A lot has happened since October 30th that will determine the next year for Niki and I. For one, after having some time to reflect, and a bit of luck getting in, I have decided to take on a Master's in Nonprofit Administration here at Notre Dame http://business.nd.edu/mna/. The program is part in-class part correspondence which works out nicely, but more about that later. For the summer I have four weeks of in-class intensive courses and in the fall and winter I can take between one and three courses by correspondence and the electives may be in-class through a related program if I choose. Then the following summer I have additional in-class work and before I graduate I need to complete a project which I can't start until I have most of my coursework done. The program is set up to allow people to stay in their jobs if they wish and can be done in as little as 14 months or up to 5 years always coming back for the summer. I will try to complete it closer to the 14 months so that Niki and I can be done at roughly the same time. Courses are taught by Notre Dame's business faculty which is exciting and I expect the coursework will be equally exciting. I have already begun to study for the summer as I will have to have a lot of my reading done before classes begin as I will have tests on the first day.
In the fall Niki and I will undergo another move (which is why part correspondence works out nicely), this time to a village, country and continent neither of us has ever been to, Gulu, Uganda.
I can't tell you much about Uganda yet other than a few basics. We will be able to get by with English in Gulu but there will also be a tribal language spoken called Acholi. The temperature doesn't change much all year and stays in the high twenties and there will be a lot of local tropical fruit available. I envision myself sitting outside a cafe reading my textbooks while drinking some fresh mango juice and then taking a study break to go play soccer with a small group of people, but I can only speculate at this point. Niki will be working with a group called Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative http://www.arlpi.org/ which as I understand it is a group of religious leaders from various religious backgrounds working together for peace. Northern Uganda has recently stabilized after the long-term LRA conflict and if you are interested in learning about it Niki recommends the following as a short link for a brief history of the area http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/northern-uganda/index.php I guess I envision her work to be slightly more stressful than mine, but she will enjoy it. We will be living with a few other Kroc students who will be doing similar peace-related work in the area. We will be there until mid-December after which we plan to spend a month traveling with family to Kenya and Tanzania.
There is only one month left before we leave our apartment here on campus. We will be making a trip to Canada to see family and friends and at the end of June Niki will fly to Uganda whereas I will come back to Notre Dame to begin classes and then fly from Chicago to Uganda.
This semester has been busy for both of us. Niki is engulfed in her studies and I have balanced my time mostly volunteering at Ten Thousand Villages through an Internship and working part time here on campus.
So our year ahead will be transformative for sure and hopefully prepare us for whatever comes next.
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