T Minus 7 Days and Counting!

My mom (M) and I leave for Rwanda in exactly one week! In the last few days, all of our plans and supplies have started to come together.
My brother's (vacant) room has become our packing staging ground, littered with a variety of fleeces and lightweight t-shirts and travel information.
Downstairs, battered suitcases are half-stuffed with deflated soccer balls (thank you D!!) and sports equipment.
In the family room, a hefty 15-year-old laptop lies waiting to be stuffed into a carry-on, and on the table the "Rwanda folder" M has bee slowly filling is bursting with papers and print-outs on flight information, Kinyarwanda words, and medicine lists.

It feels as if we are slowly approaching the time when a year's worth of accumulation of effort into this trip will become a reality. We are apprehensive but mainly excited; we know only that one can never prepare oneself for this type of experience. So, we pack, and we wait.