Holy hell...I'm going to Rwanda

Last Thursday I received an email from the Peace Corps inviting me to serve 27 months in Rwanda as a Community Health Agent volunteer, beginning June 11th. Wow...I mean...wow. I was pretty blown away. I immediately ran the gamut of reactions:

• I am so excited, this is what I have been hoping for since I applied last August!
• Africa is pretty far...that means it will be expensive to fly out there from America. Translation = I might not have any visitors for 27 months. (sad face)
• How are my parents going to react to this?
• What a great experience! Between learning a new language, immersing myself in a completely different culture, and gaining health sector job training, this will be a life changing gig.
• So the local language is kinyarwanda, you say? Oh snap, this is gonna be hard.
• Working as a health volunteer in an area suffering from AIDS, malnutrition and malaria will be pretty intense.
• Wait...Rwanda has Peace Corps volunteers? Is it safe? Turns out that it is—the violence that we associate with Rwanda occurred 20 years ago and the country is now in a period of growth and reconciliation (refer to About Rwanda portion of this blog for more info about the country). And the Peace Corps suspends programs in unsafe countries—a recent example of this is Mali.
• OMG I will get to visit the endangered mountain gorillas in their natural habitat! (OK I only thought of that one after some research about the country, but it's pretty exciting, right?!) I just did a quick Google search and have every intention of meeting this guy in the near future:

So I immediately called my mom and she was excited for me, which was a relief. In fact, apparently she had a dream the night before that I was in Africa and she and my brother, Chris, were planning a trip to visit me. Whew, that took a bit of the edge off. The few friends I told also had a positive response, including Buck, a fellow team leader who will be working with the Peace Corps in nearby Zambia at the same time. So now I am basically in the stage of filling out mounds of paperwork and wrapping my head around everything from vaccinations to dental x-rays, updated resume, special Peace Corps passport application, student loan deferment, Verizon cancellation, packing list...ahhhhhh! My head is spinning. But the point is, I AM GOING TO RWANDA! Wow. More info to come, friends.