Preparation

Packing, preparing, wondering

In one months time, I’ll be leaving Denmark. Embarking on what I am sure will be an amazing adventure and tremendous challenge. I’m sorting through my earthly belongings, tossing everything in one of five categories;

Stuff to bring with me (must be containable in 2 barrels and 2 suitcases (total not exceeding 126 kg). Relevant literature, clothes, items with affectionate value, some kitchen utensils fall into this category.
Stuff to stow away until I return (Books, mostly. Many, many books.)
Stuff to give to others (My Ivar bookshelves, for instance. An elderly television set. Books I have no intention of ever reading (again), a printer).
Stuff to get others to care for while I’m away (I think most kitchen utensils, a dining set from my grandmother and my hifi will end up in this category)
Stuff to throw out (a bed that should’ve been replaced years ago, kilos and kilos of papers from a variety of committees, boards and the like, study-notes, etc)

This process – in the knowledge of needing to end up with less than 126 kilos to bring with me (and having to stow the rest away) – has made me realise how little of my many things I really need. I have thrown so much junk out these last few weeks. And I’m only halfway there…

At the same time, I’m trying to get ‘my affairs in order’. Moving out of Denmark, the number of subscribtions to cancelled, authorities that need notifying, innoculations taken, and papers signed are legio.

And still, all this is easy compared to trying to imagine what this challenge I’ve embraced will bring me. In the actual work I’ll be doing. In new experiences and challenges living and working ‘abroad’. And in missing family and friends back here in Denmark.

It’s T-30d5h37m. Yeah :).

I’m spending this week at The International People’s College in Elsinore, Denmark. It’s a short preparation course for development workers who are to be sent out in the next four or five months. Most of the participants seems to have somewhere between some and a lot of experience with development work, but there is a couple of people (myself included), who’s preparing their very first move to a developing country.

With this course – and a much anticipated mail from the MS-Uganda Country Office yesterday – the time of departure all of sudden feels very much closer than it did just a few days ago. But in a good way. Even as I’m still quite unsure what it will all bring, I’m slowly moving from anxious anticipation to unabashed joy at the prospect of moving.

And right now, it’s T-41d4h0m 🙂

Mie and Peter

I spent yesterday evening in the company of Mie and Peter and their four youngest children. They returned from Uganda this summer, after working 5½ years as DW‘s in Koboko and Kampala. Mie in the project, that I’m going to be working on: “Democracry as a way of life“.

They told me all kinds of things, but most of all, they gave me an impression of what it is actually like to live and work in Uganda. Which probably is the hardest of all: I know that it’ll be so very different from living and working in Denmark. I just don’t have a clue how…

But I think I get it just a little bit better now. And now, I’m looking even more forward to get started.

Next week, I’ll be attending a preparation course in Elsinore with seven or eight other DW’s-to-be.

And right now, the time is T-47d19h46m !