Leaving

Now I'm in Dar waiting to go back to America. My flight leaves next Thursday. Before then I have a host of medical appointments and meetings to take care of, then it's good by Tanzania.

Saying goodbye to everyone at my school wasn't easy. They organized a goodbye event for me where the students sang songs for me and everything. A lot of them have cried then and other times in the days before I left. A lot of the girls had become like little sisters to me, so it was very hard for me too. I already miss some of them a lot. I don't know if I'll ever have such a big impact on so many kids again. I am nowhere near to being able to write down a summary of the PC experience and what it's meant to me, but it's probably safe to say in a quick summary that the first year of service was the hardest and the second year the best year of my life. In the next few weeks I will keep writing here and talking about my experiences and my thoughts on returning to America.

During this week I'll just try to have a good time and say goodbye to more people. PC volunteers I've been close to are heading out in a gradual stream that has already started and will continue for a few weeks after I leave. Others have another year to go. I wish I had something profound to say, but I'm still feeling like I did when I rode on the bus through the valley where I lived for well over year, and that is I simply can't get it through my head that after a vacation in Dar, I'm not going back there. I'm not going to go back in the classroom and see those girls again. I'm going to start something new back in America. I doubt it will be teaching, but then it may be. Whatever it is, with what I've been through I know I can handle it.