Why I will stop complaining, suck it up and enjoy being here…

Every day here is a battle. I’m not going to lie, every other hour or every minute my mood can change here.  It’s like constantly having PMS most days.  I wake up most days thinking What the hell am I doing here; especially on weekends when all I want to do is have pancakes with my boyfriend at Magnoli or run on townlake without people cat calling.  The simple things I took for granted are what I am missing the most…It’s times when I’ve hit the bottom that something good always happens.  It could be as simple as a little kid smiling at me and saying hello to me in broken English.  Or like this morning when I  thought today is the day I pack my things and my host mom comes in and offers to teach me how to make mango fresca.  At first I wasn’t in the mood but she brought the mangos in from the backyard and showed me…Then I had the most delicious mango juice for breakfast (maybe not as delicious as chocolate chip pancakes but a million times healthier J). 

It’s not easy and I know no one ever told me Peace Corps was going to be easy.  They say it’s the hardest job you’ll ever love.  As I may not love all parts of the Nica culture there are things I do like about it.  Especially how warm and inviting families are.  I have broken down on multiple occasions sobbing in front of language teachers and my host families.  These people don’t know me, especially my new family but it hasn’t failed when this happens they give me words of encouragement, rub my back or in the case of my new family they hug me and tell me it’s going to be okay.  I’m not proud to say that I actually cry in front of people because it’s actually usually very hard for me to cry in front of people, it takes a lot, but here I’m an emotional train wreck … but I have a ton of support.

So today I am going to enjoy my mango fresca, not think about how much I miss Aaron and a “normal life” but instead I will go for a run and be happy about being here because I chose this.