One Wild and Precious Life

 I am happy to report that I am feeling back to my usual self this week!  It wasn't an overly eventful week, but it was one that helped me re-center and get out of whatever funk I had been in.  I'm going to share a few vignettes from the week--somehow they all start with the letter "B". Bus "adventure" :  I know that I write about the buses a   lot .  But you have to understand how my life in a lot of ways, is now governed by the buses.  One day this week, I was going to meet up with 3 other PCVs at a local beach.  This meant taking a new bus--but I wasn't stressed because one of the other volunteers gave me excellent directions to find the bus.  So I get to the bus--they are often times lined up like you see in this picture--often times each bus in the line is going to a different location (but not always).  I see a driver by his bus and I ask "Is this the bus to Fond du Lac?"  Side note: Obviously I'm not going to the beach in FDL.  But t

  I’m committed to being “real” in this blog, so I’m just going to tell you that this last week was just one of "those" weeks.   I’ve felt off-center all week—like little things just really annoying me way more than they should.   One example: one day this week I had this mini-spiral about the fact that there are bugs everywhere in my house (this is just a fact of life here) and I was so over having to brush them off everything (including myself) and I couldn’t take any more bites.   There have been a bunch of things like that this week.   Even employing all of my usual practices—exercise, meditation, mindfulness—wasn’t getting me back to center.   O n Friday, I found out that my identity has been stolen.   Sadly, this is not the 1 st time, but suffice it to say that dealing with all of that from overseas is even more of a nightmare than when you have to deal with it at home.   Later on Friday, I learned that Tokitae had died—and this one broke me a bit.   Many of you know

 The 1st week in my new home has been one full of new experiences and realizations.  It might seem like a strange thing to say after having lived in this country for over 2 months now, but I think the reality and the length of this commitment are really hitting me now.  Perhaps it's because this past week was the first time that I really had any mental space to process what I was undertaking.  Being in my home community and starting to meet people and connect with them feels good and also underscores that this is my home now.  Some of the experiences and realizations from this week: Cultural differences : There are A LOT of cultural differences and I'm sure that I'll continue to talk about these in the weeks ahead.  But right now, the one that is at the fore is the interdependence of the community.  I've mentioned this before--how you really do need to interact with people in order to do things here (i.e. you can't just look online and figure out how to do things). 

 It is a Sunday morning and I'm sitting at my kitchen table writing this blog, listening to an amazing Americana playlist (thank you George!) while doing laundry--and I am feeling so blissful and contented.  I moved into my home yesterday after another week of transitions.  The week in recap... We finished our training days early in the week.  Wednesday we had our assessments--Commitment to Service, Readiness to Serve, and Kwèyol.  I did well on all!  I am particularly proud of myself for how far I've come with my Kwèyol.  I still have a long way to go, but I'll get practice in my home community--it's even spoken at the school, which we had been told was something that didn't really happen.   I became a Peace Corps Volunteer!!!!!!  We got sworn in on Thursday and then took the Peace Corps Pledge during the official ceremony on Friday.  The top picture is from Thursday after we took our oath--everyone is beaming!  The bottom photo is during the official ceremony wher