, but that shouldn't and wasn't a reason not to read them.
Now on the other side of being prepared to go somewhere comes the packing..
What will I really need to bring with me for the next year? This is the question that I have asked myself many times over the past few months, and this is the question that has made me write many a list to try and answer it. Being who I am, I have tried to buy and organize everything I could, as much as I could over the past few months so hopefully this coming week will make packing 'easy' (somehow I don't think it will end up easy). Now since I have been gathering up what I think I will need I will admit I have made some 'fun' purchases.(please note how the fun is in quotes because that fun is my fun, not your fun most likely)... Being the dork that I am I could only but find myself excited to buy and get my handcrank LED flashlights that are seriously the coolest thing I have seen in a while, not to be outdone by my handcrank/plug in/ solar cell speaker I got. So essentially I couldn't wait to use them, so I use them around my house now, cause come on they are the coolest... unfortunately I am pretty sure that is all the fun I am going to get out of packing for the next week because I am of course trying to stay not only as compact as possible(as in # of bags) but also as light as possible(as in I'm gonna be the one carrying the bags)...so here goes me wishing myself luck in packing.
The only other thing that I would like to prepare before I go is the material I could use while teaching. As of right now I don't know what subject I will be teaching, but hopefully in the next week or so I will find out my exact placement so I can then go through all of my lovely text books and figure out a way to bring one or two of them with me.. cause come on if this isn't a reason to use my trig,geometry,calc,physics, or a chem book I don't know what is :)
but seriously I do hope to bring one of my own books not only as a supplemental resource to use in the classroom but also because I am already familiar with it..(guess all that reading the book when the prof said to could actually come in handy..)
Other than that I am just trying to think of some fun stuff to bring that could amuse me and possibly high school kids... I was thinking like twister or travel scrabble or even a domino set.. who knows.. I'm guessing that stuff like that will come down to how much room I have in my bags...
lets just hope I pack like a jackson and not a palladino...
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