Bye Bye Americaland

I'm just waiting to get into the car and take off for the airport. I must say that my trip to Americaland was fruitful--if overwhelming. I saw quite a few friends, sampled many a cheese and apparently gained a good 10 pounds.

Packing up to head out a gain was oddly reminiscent of the first time for a few reasons. One reason is because I waited until the morning-of to finish packing and weigh my bags. I am also anxious like the time before, but there is a whole lot more of known on the other end of this flight then there was more than a year ago. I have less things with me, fewer people taking me to the airport and much less time left in Peace Corps.

It is really weird to think that the next time I am here I will be back for good (whatever that really means). I used my trip back to Washington as sort of a short-term goal to soften the weight of the difficulties I faced in the first year and shorten the wait to see my beloved cheese. Now, that is gone. Sitting here in my parents' living room makes me feel like it will be a blink of an eye before I am here again. Maybe that is naive of me. Maybe Americaland has restored a bit of a rosey tint to my metaphorical glasses. I'm thinking "Whatever gets you on the plane" to the tune of "Whatever Gets You Through the Night." Baby, it's alright.

Even if I get off the plane and realize that it was perhaps a more difficult decision than I thought--and perhaps that cheese is the fuel to my optimism--then I still have mini Africa vacations to look forward to and to break up my work. Somehow, I doubt that it will be necessary but you never know. If Burkina has taught me one thing it is that you never know what is going to happen. You can plan your heart out, but whatever you plan will happen 5 hours later, be a different topic, have more barnyard animals than initially planned and end with a rainstorm. Maybe I should plan on being upset?

I'm super excited to go to Malaria Boot Camp and partially using it as a trick to get myself on the plane. I'm going somewhere new: Senegal. As opposed to going somewhere that I've lived for more than a year. Trust me, demystification has come and gone. I danced on its grave. It is unmarked at this point. So instead of getting on a plane for an unknown African adventure, I would be boarding a plane to go live in a familiar hut made of mud and manure. But instead, I have homework for a conference in a new and exciting country that I've always wanted to see. (Not that I need to trick myself into going back... I'm just saying it is easier this way.)

At any rate. Au revoir Americaland. A bientot.