I am a public relations consultant and as such I am always the one pitching the story. I am much more comfortable to stand in the background or sit on the sidelines promoting the good work and adventures of others. It is strange to think that this time I am part of the story itself.<\/p>\n
I am facing this trip with a myriad of conflicting emotions. I am daunted by the possibility of witnessing something so beyond my normal life. It seems strange to believe that I will really be in one of the places you watch on the news night after night. I have never been what you would call daring.<\/p>\n
I feel humbled at the thought of listening to and learning from women who have experienced things so unthinkable and inhumane and have survived. I have been reading volumes about the history and the situation in the Congo. Even before I go, I have begun to look at my life differently. So many things seem frivolous and insignificant. I can imagine how these things will seem once I have actually been there.<\/p>\n
And I go with feelings of trepidation. I am bracing myself for stories and images that are more ugly and hateful than I can imagine. And I have to admit I am a little scared. This is not a 100% safe trip and I have a son who just turned 18. It’s hard to leave him behind.<\/p>\n
And yet if Janice’s trip to Chad is an indication, I feel certain that I will come back invigorated by the commitment of the NGO workers and the humanity and life still in the Congolese women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am a public relations consultant and as such I am always the one pitching the story. I am much more comfortable to stand in the background or sit on the sidelines promoting the good work and adventures of others. It is strange to think that this time I am part of the story itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,176,191],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-blog","category-jww-on-the-ground","category-190","category-176","category-191","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jww.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}