So at the end of June I was very fortunate to be able to go home to America for a couple weeks!
The first part of the trip was spending time with my best friend since 5th grade! She got married (weird how growing up works...) and we had a lot of last minute running around to do. This included going into Toys-R-Us which was a bit overwhelming and I was still getting used to being around so much English which means I was cursing more than I should have been... The wedding was so beautiful and only had a couple snags along the way so that was good. I really enjoyed spending time with an old friend, being able to actually help with the wedding stuff (felt pretty guilty that I was the maid of honor but couldn't do much from Madagascar), celebrating her love with a great man and seeing a bunch of her family too that I hadn't see in a very long time. The one sad part about this trip is that I barely squeezed into my dress for the wedding resulting in me not being able to gorge myself on all the great American food that I wanted to... Even having Special K cereal and cold milk was Amazing though!
The second part of my trip was going back home to Colorado. My family and I drove back from the wedding and watched movies in a spacious car, which is about the furthest away from my Madagascar experiences as I can get! I forgot how much seeing the Rockies just makes me feel at home too... I was able to see a few good friends and hit up my old college town to chat with some folks. I also got to spend the 4th of July with my family and take a motorcycle ride into the mountains with my dad. I had a lot of Cinnamon Toast Crush and PHO!!! Rocked my world. My mom let me sleep in her bed while I was home too = A-maz-ing!!! So soft, so warm..! These are the things I was excited about haha!
It was great to be home, to speak English, to be in my own culture where I understand everything, to be with my friends and family...but sadly I had to leave all over again... 5 different planes and a lot of hours later I was back in Madagascar to finish out my 1 year+ of service. I was able to stay in the capital for a little bit and welcome the incoming health and education trainees, which was fun. I finally made it back to my banking town, then to my site and back in my house. My house felt smaller and I wanted to take a few days of just being alone to readjust to everything again. I have gotten back into most of my routines and have a lot more drive to focus on my work but my attitude towards everything is not the same as before leaving for America.
I'll clarify that a bit... I'm a lot more homesick than I was before. I am less inclined to go out and just sit and talk with people - This is in part to do with me having a new computer to watch movies and stuff on and in part, sitting around and talking is slightly uncomfortable when I can't always relate or contribute much to the conversation so I would rather spend my time planning and organizing my work. My focus on work has been better, the computer has allowed me to work on my funding proposals at site where it is quiet instead of having to wait to use the computer in my banking town when I really don't feel like working since I'm around other volunteers. I am more on the fence about a third year extension than when I left, I'm still considering it but I still need time to think about it before having any serious conversations with Peace Corps about it.
So that's pretty much where I'm at at this point. I've got something coming up almost every month for the rest of the year so that'll move things along nicely :) Helping a couple other volunteers on projects this month and in October (which will also be my 24th birthday..!) September I will be in the capital again helping out with language translating for Operation Smile. November I am headed back to our original training site for our Mid-Service Conference. Hopefully during all that the project proposals will come through and we can start working!
Mind-trip: A year into service, a year left and 2012 is just around the corner
