My Life is a Chip (and that's alright)

Blinking at the daylight first thing in the morning and remembering where I am has been a beautiful experience. I even love hearing the Muslim call to prayer (broadcast over loudspeakers at a nearby Mosque) around 5:30 every morning, because every day has a new feeling about it and I'm enthralled with being awake. Today there was a beautifully powerful thunderstorm–I certainly couldn't have predicted that when I'd opened my eyes! (Maybe my weather app could have, but I'm pretty conservative about using data here, haha!)

I'm nervous and not nervous about site placement. I'm saying it that way because it depends on what frame of mind I'm in–sometimes I'm very worried... afraid of failure, mostly... and other times I'm calm, acknowledging that I trust the process. Some of these humans have been doing this for longer than I've been alive, of course I trust them to put me where I need to be.

Not in the sense that a place will "need" me–I'm sure they'd get along just fine without a 22-year-old Westerner asking them a zillion questions about what will probably be, to them, very mundane things–but rather, the place where my soul needs to be. To learn and try and fail and grow as much as I possibly can from this experience.

Site placement is on my mind (and on everyone's mind here, really) because the interviews for it were this week (I just had mine yesterday). Each interview was conducted by five people. One of those five was the Country Director himself, but most of the others were the teachers who've been guiding us through training. They asked us anything they wanted, all while paging intently through binders of paperwork. The questions they asked me ranged from "Tell me about ASL (American Sign Language, which I've taken a few semesters of)," to more pertinent questions, such as "How would you feel living with a homestay family for the entire two years?" and "Would you mind being a 'starter'?" (starter = the first Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) to ever be placed in that particular village).

I'm open. I applied, at the beginning of this process, to go anywhere and do anything. It's a perspective that's worked for me at least up until now, so I think I'll stick with it. Let  the chips fall where they may.

We get to see the two or three options of sites that the interviewers have chosen for us on December 1st, and then we have until December 5th to put those options in order of preference. Peace Corps' final decisions will be shared with us on December 9th! I'll keep you updated :)