Am I ready?

I'm beginning to live up to my name.

It's been modified from its original version (and formatted to fit this screen) but the closest English meaning my name has at this point is "of the world". This summer, starting in just over a month, I will begin my journey to truly explore and appreciate the world.

I've traveled before, but never for more than three weeks at a time. I've never spent more than 10 days in any given place that wasn't my home. I've seen and experienced a good chunk of the world, but I haven't gotten to know it yet.

Starting May 31, I'll be leaving behind the glamorous life I have in the San Francisco Bay Area and travelling to Hanoi, Vietnam, where I will spend two months learning and helping in any way I can with a local public health agency.

I'm a little scared.

I've been meaning to participate in something like this for a very long time. I first thought about going into the Peace Corps back in high school, where one of the teachers was an alum of Harvey Mudd, my dream college, and had gone from there into the Peace Corps. I never told him so explicitly, but he was absolutely a role model for me.

In college it repeatedly came back to mind, but it wasn't until my senior year that I really revisited the idea. I applied (but was not selected) for a trip to Uganda that would follow a semester long course on HIV-AIDS. The Uganda trip would have been the first taste of volunteer life abroad, and the Peace Corps would have been a logical next step. When I didn't get selected for the Uganda trip I re-evaluated and decided that I could go straight into the Peace Corps after graduating and began the long application process. I got into the HIV class without the travel component by sheer luck and I think it's the luckiest I've ever been in my life. Maybe I would have ended up where I am now without that class, but the discussions we had and everything that I learned pushed me hard in the direction of public health.

I never finished my Peace Corps application, though. I got cold feet and wasn't ready to commit to 2+ years in a foreign country, away from everyone that I know and love. I looked into other volunteer programs and repeatedly revisited the idea, thinking that perhaps I would enroll in one of several "Masters International" programs - universities partner with the Peace Corps in a variety of disciplines, but for me it would definitely be a Masters in Public Health. I almost applied to those programs in the Fall of 2009. But I was a little behind on getting all of my stuff together and decided to wait another year.

By the fall of 2010, I was less convinced that I needed to have the Peace Corps component as part of my MPH. It was still a possibility, but I was still afraid of the time commitment. I was certain I wanted to apply to MPH programs, though, and I finally got everything together and got the applications in by mid-January.

In the meantime, I received my first message from Raul Roman, co-founder of UBELONG. I had not actively researched volunteer organizations in over a year, but apparently my Facebook profile still reflected my interests, because that is how Raul found me. I was taken aback at first, wary of this stranger soliciting my money for a volunteer organization that I had never heard of - but I did the research, and everything checked out. Despite the somewhat dubious introduction, I quickly became convinced that UBELONG was the answer to my time commitment and financial concerns about international volunteering. I selected a health project in Vietnam focusing on HIV and chose June and July - although the hottest time of the year in Vietnam - as the perfect time to go.

So now I'm in the midst of working out the final details for my trip. This morning I had my safety breifing with my project mentor and UBELONG co-founder, Raul, and in the next couple days I will be sending off my VISA application and picking a travel health insurance company and policy. I've gotten most of my vaccinations (just need to get another Hep B vaccination right before I leave), got my flights worked out, and my passport is ready.

Am I ready?

I'm excited and well prepared but kinda scared. This is a big step for me. I learned today that there WILL actually be other people in Hanoi at the same time, and there will actually be another public health volunteer for 6 weeks. I'm not sure if all of her 6 weeks are during my 8, but it will be nice to have someone else around who's doing similar things, even if it's only for part of the time that I'm there.

I can't wait to eat the food and drink the beer. Is it bad that I'm most excited about the things I will consume? I'm eager to meet the people and hopefully actually make a difference and be helpful, but I think the food and drink are the most reliable, and that's probably why I'm most excited for those.

I think that's probably enough for today. I'll probably post one more update before I leave, hopefully one shortly after I arrive, and I'll try to update weekly while I'm there.

Let me know if you have any questions, and I'll do my best to answer them.

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Jen