It’s been mentally exhausting couple of days… Yesterday morning, as predicted, I finished the library cataloging job! It’s exciting that I actually estimated my finish time correctly because estimation is definitely not one of my strengths. (For example, I once estimated that there were 200 people at a concert where there were a few thousand. Another time, I estimated the population of our village in Ghana at 1000 people which, in hindsight, is ridiculously low because there are probably at least that many kids in the schools. Oops.) Anyway, for once I was right and with a little time to spare. I finished all of the books about 20 minutes before lunch. Perfect!

Isn’t it beautiful? I put those colored stickers on the spines. Vanessa did most of the pink, blue, and light orange books in the bottom left part of the bookcase, but the rest was all me!

The rest of the day was spent attempting and failing to make plans for my last week in Peru when I’m going to Cuzco and visiting Machu Picchu. I usually plan vacations with my friend Sarah, and we’re a perfect team because I gather a bunch of information, get overwhelmed, and am paralyzed. She steps in, combines her research with mine, and makes decisions. Then, I come back and work out the details. We’re a well-oiled machine. In summary, I can’t make choices because there are too many options. I spent probably 5 hours researching the same thing over and over again and getting nowhere because I have the information I need, but I want someone to just tell me what is best. I feel like this is such a classic girl problem… can’t make decisions. For me though, it’s mostly just in the area of vacation planning. So yeah, got nowhere on the trip details. I’m giving myself a deadline of this weekend to book my tickets (I do, at least, have my plane tickets already, so that’s something).
My big planning attempt was in response to a mild freak out I had when I realized that it’s March, and I’m only 3 weeks away from leaving Esperanza de Ana. How did time go so quickly?? Part of me is trying to ignore reality, and another part is trying to force myself to acknowledge it because it’s best to be mentally prepared. I can tell already that I’m going to have a much harder time leaving here than Ghana. There, yes I was leaving friends, but with my volunteer friends, I knew that soon enough, they were leaving too. Here, I will leave, and life will go on with all of the same people but without me. For some reason, that makes it harder to accept. I don’t know if that makes any sense… My head is all over the place about this.

Anyway, I’m apparently in a rambling mood today. Sorry for all of the mixed-up thoughts, but that’s where I am right now. No need to worry… I’ll work everything out soon enough.

I spent today helping Tony plan a staff activity for tomorrow. We’re going back to the pool where we took the kids that one time during summer school, and she asked me for help coming up with team building activities to do in the water. It should be interesting considering the broad spectrum of the staff’s experience and comfort level with water. We’re starting out with some water aerobics to get everyone moving and used to the pool, so I spent a few hours today watching videos of water aerobics workouts, learning some moves, and putting together a couple of routines. I think I’ve found my new calling, but we’ll find out for sure tomorrow.

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