I'll be home for Christmas

I've been gone, on the road again, for over 3 weeks. My passport's gotten quite a workout and I'm ready, once again, to settle back in to American life.

Here's a brief rundown of my past few holiday seasons:
In 2010, I spent Christmas on a beach in Moz with fellow PCV's. We rented a beach house in Xai Xai and drank beer and reminisced about America, over 100 degree weather. I also attended a Mozambican neighbor's Christmas party.

In 2011, I spent Christmas in Taiwan with my sister and relatives. We gorged ourselves on seafood buffets and celebrated my sister's 20th birthday over tiramisu. I got bronchitis.

This year, 2012, I spent Christmas in LA with my fiancé and his family. I even had a stocking with my name on it! We played games, drank wine, went to church, and opened presents on Christmas morning.

Mozambique, Taiwan, USA. Each of these places has been home to me at some point in my life, and has become a part of me. In each of these places I find people I call my family. Aside from blood relations, "friends are the family we choose" and I'm never alone.

I'm lucky to have roots in different places and be able to see and experience so many things.
My heart is scattered to the East, to the West, to the North, to the South. The world is mine and I am the world's and no matter where I am, as long as I'm with people I care about, I'm always home for Christmas.

Visiting abroad and Peace Corps Goal 3

Much to the surprise of some of my friends, I am abroad once again, less than two months after my return from Africa. This time, I find myself on the delicious continent of Asia visiting friends and family.

I have so far spent four days in South Korea with an old roommate, Natalie, who is teaching English in Seoul. The next leg of my journey is Jakarta, Indonesia, where I will be visiting a Japanese friend named Yoko who was once my neighbor in Chibuto, Mozambique. (So you see, the world is not so vast and it's possible to transcend cultural and linguistic distances to keep up friendships.) The 3rd leg of my journey will be a visit to my motherland, Taiwan, where my little sister is studying Chinese.

Going from "residing abroad" to "visiting abroad" definitely has its differences.

During my two years in Mozambique, I only hosted one American visitor, my boyfriend (now fiance) Kevin, who actually came twice. I feel like it really made a difference in our relationship, because he was able to understand so much better the things I was experiencing in Africa. It was an amazing opportunity for me, to be able to show him a country that would otherwise not have been so accessible to him, and have him see it through my eyes instead of just written in a blog or posted onto Facebook via status updates and photos.
And that's what Peace Corps is about too, Goal 3: Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

I really think that visiting friends abroad is a nice way of bringing a bit of "home" to them, bridging the distance, showing you support their work and are interested in their life. Living abroad for an extended period of time can be super challenging and lonely. (I personally would have loved to have more visitors in Moz.)

And travel costs aside, why wouldn't you take advantage of local connections who can, through their insight and recommendations, take you beyond the normal tourist experience and help you understand better the cultural aspects of what you're seeing? And take you to eat yummy local food.

So anyway. Get out of America and go visit someone who lives in a  cool place!