Learning to Ski; Letting Go of Control
This past month I went skiing for the first time. I was excited to get out of the city and spend some time in a snowy place with friends for Christmas, but I wasn’t really sure how I would like skiing. As much as I love intense activities, I kind of had a hunch that it would be hard for me to learn. The first day Nick and Alex took me to the top of the beginner mountain and I was legitimately scared. I had no idea how to move, how to stop or how to get myself back up if I fell. I didn’t want to go anywhere because I had no control over anything. With patience and diligence Nick and Alex… Read more >>
Culture Shock Shocked
Today at our African mothers program we taked about culture shock. This was part two of a series of questions to help prompt the ladies to talk about their struggles since moving to our current country. As I led my discussion group I was feeling pretty encouraged by the ladies responses. Most of them were sharing of the postive feelings they had been able to gain after being here for a year or more. I was excited for them because their responses indicated that many of them were pushing past the culture shock phase and on to the adjusting phase. That is until we begun to… Read more >>
No Longer Good at Anything
Based on this title you might thing I've given up on believing in myself ... if that's the case bear with me. About a month ago a teammate and I were talking about life here compared to life back in the states. We landed in country on the same day so our last memories of America are both from ten months ago. At one point he joked and said "Remember what it was like to actually be good at something?" I laughed in response, but his words could not be more true. Honestly life here makes it hard to remember the days when I didn't have to use a lot of brain power to order food. I didn'… Read more >>
Living as the Foreigner
Being a foreigner has it challenges and some days have more than others. Recently my housemate and I went through a ridiculous experience that ended in us taking an air conditioner and it’s giant motor half way across the city to be returned. Two weeks ago we found a great deal on AC units and because our apartment traps an abnormally high amount of humidity with very little air flow my housemate and I were ecstatic to potentially be getting something that would bring us cooler air. We waited until today for them to be delivered which was an experience in itself. I had… Read more >>