Farewells and New Faces

About a week ago all the volunteers were able to welcome their new site neighbors from Peace Corps Group 3 during their week-long site visit. I am very excited that two nearby towns will have volunteers from the new group. Towns just twenty minutes north of Dangila, and thirty minutes south, by bus, welcomed new volunteers! It just so happened that the new group had their Site Visit week during many of Group 1 volunteer’s last week at site. While this makes for a convenient handoff of furniture and goods for sites with replacement volunteers, it also was a dose of reality about all the changes taking place. The whirlwind of transition all around me is hard to absorb from my viewpoint in the eye of the storm. I was able to say goodbye to a couple of Group 1 friends during the week, and the farewells were certainly hard to take. Seeing neighbors, and confidants, depart from this adventure was bitter sweet. They will be missed. It is a turning point in my time here; changing from second-in-command to leaders-of-the-pack. Now it is my group’s turn to dole out advice and pretend we know what we’re doing. And in many ways I don’t feel ready to do that. But I also realize that it is just part of the Peace Corps lifecycle, and it is a required step so that one day I too will return to America… or somewhere. With all of this change, and the approach of the one-year mark away from home, I am happy to report that I am finding my place in the world. I still cannot describe a “typical day” and I haven’t a clue what I want to do upon finishing my service, but I like the pace of life here, and couldn’t imagine leaving quite yet. That being said, one year away from my family has been one of the hardest things I have ever had to endure. And in less than a month now I have the privilege of introducing my family to Ethiopia (and visiting Tanzania and Egypt with them!). It is a trip of a lifetime, and cannot wait to reunite with them, have an adventure, and show them my new home.