A map of Ethiopia with the blue pins at the locations of water projects.

It’s the question I have gotten many times a day for multiple weeks, “Are you ready?” Last week, it was referring to my trip to Austin and the start of work. This week it’s been directed towards my trip to Ethiopia which begins tomorrow. Which is one day from today. Which is not a lot of time. Each time I hear the question, it carries a different meaning. Sometimes the question refers to logistics, other times the packing process or vaccines and medicines, but the trickiest is whether or not I’m prepared mentally.

This summer I am working at Water to Thrive, a non-profit in Austin that works with organizations in East African countries (Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania to be specific) to provide clean, safe drinking water to communities. I am primarily working on the beginnings of a bridge project in a village in Ethiopia that sees their only bridge connecting two sides of the village washed out each year in the rainy season. I will also be working on a best practices document that has a rich history of previous CAPS Fellows work. My supervisor has told people many times this week that I’m a great writer (which really puts the pressure on for this blog), so I’m picking up writing tasks as I go along as well. I’m incredibly excited to be working for an organization that aligns so well with my passions and studies.

Now back to preparedness. It’s difficult to express exactly how I’m feeling in casual chit-chat. It’s hard to succinctly explain how completely prepared I feel to be unprepared along this entire experience. I’m acutely aware that there’s no way to truly prepare for the journey on which I’m about to impart. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t prepared countless lists in an attempt to do so. I love lists. List writing is one of my favorite activities. I have a book full of lists, but in preparation for this summer, I’ve been viewing them more as a preparation exercise than concrete lists of exact things I will do and ask (other than a beautifully color-coded packing list, which will be adhered to). Spending time thinking through what W2T and I am hoping to gain from this experience to inform later work is helpful, but I don’t plan to pull out my list of questions to about well rehabilitation and rattle it off word for word to each member of the WASH committee.

If there’s anything Valpo and civil engineering, in particular, have taught me so far, it’s to know how to adapt and to never know what to expect. On approaching the Atrium Office Centre on my first day, I was met with a drab building ripped straight from The Office, but once inside, I was met with one of the most vibrant, energetic spaces I could have imagined. I came to Austin knowing it would be different from the rest of Texas, but I was met with more food trucks and breakfast tacos than I could have ever imagined.  I consider myself very familiar with concrete, the primary bridge building material in Ethiopia, and while one may think that all concrete looks the same on the surface, it’s an incredibly variable material, so I have no idea how central Ethiopia’s will compare to what I’m used to working with, but I’m excited to learn.

So I think I am ready for this trip and the work of this summer. I’m ready to learn better ways to communicate with people across cultures and languages. I’m ready to soak up as much information as I can and make new lists about what I’ve learned. I’m ready to be open to whatever the next nine weeks bring, and I’m ready to fully participate in the community of Water to Thrive and Austin.