Travels and Transitions

I'm getting on a bus tonight. I arrive in Buenos Aires tomorrow morning. I get on a plane tomorrow night. I land in Dallas on Saturday morning. I board another plane four short hours later and will land in Fort Wayne, Indiana where my family will (hopefully) be to greet me. ;) I've written all of the above and know that, God-willing, all my travels will go as planned, and yet, everything I've written feels about as real to me right now as going to Argentina felt about nine months ago when I wrote my first blog entry from the states. I knew that I was commencing some grand, hopefully positive, surely unknown adventure on the the other half of the planet. Nonetheless, there is no way that I could have imagined all the amazing experiences that I have had since arriving here. I'm looking forward too to the end of January when I will be returning to Resistencia. Until that time comes though, I am anxious to spend time at home with friends and family, to eat lots of spicy food, to see snow and have to bundle up in truly cold weather (and have the pleasure of coming home to central heating), to sing Christmas carols and ring in 2012 and certainly to share much of what I have learned here with anyone who crosses my path and is interested.

As the age-old saying goes, "All good things must come to an end." However, with those good things that come to an end also often come celebrations in commemoration of those things. Likewise, while my Fulbright scholarship came to its conclusion almost four weeks ago, I have had the pleasure of celebrating, at multiple times, with multiple groups, the work I accomplished this year and the relationships that we have collectively built. These gatherings included a small surprise party at San Fernando on my last day teaching, a planned "going away" party with a larger group of professors and students from San Fernando and a surprise party thrown by a group of friends from church. While I would love to expound on the details of each of these, my bus leaves in approximately an hour....I may or may not write while I'm stateside. To be honest, I haven't really decided yet. I'm sure though that there will be stories to be told about my culture shock and funny anecdotes about moments where I accidentally say something to someone in Spanish. Thank you all for your continuous support, whether it be simply reading my blog, sending e-mails of support or chasing me down to have a skype date. Much love to all.