In a few short months, less than three now, I will be home and ready to start my life all over. I will have new challenges and experiences. It will be like traveling to a new place. It is so foreign to me now. Funny thing I have heard that it is even harder to re acclimate yourself to America then it was when I first got here. I can tell that my mind is preparing for all possibilities. I have the weirdest dreams. Last night, in fact, I dreamt that I had just returned and I was working as a waitress. I was just trying it out to see if it was a good fit. I remember only wanting to work for 4 hours but my boss told me that I had to work 12 hours. 12 hours?? Are you crazy? My body just didn't want to work more than 4 hours. I remember physically not being able to work for more than 4 hours. It was so weird. Then I remember her (my boss) telling me that it would be fine if I only worked for 4 hours today but that tomorrow I would work for 12 hours! I couldn't believe it. I was so nervous and worried. I didn't want to come to work the next day. How could I possibly work more than 4 hours. I don't recall what happened next. I am not sure if I ever came back or I was fired who knows. I know that I am apparently concerned about going back to the states and not being able to perform at the level of intensity in which I did only a few years ago. I mean don't get me wrong we work here but it is a different kind of work. I can be home in the middle of the afternoon before I go to a club or a meeting or go to the train to go somewhere else. I could also be home in the middle of the day watching a movie or taking a nap. But then there are weeks where I am never home or working from morning until night. Those days are probably over for the most part now that I am nearing the end.
My mind is apparently very nervous of what is to come. I am certain that I will be able to do exactly what I did before and maybe even better but it doesn't stop my subconscious from preparing itself. That is what I do I prepare myself for all kinds of situations. And now that I don't do it when I am awake my mind is still doing it while I am sleeping. I have been having crazy dreams like this for a while I just don't always remember them.
So the end is near. I am wrapping up a project I have about HIV/AIDS. It has become a great project. It started as just an idea in my head and I had no idea how I was going to make it happen. I didn't even have anyone to work with here in Ukraine. But after a lot of miscommunication and sitting on the edge of my seat to find out if it was going to work I found someone to help me and it is moving along real well. See I wrote a grant and received $1000 for my project. I planned to introduce this subject by bringing in a trainer to discuss with a group of teachers about HIV/AIDS. My plan was to have them then take this new information they learned and teach their kids. Then I wanted the kids to draw something or paint something and then have an art contest. Have an exhibit in our town where the whole community could come and see what they drew and learn something themselves about HIV/AIDS. No one thinks it is a problem here and I am pretty sure Ukraine is up there on the charts of a growing number of people with the disease so YES it is a problem. Anyway it took some serious advocating but I found someone to help me and I scheduled the trainers and found the participants. I even had a trainer come out and teach the groups about project, design and management which is HUGE. People just don't understand that concept here. So now that the training has happened we are having a big concert on April 10th and the winners of the art/poem contest of famous people that have died of HIV/AIDS will be on display on one of FOUR billboards I am paying for to put up around the city. I am so happy this project is coming into fruition! I was nervous.
I am going to spend the next few weeks gathering what I need for my project and closing the grant. Then I will go to our close of service conference in the city where I first lived in Ukraine. That conference will be March 21st. After which I will have a ton of paperwork to fill out and signatures I will have to get. Then I will spend a few weeks traveling for business. Then I will have not more than 2 weeks left in country before I head off to Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia and then finally Italy.
In the meantime along with all of this other stuff I will be trying to figure out what the next step is....
