What goes up must come down. Sometimes I go home feeling defeated. Sometimes I think I think the people I work with don’t really want to be helped. Sometimes I think it’s my fault for taking on a project that I seem to be more interested in than they are. Sometimes I feel like I’ve dropped the ball and I just want to go home.

May 29^th marks the day I left the U.S. I’ve been living here for a year now. Man, time flies. But while it does seem like this past year has flown by, it also seems like forever ago that I arrived and the thought of another year is hard to grasp. I don’t know if that makes any sense at all. I feel as though I’ve lived so much, and maybe that’s why it seems like I’ve been here for so long. Work-wise, I don’t feel as though I’ve accomplished much, at least not as much as I thought I would have gotten done in one year. I’m not really worried about that, they say most volunteers get most of their work done during the second year of service. But living, I feel as though I’ve lived more in the past year than I ever have. Maybe it feels like I’ve lived more because this kind of living has so much more to do with surviving. And I’m not talking about surviving in the TV show ‘Survivor’ kind of way. I mean surviving in terms of hanging on to the commitment of being a volunteer, in terms of facing obstacles in work and in day to day life and in overcoming solitude and home-sickness. Some days I want to give up, sometimes I just want to hang out with my sisters and my friends and hug my mom. Sometimes I want to eat a real meal, with vegetables or be cozy in my socks and sip on a crisp glass of pinot noir. Sometimes we run out of water, sometimes there are a ton of mosquitoes and dengue fever alerts, sometimes I get sick and feel miserable, unable to distinguish a fever with just being hot and sweaty. Sometimes the roosters crow in an unstoppable never-ending chain at any particular hour of the day, which in turn sets the dogs barking, which in turn, leads the babies to cry and then the angry mothers yelling, the neighbor gagging himself with his toothbrush, the “Bollywood” movies blasting…

But sometimes, just sometimes, I get those days where the light is perfect and purple as I am walking home, or when I get an invitation to dinner while I’m jogging, or randomly get asked to come in for a bilo of grog, or when I’m asked to hold a newborn baby, or when my students smile and joke around dancing in class. These are the moments that I wait for, the moments when I understand and value why I am here. Yes, it’s hard at times, most times, lately. But the overall struggle is worth it, at least so far.