Jabs and Dreams

Jambo Voluntourists! I hope everyone is as excited as I am to be spending the next six months in Africa. I will do my best to supply photos, tales, thoughts and a few new words during the journey. And, since the preparations have been a big part of my last few weeks, I thought I'd share a bit about them. The first story involves my tackling of the language barrier I knew I would inevitably face in connection with my journey to Africa. I mean, I will be doing some traveling with an Englishman -- Nick Gates of Coaches Across Continents -- and blooming heck if I know what Brits are saying half the time. During one of our initial conversations, he kept telling me to get my jabs, jabs, jabs. Got it. Off to REI in the morning to get those infamous jabs. Then it dawned on me after a few seconds, maybe jabs is an English slang word, maybe meaning shots? But since Nick stressed the critical importance of those jabs, I figured I should just ask him and break down that language barrier. Jabs = Shots. English English language barrier conquered! Swahili, here I come! Of course, here I come with ten new holes in my arm from all the jabs for yellow fever, MMR, rabies, etc.

Not only was I getting shot up in the arms, I was beginning my 7 month cycle of weekly malaria pills, with all of the glorious side effects. When I asked a friend what I realistically could expect, I was told that my dreams would just become more vivid. To me, that didn't sound so bad until he followed that with a statement that the dreams were "not the good kind." That left me speechless.

However, when I wrote the title for this post, I was thinking about other dreams -- childhood dreams (we'll call those the good kind). How do the dreams of my nieces and nephews compare to the children I will meet in Africa? As of right now, I can't honestly say I know but I hope our work will allow at least one African child dream his a little brighter.

Until my next post,
Christian