25 de agosto

Today is four months. Also known to me as my Capulispungo birthday... I always do a little dance on the 25th of every month. Although I do feel relived to have another month of service swept under the rug, I still worry about the length of time in which the others will come. I should say that I´m not necessarily "worrying" over the days but they are on the back of my mind. I feel content, still very happy- but what I do not enjoy is being here while things, important, silly, sad, funny, happy, are happening at home while I am so far away. But like my dear friend janet, commented one day... Peace Corps is day by day. You do it one day adn then you do the next and you keep doing it until it is done. By then you can´t imagine how much time has gone by.

Having my mother visit was more than I could have asked for. For my mind, heart, and soul her visitation healed, guided, and re-engergized me. I could not have asked for a more easy going travelling buddy and I could not have asked her to have come at a more perfect time. Although the trip was short in comparsion to the amount of time we have spent apart, it was definitely sweet. Having guests is hard at a times and I would say it is even a risk! You risk the happiness that comes at their arrival and the sadness upon their departure. You risk losing a camera.. or even possibly finding it when it´s all said and done. However, having guests is also like having Santa Claus come visit! because of all the trinkets they bring from anything to velcro, handtowels, pesto, chocolate, rubberbands.. and shoot! even clothes you have not seen or worn since the sixth grade. Thanks ma! I would continue to elaborate on the adventure we had together with our friend Steven but that might cause me to get teary eyed.. and at the end not be very productful.. so I´ll leave it at this, if you want to know what we did, ask my mother, she has a lot to say :) I also wanted to thank everyone who sent something along with my mom so that it got here safely. Every little present I deeply cherished and am soo thankful to have the support of all my family and friends.

To continue... In terms of my community, I get really excited when I feel as though I am getting emotionally closer to the people of my community. When once they were unfamiliar faces and now they are more or less family to me, some one I can joke with, confide in, or even chisme with! I enjoy the fact that they now knock on my door, try to invite themselves in, even if they are asking for yet another favor... It´s the joking around that really makes me feel good, when we can laugh together and connect inter-culturally on an intangible level of happiness!
The cakes, are going and going... but unfortunately, I´m not sure where. We bought an oven yesterday which apparently the treasurer nor the coordinator wanted to buy but, only the president did. I´m still learning.. and will always be learning... about the emotional inter-workings of all the people in my community and how so and so feels about so and so. For example, issues of jealously adn envy. How people get discouraged about participating because of envy which then translates to them being unable to see the extemely obvious open door that I have allowed for people in the pastel project. When one person has something, the next neighbor wants it too! and the next and the next. Beacause for one person to have something and the other not, implies power and wealth which in comparision to all the others... It ends up leaving the ones without, disheartened and jealous. Jealously to the point of sabatoge, rumors, chimes, and complaints.
On a more sentimental note.. I was advised to put this part in, even though I had my doubts. I don´t want to give anyone the wrong idea! and I sure do not want to paint a picture of rainbows and magic, so here goes...

tonight,
i wish i could understand what im feeling. i hardly realize that this is the second entry of the day, although it feels like two days have gone past. i was so sure it was tuesday this evening.. i dont usually feel like that, like two days have become one or that one day was split into two.
and even if i dont do or accompish anything in one day, i still dont get my days jumbled.. i wonder why i was so terribly confused today. im feeling insomnicatic tonight, thankful that theres no alchohol in the house. last week i was finished off a bottle of rum within five days of just sipping on it. its just something to do when ive read all i can read... and i dont feel like conversing, writing, drawing, or practicing the guitar. alchohol makes me antisocial, i guess because all i want to do is retreat to my house in the evening, take a few drinks, cook dinner, and get lost in my thoughts. now more than ever, its easier for me to get lost in my thoughts when im sober but i guess im a lot less willing to share.. to myself that is!.. when i havent drank. but even contradictory, which i do drink...in order to let those thoughts wander.. i quickly close them up or neglect to really feel what they are saying to me. so either way the result is an obvious betrayal or coverup of my emotions. an intentive negligence to acknowlege them until its too late.
thankfully i havent reached the too late point, not even when mom left. but lets not speak of that now before i crawl into bed because surely, i wont be able to sleep. i have this uncanny and unprecedented desire to stay up all night. sit on my roof, smoke a cigar, watch the stars, and listen to the silence. but sometimes, for example now, when im not cooking and passing in and out of the house, or when i leave the door closed for too long, i forget where i am.. and when i leave that bubble unnoticingly, i am almost shocked, taken.aback, and obviously, instantly reminded where i have landed myself. i wouldnt say its a disrupting feeling but rather a humbling one.
at four months im more accustomed but definitely not completely acclamated. maybe at most half way acclamated, at most. there must be a higher reason why im here, in capulispungo. some universal truth that i will learn at the end of it all because, i have to remind myself, there is an end. being here remotely reminds me of how i felt when i was a young girl in high school, deciding whether or not we´d stay at the small private school or large public school. these feelings appear very neatly in my mind, how is it that i will have to spend so much time in such a small place? can i see myself pacing back and forth from my house to the office for two years? that analogy will probably not make any sense to anyone but me.
i feel as though i am learning unspoken values but i cant make out what they are..yet. so from that statement i guess its easy to detect my optimism and my skepticism. im trying to realize ways in which i can be a better volunteer.. one thats sustainable but yet essential to the development of my community. is that what a good volunteer means? but finding a middle ground in those two points is difficult and trying. it wears at my patience, its constantly challenging, its dreadfully boring, surprisingly exciting, but when the day is over, its all over and the next day brings you everything you wanted and never expected. every new day is a fresh start.

thanks for listening.