Tuesday, January 10, 2006

I finally get paid, and I want to come home

I’ve lived here for about months, and I am getting my first paycheck Friday. I am very excited! Things that have been in limbo will finally start to fall in place, and I can start making a budget and living a semi normal life. I also, as a bonus, get $180 per month in “vales”, which essentially are vouchers. I can use them like cash at many restaurants and Wal-Marts. I guess they are like food stamps – it’s the only thing I can compare it to.

Anyway, I apologize again for not writing much. Its been a function of not having convenient internet access and not really wanting to write much. I feel like this should be a positive reading experience for everyone, and frankly, it hasn’t been all that positive as of late. But, I realize, my intent for this blog was not to entertain but rather share all the ups and downs of this experience. So, let me try to share what’s been going on.

Apparently, it’s completely normal. Or else that’s what the expert cultural training consultants told me this summer. Everyone experiences a phase where they just want to go home. Everything about the new country irritates them, and they get incredibly home sick. That’s what I’m going through right now – and it might be that I just spent two weeks at home for Christmas, but still, coming back here was T-O-U-G-H. The little things that only slightly bothered me in the beginning make me want to shoot myself now, and the things that I did enjoy really aren’t that spectacular. In fact, I decided that there is really nothing that I enjoy about daily life here. The traffic sucks, I despise fearing for my life every time I drive along side a bus (which is pretty much constantly), I hate getting bombarded by people selling things or begging IN the street at stop lights, it makes me cringe to think that it takes one month for a letter to get to me, I really don’t like the food, the air is terrible, I can’t stand not being able to communicate, I hate not getting jokes, the zillions of stray dogs are depressing, I’m always freaking cold AND I CAN’T FIND TATER TOTS OR CANNED FRENCH CUT GREEN BEANS!!!!!! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

*sigh* So there it is. I want to come home. Where people know how to drive and obey traffic signals; where tater tots and French cut green beans abound. I told Keith the other day how incredibly thankful I was that he is here with me, because I’m pretty sure I would be retarded amounts of miserable if I was by myself. I guess, however, that the consultant’s job really did pay off, because one of the things that is keeping me from packing up my brother and the cats is the fact that this feeling will go away, and I will be able to actually enjoy myself……or so they say. Hey, I figure everything else they told me has been true, so I choose to trust them.

AND I know its all part of the experience, and this is something I have wanted forever. So, I’ll be a tough girl, take it head on, stiffen up my upper lip, suck it up, take one for the team, keep my chin up and all that jazz and see it through. Because that’s just how I do – even if I complain a bit along the way.

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