Homestretch

Today marks the start of the final 6 months of my service. The last stretch before I pack up and start heading back to the states. It's weird. I remember when I was excited to have been here for only 6 months. It felt like a huge accomplishment to have been gone from all my friends and family for that long, and now I have been gone for 20 months. It seems like that wasn't that long ago, but that also seems like ages away from now. I had a site visit a few weeks ago, where a Peace Corps Staff member came to talk with me and my counterpart at the clinic. This is a routine thing Peace Corps does. It was to see how I am doing here at site and how they can be of assistance if I need anything. The staff member started talking about how I am leaving soon and the next few months I should be wrapping up projects and saying goodbyes and writing my Close of Service Site Report. He was also talking about if there was interest in replacement, should another volunteer be placed here when I leave. That was the first time it hit me. I am going home soon…Of course I knew this, I've been counting months and days and have known my Close of Service Date since day 1, but I guess it was sort of a surreal feeling. It was the first time someone had said you are leaving very soon. I am super excited to go home but I am also a little sad to be leaving. This journey has been just that a journey. There has been ups and downs and I am sure there will be more of that over the next six months. I look back on the past 20 months and see so much growth in myself. I have had many many failures and I have had some little successes. I have learned to cope in healthy ways when things get hard. I have also learned what not to do when things go wrong. There have been days where I have wondered what I was doing here and there have been days where everything felt good and right with what I was doing here. I have experienced things I would have never imagined I would have ever experienced and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I have three months left of being able to travel and then 3 months where I have to go on "lock down" where I have to stay in my village just to give the community a proper goodbye. I know that time is going to go by quicker than I think. I have worries I won't finish what I came here to do. There are times I think that I haven't really done anything, when in actuality I have it just might be things I will never see. That's what makes this experience hard, but it's also what makes it such a unique and rewarding experience. 

I've started to think more and more about what it's going to be like when I get back to the states. I have a plan which is good, because without a plan I do get a little stressed. I am excited for my next stage in life and for new adventures. I worry a little bit about being able to adjust back to the quick-paced life of the US. I will probably break down when I walk into the grocery store and there is sooo many options of wonderful food. I might just stand there cause I won't know what to do. I also am concerned about how I will react when people ask about my experience here and I won't be able to truly convey what it was like over here. They probably won't understand or even really care all that much about what I experienced over here. But I guess that's life right? I wonder if friends I hung around with have changed much or if things will be the same. I will probably miss the village life and the day-to-day aspects of being in Africa, even the ones I find annoying sometimes right now. I will have to get used to the sounds of traffic and sirens outside my house instead of donkeys and goats. No one will call my name when I walk around my town. Kids won't come chasing after me when I walk down the road. I won't be a "celebrity" anymore. I will have to get used to driving on the right side of the road again and looking to the left and then the right before crossing the road instead of the opposite. I wonder if I will be overwhelmed by all the noise around me, when I am able to clearly understand the conversations happening around me everyday. It will be an adjustment.

In these last 6 months I hope I just relish in the rest of my time here. I hope I cherish and soak in every experience I have left, because in 6 months it will be over. It is quite a bitter-sweet feeling.