"Leave for Africa."

Today I was looking through my planner -- this is what I spend 73% of my day doing, trying to figure out how I can puzzle together productive days -- and I scanned through June and came to the day marked "Leave for Africa."

And I just kind of stared at it for a while, dumbfounded, thinking, "Hmm... Am I for serious here?" I mean, honestly, how many people in the world have such an outrageous thing marked in their planner? And, what's more, marked as if it's just another little appointment in a series of busy days. Like, "Oh, yeah, that day... I move to Sudan. Nothin' doin'."

I guess what's all the more curious is that I found myself so amazed by it. It has been marked that way since last June, has it not? Come on, Andi. Get with the program. I guess it's just not real yet. I imagine it won't be. Not for a long time. All told, probably not any time before I leave.

I dunno, the whole thing just seems nuts sometimes.

I talked with my AIM rep Mike today, catching up on all that's been going down. These last two days, I've just kept telling myself... only four weeks and this part is over. It is, right? Either way -- whether my money comes in or not -- May 30th will be the day it's decided. Well, support raising will never be completely over, but the worst will be passed, right? I sure hope so.

I've been checking my email all day, looking for the TIMO manual we were told we'd get this week. Rob from En Gedi (TIMO's headquarters, in Tanzania) emailed earlier in the week with a few things -- I'll share them with you in a second -- and said the fatty book of All Things Sudan TIMO would be on its way. (OK, he didn't call it "the fatty book of All Things Sudan TIMO." That was all me.) Hopefully that will give me a few more details to tell my supporters.

Everyone, at this point, wants to know practical stuff. You'd be amazed at the interesting ways people find to ask me how I'm going to get tampons. Almost as interesting as the ways they beat around the question of if I'm single or not. (This may be the most painful, yet hilarious part of raising support as a single woman. Haha.) What am I going to be eating? Do I have an address? Can people send stuff to that address? On and on.

And, yes, for those keeping score at home, I just said "tampons" on my blog. Unbelievable.

Oh, and everyone relax: I am single.

So, anyway, some things I found out...

- Sat fones (or "satellite phones," for all ya'll not up on the missionary vernacular) are a tricky thing to have in South Sudan. They create suspicion among folks and draw attention from the government -- the unmonitored/uncontrolled dissemination of information can bring the heavy hand of the government crashing down on the team and AIM. I guess the gov't actually can get the transcripts from your sat calls, and it's been known to use that information against missionaries.

In Rob's words, "Two of Stephan's (our team leader) highest priorities as your team leader are (1) to help keep you alive and (2) keep you available for ministry. Truly, the stakes are very high in Southern Sudan -- we are 'playing for keeps' as they say."

So, in light of all that, we're going to go with Stephan's recommendation and not have personal sat fones -- just one for the team as a whole. I'll be able to get on once a week for a limited amount of time to send a limited size of emails. But they'll also be monitored by Stephan to make sure we're not being stupid. At least until we better understand where we are and what we're dealing with.

- Here's something interesting, though. Cell phones work in Kenya, and we'll be in Loki once a month to do our shopping. Stephan suggested we could get cell phones to call home while we're there. So that was a pleasant surprise -- I wasn't expected to hear my parents' voice very often, if at all. We'll see how they look cost-wise.

- None of that will matter for the first three months. Part of the TIMO program is a three-month techno fast. The idea is to make us focus on the culture we're in, not communicating with and hanging on to the cultures we've left. So be thinking letters for the first bit. :) Of course, that said, I still don't know how easy it is to get letters or what my address is or what kind of packages folks can send.

- Other than that, they just gave me this list of (heavy!) books I have to bring and directions on getting a voice recorder -- an important tool for our language learning. I'm good to go in that area. It's funny how fast things add up -- with the books, the recorder, stamps and my yellow fever vaccination, I've probably dropped $350 this week alone. Zoinks.

Wheeeew, this got long fast. Good thing no one is reading this!