Bittersweetness

2 weeks left in the village and I feel so many things. I feel confused and overwhelmed and anxious and excited and happy and proud and hopeful and sad. I know it's time to move on, but I'm really sad to leave my life here. I put so much energy and emotions into building a life here and it seems strange to have to take it all apart.

I decided to forgo feeling guilty about not going to my office or other "PCV" duties, and I'm going to do the things that make me happiest in my village. This involves spending as much time with Grandma as possible, going to preschool a lot, and going for evening walks around the lake.

Today it rained all morning, which was strange because it hadn't rained in months. Regardless the rain was a welcome break from the hot season and I brought my book over to Grandma's benches to hang out. The rain and cool breeze were so relaxing I ended up falling asleep for over an hour. I woke up next to Grandma and she had covered me up with a nice blanket. It's moments like these that I don't know how I will ever be able to leave her and my village.

We sat and chatted for awhile about all sorts of randomness, food being an obvious topic. And then she muttered "Oh Kaimook can't eat Isaan food, but I can eat everything." (Kaimook = pearl, my nickname in Thai). She often talks about this and I said "Grandma can't eat everything! She can't eat foreigner food!" And she just laughed. I ran over to my house to get the leftover curried chickpeas I made for dinner last night and said "Here! Try!" She burst out laughing and said "No way!" And then I said "See! You can't eat everything!" And she just shook her head with a smile. The two of us are two peas in a pod and the whole neighborhood knows it. It brings tears to my eyes right now thinking about how much I love this woman and how much I'm going to miss her. I am trying to focus on how grateful I am that she entered my life and I hope to take the things I learned from her and her bright spirit with me back to America. She has enriched my life in so many ways and her friendship is worth all of the struggles I have faced here.