Follow through, Challenge, love and Cambodia.

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. 

before I left Morocco in front of my house

in Cambodia with chips I ate in Morocco 

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.

after a day of playing like children

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. 

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. 

          

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. 

Moroccan Market

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.

Fruit in Morocco 

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. 

Ox and I in NYC before he left for Cambodia

Ox and I eating jellied coconut in Cambodia

          

Next week I’m going to be starting a TESOL course through a program called LC- Asia then get a teaching job here ( fingers crossed I will be getting a job teaching science). But in the meantime I am trying all sorts of new things, hanging out with some old Kingsley Pines friends- Kelsey and Brandon- and being with the lovely man that brought me to this country. I’m going to try and be more diligent then I was with my Peace Corps blogging, but we shall see what truly happens. I’ve been saying I was going to write this post for about 3 weeks now. This blog is a new challenge, and this is after all my year of challenge. 

Vietnamese Coffee with sweetened condensed milk

My first day in Cambodia

      

Trying Durian 

SE Asian Kingsley Pines Reunion! 

Crickets

Return

It has been several months now since I've returned to america and so far, more or less, it's been good.

Things are still shiny- I still get disproportionally excited about a big delicious cup of coffee or a 2 dollar taco or my beautiful new bra's and all they do for me.

Simultaneously a lot and very little has happened since my return. The holidays happened which were incredible and difficult. Incredible because I finally got to celebrate with family and friends and difficult because they had to live up to the expectations I have built up over 2 years in Morocco.

I got a part time job at a gas station and had to work christmas day, and as a child of school teachers I had no true way to deal with working on a holiday I had always had free my whole life.

I had to quit the part time gas station job because my body doesn't like standing still for 9 hours straight. It was sort of a disappointment. I kind of liked the work. I was busy most of the work day, I got to talk to lots of different people, the cash register was like a real-life Iphone game. I could see myself owning a little corner store like that some day (clearly with a different focus then 99 cent toquito's and frozen pizza's though). Often when I'm home I feel like I have no friends, because I have no social circle that remains here and I just sit at home feeling lonely – working at a place where more or less everyone has to stop meant that I got to see old teachers, classmates and got to make new friends. So on one hand while I continue to nurse my cranky upper back, I am grateful for my time there and I have a new found respect for people who work at places like that, standing all day on stupid mats that are supposed to help- by the way- every other country I've been to lets their tellers sit down.

Some things have been confusing me since being home. I'm not sure how I feel about wearing leggings and nothing over top of them especially in the winter time, though I've found some longer shirts that make me feel less exposed and I will probably jump on that bandwagon.

I am confused by commercials, though the more TV I watch the less ridiculous they seem. However, for the first 2 months commercials felt alien to me. The flashy BS that shows ridiculous juxtapositions between what we should want and how we should look and act confused me. Why do we need all this stuff? I will admit, though, that I watched some of the super bowl commercials the other day online- it's absurd how quickly these 30 second to 1 minute absurdities hawking cars and soda's and banks and a plethora of superfluous shenanigans become normal.

I don't know if this has been a natural progression for me or if I just expect more from my country after being in a country with so little infrastructure and work for its 'common man'; but one of the things that has been most upsetting and difficult for me to understand is what people are willing to do and not do for their jobs. I am having a lot of trouble understanding why a community of workers would accept not taking lunch breaks or smoke breaks or why we as a society accept how little some people are paid and how much they are expected to work. This year people had to choose between spending Thanksgiving with their families or making extra money and working at a box store so we consumers could get “good deals” a few hours earlier. WTF. I'm confused why there is so little opportunities for people to work and get paid enough to survive and why we still accept that sick people should have to go bankrupt to get the care they need. This is a whole other topic entirely but I'm also confused why people don't realize that big change takes time and is going to be messy (this is specifically in regards to the health care system that is being overhauled through the affordable care act).

America isn't so different from when I left it- sure the cracker aisle of the supermarket looks pretty different, there's more types of Arizona Iced tea but I think as a whole I feel like I'm back - capital “H”- Home. I love the Berkshires and the things the people of this community are working to achieve. I go to a monthly barter market, I've met young farmers and homesteaders, young professionals and motivated community builders, there's beautiful and welcoming public spaces and delicious restaurants with thoughtful menus, open mic nights and contra dances. It seems to me that at least here people are working towards things I value- community, sustainability, and building up local products and traditions. I love the Berkshires- to me it seems like the perfect middle ground between country and city- there's hiking, and lots of nature but there's still concert venues, an arts and entertainment industry and you can easily get to metropolitan area's by bus or train. I don't know if I'll ever truly be able to afford to live here full time- but we'll see.

I do miss Morocco a lot- I miss having my own house, I miss my town being a compact little thing that means I can walk everywhere. As much as I love having all the groceries I could want available to me all the time I miss my weekly souk and buying vegetables by the kilo and walking home with them in my hiking pack. I miss how connected I felt to people. I miss the freedom of interacting with people on my own time, instead of theirs. I miss my site mate, my stajmates, my Peace corps and moroccan friends, I miss the sunsets and the mountains and public transportation.

I do not miss doing laundry by hand, being cold inside during the winter and having to feel anxiety about how I dressed and how I interacted with men. I love the individual freedoms I have here and how I can express myself how I choose once again- I love talking about things like hetero normative values and environmental sustainability. I love the familiarity and history I have with people and old friends and how easy it is to talk to people. I love the value Americans give to independences and uniqueness and creativity. I'm totally adrift about what I want to do and how I want to fit in here long term- but I am really thankful to be home.

Here's some pictures of my last few months being home and how I feel about America:

Beer and Iphones- AMERICA! 

Goodnight Moon! America appreciates literature

individual freedoms- we have them. 

mom and I had a table at a craft fair- we sold very little, but it was fun to be in my elementary school and see local people I used to see often. 

New york city in the snow- pretty awesome. 

new years day hike with good friends. 

snow is my favorite. It is gorgeous here. I'm getting to go cross country skiing once again! 

live music? heck yes!! Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams less then 30 minutes from my house.