They say through every difficult experience you learn. I have definitely learned to stay away from sheet metal in the dark, among other things.
Two years ago today I left for Nicaragua. I embarked on a journey that has forever changed my life. I now have a whole new family, wonderful friends both American and Nicaraguan, and a new outlook on so many aspects of life. But I was robbed of my final months.
I have been healing slowly, trying my best to remain positive about the progress that I have made. But recovery is hard. They don't tell you that before they wheel you into surgery. They don't tell you how it will affect your mental state when you are unable to do virtually all of the activities you love during a Minnesota summer. They don't tell you that when you finally feel free and start to move again it will be the most painful part of the process. They don't tell you that insurance will throw in road blocks and speed bumps around every corner. They just tell you it will all work out.
And it will. I am so thankful to have had a place to come home to and a support system to care for me. Don't get me wrong, I am very lucky.
But two years ago I signed up for 27 months and never thought twice about that commitment. If I do something, I do it wholeheartedly and until it's finished. I never thought that I would finish my service early. I even left my house on that stressful day in May telling my host family that I would be back and refusing to say goodbye. I was determined.
And then life happened. I have seen the slow progress, I have followed the regiments. But it is simply not the best decision for my recovery to go back to Nicaragua. I need my foot and appreciate that fact now more than ever, so I cannot jeopardize that by pushing too hard too fast.
It breaks my heart to not follow through with my commitment to my community, my host family, Peace Corps, and myself. But sometimes, you just have to follow your instincts and do what is best for you, even if it's not what your heart wants. I was robbed of 5 months full of hard work, celebrations, and closure. But at some point, you just have to move on.
What I have really learned in this hard time is how much the relationships I have built actually mean. My "Nica 62" Peace Corps family has continued to make me feel like a part of the group, even if I'm not physically present. Peace Corps staff has expressed nothing but support and love during this entire process. And my Nicaraguan host family still remains in close contact with me, ensuring that I am healthy as well as telling me how much I am missed. I now have a home in two places.
For so long I did not want to think it was real. I didn't want to make the decision to stay or to go back, but now I know that it is time to move on and do what is best for me. I will be taking a job as a legal assistant in Minneapolis starting in September. Here's to the next step, carrying all of my love and memories of Nicaragua with me as I go.
"You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place."
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Nicaragua? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Nicaragua in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez
Hi Morgan,
ReplyDeleteSorry to bother you. My name is Ray Blakney and I am an RPCV from Mexico (2006-2008). Hope you have healed completely from the injury and are enjoying RPCV life. I am working on a 3rd goal project with the PC regional offices and the main office in DC to try to create an online archive to keep the language training material made all over the world from getting lost. I have created a sub-section on the website my wife and I run Live Lingua with all the information I have been able to get to date (from over the web and sent to me directly by PC staff and PCV's). I currently have close to 100 languages with ebooks, audios, and even some videos.
The next step for this project is that I am trying to get the word out about this resource so that it can not only be used by PCV's or those accepted into the Peace Corps, but also so that when people run across material that is not on the site they can send it to me and I can get it up for everybody to use. I was hoping that you could help getting the word out by putting a link on this on your site here, so that people know it is there. There should be something there for almost everybody. It is all 100% free to use and share. Here is the specific page to what we call the Live Lingua Project:
http://www.livelingua.com/project/
Thanks for any help you can provide in making this 3rd goal project a success. And if anybody in your group has some old material they can scan or already have in digital form, and want to add to the archive, please don't hesitate to pass them my email. Thanks and have a great day.