Cutting Myself Some Slack: Revisited

Things seemed to have smoothed out a bit in the last couple days so I thought I’d jot down some of the little (and not so little) blessings in my life here

1. I haven’t gotten TRULY sick here (yet, knock on wood)
2. Aside from the few unavoidable male pesterers, everyone here has been extremely friendly
3. My host family is absolutely AMAZING. Deepa is amazingly sweet and perceptive and understanding, and the little ones (Piyu and Bibu) always brighten my day.
4. While I have an aversion to special treatment, I am extremely grateful the bus guys have been exceptionally good about paying attention to me and making sure they know where I’m going, helping me know when to get off, and actually stopping the bus for me (one of them even yelled at me to wait as I tried to jump off the other day and told the driver to stop for me). And surprisingly, they haven’t been charging me more than the other people on the bus. Now that I trust them a little more and know they’re on my team, riding the bus is a considerably less stressful.
5. I’m so grateful that I’m patient and not beholden to the clock and thus the arbitrary scheduling of everything here is actually quite pleasant for me.
6. I love how much everyone laughs and smiles here. Love it.
7. I really, really, really like my NGO and my assignment (I’ll get around to explaining it soon!!) and I’m so glad that despite having to walk 2 miles through the desert to and from work each day, I’m a lot more satisfied than most of the other interns.
8. Despite having to force feed myself (or being forced feed) about twice as much food as I can actually eat, the food is really good here, so…..yay.
9. It’s still a little weird to me to have internet so readily available and I’m trying not to take too much advantage of it so that I can still be present and experience life here, but I’m really, really glad I can communicate with friends and family as much as I can here.
10. Just the little miracles of each day: an interesting conversation with Deepa, watching Piyu, getting lost in thought about my project, a reassuring smile from a stranger on the street, an unexpected helping hand, a moment of peace and serenity on the rooftop, etc, etc, etc 