Gimme a Break

My last post expressed how I felt two months ago, as I wrote it on
Sep. 17. How I feel now is slightly different. See, next month I get
to visit home, setting foot on good ol’ American soil after nearly 1
1/3 year away.

I can’t believe it. I can’t wait. As I count down the days, I think
about what I’m most excited to experience…and what I’m most eager to
leave behind.

Here’s one list.

THINGS I WON’T MISS THIS DECEMBER:

1. being stared at or sexually harassed as the novelty foreigner
2. water being shut off for 48 hours at a time
3. transport always being up in the air — a round-trip excursion to
the grocery store takes about eight hours
(…I recently dreamt that I got a ride directly from the store
to my village, a ride that was guaranteed to leave right then, and I
was so excited: This meant I could buy a carton of ice cream! It
wouldn’t melt!! Talk about a fantasy.)
4. trudging through sand while wearing dress shoes on the way to school
5. a monotonous diet of Corn Flakes, long-life shelf milk, and
artificial coffee’s artificial substitute
6. feeling like a dunce when it comes to speaking the local language
7. my only regular internet access being from a little phone, where I
type one character at a time (such as now) and consistently lose
drafts because of poor network
8. buzzing flies, whining mosquitoes, and speedy cockroaches

Of course, I’ll miss some things this December, too:

1. my guitar
2. a slow, quiet pace that I can’t adequately describe
3. being able to tune out virtually every conversation around me, as
they’re almost all not in English
4. certain birds and their songs

…Feels unfair to have the two lists be this uneven…but I don’t
care. I’M GOING HOME IN 22 DAYS!