I am currently in the process of packing up my room to move out.  I have to spend a week in Pretoria for the official COS process, then, on March 1, I become a RPCV!  Yay!

However, packing has been an interesting experience, and since I need a break from it, I decided I’d tell all 4 of my blog readers about it (Hi Dad and Grandma!).

First, you should be informed that I do not much like packing.  Well, the truth is that part of me enjoys it, but the rest of me knows better.  You see, I cannot just pack.  I am physically incapable of simply taking things from where they live, putting them into boxes or bags, and moving them to a new home.  I just cannot do it.  There is a process, and it must be followed.  I systematically move throughout the room sorting and organizing, getting rid of things no longer wanted, making piles of things to give away, and reading every last scrap of paper I’ve accumulated to see if it is still needed.  As you can imagine, this process takes some time.  I’ve actually gotten myself into some trouble before because of it.  Anyway, in a vain attempt to circumvent this physiological tendency of mine, I delayed even thinking about packing until now, two days before I move out.  I thought that if there was just no time in which to go through it all, I’d be able to just toss it up and move along.

I thought wrong.

Its been an interesting two days.  I’ve worked.  I’ve farewelled (more on this to come).  I’ve killed many spiders who loved living behind boxes in my room.  And I’ve sorted and sorted and sorted.  Now, everything is sorted and pared down, given away or thrown into the bin.  But, there has yet to be any actual packing done.  Its just all in piles throughout the room.  It is a very orderly mess.  The packing itself will take no time at all, I’ve just got to finish my break and go do it.

The real story, however, is about bugs.   It will come as no surprise to those of you who have talked with me about my time here that I hate the bugs.  I still fear the scorpion I found on my bed one day last year.  I dread finding another giant sun spider lurking around.  I wait in the mornings to enter the house until after I know our housekeeper has had time to kill and sweep up the cockroaches that scurry around.  I do not clean certain parts of the room because I hate moving the things I know spiders live behind (I know they are there, but I will cohabitate with them freely if I never have to see them).  And I cry myself to sleep on the nights when there are mosquitoes in my room that will not stop buzzing around my head.

Those last two points (not cleaning and mosquitoes) in particular apply directly to this little tale of woe.  Peace Corps gives several items to every new volunteer, things like a little medical kit, sheets and a pillow, and a mosquito net.  Well, soon after getting to my site, and taking into account the fact that it is not a malarial area, I decided I did not need to put up my mosquito net.  Then, it disappeared.  I have daydreamed many times about makeshifting screens for my windows (there are NO window screens in all of South Africa!), and thought, well, wouldn’t my unused mosquito net come in great to use for this project.  So, I would go looking for it.

Now, there are not many places to hide in my little room.  But, I’d look and look anyway.  I’d open boxes and bags.  I would look behind and underneath lots of places it could not possibly be.  Then, I would give up the search in despair and ponder how my mosquito net could possibly have gone missing.  In all that searching, I’d pull down some of the items on top of my wardrobe and look in them for the missing net.  I hate looking up there, because it is a haven for bugs.  And, there are still a few things up there that belong to the family and are being stored in here.  I don’t like going in those, they smell and sometimes are bug infested from being left alone too long.

Well, back to the point I was originally trying to make, today I found it. As I am now packing up all of my things to move, I had to brave the buggy places to get everything together.  In my sorting/packing, I went through those bags.  Turns out one of them that I had always thought was a family bag was not.  Yep, mine.  And, inside, some empty plastic bags and my mosquito net.  I laughed and laughed when I found it.  Did you know that you can laugh from despair and regret and seeing your own foolishness in the face?  I learned you can.

If I would have braved the spiders to search more thoroughly, I would have eliminated the mosquito problem all together.

I am, however, happy to know that I am not crazy, it was hiding here somewhere.  It did not in fact grow legs and run away.  But, now that its time to leave, I find it.  So typical of me.  I thought you might enjoy getting to know me and my idiosyncrasies a little better.

On a somewhat related note:  how in the world did I amass so much stuff during my time here?  There is no way I brought all of this over on a plane in two large duffle bags.  Where did it come from?  And how will I get it all back?  I foresee more sorting in my future!