peace corps rollercoaster

You know you should terminate your blogger account when your blog can be defined as a diary. Well I´m sorry but with not much time to elaborate a wonderful update and layout some beautiful photographs, I´m reduced to sharing my thoughts. If this is too much like a journal of sorts, tell me and I will cease, but with seven months left in my service there are a slough of emotions running through me with respects to going home. The overtone? Is there excitment, fear or indifference about returning?

I sit here in my house trying to ignore the ants crawling through my left-over sweat-potato-leaf curry. Deep inside, I can´t wait to get to a place where ants and other creatures don´t dominate the interior of my home. Excitment? Then...a friend, visiting from a nearby city, brings a giant sized Tootsie Roll bar as a gift. Ahhhh...home I think. After a day or two I notice the Tootsie Roll bar sitting on the counter two-thirds eaten, open and vulnerable. Still tasty as ever but vulnerable. Considering the temperatures are in the ninties, I´m surprised it has survived the past couple of days. Tribute! To the engineering of our enamoured society, I think. But that´s not what startles me. What catches my attention is that the ants are indifferent. They don´t have the slightest interest in the classic American candy. In that moment you can´t help but think that perhaps overpriced organic foods are, quite possibly, worth the extra money. I won´t be the judge, but do I leave it to the ants?

At least in Mozambique, I can smell the produce and the ants aren´t too good for my food. Fear?

The same day I walk into to work and there is a father pleading, on his daughter´s behalf, to allow her to continue studying. Pleading, depsite the fact that his daughter is pregnant. The answer? NO. This year the administration is sticking to their predetermined rules that pregnant students, living in the dormitory, will not be allowed to continue studying. Moral dilema. I´m caught. I don´t know how I feel about this policy. Indifference? One question comes to mind. What about the father?

They laugh.

And there it is. Moral dilema. Do you walk away, go home and be thankful you´ll be in a place where, as home was once defined, you understand the sons-a-bitches? Or is this a reason to stay?

Don´t worry. Or, just maybe, don´t get excited. I´m coming home.

Just a couple of thoughts. And I put the photos in here so that it wasn´t too much like a diary entry. The one above is us playing with the kids in Nkhata Bay, Malawi. This photo is just in case you don´t get to Jamie´s blog too often.