A Quiet Weekend at Home

For the past three months our lives have been whirlwinds of activity. With visits from Janet’s family and best friend, a safari trip to Zambia, a visit from Luc’s brother, a week down in Maputo for our close of service conference, our trip to Tanzania to get Luc’s dad, our farewell event for our Peace Corps Malawi neighbors, and several visits from our Peace Corps Mozambique buddies it has been three months since we have had a weekend in site, just the two of us. But that’s exactly what we got this weekend. No scrambling into overcrowded vehicles, no endless waiting for buses to fill, no border crossings, no battling with cell networks to coordinate via text messages, no travel drama. Janet got to sleep in, Luc got to go to church, and we did some hiking. We attended the Sunday afternoon soccer game, sitting on the grass and chatting with colleagues while our local team beat a team from the city sponsored by a large auto repair garage. We made some of our favorite meals, pizza one night and hamburgers with potato salad the other. We also had some excitement to celebrate. With some of Noah’s help (Luc’s older brother in California), we bought our plane tickets to America. African airfare can be unpredictable and all flights require multiple layovers and connections. What is totally predictable are the high prices, but Peace Corps had already calculated $2,600 for the one-way flight, so that alleviated the financial pressure. We had already scouted out all the major airlines while at the Peace Corps office during our trip to drop Luc’s dad at the airport in Malawi, so we already knew our best options, which this year happen to be Turkish Air. We just needed Peace Corps’ final confirmation of our Close of Service Date, which we just got this week. On-line purchases are way beyond the rudimentary capabilities of our little cell phone web browser and we didn’t know when we’d be able to connect at our nearest café down in the city, plus last time some spyware on that computer stole Luc’s credit card number and made some sketchy purchases in Nigeria. Luckily our little phone can handle e-mail, so after 7 rounds of back and forth with Luc’s patient brother we had our e-tickets. It feels different now, even though we knew from the beginning that we would be finishing in December 2011. Now that we actually have an exact date inked in on the calendar it really looks like a count down. We’re trying to avoid crossing off the days and really trying to enjoy all of our last experiences.