This has been a fairly transformative year or so for me.
At my birthday last year I decided that this year would be my year of follow through. I removed the word should from my vocabulary and instead followed through with the things I thought were important. Instead of saying I should eat healthier I challenged myself to eat healthier. Instead of saying I should exercise more often, I did it. Instead of thinking ‘ I wish I was one of those people who ran and did yoga everyday’ I became that person. This year I worked on transforming myself into the the person I have always aspired to be. Then after all that follow through I decided this next year (2015-2016) would be my year of challenge.
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| before I left Morocco in front of my house |
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| in Cambodia with chips I ate in Morocco |
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| picking up our boss |
It’s been a long and a wonderful year and half or so. I didn’t do a response post to arriving in America after my Peace Corps service because it was hard. I didn’t really know what to write and on one hand I felt like my integration back to my home country was easy and fun but I had a rough and isolating winter last year. Luckily that ended and thawed into the best spring of my life.
After a winter of buying way too many bra’s and working at a gas station I took a position at Nature’s Classroom in Connecticut. I have worked seasonally for all of my adult life ( barring my Peace Corps service) and this past spring was truly magical. I have never worked a season where so many people got along so well for so long. So much so that we still want to be around each other even a year later.
You can call us Cultbrook but we prefer Soulbrook ;) I love my new Soulbrook family and they all made me a better person. I learned more about myself, I challenged myself, and I soaked in as much information as I could from their knowledge and expertise.
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| after a day of playing like children |
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| Soulbrook on the stoop |
As a community we challenged each other, supported each other and I know I’m better because of our time together. I didn’t know it but I had developed a mistrust of men from my time Morocco- the nature of my co-workers helped me shake that off. I found my way back into my own country and learned what I valued, and what I loved about my home after being away for 2 years. I dove deep into the forest without shoes on , held wild snakes, did acrobatic tricks, sang everyday, slept in a hammock city, truly saw the wildflowers, stalked bobcats, played like a kid, learned the names of the trees and made America my home again. I found my feet underneath me and I grew more confident. My new family helped me transform.
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| the beginning of my headstand. |
When the ground finally thawed my friends would kick off their shoes and scamper into the woods and as I watched them pick lines through the trees I decided that I wanted to be able to do that too. So I started running and eating better and exercising, I stopped making excuses and I made myself stronger. I spent months figuring out how to do a headstand. All in all in the past months I have found so much that’s important to me. I have a new love for myself , for nature and for my country. And then I left again.
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| after months of effort- my headstand on top of mount lafayette in NH |
Ha! Right now I am accepting a new challenge. Turns out I have never truly dated before and last fall while still at Nature’s Classroom I met this wonderful man Ox who wooed me but had already started planning this trip to Cambodia. When our time at Nature’s Classroom was over I still wanted to be with him so when he left at the beginning of this year I knew I would rather be with him in Cambodia then not be with him at all. It’s hard for me to leave the woods, and the mountains and the country I have fallen in love with again but I know it’s still there and I know this is where I belong right now. Cambodia and Ox are both incredibly wonderful.
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| Moroccan Market |
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| Cambodian Market |
Visually it reminds me a lot of Morocco- the store fronts, the traffic and the markets all echo Morocco’s aesthetic but that’s pretty much the end of the similarities.
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| Fruit in Morocco |
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| Fruit in Cambodia |
The food is so different and I love all of it- also I’ve started eating meat because even though it is a Buddhist country the majority of the food here relies on meat and I want to eat EVERYTHING. In my 2 weeks here I have not had a single meal that I haven’t liked if not loved- well besides the durian and the crickets I did not like the durian and I could take or leave the crickets- but everything else has been phenomenal. I feel much safer here then I ever felt in a Moroccan city, people smile a lot more at each other and I have had no street harassment besides a few kids asking for money at traffic lights and the tuk tuk (taxi) drivers asking me if I want a ride (because why would I want to walk anywhere ?!?! it’s hot out!). In the past two weeks I’m realizing I have some things still to resolve and process about my time in Morocco and how it made me feel. Being in Cambodia is helping me discover some of the things I learned during my time in Morocco because I obviously spent the last year learning to love my home and not exactly reflecting constantly on my Peace Corps service. Being in Cambodia makes me miss Morocco and I would be lying if I didn’t say I missed America a little- but mostly because I LOVE spring and I wish I could see the forest transform from a winters sleep into green and bloom. However I am so happy to be here and so grateful for all that I have experienced and everything leading up to this moment and all the new experiences to come.
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| Ox and I in NYC before he left for Cambodia |
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| Ox and I eating jellied coconut in Cambodia |
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