Leaving Home

As you can see by our little gage to the right of your screen, our peace corps service is now 100 percent complete. The last week of our service was pure parties and getting the house ready to go. This party was a particular favorite because it began with a pinata modeled after kory complete with tie, hat and sandles (professional sandles of course). Everyone was quite honored to take a wack at him. The rest of the party consisted of speaches made in our honor and long silences when no one wanted to say anything. We found out later that many didnt want to speak because they thought they would cry. (I swear I'm not making that up.)
This was the third going away party we had from the members of our church. We were very touched, but made sure there were no uncomfortable speaches this day, instead we made everyone sing the national anthem twice and dance and play games. We had a presentation with Dr. Lia and Panchita, the team of our big charla project, that hopefully they will finish. Even our boss Pilar, George the director of Peace Corps Nicaragua and his wife came. (Ps, those are the baners in the background). A final good bye dinner at the casa materna followed by more speaches.

The ringing of the bell in the Peace Corps office is the official end of service ceremony. It means you have finished with honor (i guess) and that you are on your way home with no more work to do. I love this picture of Kory! He is so cute! He was very excited to finish all the way to the day we were supposed too.And even though we left our home in Nicaragua, we arrive in a home much more engrained in our souls. And in this new home lives all our families whom we adore. We were greated at the airport with tons of people and love and have enjoyed every second of being with the people we love.

Don't think its all fun and games though, its hard. Though a fluke we found ourselves in the super Walmart in Evenston Wyoming, standing in front of the deoderant, mesmerized by the shear selection of brands and scents and the lovely packaging on every single one. We had difficulty making the decision. Then we were at a birthday party for my cute little niece, wherin she had a pony and a pinata.. and just feast your eyes on how calmly the children are picking up the candy. We were used to a sight much more similar to a chunk of meat thrown into a pirana pond. Everything here is so luxurious and clean and orderly. Even the outsides are clean. Even the dirt I think is pretty clean. You buy it in sacks here at the store. Its weird. Being jobless for the first time in our lives is unnerving but we are trying to enjoy all the company we have since we are living with Heather's sister. Heather will be pursuing a career in community based social work.. whatever that means (she doesn't even know what kind of a job that will land her) but she has big dreams and is not sure the common social work job is going to cut it. Kory also has big dreams, the first of which include buying a new computer to work on. He will be designing a computer program which he has never done. We are people who need that creative slack that Peace Corps fostered so well in our jobs there. We want nothing more than to keep doing Peace Corps, but here at home. Hopefully we will find our niche in this big strange world full of stuff and order.

We are thinking this will be the last blog entry as real life just isnt as interesting. We thank all of you who followed our blog and kept up with what we did. We created it for all who wanted to share in our adventures. The next adventure is parenthood and beyond! Wish us luck!

!Adios y que Dios les bendiga!