The Final Stretch

T-minus one month exactly until I ring the bell in the Peace Corps office, symbolically marking the closure of my Peace Corps service.  I know I´ve said this a lot, but it´s really hard to believe my time here is almost over! I started this blog as a Sawbill Canoe Outfitters Crew Member in July of 2013 talking about how I was super nervous but excited to come here. When I got here I posted regularly and managed to be at least semi-creative for the first several months.  Then I passed into my let´s put on a false front even though I´m having a hard time phase.  And finally, I started to get into the reflection of my service posts.  I have also haven´t been writing in here very frequently lately because my computer has been in the shop for 3 months and I never really have time to type up posts when I´m in town.  Now, as I´m in the final stretch of my service, I really don´t know how to feel. 

In the last several weeks I have started spending more time just  with friends and community members, and less time doing legit work (I should clarify that spending time with community members still constitutes as work... :).  I still show up to school mostly every day, but in the afternoons I´ve been trying to spend most of my time baking with people, or just paseando (hanging out).  Either that or heading into town to work in computer cafés because my laptop is broken, followed by hanging out with friends in town.  It´s great, but it also reminds me how much I´m going to miss everything when I leave.  I´ll be honest when I say that any idea I had of becoming a teacher before I came here has been shot down after working in the schools for 2 years.  I´m just not cut out to be a full time teacher.  I don´t have the skills my Dad has.  

But I´m really going to miss just being able to stop over at someone´s house to talk or watch telenovelas over a cup of local homeroasted coffee and homemade bread, then being gifted fruit as I leave.  I could do without some of the small town gossip, but I´m going to miss everyone in town knowing who I am, and most saying hi to me in the street.  I´ve been the Peace Corps Volunteer and Profe José in my community for 2 years.  That´s been my identity, and it´s going to be difficult going back to the States and going back to being Joe.  But, as I´ve been saying, todo lo bueno tiene que terminar, así es la vida.  Everything good must come to an end, thus is life.  So I´m going to live up my last month here, and know that the next phase is my life may be different, but will still be great in it´s own way.  

And here are a few pics...

I didn´t parade around the town in a burlap sack skirt like last year, but I still wore THIS for their independence festivals this year (this day was actually celebrating a battle won against Americans...)

I´ve been trying to hike more volcanos before leaving.

I went to go visit a friends on their farm last week. They have an enormous farm and grow most of their own food! They also have been planting a bunch of trees to better the environment! They´re so cool!!