Country Under My Skin: julio 2007

Today I talked to a young woman who I have never met but got referred to me because she is deciding whether to do a year-long internship with Opportunity International in Nicaragua. My first emotion was envy, I must admit, partly because I wish all of my time in Nicaragua had been spent working for Opportunity and partly because I just really love Nicaragua. However, I also love being with Ben, connecting with friends and family more easily, and living in Seattle. The transition has been pretty smooth. People talk about culture shock, and maybe it's because I've kept busy or traveled a lot or maybe it's because I did get to go home for a weekend about a month before actually coming home, but I've been fine.

A week after coming home, my sister and I took a road trip out to Minnesota, where we got to see such things as "Pioneer Mom with Scary Child," a life-size X-Wing Fighter (from Star Wars), and some friends and family, of course. Lucky Allie got to be dragged along to meet a lot of my friends and Carleton people. Allie left me in Minnesota and I continued on to Seattle. I love Seattle, I love the apartment, I love the location. The rain has not arrived, so I am generally pretty happy. And job-searching.

This picture was taken right before I left, before anyone had started to cry (notice the lack of red eyes). When Christopher, the 2 1/2 year old, saw that my host mother and I were crying, he started to cry as well, and then actually came with me and 2 friends to the bus stop to give me a last hug. If that's not sweet, I don't know what is.