The End is in Sight

It seems like just yesterday that I nervously walked into a conference room in Philadelphia and sat down quietly at one of the tables strewn with pens and nametags, awaiting the beginning of the unknown adventure in front of me.

Then, twenty-seven months seemed like a long time. I didn't know much about Mozambique, I didn't know what to expect from Peace Corps, and I didn't know any of the people sitting awkwardly at the table with me. It's hard to believe that since then, two years have passed and I'm nearing the end of my service.

A few days ago, the volunteers in my group, Moz 19, got our official COS (Close of Service) dates -- the date that we will officially stop being a PCV and become an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer).My last day as a Peace Corps volunteer will be November 21st, 2014. That's in 143 days, or four and a half months.

On the one hand, I'm very excited to go home. I can't wait to be back in the land of ice cream, yoga, netflix, smartphones, big-as-yo-face burritos, and, naturally, cheesecake. In a way, I've been looking forward to going home ever since I got here.

And yet, I'm going to miss this place. I had a really nostalgic moment yesterday, as I was in class with my favorite 10th graders. They were putting parts of the story "The Ant and the Grasshopper" in order, and they were laughing, talking -- involved in what they were learning. One of them jokingly asked if he could turn his assignment in written in Nyungwe instead of English, "so that Teacher has to do her homework too."

Back when the end seemed really far away, it was all we could think about. Sitting in the back of a rattling old pickup truck in a cloud of dust on a potholed-filled road, the thought "Only one more year" was comforting. Now that it's "Only four more months," it feels much less comforting. It's terrifying!

Still, the next few months will be action-filled. We're finishing up the second trimester of school this month, and then we have two weeks of vacation in August. In September, we have our final conference, and later that month is the English Theater Competition that I'm organizing this year. In October is Teacher's Day and we'll hopefully be painting a giant world map on the side of our school, and then by mid-November,school (and Peace Corps) will be over. I'll travel to Namibia and South Africa with Lisa in December before flying to Germany to spend Christmas with my family. Before going back to the States, I'll meet two old friends in Prague and hopefully pay a short visit to some other friends in the U.K.

So, to all you people back home reading this, I'll see you in January 2015. Get ready, cause I won't be!