Elections

Elections
As of tomorrow, all Peace Corps volunteers, including yours truly, will be on “lock down” or confined to their sites until further notice, because of the upcoming elections. Last Sunday morning, in a larger town, I saw hundreds of people marching on the street with large (rifle size) uniform sticks – local vigilante groups?—and decided to get home ASAP. So my big plan is to take a machete and hide in the banana plantation (hey, I have to use some method of cutting the bananas and wild animals for sustenance while I hide out!)
Meanwhile, I am holding my own elections. I realized a few months ago that I don’t really know what to do when I leave the Peace Corps. A few months after that, I realized that I could really do anything. So, I’ve been thinking a million different thoughts (in seven categories) and putting a mark by one for every day I think of it. The seven are: research/Ph.D, foreign service, big aid (USAID, UN), small aid (Mants’ase Children’s Home), social work (you hatch ‘em, we snatch ‘em), medicine, and sustenance farming. Don’t worry; the last did not accumulate many votes yet.
Some of you may think that I am absolutely insane. Why don’t I get a normal job and settle down?? I think, however, that I am like a London cab horse with my blinders taken off. I am only 25 years old, I have been out of undergrad for four years, and have acquired a graduate degree. I performed well in both undergrad and graduate school and will have a negligible amount of debt when I get out of the Peace Corps. So, I think that my options are quite wide open.
I had an uncle once tell me to stay in school for ever because life is all downhill when you leave. I refuse that. I want to have a life that is colorful, meaningful, and good at every year. I also am over my macro- only thinking. I used to want to do things at the top and influence everyone. I am learning, however, that the “most personal is also the most universal” (Henri Nowen). In the end of the day, I’m attracted to improving one person’s world; I don’t need the whole world of everyone.
That being said, a friend advised me to really conduct this election like a true Ugandan politician and visit everywhere. That being said, I have spoken with big aid and small aid and foreign policy people. I have done my share of research and am trying to be in contact with others who are doing theirs. Today, I scrubbed trash cans at the health center, witnessed the emergency stitching of a man whose forehead was sliced open in an accident, and then walked to a friend’s sustenance farm.
Friends and family, please bear with me. I think that I’ll end up with one of the above directions (one of them is getting quite a few votes but I can’t tell you which). I can only say this; I am over racing to the plateau of a dull, non- thinking day- to- day. I don’t want to live the same day over again for fifty years. So, if I took 4-5 years to really think and see the world, I hope they help my future 45 year career to become all the more fruitful.

Besides, it never hurts to do things early. With this early midlife crisis out of the way, it's all smooth sailing from here on out