The hardest job you’ll ever love.

Someone, somewhere coined that phrase about peace corps. Ask the me of 3 weeks ago and I’d agree. But that was lifetimes ago, and I find myself realizing it’s certainly not the “job” I love. The job is a job…is a job. I go to work. I come home from work. I worry about work. I’m frustrated by work. I could do that anywhere in the world. Not to mention, I work for the united states government and though we are buffered from most things “political,” everything else that u might imagine going along with working for the government, well, does. No, no, it’s not the work.

I thought maybe it was the adventure. New and exotic. Places to explore. Doing something different. The foreignness of it all. The delicate balance between altruism and hedonism that only other peace corps volunteers could ever understand. Quickly though, I realized that adventure could turn hostile.

Nicaragua quickly turned hostile. Without going into the details of accusations, investigations, and interrogations, the adventure turned nightmarish, and I felt like I just was not wanted here anymore. It was something I never, in all of my dreams of a peace corps future, could have imagined. Things seemed to be crumbling.

Then the ground fell out beneath me, and your finding me here in this blog, still falling. I’ll reassure for friends and family at home that my physical wellbeing is fine. Unfortunately, for a variety of different reasons, several members of my peace corps group, Nica50, including some of my closest friends (not just from Nicaragua, but in the world, in the universe) are now back stateside. It hurts how much I miss and worry about some of them. We were, we are family.

I wish that everyone and no one had to realize what I did.

I realized it was the people that make this experience everything that it is. Oh, “duh” you say. So I wont delve into the mushy or obvious. This is a realization of the luck I have in my life to have the strongest, funniest, greatest, prettiest, most wonderful friends. Period (written out for emphasis). I’d put my group of friends up against any of yours. Any day.

So if I had to, or decided to end my experience here in Nicaragua earlier than expected, I’d leave with that.

Now im back in Jinotega, where nothing has changed really, but everything feels different. And I will leave you to navigate the labyrinth of this truly nebulous blog as I navigate that of regaining the faith I once had in what I was doing. Suerte.