I've decided to take off on a new adventure and it's not somewhere I think people ever imagined I might have gone first. Maybe it's the fact that this country has 11 official languages (only one of which I speak), or it's the fact that this country is on the other side of the world, but South Africa here I come!
Sometimes when opportunities knock, you just have to answer.
In the midst of looking for a new job, I went out on a whim one night and applied for a volunteer position with an organization I'd heard of through a former co-worker. I had been checking out Global Vision International's website for months before making this seemingly hasty decision so it wasn't truly as hasty as it sounds.
Being a biology major in university and taking courses in global health, I was interested in a new project that GVI had posted and I knew it was the one for me. This new project offered for me to become a volunteer working on health workshops in townships near Cape Town, South Africa. Instantly I thought I'd found my calling. I planned out what I wanted to include in my application and sent it off with a hope and a prayer. Little did I know that early the next morning I'd get a call from someone named Kate, calling from South Africa to follow up on my application.
Kate and I quickly introduced ourselves over the phone and talked about a 'small world' connection to schools in Boston. Kate asked me some basic questions about how I'd heard about GVI and what made me want to apply. She explained to me in greater deal about the project, where I'd be living and with whom I'd be working. I had the opportunity to ask a bunch of questions and 45 minutes after receiving a very long distance phone call to my cell phone, I was offered a chance to go on the trip of a lifetime.
Sitting in a lunch room on the 20th floor of an office tower on Bay St. in Toronto, I knew my life was about to change. I quickly googled the town Kate mentioned I'd be living in, Fish Hoek, and then called my mom to tell her I'd applied and just had a quasi-interview for this volunteer position.
With only a month left, I have a bunch of appointments with travel clinics for shots and travel agents for plane tickets, and I can't wait to see what the future has in store for me.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." - Henry David Thoreau
