It's very hard to believe that I will move out of my host family's house in Cahul a week from now. Today is the first day that this has started to feel very real to me, and I even teared up a bit thinking about it. Of course, I am excited for adventures ahead, but it will be very bittersweet to leave this place.
Cahul and this house have become home to me, and I am very appreciative of how my host family has accepted me and made me feel comfortable here with them. I had never lived with a host family before I came to Moldova, so I didn't know what it would be like. I remember knowing exchange students in the U.S. and thinking how it must be difficult for them to live with people who had different cultural norms and language. It was challenging for me at first to be able to communicate and to adapt to my host families' patterns of life (both during training in Ialoveni and at my permanent site in Cahul), but over time we have developed a rhythm and I have gotten quite used to having my host family around. It will be very strange not to see them all the time.
Yesterday, my site mates and I had a picnic at the lake for some of our close friends and colleagues here. They also feel like family to me, and I am used to seeing them frequently. It's funny because as Peace Corps Volunteers, we spend our whole service actively working to integrate, build relationships, and become part of the community in our sites. And now here we are at the end of our service, fortunately having succeeded in doing so, suddenly having to extract ourselves from the networks we have created. Of course, we will keep some relationships into the future via social media and hopefully some in-person visits. But others will fade into memory, as happens every time we move into a new phase of life.
Regardless, my memories of Cahul and the people who made this place feel like home will always be fond. I hope I can visit again someday. In the meantime, I will carry the photos and memories with me for a lifetime.
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