BitterSweet

With the last 2 years behind me, the end is in sight and rapidly approaching.  My thoughts have turned from what project to get my hands on next/ how can I make this project sustainable to mentally preparing myself for the transition (if that is even possible) back to America, the beautiful.  The land that I love.

(Apparently, I’m still coming down from 4^th of July celebrations from this past weekend.)

Holidays are always a tough one.  I mean we, volunteers, always end up having a great time trying to recreate American traditions and we make do with what we have to make a pretty fantastic spread of a feast, but it’s just not the same as being with your friends and family back home.  Until you realize that these once upon a time strangers are your family in their own right. 

Holidays away are often sad.  You call home and hear your family together usually doing everything you wish to be doing…sitting around a table overflowing with food.  Going to the beach or the park.  Grilling out and swimming.  Eating.  Eating.  And, yep… you people are always eating! 
(And seriously what is with everyone posting pics of delicious food on facebook. You know who you are.)

But this 4^th of July was sad in a different way.  I mean, yes, I wished to be home and partake in hotdog eating contests and baseball games, fireworks, and cookouts.  But I was sad this time because this was the last holiday I would have here in Kenya with my PC family.  My life will never quite be the same.  

And so this is where I’m at in this experience right now.  How will I be when I return?  What will my life look like?  Will I just jump back into apps, touchscreens, and smart phones?  Because it’s actually been nice, to be in a sense, disconnected and off the grid.

How long will I feel guilty about taking hot showers that last 10 minutes?  Will I forever be adding up in my head how many mosquito nets I could buy for the price of my dinner at a restaurant out?  Don’t even get me started on the price of clothes when I get shirts here for a quarter. 

$2 for an avocado!!!!  I could get that for a nickel.  (Ok, so maybe I've just aged by 40 years!)

How will this experience have changed me and what of myself am I going to lose as I transition back to the American way?

Meshing my Kenyan life with my American life will be an interesting feat.  Be easy on me people. 

 So often in the Peace Corps world you hear about how the transition back home is always more difficult than the initial transition of moving and living in another country. 

Another thing that is said a lot:  No matter how integrated into our host country communities we become we will never fully belong.  And when we return to America, because this experience changes a person we don’t really fit in there anymore either. 

How long will I be confused about where ‘home’ is?

This makes thinking about the transition a bit scary. 

I have had to start google-ing things because I don’t know what some of the things people post on facebook is anymore.   I’m trying to prepare myself for this next step.

But, honestly, I don’t know that I can prepare myself.  Before I left for PC I read so many books, blogs, talked to Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, emailed with currently serving volunteers, whatever I could.   I knew it was going to be a rollercoaster experience and over and over it was said that it was hard.  And I was like, please, I got this, I’m ready.  But until I got here I didn’t know the extent of what that meant.  And let me tell you, no one was lying about that part. 

Except now that it is nearly over it seems easy.  I've got those peace corps issued rose colored glasses on. 

Where I’m standing makes all the difference.

I have had a countdown because I am ready to be home and while that is exciting to think about it is also sad because I am not only counting down my return to the land of the free but I am counting away my days in Kenya. 

I am eager to be back in my homeland, but Namboboto has also become my home.

And so the countdown stops with only one page left to turn on my calendar. 

So I can no longer tell you how many days it is until I will see you, America.   Just that I will see you soon.