It's hot

So I know it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged last.  This time my excuse is that there’s no wifi in my house right now, and there hasn’t been for a week.  Our computer broke, and to fix it I guess it was necessary to undo everything and leave it that way for days, before coming back to put it all back together.  Oh Argentina.  The great thing is that things like this, these little obstacles, don’t really faze me anymore.  Maybe because I’ve realized how privileged I am in the US and how things I take for granted there are luxuries here (or they just don’t even exist), or maybe because I’ve become super relaxed and able to completely go with the flow…whatever happens, I can probably handle it without getting completely bent out of shape.   I’ve also just realized that having no wifi is not an actual, serious problem.  Sure it means I can’t skype anyone for a while, but it’s not the end of this world.  Part of this experience, I think, is about becoming disconnected from one culture, and completely immersed in another.  Maybe no wifi is a help to that process.

Anyways, things have been going pretty well.  My days are full of classes, homework, getting together with friends, talking with mi abuela, and surviving this heat.  IT IS SO HOT HERE.  I have never felt heat like this before in my life.  Not only is it hot, it is humid, and it’s a kind of humid that does not exist in Pennsylvania.  I am sweating all day long, and chugging bottles of water all day long.  It’s always hard to sleep at night now for one of two reasons.  1. Because I didn’t open my big window/door so I’m sweating a ton or 2. Because I did open my big window/door so now I’m getting bit my mosquitoes like crazy and swatting flies away from my face.  I’ve been choosing number two (the battle with mosquitoes) and I am losing the battle…big time.  I am now itchy allllllll the time.  Regardless of those seemingly horrible first world problems, I’m grateful for this experience…to live without air conditioning (AKA: to live like the majority of the world has to because they don’t have access to it).  I’m learning all about the power of perspective, patience, and the beauty of cold showers.

I’ve oddly become super anxious about a few things, the main theme being, coming home.  I am so so so so so excited, don’t get me wrong, but the whole realization that I only have two months left here leaves me with a sickening, sad feeling because I’m scared.  I’m scared I will be a mess leaving, I’m scared I will be miserable the few weeks leading up to all the goodbyes, I’m scared I won’t be able to function, I’m scared of this experience being over.  I’m scared of going home to the same place, but as a new person, I’m scared of being too different,  I’m scared of not speaking in Spanish all the time,  I’m scared of relationships being different.  And most of all, I’m confused, because I want to stay here just as badly as I want to go home.  I want so desperately to be in two places at once.  But that’s not reality, and guess what?  That scares me.  Shocker, I know.

All of these anxious feelings have led to bad dreams in which I actually wake up crying only to remind myself that I still have two months left, and that I have people who love and care about me to go home to, people who will help me and be patient with me, and who will support me as a different, more developed person.  I don’t know why all these feelings are beginning now, but they are, so I am talking through them, writing them out, and then trying to push them to the side so I can be fully present and engaged for these next two months.