You don't just come back.....

They say that homesickness comes in waves.  It goes up and down, spiking and falling whenever it darn well pleases..... even after you return back to your home country.

So I am struggling.

I'm struggling with people not understanding me, even while speaking the same language.

I'm struggling with remembering how to participate instead of observe in group settings.

I'm struggling with wanting to be around groups of people I don't know.

I'm struggling to adjust my diet back to something that works well with my body.

I'm struggling to find my "happy place" and a routine that works for me.

I'm struggling with having so much "stuff" that I don't feel like I need any more.

I'm struggling with missing the people who have been my families for the past 6 months.

I'm struggling to reconnect with the people here.

I'm struggling to remember that I have a cell phone.

I'm struggling to process everything I've learned.

I'm struggling to decide what parts of my life in Europe will become a part of my life here.

It's not a constant struggle, but it's not an immediate adjustment either.

Now I know I am blessed to have a family that more than just "deals with me" when I'm having a hard day.  They poke and prod at me for the truth because they love me (and I LOVE them). I know that I am lucky to be surrounded by past IFYEs (two sisters and a brother-in-law) because they get it, but it's still a unique thing that varies from person to person.

But like any change, adjustments take time.  I would be crazy if I thought that I could adjust back in a few days when I've been living a totally different life for the past 6 months.  I am not the exact same person who left in June.  If I was, what would be the point in travelling and experiencing things outside my comfort zone?  No, like most things, once you get out of the box, it never quite fits in there the same.

Struggling is just another part of growth though.  It's the growing pains that allow you to become a better version of yourself.  It's a season, and like all seasons, it won't last forever.

So thank you for sticking with me while I work this out.  Y'all are beautiful souls that brighten my day.

Blowing up the learning curve

With less than a month until I return to the United States for my reverse culture shock period, I wanted to take some time to reflect on a few things I've been learning over here. 

Here's just a few tidbits.....

-Hershey chocolate is excuse my language….. crap

-I am really good at unloading the dishwasher and even better at accidentally hiding the dishes

-Nobody likes to change the toilet paper roll or be seen eating the last piece of chocolate

-Watches are great, even on the wrong arm

-You can live without a cell phone

-hedges are especially useful when it’s raining and beautiful when it’s not

 

-if you find a weird rash, show someone ASAP

-language barriers are barriers not the Hoover Dam.  You can get around them

-always go to the bathroom when you have the chance…. Especially when you are going to be driving through The Republic to get home

-Euros are great when traveling around Europe, except when you show up in a country where you can't use them

-“I’ll see you again” can come true

 

-animal sounds are not the same in every country

-music is truly a language all itself

 

-sometimes things taste better when you don’t know what they are

-good people are everywhere

-riding trains is a perfectly wonderful way to travel

 

-different does not mean bad or wrong.  It means different

 

-people who like liver should eat whale

 

 

-life without peanut butter is difficult but not impossible, as long as there is still nutella

-extra batteries work great… until you wash them

-Europeans don’t rinse their dishes

-It takes a LONG time to wash a load of laundry and even longer to hang dry

 

-pictures are important.  You never know when it will be the last one

 

-Sandwiches do not need a top slice of bread

-Soccer is a big deal everywhere but in the USA

-Wool thermals = get some

 

-it is ok to not know where you are going

 

-sister mail is one of the best inventions ever

 

-stereotypes often over shadow the truth

 

-farmers talk about the weather in every country

 

-once you travel, you can never be the same

 

 

Life Lesson from Potatoes

Last week I had the chance to sort a trailer load of potatoes at the farm.

The potatoes, which had looked fine when they were harvested a few weeks ago, had been over taken by some kind of disease that was quickly spreading through the lot of them.

So my job was to do one thing......help throw away the bad ones.

Sounds simple, right?

Well... not for me.

The problem is, I have a really hard time making decisions when there is a grey area.

Add in one of the highest costs of living, where a dozen eggs runs up a bill of a $8, and suddenly my "clean your plate" mentality kicks into overdrive and makes it extremely hard to trash the questionables.

I wanted to believe the potatoes would stop going off.
I wanted to believe those small blemishes would somehow not effect them.
I wanted to believe the disease would stop spreading if I just got rid of the worst bits.
As an optimist,  I wanted to believe in those potatoes.

But what was the cost?

If I left a bad potato in with the good ones, it would more than likely spread to those around it, damaging the years crop even more. 

So painfully, I threw them out.  One by one, I got rid of them.  By the time we had finished, more than half of them had to be thrown away.

So what could I take away from this random farm task?

Life Lesson: Start making decisions.  Being indecisive is no longer an option. 

As part of Allison Vesterfelt's 10 day packing light challenge (If you're not already reading her blog, you probably should be.) I'm giving up not making decisions for my day 9.

Leaving questionable potatoes in the trailer was like refusing to make a decision.   Not a lot of good comes from it. 

In fact, I'd argue that indecisiveness is never a good thing and often leads to regret.

My fear of making the wrong decision has led me to handing over the control to someone else time after time.  It started small like "what do you want to drink with dinner?" or "what's your favorite color?" but soon I found it hard to make any decision.  At one time, the magic eight ball app was on my favorites list.  Case in point:  I went to college to study a subject that someone else told me I would be good at.  When I changed my major, I picked (cough cough copied) a path that the guy I liked had suggested because I couldn't stand the thought of my indecisiveness being broadcast for the world (ok... maybe not the whole world) ; Major: UNDECLARED.  Four years of college later, I graduated in a field that although I enjoy, I never truly chose for myself.

Refusing to make a decision can also spread thin limited resources  Take a simple example like shopping.  If you need one pair of shoes and can't make a decision, you either spend twice the money (limited resource) buying both or have wasted your time (limited resource).  I see this in a big way when I look back at the past few years.  I church hopped, looking for the perfect church (FYI.... there's no such thing) and never really found a home for several years.  When I made a decision and picked ONE church, I found a family, a home and a safe place that helped me grow.

So if we're being honest, refusing to make a decision is a decision in itself.

One of my favorite TED talks, Dan Ariely's "Are we in control of our own decisions?" , highlights a lot of irrational things humans do.  One of them is leaving the default.  By not making a choice, I have opted-in or opted-out without even realizing it, leaving the choice to someone else while at the same time using up precious resources.

I don't want that any more.  I chose to make this decision.

Thanks Potatoes.

Feels like Home

When there's nearly 5000 miles and an ocean between you and home, it's not always easy to feel at home.  Add in a few days of not feeling too whoopee and all this talk about the beauty of the wheat turning gold back in Colorado.....


Photo by Whitney McCaffrey

 ....and you might even get a bit homesick.

When you're abroad, homesickness and culture adjustments often come in waves.  Although I'm loving all the things I've been able to do and see, I feel like I'm on one of those waves at the moment.

Last week however, I was with my Bealey Family, a family that truly touched my heart to the core. 

 

While each of my host families have been absolutely wonderful, this family reminded me so much of my own, that it felt like coming home.

 

Having grown up with three sisters, living in a house full of girls took almost no adjustment.  Add in a talented, crafty mum with a heart full of love for her children and everyone else's and a dad who could fix anything with a few parts from the workshop, and it sounds just like the farm I grew up on.

 

They also went above and beyond to make me feel at home, though.

 

On the 4th of July, the American Independence day, they stealthily planned a firework show in the backyard to help me celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence (from Britain) in 1776.

 

 

 

 



 

Smoke and fire aside, this act of bringing home to me signaled just how much they appreciated where I came from and wanted me to feel at home in this country, and in their home.

I'm sure they will be searching for the dishes I unloaded into the cupboards for days as this is a hazard of letting a visitor help out around the house.  And I know that taking the time to show me how to use the knapsack herbicide was less efficient than going on without me, but still, allowing me to be part of their daily routine allowed me to be part of the family and more than just a visitor staying in a room upstairs. 

So to the Bealeys, and all of my past, present and future host families, thank you.  Opening your home up to a stranger can be scary and inconvenient, but as I've learned from both sides of the door, it is truly rewarding and builds life long friendships around the globe.

(P.s. Here's one of my favorite songs on the radio at the moment.)

Taking a Go at T.O.W.

When I think of tug of war, I think of this......

 

A Rope, Kids, Old Cloths and Mud.... like what my brother-in-law Kenny put on last year for the 4-H members at the Sweetwater County Fair.

In the past few days though, I've discovered a whole new world of Tug of War through training with the Anstey Young Farmers newly established ladies T.O.W. team.

Because this was only their second practice session, I got to work on the basics right along with them!

1.  When you pick up the rope, you want to be standing on the left side of it and pull it up to about hip level, with the outside hand in the front and right hand in the back.

2 "Taking the Strain" - this is when you drive the heal on your leading leg, the left , into the ground in front of you and allow the body to fall back to about a 45 degree angle with the ground, with the right foot slightly further back.  The metal heal boots used for T.O.W. make this much more effective than regular boots.

3."Pull" - when the judge gives this command, it is game on.  The right foot is kicked forward (referred to as the drop at practice), lowering the team body level as everyone gets stretched out but the hips are pulled up close to the rope (as modeled below by the Anstey lads).

4.  As you pull, the left leg is used mainly as a prop as you dig and push with the right, pulling back the rope and you try not to lean on the rope too much, as this makes it more difficult for the person behind you.


As you can see from these photos, we had a good practice with lots of hard work, but still heaps of fun as we first pulled the box full of weights and a system of pullies and then moved on to squaring off in smaller teams.

 

THE TAKE AWAY - Getting knocked on your bum isn't always fun, but it's far better than watching from the side lines and never taking a go.

 

Check out the video of part of one of the drills we did for the full effect.  We started this pull with 3 minutes of holding the box at the top before this clip. (Mind your ears towards the end)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihMbvku3c6I&feature=em-upload_owner

The Devon Way

I have now been in England for one week.
Any guesses how many cups of tea I've had?

My guess....with an average 4 to 5 cups per day, I would say about 30,

but as an avid tea drinker though, I don't mind it one bit.

English tea is a beauty in itself.

After making the hot tea, milk and often sugar, are added to the cup.

Although I've become quite a fan of tea with milk and sugar, with so many cups a day, I've turned to tea with milk for the majority of the time, and the occasional "dessert tea".

Below is a specialty called a cream tea.

A cream tea consists of;

- a pot of tea

- milk and sugar for the tea

- jam

- scones

- clotted cream

This lovely cream tea from Thornes Farm Shop, even came with a few beautiful strawberries from the PYO (Pick Your Own) Fields that surround the shop.

If you split the scone in half, spread the clotted cream followed by a bit of jam, you'll have this....

A Devonshire Cream Tea. 

Welcome to.... Illinois?

Yes, I am still headed to England.
No, I did not get lost.

As part of the IFYE program, before taking the hop across the pond, I had to stop off to get oriented at the National IFYE Orientation for 3 days.

On Friday, June 14th, my beautiful family took to Denver International Airport.  (Words cannot explain how much I love them.)

A few hours later, I was situated in a hotel in Bloomington, IL where the volunteers (mainly IFYE alumni and SIFYEs [Spouses of IFYES]) have put together a program to help both incoming and outgoing IFYEs get ready for this adventure of a life time.

In all, we have 28 IFYEs beginning this experience here in Bloomington, 21 inbound (From Austria, Germany, Greece, Northern Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Wales) and 7 outbound (From Colorado, Montana, Kansas and Illinois).

Cecilia from Sweden was my first new friend as we arrived at the same time, and she is one of the 11 IFYEs headed to Colorado.  She also gave me this glimpse into American Culture, winning the award for Quote of the Day

"I had Fruit Loops for breakfast.  It was like eating candy and milk." - Cecilia

On day two of the orientation, we spent the morning talking about our respective programs, and soaking up advice from past IFYEs.  One of my favorite sessions was a photography workshop put on by Harlen Persinger, an award winning photojournalist (and an American IFYE who traveled to Norway just after serving in Vietnam).  His "photo art" could speak for itself, but he also took the time to talk about techniques like silhouetting, framing and using leading lines to draw people into the picture.

We also had the opportunity to go to The Funk Prairie Home.  This 1860s house was built by Lafayette Funk, son of the infamous Isaac Funk who built the largest farm in the United States by one unaided man (25,000 acres).  Filled with gorgeous artifacts, the Prairie Home as well as the historic barn and equipment museum, are one of the most popular field trips for local schools because of the educational value and free guided tours led by members of the Funk family.

 

 

 

 

From the farm, we traveled into town where we were able to sit down at a local church and discussed any questions people may have had about religion and the different church branches along with host expectations.  As an IFYE, ambassadors will be part of the families, which could include going to church or attending other religious ceremonies or activities with the family that may not align with what they believe.

 

 

 

 

 

On the last day of orientation, we continued in the same fashion, meeting in the morning to help prepare us for our exchange and then going on outings to see some of the local attractions.

 

These included.....

The Illinois State University Horticulture Gardens

 

 

Corn Crib Stadium, Home of the Normal (The only town in the world named Normal) Cornbelters and the World Greatest Bathroom

 

 

 

 

 

and the Ropp Dairy Farm

 

 

 

After touring this Registered Jersey dairy farm where they use the milk from the 50+ cows to make cheese, we gathered around a fire for roasted hotdogs, watermelon and S'mores before spending the rest of the evening giving short presentation, skits, etc about our homes.

 

 

While I have been excited about this experience for months, it wasn't until today that it finally hit me. 

I AM GOING TO EUROPE.

But tonight, I'm headed to bed.

Farewell America.