Dear all,
This was supposed to be a
"Hey, I'm leaving Togo soon" message, but true to form I never got the
message out. I can only hope that you have all long ago decided to
love me for who I am: a lousy correspondent.
I
am in Accra, Ghana right now, officially a 'Returned' PCV since the
13th, and on the road for a month plus. I don't know yet how I am
feeling about it all, the 2 years, the leaving, the coming home again
-- am a little numb really, like it isn't real yet and won't be until
I'm there. I warn you all now that I don't know what to expect of
myself once back. They tell us we will be truly uncomfortable in our
own country for awhile, which yeah I've been through before but not for
this long, and not to a place like Africa, so who bloody knows? It's a
huge transition, and you never know how you're going to react to it, so
bear with me is all I am saying... They also tell us that you all,
our friends and loved ones, won't actually be interested in hearing
anything past a 30-second commercial about our lives here -- which in
one sense I find really hard to believe, but on the flip side, I get it
cuz if any of you just spent 2 years studying bushrats in the amazon,
I'd be curious but I would likely have no frame of reference for a deep
discussion with you. I wouldn't even know which questions to ask. So,
I will try not to be offended, and I probably won't have the energy to
have long talks about it all at once anyway -- which is why it would
have been good to keep up the regular correspondence I let lapse so
long ago --, but I think the stories will come out at a natural pace,
over the months and years. I doubt I will have a satisfactory response
to the question: "How was it?" It's been 2 long and complicated and
emotional and up-and-down years.
Anyway, the long of it is that I AM
heading home, and I feel like I will be very very very happy to be
back, culture-shock be damned. I feel way ready to get hopped up and
make a couple bad decisions. all I am saying is, remind me of those
words in a month or two, how happy I am to come home.
Head
to Morocco (yes, again) on the redeye tomorrow with 2 friends who
haven't yet been, where we will head to the desert with two others.
Thanksgiving in the Sahara. Woke up in a tropical rainforest this
morning, and walked in the canopy at dawn, which is why this continent
is so cool, eh? I'd almost forgotten at times. Then we head to Spain
on the first of dec, then two of us to Paris on the 10th, then I fly to
Vegas on the 19th, where my lovely sister and cousin have planned my
spa day and cirque du soleil....
that's all I
got for now; hope to be back in seattle around the new year, maybe
before it -- the family fixed up grandma's nissan sentra, so I have a
car !!!! for the road trip home, which I have to say is a huge relief
and a wonderful surprise and mark I guess you can keep the escort....
love and kisses to you all,
Laura Lou