reflection, transition: everyday counts, especially these next 37

This week has been a slight up and down of me cursing with stress from the upcoming Camp GLOW (our province's second annual! Thank you to any and all reading this that donated!), and deep breathing through the happiness that is pouring through me as I reap the benefits of two years of relationship building with the unfailingly kind people around me.

Currently, I've pulled myself out of that stressed out place to write this post.  I needed to pause and remind myself of all the good that has happened even in the last few days, and that everything will come together. It always does.

This week has been the absolute ultimate for me.  There is no other descriptive word for it.

At our Close of Service conference, our Country Director (CD) reminded us not only about how far we've come, what we've done, what we've come to mean to our communities (all good things), but also how far we still have to go.  Something our CD has been saying a lot lately is to remember that every single day here is an opportunity to make a difference.  To which I add, every single day is an opportunity to engage in something small (or large) that leaves me with a smile on a my face, and smiles and laughter from others in my wake as I bike away.

Sometimes the hardest thing about being in the Peace Corps is getting wrapped up too far inside your own head, too far inside the introverted side of yourself.  Questioning so much of the whys, the hows, the what-fors.  Sometimes, when you know your primary assignment won't happen that day (in my case, when school is cancelled, or closed for a holiday), the hardest thing in the world is opening that door and entering it all.  Entering Cambodia, entering the heat, entering an entirely new culture.

But I am constantly reminded that when I do open the door (let's say literally and figuratively here, and cover all the bases), my efforts are rebounded upon me double fold in the kindess, generosity, humor and new people, words and experiences.  Unfailingly, I am left feeling ten times better than I did when sitting in by the fan in my little home.  Unfailingly, I am also sweaty and shaking my head from some potentially brash (and honest) comments made to me or about me, but I am absolutely, without a doubt, happier.

This week, I made it my priority to create for myself a very full, and thus fulfilling, schedule for my final five weeks at site (that is entirely insane to seen written out.)  I am with my students in the morning, with time for a stopover at one of my two breakfast stalls before class, and one after, and running errands for Camp GLOW or spending time with students at my library in the afternoon.

Adding to this, Topher and I have decided to take pictures and distribute them in frames with kind words to many of the people who mean so much to us here- our family, the men and women whose places of business we frequent, the students who have been with us every single week from the very beginning.  And it's exhausting, yes, but dear lord, it's also my favorite thing about the end of all this. Finding some small way to thank the community, our community.

And every evening, I am riding that roller coaster of stress and joy because this job is not done, and I feel the ever creeping weight of our final days here approaching, and I'm not ready, and I am, and in the end, every single day is another opportunity.

To learn from, and with, these hard-working, compassionate friends of ours.