A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to 30

For several years, I have felt an inescapable pull toward Africa; Rachel has felt this since she was a little girl.  As long as we have been together, it has been a central piece of our relationship, a dream that has given our future a shape and our present a purpose.  We couldn’t tell exactly where, when, or for how long, but we knew we were supposed to go.  This feeling has hovered around us like a fly in the room, buzzing just loudly enough to maintain our attention.

We looked for opportunities to live and work in Sub-Saharan Africa, but we only hit dead ends.  We searched online for jobs and volunteer positions, we scanned our networks – nothing happened.  Occasionally, a position opened up that would make sense for one of us, but never anything accomodating two people of differing skill sets.  A few years went by and we started to question ourselves.  Was this really what we were supposed to do?  We began to consider taking reasonable life steps like grad school, home-buying, children.  We started to envision our future in Chicago.  We got comfortable.

And then our friend Lauren invited us to watch her modern dance group perform at an event called a Poverty Summit.  Presented by an organization called Bright Hope Intermational, the purpose of the Summit was to explore the issue of extreme poverty worldwide: its causes, effects, and what we can do about it.  On the particular evening that we attended the Poverty Summit, the focus was on Africa.  As the program wrapped up, Rachel and I exchanged a weighty look - this was what we had been looking for.

Of course, our exchange included a significant double-take.  Hold on a second, we said to ourselves.  We‘ve been talking about the Future (with a capital F, I'd like to point out).  We’ve become practical.  That’s what you do when you’re approaching thirty, isn't it?  We thought this Africa dream had passed us by.  But there it was our chance, staring us in the face.

Nothing materialized immediately.  However, we kept an eye on Bright Hope International and eventually an internship position opened up in their Zambia operation.  They were looking for medical professionals as well as assistance with their organizational development – the very job descriptions for which Rachel and I had been searching all along.  It was an unusual combination, but it fit like someone had planned it that way.  We went through the application process and hit it off with the wonderful people at Bright Hope.  We were accepted for the position and we began our journey. 

So there it is.  Rachel and I will be passing our thirtieth birthdays in Zambia.  And that other question, the one about How Long – we’re still waiting to see about this one.  We’ll be spending a year working for Bright Hope in Zambia, and maybe we'll come back and continue life in Chicago.  But Princess Zulu (whom you'll learn more about in a later post) stopped at one point in the middle of a lively conversation, looked at us closely, and said, “You two might be lifers.”  We might be.  We’ll have to wait and see.


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