What? 49 Days?

Yup, that's right. The countdown on my computer desktop reads "49" today. Or in other words, I have only 49 more days as a Peace Corps volunteer! How crazy is that? Last week I attended our COS conference- a three day meeting for all of the volunteers from my training group, to tell us what we need to do to wrap things up and start preparing ourselves for our return home. The conference took place at a nice hotel on the outskirts of Antigua. It was a refreshing and relaxing three days. Three days of hot showers, good food, and lots of time spent with friends, reflecting on the past two years and looking forward to what's next. It was bittersweet, really, since it was the last time I'll see some of them. But it was definitely a productive couple of days, since COSing (umm, I guess that would be Close of Service-ing) isn't exactly a simple process. I came away with a rather long to do list: take a language exam, attend numerous doctor's appointments, complete reports about my service, schedule my flight home, consider buying PC health insurance, update my resume... This is going to mean a lot of computer time. Ugh. On top of that is everything that I want or have to do in my site before leaving: continue work as usual for the next month (while working around elections and independence day...both which are sure to keep things from running smoothly), begin to wrap things up with my women's groups and schools, make diplomas for my students and a recipe book for my women's groups, sell/give away everything that I've accumulated over these two years, and say a million goodbyes.If I allow myself to think about all of this at the same time, I'm going to get overwhelmed. So instead, I think I'll try to take these next 50 days one day at a time.

Our training group at COS

Realizing that I have so little time left has encouraged me to make the most of the time I have left. Here are a couple of highlights from the past week:

Having a blast running around like kids at Xocomil water park with friends after COS conference.


Hearing Emelin beg her daddy for a ride on his new horse every morning and every night, and watching her face light up when he gives in.



Teaching my ladies how to make icing so that they can now make and decorate their own cakes (they were thrilled!)



Falling asleep to rain on my tin roof. I'm really going to miss it. But I guess if I miss it too much back in NY, my parents will probably let me sleep in their garage :)