Settling into an incredibly remote and independent community has provided me with time to reflect on all of the challenges I faced in Accra. Life in the city has definitely changed me. I can feel it in the way I view sick or injured people, I can feel it in the way I place value in a life, I can feel it in the way I want to develop my relationships, and I can feel it in the way I want to approach these next four months.
Archive – February 2011
Time is a strange thing; sometimes it seems as though I said goodbye to my family and friends only yesterday, while other times it feels as though it happened in another lifetime. Nine months is a long period of time, and I find it difficult to wrap my mind around the concept. We’ve passed the halfway mark, but I think that for any experience as formative as this one, it’s hard to feel the full impact while still in the midst of living it.
My life here in Perú is so different from the life I led in the US; I don’t have the physical comforts or activity-packed free time that used to make me happy. Yet somehow, these past five months have been the best of my life. From seeing Rosi’s example, I’ve realized why; I’m finally dedicating more to others than I am to myself. I spend a lot of my day doing service work, and then most of the rest just sitting around with my family.
It is incredibly difficult to think that four months have passed already and that my experience in Novi Sad has come to an end. The hardest part of it all is to leave behind the comfort that was built up. After all, it takes time and a lot of hard work to get used to another culture and a foreign city. It almost seems unfair that in the exact moment in which our life in Novi Sad is properly structured we have to part with it and start anew.