Three weeks in America. Not enough. But certainly enough time to have some fun. Some of the highlights were…
–Eating punch bowls of cereal (honey bunches of oats or honey nut cheerios) every morning.
–Hang time with my beautiful sister!
–Seeing some amazing girls…
–Hot water. Hot water. HOT WATER!!!
–DOGGIES!!!
–Keeping my car radio tuned to the new 90′s station because I didn’t recognize anything on the top 40…
–Lake time
–Constantly shivering despite wearing two shirts, a scarf and a coat. Hey, I came from African summer and its practically freezing, gimme a break here!
–SUSHI!!!
–Wandering the aisles of Raley’s, Whole Foods, and Target for hours and being thoroughly entertained. Unfortunately I am not joking. HOURS.
–Girl time!
–Going shopping in my own closet. For anyone who is dissatisfied with their wardrobe, i highly recommend moving to africa and rotating the same three unflattering outfits every day for 15 months. then come home and have your mind be blown by how TOTALLY AWESOME the contents of your closet are. Providing everything still fits…
–Go Karting. I may or may not have come in last. But at least I looked good doing it.
–Getting over my slight sense of snobbery when it comes to sophisticated taste in music and busting out GaGa lyrics at dozens of relatively inappropriate times.
–Tours luvin’ reconnect.
–Taking lots of pictures of pretty food and drinks to torture myself with back in Moz.
Speaking of food, I glanced at my blog from before and had a 30-something percent success rate with said food goals. The apparent failure comes from the fast food category (Wendy’s, In-n-Out, Taco Bell, Daphne’s…) because there were just so many BETTER things to eat! But I did hit all of the highlights (SUSHI, chipotle, chocolate milk, sushi…) so in my mind, a success.
It’s been a great trip. I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to do or see everyone that I would have loved to see, but it won’t be too long until I have another chance.
I get on the plane in just a few hours. Last time I got on the plane for Africa, nearly 500 days ago, I was feeling all sorts of things. Nervous. Sad to leave my family. So excited for the unknown. Today I am feeling none of those things. I am in a completely different place. Excited and nervous I am not. Rather, going back feels like a duty: not in the sense like it is something I am forced to do, but rather, it was my goal to complete my PC service successfully, and I am returning for a year of working hard to take full advantage of the experience and to make as much of a difference as I can, and help in whatever way I can, why simultaneously continuing to learn and grow, because I realize now that PC is temporary. Getting on that plane in September 2008 felt overwhelmingly impossible, because the time commitment stretched out so long in front of me made it feel like I would never come back. But now, I may be a bit sad to be leaving my family and this amazing place I took for granted for so long (and the hot water and the sushi doesn’t hurt) but I realize now that this time is temporary and I need to take advantage of it. Can’t wait to see where I am at this time next year. Next time I blog it’ll be from my house in Mozambique, God willing. I guess you do always find your way back home.
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