update.

Lately I've had a tendency to get caught up in my own world here, and in my own head, not getting out to take in what's in my own "backyard," let alone across the ocean from me. I apologize for disappearing off the map. I needed some time to work through the frustration of Ramadan, and the loneliness of losing my sitemate to COS (Close of Service) at the beginning of September. I retreated into myself for a little while, but thankfully I think things are starting to look up, with school beginning here this week and projects popping up left and right to be involved in. The weather also seems to have broken - we just survived an insufferably hot 2 weeks that finally ended with a short rain shower on Wednesday night, and since then the last two days have been much more bearable, with an almost cool breeze in the evenings.

I have a busy schedule the next few weeks, and am glad of it - it took a little while for things to pick back up again after summer school vacation and the end of Ramadan, almost 3 weeks ago, and I had been feeling very low and useless for a while. I am hopeful though that I can move forward now with the new energy of school starting again, and am looking at the next few months as a short amount of time to cover before rounding the bend into 2010. January is not so far away! 3 months, in terms of a 2-year contract, that is. And then it will not be very long at all before I have to wrap up my work here, which is a strange feeling, but a good one. Not that I don't feel my time here has been beneficial - but I have reached a point where I feel that anything more I could do now here would just be solidifying what I have already done, and laying a firm foundation for the volunteer who will come after me.

Maybe I am wishing time away, looking ahead so far, feeling tired, frustrated, and ready to "come home". But what are you going to do. I can only feel what I do. I have about 6 more months of working time here. I am proud of myself for coming this far. I honestly wasn't sure when I started this thing last year if I was going to be able to make it. I remember a certain teary phone call I made to my mother while I was still in Portland, as I'd left my house to walk out my uncertainty on a cold February day. Her support came warm on the other end, reassuring me, as she always has done, that I was "strong enough for this."

Yes, there are many ways I feel that in the last year and a half I could have done better work, more efficiently, more intelligently, differently. But then I've always been a perfectionist. It's not easy to look at my service now from a perspective of "what can I still do?" and "how can I best leave my work behind?" It's surreal to think that so much time has already passed, that I am starting to consider where to go "after".

There are many things I had planned to do that haven't panned out. Some things I could have pushed harder for, some things that were beyond my control. And there is still some time. But at the very least when I look back at what I have done here, I can see that I have gained the respect of my community, and made the importance of environmental education felt even more strongly than it had been before I came.
We'll see what the next 6 months bring. But if that is all I accomplish over 2 years, I think it will still be something to walk away from with pride.