This isn’t mine, but I read each paragraph nodding my head in agreement. So many of my blogs are summed up in this PCV’s single blog entry that I feel it’s worth sharing.
Show Me a Peace Corps Volunteer.
But, you’ve come all this way, I should give you something of my own, too. So, I’ll just say, it’s strange being this close to the end. I actually counted–I have 20 more classroom days. That’s it.
I’ll need to buy dish-washing liquid soon and even if I buy the small bottle, I won’t finish it before I leave.
My ear doctor, and a few of her friends, comprise my newest English club. Due to the nature of their work, these conversations are more intense than the other English clubs. The pediatrician talked about a boy who had been scalded by boiling water. The ear doctor talked about removing a live tick from a patient’s ear canal; she drew a picture–it was HUGE.
Last summer, I accompanied my M22 site-mates on their flight to UB. I was at the airport to witness their entire departments, some 20 people, come to see them off. It was 7am! There was a milk offering, vodka sipping, gift giving, and speech making. The sincere emotion of it was too much for me and it wasn’t even my goodbye.
In fits and starts, I’m thinking about my return to America. I started to create a LinkedIn profile, which was promptly put on hold on account of my unusual first name. That’s straightened out now, but I’m stuck on how to summarize this experience. Which, I guess, brings me back to this “Show me a Peace Corps Volunteer” blog that I’ve linked above.
To Mongolia with Love 
Wow, Love, so bittersweet. I think we finally understand how much your newfound family means to you & how much you’ll miss them. That, of course, is only due to the fact that your blogs have helped us get to know them somewhat. Not so much individually as you’ve come to know them, but collectively as a people who have needs, feelings, & dreams of their own.
I cannot thank you enough for allowing those of us here back home to live through you vicariously.
God bless you & be with you now & while you journey home.
We love you, Love.
~Auntie~ ❤
I “ditto” A. Kathy’s comments. I’ll be singing that song to myself the day you leave Mongolia, Love: “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” written by John Denver, sung by Peter, Paul & Mary. I cried like a baby the day I left summer camp after only a week, around 4th or 5th grade and that song was playing on the camp’s PA system. You’ve been in Mongolia much longer than a week, making all kinds of lifelong connections, and after reading about your reactions to your M-22 site-mates departure/send off, me thinks you’ll have a similar experience when your day gets here. “Bittersweet” A. Kathy hit it on the head.