RPCV!

Well... I officially am no longer a Peace Corps Volunteer. On September 10th, I signed a stack load of forms, said my goodbyes, had my id invalidated and headed to the airport to return to America for the first time in two years. Of course the airline wouldn’t let me get out of Cape Verde that easily, and after waiting for 11 hours (yes, ELEVEN!) I finally boarded the plane and 8 long hours later I arrived in Boston, Massachusetts.

My last few weeks as a volunteer were really nice, of course a bit stressful at times, but they were a good way to end one part of my life and start a new part. Even though I knew that I was coming back to Cape Verde about a month later, it was still incredibly hard to say goodbye to the kids and my coworkers at the SOS. For my last week, I did lots of extra activities with them and as a going away present I decided to make them a video. I have taken an unbelievable number of photos of these kids over the last two years, and every time I take a photo, they always want to see it. So I decided to take a photo of every child that came to the center everyday and incorporate it into the video. In order to make it more interesting, I asked them to draw a letter on a piece of paper. When I put the video together, their letters spelled out ‘’Centro Social SOS, R.Juliao, Sao Vicente.’’ I also added some highlights of some of the photos I had taken and to ensure some tears I put it to the music of ‘’We are the world, We are the Children.’’ I got a few tears out of the kids, but I was more surprised of how much my coworkers and I cried. After a lunch with all of the kids, they surprised me with a t-shirt that all of the kids had signed. It was beautiful and of course I was brought to tears again! I think that I was really lucky and blessed to be placed at the SOS Social Center. Although my two years was not free of ups and downs, it was filled with many smiles and lots of laughter. To my amazing coworkers and the great children who came everyday and made me laugh, Thank you for two wonderful years filled with happiness. ‘’Obrigada por dois anos cheio de alegria’’

While I am no longer a Peace Corps Volunteer, I have decided to stay in Cape Verde for a while longer. When I came here I certainly didn’t expect that I would ever want to stay after my two years were up. Of course I also didn’t know that I would be on one of the most beautiful islands in the country and I didn’t think that I would meet such amazing people. But I did and so I decided to stay when I was offered a job working in tourism. Now, I have the chance to show tourists why I fell in love with this place. And as a bonus, I get to visit the SOS whenever I want and continue with my project to build a playground.

Thank you for reading my blog, I know it is mostly family. Thanks Mom, Dad and Alissa for your endless support. If it wasn’t for you, who knows if I would have got on the plane the first time and started this journey. I cannot thank you enough for all that you have done!!