My Trip!

There's only 19 days until I leave! I'm excited and nervous, and everything else that comes with a trip like this. I guess it's stupid, but I'm afraid I'm going to be sent home when I get to the border... :( There's no reason for me to think like that, but everyone else I'm going with has Norwegian passports (I have a U.S. passport). Therefore the rules for Visas are different for them than for me. All they basically need to do is meet up at the border and pay for which-ever Visa they want/need. After reading and re-reading about U.S. citizens and Visas to Zambia it seems as if I have to apply and bring both police clearance and an invitation from the school I'll be teaching at. I have kept pushing those facts aside and saying to myself that, "you'll be OK, the rules will probably be the same for you since you live in Norway and have lived here for the past 13 years". The past few days I've begun to worry that that will not be the case, so to clear things up (and hopefully put my mind at ease), I've sent an e-mail to the people who know about these things. Hopefully I've not procrastinated too long, because I don't want a small thing like this to get in the way of being able to teach in Zambia. Have you ever done something like this? If you have perhaps you feel like I do now. I feel like pulling my hair out and I keep asking myself why I didn't just send them an e-mail earlier (because they should have all the answers).

Because of Christmas my sleeping pattern has become totally out of wack. That means I can lay in bed for hours without being able to fall asleep. It also gives my brain the opportunity to think and re-think and overthink everything. Lately I've been thinking a lot about the trip (that shouldn't come as a shock). About everything I need to remember to do before I go, everything I need to remember to bring and so forth. I've also been thinking about when and how I'm going to ask local shops about donating writing supplies and footballs (soccer balls) to the kids at the school I'll be teaching at. It seems, from what others have said, like the greatest gift you can give the kids is a football. I really can't imagine how it must be not to have all the sports equipment we have here at home (I guess I'll learn soon enough though). You never know how much you have until you have something to compare to.