'somada.. cheio!

What better way to reflect on the passing of a year than to be where you started but with different eyes...

I agreed to help out with the training of the new volunteers this year. I am still a volunteer and not getting paid, but this was something that I wanted to do. When I thought back to last year, the most information and most help came from the volunteers, so I wanted to offer that. I also thought that it would be interesting to be on the other side of training. My own training feels infinitely far in the past, but resonates through each day as it is the foundation upon which I stand here. I hoped to get to know the trainees and share knowledge and information. Indirectly, I looked forward to the opportunity to see my colleagues and *hopefully* acquire a little more Portuguese. I have certainly been able to spend time with my colleagues and soon to be colleagues. We have all shared knowledge, ideas and information, some of which I hope to implement in the coming year, but my Portuguese is still pretty lame.

I find myself living in Assomada (in the interior of the island of Santiago) in the training house with anywhere from 3 to 5 other volunteers. Fridays are the best because all the staff and trainees come to meet here and my "house" takes on the atmosphere of a cockroach den. Every room is filled to the brim with people squirming around in all directions, running past one another and slinking around corners. It is not a small place, but it certainly wasn't designed for 60.

Despite this minor frustration (and the multiple times my stomach has not quite been ok), I'm really enjoying this experience. The energy and ideas of the new trainees are refreshing and exciting and the fact that I am half way through with my service has really hit home as I watch them acquire language and skills and say my last goodbye to the previous year's volunteers as they begin the next step of their journeys. It is hard to believe that in just one more year, that will be me saying goodbye.

I find myself looking forward to the end of training, not for it to end, but for my parents to arrive. On September 1st I will not be at swearing in, but will instead be at the airport anxiously awaiting the landing of the plane that carries my parents in its swollen belly. These brief glimpses of my life serve no more than to record my thoughts and pass on a little information about my sanity, safety and service here. There is a whole year of thoughts, ideas, memories, experiences and growth that is trapped in my head just waiting for the open ears of my parents to fall upon. This will be my reward for the hard work that I have done.