Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Communication with the Peace Corps is a very fickle thing. Throughout the application process, it seemed to be dripping out of a faucet... I waited in agonizing suspense for an interview, and then for a nomination, and then (the most drawn out of all!) medical clearance. After receiving electronic notification of my invitation I still had three days of waiting for the packet to be delivered. However...since the fateful day when my invitation to Namibia arrived, the faucet has been slowly turning, knowledge and facts and numbers and dates have come trickling, flowing, and now pouring out. It hasn't been overwhelming, necessarily, just drastically different from the rest of the process.

Yesterday, I got a new batch of information. About staging! My group will be meeting in Philadelphia on July 23rd - two days earlier than expected! It was moved up to due to flight availability... There are 35 volunteers in my group, and we will be taking a 15 hour flight to South Africa, and then another short flight into Windhoek, Namibia's capital city. So as it turns out, I will actually be arriving in Namibia on the 25th. Even though it's only two days difference, it certainly feels like a large chunk of time has just been shaved off my last few weeks. So today I went into full on organization mode. Forms, notes, and lists galore! There are things to buy, give, pack, write, send and deliver...and just a month left to do it all!

Adventure is out there!

Five weeks to go! Time is just flying by, and what I once thought would never come is now approaching with amazing (and slightly alarming) speed. I'm digging in my heels a bit, determined to make the most of the rest of my time here at home. Today, that included traveling to Washington, DC with my grandmother to do some sight-seeing and overall adventure seeking. As it turned out, adventure was not very hard to find!

Todays events included perusing the African Art and American Indian museums, misreading a parking meter and having our car "relocated", tracking down said car, learning how to navigate the metro, rescuing Deedee (and her bag) from the clutches of an evil metro door, and finding dinner at a lovely little French cafe in Old Town.

So, after a long day of traveling by car, foot, shuttle, metro, and trolley, we are now cozily settled into our hotel room, resting up before another full day tomorrow. Here's to hoping I come close to packing this many memories into each day before I leave. :)

Featured Creature: Bats Galore!

For my next Namibian creature, I've chosen the bat. Truthfully, Namibia is home to more than 30 different species of bat, but there's not very much information about them individually, so I've lumped them together into one post for your reading pleasure. :)

The majority of bat species live on a diet of insects, while some thrive on fruit. They are nocturnal, harmless to humans, and range in size from 30 mm (wingspan) all the way up to 1.5 meters (wingspan)! They are also the only mammal that can achieve true flight (as opposed to animals like sugar gliders who merely glide). A baby bat is called a pup, and the average litter size is just one. Bats are very social animals, they live in large groups called colonies. They do sleep upside down and when it's cold they even like to cuddle together for warmth.

Here's an example of a fruit bat:

A baby pipistrelle bat:

A long eared bat:

Fortunately, I have plenty of experience living with bats (along with everyone who has ever lived on the 4th and 5th floors of the freshman dorm at my university!) and look forward to living side by side with these pest-eating beauties!

Featured Creature: The Wheel Spider

In the spirit of the upcoming Summer Olympics, I've chosen a talented acrobatic animal... the wheel spider!

Also known as the Golden Wheel Spider or the Dancing White Lady Spider, this little creature has developed quite a defense mechanism to escape it's enemy - the parasitic pompilid wasp. These spiders do not build webs, instead they burrow in the sand. If this technique fails, and the spider is unable to fight the wasp off, it will cartwheel away at speeds of up to 1 meter per second! It's pretty amazing...take a look:

* Special shout out to Websta for informing me about this eight-legged friend! :) *

Featured Creature: The Klipspringer

I've decided to start doing some posts more regularly... I'm not sure of all of the topics I'll cover, but I've decided to start with the wildlife of Namibia. :) So...here is my very first featured creature...the klipspringer! 

Now...some of the creatures I might meet in Namibia may not be be very friendly... So I decided to start with a really, really cute one :)

Klipspringers are a very small type of antelope, standing about 58 centimeters tall (side note... I'm making the switch to the metric system...so dust off your conversion guides and put on your thinking caps!). They, unlike a lot of other antelope, do not live in herds - they live in pairs and mate for life. They're very nimble little guys, they walk on the tips of their hooves and easily hop around mountainous terrain. Actually, their name literally means "rock jumper". Klipspringers are herbivores and they get all of their water intake from succulent plants in the mountains, so they never need to drink water! Pretty cool!

A Most Peculiar Mademoiselle.

It occurred to me the other day that, had I lived in the 1800's, I would have been drawn to the west. I would have wanted to farm the plains, or join the gold rush, or in general just go places that people around me wouldn't normally go. When I was younger, I didn't play house or have tea parties... my playtimes usually consisted of pretending I was either an orphan (stowing away on a ship) or stranded in the woods (making myself "dinner" out of wild berries mashed up in pine needle baskets).

However, from what I hear, the adventure of using a latrine and sleeping under a mosquito net wears off fast. So I surely hope there's something deeper than a desire to lead an adventurous life propelling me towards this next step. And there is... but it's hard to put my finger on it. 

To put it simply: I don't think I can be satisfied if I don't go. I'm not content to be "here"...and never experience what it means to be "there". Not just as a tourist, but as a member of a different community. I want to take on a new culture, to allow it to rub off on me. I want to give myself the chance to develop in ways that would never be available to me if I didn't go. Because part of me does believe that no matter how small of an impact I may make on the grand scheme of things, I can still facilitate change. Call me disillusioned, call me unrealistic... but if I can teach one child one thing that somehow changes the course of a life... then it will all be worth it.

And that...is why I'm joining the Peace Corps.