Homeward Bound

(slowly)

As of yesterday morning, I am no longer a Peace Corps Volunteer. I have officially COSed, and therefore am officially no longer the US governments problem if I do something stupid. Which is probably comforting for all of us. I was going to have some long, summing up "wow, Peace Corps sure was great"post, but I just read the one I made a couple of weeks ago, and I can't really think of a better summary than that intense feeling of awe and gratitude. So I'll leave it. And besides, as I've been saying goodbye to almost every person who has kept me going in the last two years, I've decided that its not really the goodbyes or the last nights out, or the summing up that counts, its all the stuff that came before it. So lets not worry about the end of PC, because it was everything up until the end that matters.

About two weeks ago I took Jabu and Latoya to the big mall in Nelspruit to say goodbye. We got all dressed up and went to Spur (a 'wild west' steak house) and then to see Batman. Neither of them had ever been to a movie theater before, and I really wanted to do something special as a way of saying goodbye. Those two were my best friends, and I'm really going to miss them a lot. The thought of never seeing them again, not seeing the type of people that they will grow up to be, makes me so sad that I've justdecided not to think about it. I did write down addresses (of course!) and give them mine -- I also gave Latoya a couple of pre-stamped envelopes with my address already on it, so in theory all they have to do is put some words in an envelope and drop the envelope through a slot. That is at least a little comforting.

This morning I have been wandering Gabarone, in Botswana. This is the first step on my 10 week amble across southern and eastern Africa. Gabarone is an interesting city, very laid back, very calm, though that could be because I've been doing all my wandering on a sunday morning. Probably its a little more hopping monday through friday. But the people are nice and the houses don't look like maximum security prisons (pretoria -- I'm looking at you), which is a definite bonus. Tomorrow morning I move on to a city called Ghanzi in the middle of the Kalahari. I'm excited.