Let's dance... the last dance...

I may have just put the last two phone cards into my cell phone. It's not the most exciting landmark one could note, but it occurred to me as I was scratching the back with a 10-tetri piece.

Three days left, zero weekends left, zero days of class left, probably five or six Tbilisi metro rides left, one train ride left, two more chicken mtsvadi sandwiches from Ori Lula left, three nights in the host family's apartment left, et cetera.


I suppose this is a note to go out on... last Monday, the local newspaper published an article from an interview with me, complete with a nice-sized picture of me smiling. We spoke about me, about my sister, my job, and how to make hamburgers. Accordingly, across the top in bold letters is the title, "If I Fell in Love, I Would Marry a Georgian." The effect is rather like a personals ad. Good thing I'm leaving before the responses come in.



It's also on the front page as a tabloid teaser-- "If I Fell in Love, I Would Marry a Georgian... Page 5!"

In any case, Peace Corps is over. There were times when I would have loved to leave early, but mostly there were times when I knew no desk job could compare. There were times when I wanted to pull my hair out, but then the bell rang and school was out. There were times when I missed my friends and family, but there were (and are) also times where I feared for the impending departure of the last taxi full of my Georgia friends to the airport on July 17th.

I returned my water filter and said goodbye to my host family and neighbors. I swung by the houses of my counterparts one last time, fairly certain that they and their teaching styles are completely unchanged from June 2006. I sent text messages to my favorite students implying that I won't come visit them again if they stop studying English. I went on one last terrifying car ride, the driver squeezing between oncoming semis as the Geocell 2007 Christmas CD filled the July air with the sound of Jingle Bells.

And now, a clip from my other blog written April 17, 2006:

"I feel like I'm preparing to leave the planet. Every once in a while it'll occur to me that these are my last few weeks in the U.S. for a very long while, but most of the time the Peace Corps seems like a daydream I've been having, like it's not entirely possible that I've decided to ditch everyone I know and every cultural sensibility I've grown up with and every perk of strong economic performance (the nation's, not mine... clearly...) that I've become accustomed to-- to go hole up in a communications-isolated rural village in an ex-Soviet nation with spotty electricity and shaky governmental foundations. My little dream right now is that I'll be posted in a relatively-large city on the Black Sea (where the climate is warm and they grow oranges) with an Internet cafe or two. There's very little chance, but stranger things have happened. If all else fails, Squaw gave me a travel journal that I'm sure I'll spend many evenings crying into. What the hell am I thinking!?

Of course I know what I'm thinking: I'm thinking that in addition to the fact that I wouldn't get into any of the grad schools I want unless I have an application boost like this, the fact remains that the reasons I told the Peace Corps recruiter were true. I would like to represent the United States overseas in a non-combat, non-religious, non-elevated role, volunteering two years of my life to enhance a community, knowing that I probably won't have another untethered two years in which to do so for the rest of my life. It's a little different when you try to translate lofty ideals into concrete plans, though. I can't think of any other time I've tried to do something this crazy.

It won't be that bad. That's the difference between this trip and my trip to Cuba: I was prepared to burn through the 4 weeks and get my ass back home to my friends and family as quickly as possible. Result: weeks of abject misery. This time, the situation is quasi-permanent; any efforts on my part to try and speed up the process or to count the days until I leave will result in an even more deep-set and chronic misery. I'm sure there's people out there who hate the Peace Corps, those volunteers who get there and decide it's too hard. And I remember I almost thought Cuba was too hard, even though it was only 4 freaking weeks. But dammit, I stayed, and the Peace Corps will have to drag me out of Georgia by my hair before I'd quit (easy to say that now, huh?). I'm gonna teach English whether the kids like it or not, I'm gonna travel around the region with other volunteers, and I'm gonna retreat to my journal and mp3 player (think anyone will get me one?) to cry less and less frequently as I stay there longer."

Yay for me.

Goodbye, Georgia. Every time I see an issue of Us Weekly in a checkout line and every time I see a commercial for a Super Duper Grande Quadruple Greaseburger value meal, I will think of you fondly. Every time I step on the scale and every time a Georgian word passes my lips when I'm trying to speak Spanish, I will curse your memory. Much like the ups and downs of my Peace Corps service, it will balance out in the end.

P.S. Join Peace Corps.