Staging

I just accidentally all of staging.

^

So yea...staging was pretty sweet. Like cotton candy covered in whipped cream sweet. Only if that's real whip cream though. Is it whip cream or whipped cream? This is important.

Staging is intense, and flies fast. I've met most of my fellow trainees (there are about 53 of us, I think? ) and everyone I've talked to is pretty awesome. Awesome, enough, that I should put awe some as two separate words. My roommate, for example, discussed Godel's proofs with me over dinner. He just told me I shouldn't write about him. His name is Mike. He doesn't know I'm blogging about him...and when he reads this, he'll be surprised it's not about a Spanish speaking agent from Washington State.

So yeah, Staging. Got some vaccinations, had a lot of discussions about what to expect in service which culminated in...have no expectations. Go with it. I think that's pretty much the way I've tried to approach it, as best as possible, but obviously I have my weaknesses. I like my creature comforts. I like youtube. I like conditioner. I like KFC...and I'm leaving without ever having the double down. :(

If I learned anything from reading Fear and Loathing (Hunter Thompson's masterpiece, read it if you have an open mind), it's that sometimes you just need to buy the ticket, and take the ride. Don't do the drugs, per se, but open your mind to the possibilities beyond the immediacies in front of you. The world is yearning for you to hop in, and just see what happens. I've got a great support system here now, with people who are diving in just like me, trying to have no expectations. And, what's even better, is I've got a great support system back in the states. Good friends are hard to come by. Thanks for coming by? lol (I said lol as I typed this. I didn't actually lol)

After this, is pre service training. That will last for a few weeks, ending in either late August or early/mid September (I really am not too sure. I've heard different information from different sources...again, no expectations).

Please write. Send me letters, postcards, business cards, photo ids, gum wrappers (with unchewed gum still in them, I will miss gum the most). If you're up for playing mail chess, or any game over the mail, I'm totally down. I've got about 3 takers write now.

My address is in a previous post...I think from a couple days ago.

Be eazzzzy like George and Wheezy,
-Ryan Monaghan
Please write. M

P.S. Mrs. A, thanks for the cookies.

Packin'

I enjoy blogging. It's like talking to yourself in front of the endless landfill that is the internet.

As I stare at my ever growing pile of stuff and my seemingly ever shrinking luggage, I'm beginning to wonder if it's possible to shrink my 3 dimensional belongings to a Cantor dust...ORRRRR maybe I can say that, if the set of my items is infinite (which I think they are, at this point), BUT I can still count them (giving them cardinality aleph-null like N), the dimension is zero and I don't have to pack them at all. That will either save me all my baggage fees...or cost me an infinite amount of money for the infinite size of the luggage, depending on whether the airline's scales examine it in 0,1,2 or 3 dimensions.

(^-^)

Here's a few blurbs of advice to future Peace Corps volunteers, or world travelers:

1) Play Tetris. It comes in handy when you start packing.
2) When people offer you free things because of your journey...take them. They'll feel better about contributing to your service, and you get stuff/food. It's a win-win.
3) Tie up loose ends. This is a must do. Probably the greatest life lesson I've learned is leave no task or relationship incomplete. It's like taking a shower for the soul.

And most importantly...at least so far -
4) Never make close friends, because saying goodbye is hard. It's really, really hard. And if you're like me - a hopeless romantic already - it doesn't get any easier.

As my friends...and yes, faithful reader, you are one of them...while you are losing someone to Africa, remember that I am losing you to America.

As Gandalf would say, "I will not say, do not weep; for not all tears are an evil." I've cried more in the last four days than I have for...maybe forever? But it's been wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. You've touched someone half a world away. How cool is that?!

OK...this is not helping me pack much. Real advice: Don't pack books? I dunno. I'll try and give more advice when I get out there. Right now, though...packing.

Oh, wait, real advice...PACKING TAKES A LONG DAMN TIME. Don't procrastinate.

This will probably be my last entry from Florida for...a while. I'll try and update once more up in Staging in Philadelphia.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself,
Ryan Monaghan

Some information...Four days

Gainesville...I can honestly say, it was wonderful. Like a well worn pair of boxers tossed into the yard sale box of life, you will be missed.

Here's some information about what to expect as far as communication. *NOTE* some of this stuff is fairly dated and may/may not apply to me. I don't know yet; living conditions in South Africa tend to vary greatly, I think. Mail/Phones should (hopefully) work pretty consistently; I'm hoping the internet will be the same way, but I can't say one way or the other.

"

Dear Prospective Volunteer: Please give this letter to your family and/or friends and ask them to hold on to it for as long as you are in South Africa.
July 2010

Dear Families and Friends,

Greetings from the South Africa Desk at the U.S. Peace Corps in Washington, D.C.! It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the Peace Corps circle of friendship. We receive many questions from family members and friends of Volunteers about life in South Africa, so we would like to offer you advice and assistance in advance.
1. Irregular Communication. (Please see #3 for the mailing address to Peace Corps' office in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa) Mail from the United States to Pretoria is fairly reliable; however, mail service within South Africa is not as efficient and reliable. There is enormous variation in the time it takes for mail and packages to arrive at Volunteers’ sites. Generally, Volunteers find that they receive mail and packages from the United States two to four weeks after it has been sent. The same is true for sending mail from South Africa. Of course, there are exceptional cases in which a letter or a package might arrive within a shorter period or be substantially delayed. Some mail simply may not arrive. The destination of mail for Volunteers is as varied as the length of time it takes for mail to arrive.

We suggest that in your first letters you ask the Volunteer to give an estimate of how long it takes for him/her to receive your letters, and then try to establish a predictable pattern of how often you will write to each other. Also, try numbering your letters so that the Volunteer knows if he/she has missed one.

Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is a rewarding experience; however, there will also be times when Volunteers may write home telling of their "war" stories. Letters might describe recent illnesses, frustration with work, isolation, lack of resources, etc.
While the subject matter may be good reading material, it can often be misinterpreted on the home front. Volunteers have a wonderful support network in-country that includes counterparts and community members at their site, other Peace Corps Volunteers, as well as Peace Corps/South Africa staff. The Peace Corps’ highest priority is maintaining the health and safety of every Volunteer. Peace Corps/South Africa maintains a medical unit in Pretoria with two full-time medical officers, who care for the Volunteers’ primary health care needs. If the Volunteer requires medical care that is not available in South Africa, he/she will be medically evacuated to the United States. Fortunately, these are rare circumstances.

If for some reason your communication pattern is broken and you do not hear from your family member, you may want to contact the South Africa Desk or the Office of Special Services (OSS) at Peace Corps Washington at 1-800-424-8580, extension 1470.

Also, in the case of an emergency at home (death in the family, sudden critical illness, etc.), please do not hesitate to call OSS immediately, so that a message can be sent to the Volunteer. Use the above number during regular business hours (9:00 am to 5:00 pm Eastern Time, Monday through Friday). After hours, or during weekends, the Peace Corps Duty Officer may be reached at (202) 692-1470 and you will be transferred to an answering service. Tell the operator your name, telephone number, and the nature of the emergency and the Peace Corps Duty Officer will call you back.

2. Telephone Calls. The telephone system in South Africa is relatively good and service in and out of Pretoria to the United States is mostly reliable. In the interior of the country, where most of the Volunteers are located, phones are fewer in number and of decreased reliability. Volunteers do not have residential phones; however, many Volunteers choose to buy cell phones or use public phones to make and receive international calls. They will be
able to inform you of the actual telephone numbers and the reliability of telephone service once they arrive at their permanent sites in the country.

The South Africa Desk maintains regular contact with the Peace Corps office in Pretoria through phone calls and e-mail. However, these communication lines are reserved for business only and cannot be used to relay personal messages. All communication between family members and the Volunteer should be done via international mail, personal phone calls, or e-mail. Many Volunteers are able to access e-mail at Internet cafes in larger cities and towns on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on their location.

3. Sending packages. Parents and Volunteers like to send and receive care packages through the mail. Unfortunately, sending packages can be a frustrating experience for all involved due to occasional thefts and heavy customs taxes. You may want to try to send inexpensive items through the mail, but there is no guarantee that these items will arrive. Even though many Volunteers choose to get local post office boxes, you may also use the following address to send letters and/or packages:

Ryan Monaghan
Peace Corps
PO Box 9536
Pretoria 0001
SOUTH AFRICA

It is recommended that packages be sent in padded envelopes or bubble envelopes if possible, as boxes tend to be taxed more frequently and might pose as a greater target for theft. For lightweight but important items (e.g. airline tickets), DHL (an express mail service) does operate in Pretoria. If you choose to send items through DHL, you must address the package to:

Country Director
c/o: U. S. Peace Corps
126 Verdoorn Street
Sunnyside 0028
Pretoria
SOUTH AFRICA

The phone number for the Peace Corps office in South Africa is (27) 12-344-4255, as DHL will need this information. If you send the item to the Country Director, no liability can be assumed. For more information about DHL, please call their toll free number, 1-800-CALL-DHL, or visit their web site at www.dhl.com. Other courier services may operate in Pretoria - DHL is only one possibility.

We hope this information is helpful to you during the time your family member or friend is serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in South Africa. We understand how frustrating it is to communicate with your family member overseas and we appreciate your using this information as a guideline. Please feel free to contact us at the South Africa Desk in Washington, D.C. if you have any further questions. Our phone number is 1-800-424-8580, ext. 2255/2332/2333, or locally, 202-692-2255/2332/2333."

Lot of info there. I'll also be in training for about 7-8 weeks when I first get out there (we arrive on July 15th, and training doesn't end until Aug. 27th...my birthday.) During that time, I'm pretty much expecting to be completely unable to talk, but again I am not sure.

I will buy a phone in SA. I'll also have Skype; if my internet is working, I'll try and use Skype more but the phone should work either way. I'll post the phone number once I have it. My skype name is gerdlp1275 .

And yes, I suck at the phone, okay? But this experience will hopefully make me better.

Much love,
Ryan Monaghan

Time Flies

This may be long.

Have you ever heard the saying you can't go home again?

I think about that sometimes.

This morning, I woke up and, after a few seconds, realized that I now have almost exactly one week left in Florida before heading to Philadelphia and then flying out to South Africa. One week. Time flies.

Thinking about this made me home sick. Not the watered down, back of your mind desire interlaced with glimpses of old family or friends. No, I'm talking about a gut wrenching, real pain for a place that may not exist anymore, if at all. I have only felt this longing a few times before; the one time I remember most is the first day after moving into the college dormitory. It was the day I realized that life, for better or for worse, had abruptly changed and no matter the circumstances, could never change back to what it was. What I knew. What had seemed to finally become familiar, just as it ended.

That's how I felt today. For me, real homesickness has a very unusual symptom: a specific, vivid memory, of when I was about three years old, playing with pebbles behind my grandmother's house in Lake Worth. I remember trying to count all the pebbles I could fit between my fingers (I still do this. However, that's irrelevant to the story). I remember hearing an ambulance siren go off near the street. I don't know why it's this memory, but it always is. It fades quickly as I motivate myself, but the faintest lingering shadow remains.

What scared me is that I have become homesick before I have even left home. But what is home, really? The memories that I have from that day, as a three year old child, remain attached. That house is no longer there. The woods, last I had heard, had been torn down for new development. What I remember, what I can see in my mind, is no longer there. Perhaps that is what makes it real homesickness: not a longing for distant place or people, but a biting grief for a life and existence that no longer exists, and cannot again.

College has been wonderful to me. I remember thinking, after graduating high school, how amazed I was at the growth I had experienced in the last two years, with the close friends I had made (2004-2006). College has been that growth a hundred times over. To learn about yourself, to see your abilities and shortcomings and the minute details that make you unique amongst the world, is a humbling, humbling experience.

To write about what I've learned, and my own fledgling philosophy of the world nurtured by those experiences, is another blog post entirely. I may get around to it, may not. If you're ever interested though, I can always bore your ear off talking about it. Few things make me happier than contemplating the concept of existential purpose with others.

One thing I will say is that, as part of my philosophy, the most important (well, second most important) facet is to always grow, to try and understand the circumstances of others from their perspective and withhold judgement. This is why I joined the Peace Corps. I wanted to see culture from the culture's vantage, and not my own. Walk a mile in their shoes is cliche. That doesn't mean it's not true.

I could go on, but if you've read this far, you're already more patient than I could be. I'll finish off with this food for thought. I'm not religious (this is another post as well, or discussion if you'd like). However, I've read a lot of work by C.S. Lewis, the author of the Narnia series, and a devout philosopher of Christian thinking. One parable he offered for growth in life is that of a child in the womb: would the child choose to leave if they had a chance? The womb is warm, it is safe, food is provided. The space is comfortable, and the baby understands it. Outside, the world is strange. It is large, uncomfortable, and does not provide. Yet the opportunity for richer experience is so much greater still that life without birth could not really ever be considered life at all. The infant could never grow, it could never understand. As C.S. Lewis says, the parable fails only in that the infant has no choice but to be born. Often in our lives, he says, we do have the choice when opportunites for growth, at the expense of an existence we understand, arise. What would we choose?

That is how I feel now. I'm afraid, it's true. But if the opportunity to serve abroad enriches my experience and understanding of the world, that may just make it worth it. I leave home, specifically Gainesville, knowing that if I came back someday, the place I knew and understood would probably be gone. If not in location, than at least in the people and the meanings and feelings associated with the places I knew.

As Humphrey would say, we'll always have Gainesville.

I love all of my friends very much; it's the feeling that sends homesickness packing. With the internet, Skype, Facebook, on and on, connectivity stays constant. Our experiences change, but those who matter most, who care about me not because of my actions, choices or circumstances, but only because it's me, somehow always stick around.

You have been part of my life, and will continue to be so, no matter where our paths lead. You mean the world to me. :)

I'll try and stave off the sentimental drivel before I get too weepy. I don't always cry, but when I do, I prefer dos equis. Thanks for listening...feels good man.

It's been a RREAAALLL slice, Hercules.

- Monaghan