Let me start at the beginning of 2010 to set the stage for how yours truly decided to step out of my conventional life in the Bay Area and head to Mombasa Kenya for a 6 month internship. In early 2010 I left my job at SAP to join Salesforce.com. Unfortunately from a career perspective it wasn't a great decision and by the fall I decided to leave. After some soul searching I decided I wanted a meaningful sabbatical from my corporate life and had a calling inside myself to go volunteer abroad. After much on line research I discovered an organization called Foundation for Sustainable Development www.fsdinternational.org and they had a program that seemed ideal for someone in my situation (i.e a slightly more "mature" working professional). And so I filled out the lengthy application, selected Mombasa Kenya as my first choice location and waited.....
In the mean time I went about starting the interview process in the Bay Area to find another job. It felt a bit like when I applied to colleges long ago and would go to the mailbox every day waiting for answers (except today it's clicking gmail). That very morning that I finally got a response I had been on a phone interview for a VP level alliance job with a successful pre IPO company. I got off the call knowing it had gone well and felt nothing. It was less than 2 hours later that an email appeared in my In Box, l that I had been accepted into the program. I knew immediately I was headed to Africa.
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