After an enormous amount of travel I am back with my family in Ithaca, NY. I am home! This last week I have actually been back in the US already, but far west in California with the rest of Global Citizen Year doing re-entry training. We spent the week going over how we felt about our years, reflecting, preparing to go home and what to expect in terms of reverse culture shock, listening to speakers, preparing our stories, and having a final time to be with the close friends we have made throughout these long, but sometimes feels short, months. During this week I have realized how much I am going to miss the rest of my Brazil cohort group. We were the smallest group and so we got to know each other pretty well and spent a lot of time together. I wish there could have been more time, but I’m also very glad to be home. I’ve miss my home so much and it’s great to be back with my family.
During this last week of reflecting and really over the past few months I’ve realized how much I enjoyed my time in Garopaba, Brazil. Now it wasn’t because I had so much great stuff to do or because I made a bunch of friends. It was simply because I liked life there. I liked that I had a job where I could work with my hands and some could say I didn’t have to do much thinking, maybe that’s one of the reasons I liked it so much because it gave so much time to myself to think. I liked that there wasn’t a lot to do in town and that spending a day lying on the beach was normal. I liked the people, the atmosphere, and I loved the food. There really wasn’t that much I didn’t like about living there. Brazil may have had a lot of time sitting around and I didn’t get to the level of Portuguese that I had wanted to, but I learned a lot. Overall it was a great year and had an immense impact on me.
