Three Months of Gratitude (Unugat Maramen Kinisou)

It's official. My date of departure for Chuuk is booked and only three months away - June 12th I will part ways with these islands for the foreseeable future. In an attempt to ACTUALLY use this blog as my time dwindles down, and in an attempt to leave Chuuk in a state of gratitude for what it has given me, I've devised a goal: post a daily reflection on something from this experience for which I am grateful (I will also, when I can, add a Chuukese version of the title).

I know. Considering my posting history, a post a day is a LOFTY goal. And frankly, it won't happen everyday. I can already tell you there are two five-day periods and a handful of weekends in the next three months during which I won't have internet access. But, the goal is everyday that I have internet access, to post a few sentences. And perhaps at the culmination of those prolonged periods without, offer something longer.

It's true that this experience has been filled with ups and downs and A LOT of critical self-reflection. It has been easy to circle downwards into and endless vortex of self-deprecating questions such as "Why am I this way when I should be that way?", "Why aren't I a better volunteer?", "Does my presence here matter at all?", and so on and so forth. And then it spirals away from me into the bigger questions of "Well, why are we here, anyway?", "Am I ultimately helping or hurting by being here?". When there's so little distraction and when one is a part of a program that encourages critical reflection all. the. time., these questions never cease to push at the back of one's mind. That being said, I am making a concerted effort to make these last three months less about the existential "What are we doing here" and self-pitying "Why me?"s and more about the "Thank you, God"s (of which there have been plenty).

So, with that, my inaugural gratitude post.

I am grateful for...

1. Living somewhere I never could have imagined living prior to this experience.

When I imagined doing service abroad prior to coming here I always, always placed myself in Africa. Not once did I picture myself on a (very) small island in the middle of the Pacific. However, in being here I have been blessed with the knowledge of a culture previously completely unknown to me. I have experienced all of the joys and confusions of entering a culture with zero context and I have been blessed with an adventure I never could have planned for myself.