Home!

I have my ticket home! While this is exciting and I’m looking forward to it, I’m also dreading it. Dread is too strong a word. I look forward to going home but I am not looking forward to leaving here. This is normal for me (and probably most people) but that doesn’t really make it any easier. Change is tough.

For all the things that frustrate me here (the constant English questions, getting up so early, meetings that are superfluous, kids yelling ‘hey you’ and ‘blanc’, etc.) there are so many more things that I love about being here (the friends I’ve made, the kids who are always so happy to see you, fresh tropical fruit, sunsets, etc). And that makes it hard to leave. It is also hard not knowing when I will come back to a place. Because I feel sure that I will come back—not in the same role or the same amount of time most likely but I will come back. I feel reassured in that as my friends have called me a boomerang—I may leave but I do come back.

So November 20^th is my departure date and I know that I won’t want to talk about it or think about it though of course I will be doing both a lot. I have to give people notice and so far that hasn’t gone well. People seemed surprised though my year is coming up and shocked about how I could even think about leaving. After ‘when are you coming back’ their next question is ‘will there be someone coming to take my place.’ And I don’t know. So far I don’t think they have found another long term volunteer who is interested…if you know someone who might be interested let me know or let them know that this opportunity is out here. That’s how I found this post and it has been challenging but also rewarding, heart-wrenching and heart-warming.

I’m also going home to indecision. I don’t know what is coming next, where I will be led, the next opportunity and adventure. I don’t mind that part of it. It helps me stay here that much more. To be here instead of looking forward at where I will be and anticipating what it will be like and how it will be different. To live more in the moment. This isn’t saying that I’m very good at really living in the moment—not looking forward to what is next (it just happens to be tomorrow that I’m looking at and not after I leave. But I’m trying.

On that note—if you have heard of something that might be my next place, I’m open to suggestions.