One Year Back

A year ago, I came home from Kazakhstan.

Honestly, the exact day escapes my memory. I remember that it was snowing in Almaty the day I left, and the streets were dark as we drove away from the Peace Corps office so early in the morning.

It is good to be back in America. I am throwing back on the personality I once had -- the person who has a full day, every day. Graduate school, work, and other obligations will make a person busy, and these are the aspects of life that I have chosen.

Sometimes I am shaken and I see my life through Kazakhstan eyes. What am I working for? Where is my family? Will I catch a cold from that open window?

There is not a day that I don't think about Kazakhstan or Liberia.

Part of that is a factor of this life that I am choosing: I work in an office draped with Central Asian paraphernalia. I got to colloquium lectures about the evolution of steppe pastoralism. I discuss public service reform in class and think about Liberia. I study the effects of language and educational achievement and think about my students.

I still find it hard to talk about. Yesterday I gave a video conference presentation to 7th graders in Ohio about the Silk Road (my job has included stranger things...). At the end, one of them asked me, "Was it difficult to live abroad for 2 years? What was is like?" How do you answer that? Of course it was difficult. But leaving was the scariest part.

It is so good to be home. I am learning how wonderful it is to be able to call people. I can think about someone, and then talk to them a minute later. This is an amazing thing after those long months of wondering, of having my weekly phone calls with the parents and the beautiful letters from friends as my only lifelines. It is incredible to feel like I am again a part of the lives of the people I love.

Sometimes I forget, though, and I let myself get sucked into this daily grind. I am trying to honor where I was and what I was. But I forget that for hours a day, for months at a time, I was a teacher. That my life was students and crazy English textbooks and a cold school building where I did squats between classes to stay warm.

I miss it. I miss the language, the banya, and I even miss the food. My first Kazakh teacher was here for an exchange program this fall -- we got to meet and talk for a few hours last week. And both of us complained about how American food lacks soup. Our other mutual pet peeve was shoes on carpets.

Mostly, seeing him reminded me of the people I miss. I get emails from my former host brother, who is now studying in Russia. His phrasing makes me laugh out loud. And berate myself for not properly teaching him: he still writes like a gangster (sista instead of sister, lil' instead of little). When I go back, if I go back....

In any event. I've survived the past year. I've lived in Almaty, Kazakhstan; Minneapolis, MN; Zwedru, Liberia; Minneapolis again; Montpelier, VT; and Bloomington, IN. I guess I'll recover from it all soon enough.