Back home after more than two years

If anyone's still out there, following this blog - I'm sorry I neglected it.  Last Saturday, I flew from Quito to Houston to Chicago for the last time as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer.  I stuck it out and lasted the two years in country.  Some miserable days, some nice days.  I didn't share the half of it. 

My plan within the next few days is to get my web albums completely updated with photos.  On Monday I have an interview with the Northwest Herald (McHenry County, Illinois) to talk about Peace Corps service.  And soon, I promise I'll write here what it's like for me to return to the United States after life abroad in South America. 

So, thanks for following me this far.  I think the next chapter in my life will be pretty fun as well.

A better day

So still reporting from the U.S. in northern Illinois.

Started the morning with a quick interview with a Northwest Herald intern at Conscious Cup in Crystal Lake about service so far in the Peace Corps. Should be appearing tomorrow in the paper! Afterwards dad and I still had a lot of coffee left, so we sat around and talked for an hour. It was healing and at the end of our conversation, I felt a bit more optimistic. I asked randomly if he'd like to go to Evanston (a lengthy drive) just to check out one tiny store because it probably had the greatest likelihood of having Tibetan prayer flags - which I'm using to decorate my Ecuadorian room, despite the fact they should actually be hung outside. He jumped at it and said "Let's go!"

And our afternoon adventure began. We went home, hugged mom and went back out the door. First stop: His workplace, though it was mostly shutdown due to the holidays and lunchtime. Said a few hellos and continued on our way to Subway, getting a treat thanks to my family in Ohio!

Along the way we picked up just a few geocaches - those that were right along the road and quick to find - with a combined effort of his iPhone and my GPSr. 3 attempts; 3 finds.

Time was slipping so we skipped a bunch of other close caches and went right to the shop in Evanston. Despite its teeny size, it contained more books on Tibet, Buddhism and yoga than I ever thought existed. And what luck - they had strings of prayer flags.

Rush hour was fast approaching (present even during the holidays I guess) so we went almost straight home with a quick stop at REI to look at the clothes on sale and stare at climbing things to jog my mind and think if I needed anything. Nope. Pretty much set! Did find a small pair of my favorite pants of all time. It'll be nice to have pants that actually fit...

Right when we got home we rallied my mom and got ourselves over to Algonquin for some Indian food. Ohhh was I craving this stuff! The place was small, a bit crowded, and only had one guy cooking and one guy taking orders. Our order was... confusing. And didn't come quite as we'd planned. But it was tasty and I have a ton of leftovers. Though the price shocked me - for a small Indian place with ok food, I wouldn't have expected to pay almost half of what I get from Peace Corps each month to buy food and other necessities. I'm sure most Ecuadorians in my site would fall over backwards at such a price for just ONE meal.

Crazy.

Tomorrow: I fight the urge to run away from shopping. maybe.

Waiting for bread to rise

One of the most exciting parts of being here in the States is having an oven. Though I've been told it doesn't work so well nowadays and makes a huge "thump" noise starting up. But taking on faith that it will bake, I decided to make 3 loaves of honey wheat bread super late into the night so I we have fresh stuff in the morning. And I think bread-making will melt into homemade cinnamon roll making.

...seriously, yum.

Not too bad. Reading a book, warm, in pajamas; I could get used to this.

First picture on the new camera with the new hat that actually fits.

Rocky, my parents' puppy. Their ugly but sweetheart puppy. That ate something and had to go to the animal ER overnight two days ago. The next night I had to watch him for 4 hours, during which he peed on the wall and the couch, prompting me to send my mom cryptically tautological pleads in texts such as "BAD DOG IS BEING BAD."


Gizmo, my parents' other dog, gives some love. Sometimes.

Wait, where am I?

On Monday I hopped in a taxi, went to the Quito airport, hung around for a while with another PCV, flew to Panama, and flew to Chicago to visit the family for the holidays. It was a trip I'd been looking forward to since August.

But right from the start, things were not quite as I expected them to be. Some things haven't changed, like the super awesome and friendly welcome my small group of people received from a TSA woman, my very first American in America in more than 10 months. Oh wait, this is Chicago. And it's the TSA. And it was nighttime, which must have some influence on peoples' moods. Anyway, her welcome was less than cordial...in fact, it was sort of scary how she snapped at us all and made us walk backwards through the maze of empty aisles we'd just wandered through the wrong way...and gave me a bad taste for what was to come. "How long were you in Ecuador?" "Hmm...since February." [flicked eyes up at me with face still down] "Why exactly were you there so long?" [explained] "Welcome to the United States," with a monotone voice as she waved the next person down.

Things weren't obviously strange for me, except all the signs were subconsciously easy to read and overhearing conversations is a lot easier without even thinking about it. There's a lot of food and a lot of things very easily accessible. But suddenly now that I had my enormous list of exciting food possibilities at my fingertips, I hardly wanted anything.

We've been to a few stores now for various errands... one of my top chores was to get a replacement digital camera, meaning some giant store like Best Buy or Target. But for this time of year, they were empty. The streets are kind of quiet - the only real interaction I've had so far with Americans outside of the house has been with a couple waiters. The sky is gray with clouds high above us, not floating around the mountaintops like where I live to at least give a sense of depth and dynamism. All the trees are dormant and the grass is dead, no bright snow to cover anything up. In all, it feels very, very strange. Driving along today, I realized that now I feel more isolated than I ever have realized. American life is isolated. And so I felt kind of sad about it all, suddenly, and wondered if I would ever adjust back to how it was before. In Ecuador I felt stifled sometimes by how seemingly intrusive Ecuadorians are, but here I feel so alone.

So...what is it I want? What is best?

Also, I got sick again with a really bad cough and a fever. Horray! Sick during vacation. Leave it to me.