March 2011

This is my expected Close of Service month. My exact date is TBD by me and I am not sure how I feel about choosing it. Once I pick the date, then it'll really feel like this experience will be coming to an end and right now, it sucks to think that. Yeah, sometimes I am ready to go home and continue with the 'next part of my life', but right now, I can honestly say I will miss everything about this place. From the daily greetings from the village kids waving and yelling, "Edsoni!", the afternoon shenanigans with Marie Anne and Tabita (Kim's colorful neighbors) as I walk home from work and so many other things that I don't want to mention out of being way too cheesey in this entry. After four months, this will all be over. I could extend an extra year if I applied for it (and considered it for a bit recently, but not seriously), but there is no reason why I believe it will be necessary to extend in terms of doing work at site. I am not needed to oversee the continuation of projects. I have a site-mate (Kim) and she is more than capable of working on future projects here and overseeing any of my projects. The end of anything is scary and since my parents left Rwanda less than a month ago, that's all I've been thinking about. Four months is still four months, but time seriously goes by fast here. Relationships between myself and friends from site/PC will change after I finish. I don't doubt it. Whether it will be a positive or negative change is what drives me crazy and freaks me out. I've relied on close friends here for support like never before. Before coming here, I mainly kept to myself in America and felt slightly awkward and out of place around others. Being here, I forced myself to be incredibly social in my village. I needed to or else I would never have done any work or felt integrated enough to want to stay here for the complete 2 years. I definitely feel good being here compared to when I was home and I want it to continue when I leave here. I don't want it to stop when I get off that plane in America. Anyhoo, I am just babbling now. What I do know for sure after I COS is that I will be traveling in Africa for a month. Sonia (amiga and fellow PCV from my group) and I talked about traveling to West Africa before heading home. She will end her trip in France (she has family there) before going home, but I think I will just finish somewhere in Africa. This is the only thing I am looking forward to when I COS. Just 4 more months.

(*This blog entry is mainly for myself...sorry it's nothing exciting or includes any cool stories. Maybe next time.)