I’m in Praia. Ugh. This city can really get you down. Seeing the movement of people is a nice change, but it’s also chaotic and smelly and crowded and generally insane. I’d rather live out my last week in CV somewhere more mellow. Tarrafal is pretty likely this weekend…

Leaving Boa Vista was awful. Really awful. I didn’t think it would be easy, but it sucked even more than I thought. I had two despedidas for somewhat different circles of friends. Friday night was my coworkers and a few other close friends, while Saturday was a grelhada with the surfer crowd and other people. Both were a lot of fun. All my friends on Friday stood around me and gave short little speeches about me. It was pretty awesome.

A lot of other volunteers have left already. There are another half dozen or so leaving at the end of the month. Right now it’s just Kyle and I in Praia, hanging out with the folks who already live here. It’s pretty surreal watching other people prepare to leave, not to mention preparing myself to leave. Everything I own in this country is in two bags in a hotel room. My reports are written and most of my forms are signed. I’ve got my plane tickets from Praia all the way back to Omaha, where my mother will pick me up and drive me back to SD to a house I’ve never actually been to (side note: I don’t have a bedroom there).

I am a strange mixture of excited and terrified. I can’t wait to see people, to have access to some of the small conveniences I’ve missed, to eat good food and drink real beer, and to otherwise enjoy the US. But I have no idea how I am going to react. The crowds in Praia make me nervous, and there are only 100,000 people here. Not only that, but the implications of hearing English all around me are mindblowing. Just hanging around other volunteers for the last few days has been weird, as it usually is for me. I’m pretty used to hearing a constant garble of languages around me, especially on Boa Vista where it might be French, Portuguese, Creole, Italian, Spanish, German or Slovenian. What’s gonna happen to my poor brain when I can understand every word around me? And what do people wear?? My friend Alex just spent a month on home leave before extending an extra year, and she commented on how out of style she was. I can only imagine. I’ve got to catch up on two years of trends and culture, films and music, television and new products. Ugh. I’m not so sure I even want to tackle that. However, I must say that I am pumped to watch the rest of season four of Lost.

And of course, there is the job thing. I have more or less agreed to move in with my buddy Ari in DC in the beginning of October. I’ll be on the east coast in early September for Phil’s engagement party, then roaming through NYC and down to DC. After a month of dropping resumes and cover letters off via internet, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best jobs I find are going to end up being through personal contacts. And I’ve also come to the conclusion that I am not qualified for most posted jobs. All the sites posted online are so specific. “Senior project manager with 10 years experience in small business development” or “Country representative for XYZ Corp, Advanced degree and 7 years experience minimum” and crap like that. Where are the small project support roles that a guy like me could get into? It’s rough. Anyway, I am clinging to the hope that once I am in DC I can start talking to people and find some good directions to move in.

Also, Foreign Service Exam in November. Huzzah!

By this afternoon, I should be an official Returned Peace Corps Volunteer.