Next Crazy Venture

“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” (Kerouac)

I pulled this quote from my quote bag in a hotel room in Wyoming. This was after a week long camping extravaganza with my Daddy and packing up Penelope and leaving Missoula. I was sipping my smuggled Coldsmoke, trying to blink back tears when the sudden weight of my year and my upcoming journey hit me. I spent the most wonderful and challenging year in Missoula; Botswana never felt real to me, until that moment.

One afternoon in Lincoln, I was visiting my Granny and I had her pull a quote from the quote bag, she too pulled same quote. A week later while my Mum was helping me pack, I had her pull a quote from the bag. She too pulled the same quote.

Bots-13 PST is coming to a close, we only have a few more weeks left. Site announcements have been made, I am looking forward to November 16th with a mix of excitement, trepidation, anxiety, joy, relief, and a certain amount of disbelief. I keep thinking back to the Kerouac quote over and over again. Leaving PST will be bitter-sweet, I have come to rely on 32 other people in ways that I would have never imagined before.

My site is Lehututu, Botswana a small-ish village in the Kalahari Desert. It is perhaps 7 or 8 hours away from Gabs by bus. My designated shopping village is Jwaneng, a good 5 or 6 hours away by bus. It is my shopping village since it has the closest reliable ATM in it. My primary placement is at the Lehututu Junior Secondary School and I can do secondary projects in the village. As of right now, I am not sure about what my housing situation is like, I do know that I am in the village as opposed to the school compound. We have IST (In-Service Training) in January and from the time we are dropped off at our villages until IST we are “on lockdown” which means we are not to leave our village unless we are going to our shopping village. During this time our primary focus is to be integrating into the community and doing a community assessment. This will help us focus our projects and goals for our service.


My house is a little one bedroom house called a "2 1/2 room house" is a bedroom, sitting room and a half room that is a kitchen. I have a tin roof and no electricity!

I am both excited and worried shitless about lockdown. I have never been good with free time. I am the girl who takes 18 graduate level classes in one semester, working a few jobs and doing internships on top of it. All my life I have been go go go. Fortunately, PST has been a nice transition from go go go to free time. We have class Monday thru Friday from 830-late-ish afternoon, after class I come home and hang with my family, read and practice my Setswana. On Saturdays we have class until noon and then I spend the afternoon with fellow trainees until our curfew which is “sunset” But Sundays are the hard days. Sundays are the days that are unscheduled.

Here is to the next crazy venture in the sky!