And less than six months of being back in the States, I am off on my next adventure across the Atlantic. This time the trip will be a little shorter (if I end up getting on the plane from Dubai to Seattle in June)- only a month long.

This trip has been in the works ever since I was in Ghana. Surprising, right? I actually planned ahead for something instead of waiting until the last minute to figure things out. After a couple of interviews and applications, I will be going with a group of about 20 Gonzaga students to live in Zambezi for 22 days (the other days are travel days and we are also going on a safari). During that time I will be teaching a couple classes of 7th graders with a few other students. No, this is not a service trip where we go “save Africa.” Africa does not need a bunch of privileged students to go visit for a short period of time to help them fix problems they did not even know they had. This is a trip where we are going to learn about and live with incredible people from an incredible community. As westerners, we can really take some tips from Africans on what it means to care about one another. All semester we have been in a class doing a variety of readings that I think are so important for anyone to read before going to an African country. I wish I had thee before going to Ghana. Looking back, a lot of these readings and reflections apply to my experiences there. After having been away from Ghana and looking back at my time there, I have grown to miss the community I lived in. I miss having friends knocking on my door at all hours of the day, and having constant genuine human interactions daily. I kinda even miss the terrible wifi because it forced us to be creative and hilarious in ways that we aren’t very often back home. Although I will never be perfectly ready to go on a trip like this, I am as ready as I will ever be emotionally and physically.

In preparation for this trip, this is what I have managed to pack in (hopefully) under 25 pounds:

At this point I think I have finally kinda mastered the art of packing light, but I still feel like I have way too much stuff for just one month. Oh well, maybe next time I will do better. Also, I can’t pack a lot because we are taking 4-seater bush planes that are super weight sensitive and I don’t want to be the one responsible for bringing the plane down.

Someone once told me that traveling ruins your life, and after going through an entire semester of school back in Spokane, I definitely agree. Not a day went by when I didn’t think about last year. I was constantly chuckling when I thought about Thursdays in Glasgow, bitters with Karmen, and so many other memories that feel so close but far away at the same time. There were many times when I stopped doing homework to figure out where the cheapest flights out of Spokane could take me the next day. I left a bit of my heart in a lot of places with a lot of people, and in a way I never know if my heart will ever be completely full in one place again. In going to Zambia, I am not afraid of being there because I know I will have the time of my life. What I fear is the broken feeling that will haunt me when I come back, but the feeling of my heart being full- even just for a little while is completely worth it.

Catch ya in a month,

-L

P.S. Follow the student/school blog at http://gonzagainzambezi.org