Goodbye Jacal!
I didn’t realize how many people I had made friends with in my site until I started to say my goodbyes.
Weird.
This morning I left my house on a mission (not the fantasy one in my head where I go next door to the mechanic shop with a baseball bat to smash in their speakers), this was a real mission.
I had to say goodbye to people, buy some ropa tipica, clean my house and pack my bags.
So here I am, at 9:30PM with HEAVY eyelids and even heavier limbs, wondering HOW in the hell I did everything…and WHY on earth I left it to the last minute.
As for the how: I had about 14 cups of coffee today.
As for the why…I think it could have something to do with the fact that I don’t really like saying goodbye.
Apart from that one time when I was a kid in grade school and my friend moved away, I’m not much of a crier when it comes to saying, “nice to meet you…see you maybe never.”
I tend to stammer uncomfortably and throw in a, “well…maybe I’ll be back; yeah, we’ll probably see each other soon…” when in reality…the chances of that happening are pretty slim. I know it and they know it.
Only till just now, upon arriving home from my rounds am I feeling that familiar twinge of sadness. I have been so excited to get out of here that I had forgotten about all of the things that I would miss.
I will miss the old woman in the market who always says, “hasta cuando te miro!” (it’s been so long since I’ve seen you!) even if it’s only really been a day since I saw her last.
I will miss feeling like a “big deal.” As much as I have hated the attention that I sometimes attract, I will definitely miss being asked what I am doing and having people actually listen to the answer.
I will miss the weather, It was incredible out today.
I will miss talking about nothing with strangers.
I will miss the crazy woman in town who wears high heels in the park and sprays people with a hose and yells “I hate pigs!” if they litter…it’s colorful people like this that make me able to laugh at the stuff that gets me down.
I will miss people asking me if I’ve eaten, not listening to my answer and then giving me food anyways.
I will miss the simplicity of life. If all I do in one day is my laundry then I’ve accomplished something major.
I have 9 days left in Guatemala as of today. Yes, we’re in the single-digits now.
When I got to my site I was thinking two years was going to be a really long time and now that I’m about to leave I’m wondering where all the time went.
I am ready to go home but it’s definitely bitter-sweet.
There are things that I won’t miss…but I feel we should avoid that worm-hole. We may end up somewhere weird.
More to come…
Must sleep. Dead pocket.
LOVE LOVE LOVE!
Good Day Kristin!
ReplyDeleteSorry to bother you. My name is Ray Blakney and I am a RPCV from Mexico. I am working on a 3rd goal project with the PC regional offices and the main office in DC to try to create an online archive to keep the language training material made all over the world from getting lost. I have created a sub-section on the website my wife and I run - http://www.livelingua.com - with all the information I have been able to get to date (from over the web and sent to me directly by PC staff and PCV's). I currently have close to 100 languages with ebooks, audios and even some videos.
The next step for this project is that I am trying to get the world out about this resource so that it can not only be used by PCV's or those accepted into the Peace Corps, but also so that when people run across material that is not on the site they can send it to me and I can get it up for everybody to use. I was hoping that you could help getting the word out by putting a link on this on your site at:
http://kmortabroad.blogspot.com/
so that people know it is there. There should be something there for almost everybody. It is all 100% free to use and share. Here is the specific page of the Peace Corps Archive:
http://www.livelingua.com/peace-corps-language-courses.php
Thanks for any help you can provide in making this 3rd goal project a success. And if anybody in your group has some old material they can scan or already have in digital form, and want to add to the archive, please don't hesitate to pass them my email. Thanks and have a great day.
Ray Blakney
blakney.ray@gmail.com
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