Insert cliche title about going home here


In a few short and at the same time very long days I will be voyaging home for the first time in over a year.  With mixed emotions about my first half of my service behind me I cannot swim against the current of being slightly reflective and sentimental looking back at the last time I was home and for all that I have experienced here.  As I pack my now relatively tattered wardrobe into my suitcase and glance through photos of my family and friends I am not only feeling anticipatory but nervous, anxious, and grateful all the while.
I stare back at the  twelveplus months behind me and see a roller coaster, but who of us who has ridden the coaster has not enjoyed it although terrorized at times during the ride.  We may pledge not to ever do it again but somewhere, at some time in our minds there are fond memories.  For me the ride continues to improve.  We are the blessed, those away from our homes and feeling like we are now at home at the same time.  I cannot wait to see my father at the airport, wake my niece and nephew from their slumber at 5 AM, and embrace my mother-make a go at seeing my friends who I have missed out on countless mocks and laughs with…gorge on my favorite foods, and pause from the surreal to enter the other side of surreal. 
The last months of my time here have been the sweetest for me as my work load has picked up with occasional success, my terrible Spanish is less terrible, and as I walk down the streets of my town I treated more and more like family and less like the gringo.  Kids running up to hug you, or being introduced to a group of people as being like family.  For the first time yesterday my host sister told me I was fat and I borrowed a line from my father and told her to touch before you talk, you are touching concrete-he always referred to them as steel bands but I lack the word for bands.  I am half way through my service and feel like I am rolling downhill instead of sucking wind at every step.  That is not to say life is perfect but I am at peace with my choice of pausing real life to step away to experience the unknown.  Who is to say what real life is anyways………
Peru is not a magical place but it can make you feel that way, but so does home and  shortly I will be on my way…………………………………………………………………

I also ate intestine soup for lunch today

Comments

  1. Tim HøilandJune 21, 2012 at 4:17 PM

    This was all great, but that last line is what had me reaching for the tissues.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bigote

Image
    It is December 12th here in Illimo, Peru.  It is baking hot and 1pm.  As my part of the United States faces  the beginning of a cold Winter I face a daily dance on the Sun.  One and a half hours removed from the coast and sitting hours from the equator my town begins to bake about 9:30 AM.  A breeze comes in around 3:30 and cools things down, it is still pleasant at night…ideal sleeping conditions with a full open window and fan.  In my off time I have been reading a book titled Guns, Germs, and Steel-the fates of human societies.  Which is a historical break down of how our world ended up as it did why certain countries conquered others, where food production developed, and how our society is as it is presently.  It was a grand book, in my other free time I have been watching Trueblood the HBO vampire series.  This is my last week of classes before the youth encounter their vacation so things have slowed down a bit for me…..and after this week I face two weeks of not much whic
Read more

Life and such

Image
For all intense purposes I have five months of service left which is both an eternity and a heartbeat.   It has also probably been five months since I spewed anything onto this blog.  I had started writing quite a lengthy one just a week ago but it turned into something that could only be shared with one person....and apart from that the things I experience and feel are in my mind not communicated effectively through my ability to write....so I go silent.  I go silent essentially with other volunteers in relation to my time here...they all know I love my town but I leave out the details of my work and the things that transpire for the most part.  The truth is looking back I never joined the Peace Corps for anyone else but myself but it has turned into something very different.  One could say that anyone who joins the Peace Corps joins with the desire to help others but I can tell you underlying that was a selfish need for change in my life and career.  Did I desire to help others, y
Read more

Peru and what not

Image
Forgive me as it has been many months since my last blog.   As penance tell of your life in very general terms and say nothing of real significance. I believe it has been months since I last pecked anything on my blog which has been described to me as having the layout and design of an five year old…so with that in mind I sit here in my bedchambers reflecting on all that has passed over the last number of months….the good, the bad, and the indifferent….but alas what is actually indifferent.  Everything has an outcome whether it be positive or negative…a lesson learned or forgotten so we can repeat it.  I am now more than half way done with my term here in Peru and with this comes a number of different emotions, thoughts, and the like.  None of which I will indulge you in at the moment.  A few highlights to my last months As some of you may know I am bald.  Two weeks ago I was invited to what I consider to be a dear friend’s 50 th birthday party.  Here in Peru the
Read more