Only in Vila...

...can you be in a cafe ordering a smoothie on a Monday morning when the Secretary General calls to move up your appointment to...say, right NOW, and you cheerfully agree mouthing the words "Take-away" to the waiter, and then show up to said appointment in board shorts & an Old Navy tank top, with a Nalgene dangling from your purse with a caribiner, and no one seems to find your attire the slightest bit remarkable as you proceed to explain why your community, whose recent actions have ALLEGEDLY led to the entire island being un/officially blacklisted by the network of international aid organizations deserves, well, a second chance. "Because don't we ALL make mistakes?"

In January, I often described my life as a 'nightmare that keeps getting worse'*. In comparison, February in New Zealand was like a dream come true.

How do I feel being back here?

It feels a bit like walking off one film set onto another, dropping one role and picking up the next. A dramatic change of scenery, a quick-change of costume, language and general demeanor.

My first day back I actually SWORE at a guy harassing me on the street. I just FORGOT you don't do that here. I mean thirteen 'high-risk' prisoners are on the loose again...

After two years of mastering the art of lowering my eyes & hanging my head, making myself the picture of demureness & obedience, it's amazing how instantly it falls away. I guess you can't take (N.) America out of the girl, after all...

I'm in love with the anonymity I felt in Auckland, with not being a diplomat or...anybody. That being said, on one particular night out I was feeling so uncomfortable in my not-really-that-short shorts that I actually went back and changed.

Of course it's not just about clothes. It's crossing a chasm at lightning speed. It's shirking one set of fundamental values for another, and when you get right down to it, tuning your mind to a different understanding of the universe and of even...the meaning of life.

So which one is The Real World, and which one is the Real Me? And yet, of course, I know the answer is neither, and with such a distorted sense of centre, the compass spinning wildly and my future so uncertain, it dawns on me that I'm just going to have to make my sense of 'home' a little more portable, small enough to wrap up and tuck inside.

Because that's what it DOESN'T feel like, for the first time in a long time. Returning to Vanuatu no longer feels like coming home. It feels like going back to work. Or more like...taking care of business. Which is not a bad feeling. It's actually a good thing considering the fact that that is exactly what I'm doing, tying up all my loose ends in a pretty little bow so I can hop on a plane and start a new life.

What I Learned in Peace Corps Vanuatu:

That you can experience failure after failure after failure, until you learn to redefine it so that it doesn't feel like failure anymore. It just feels like Life. And then one day, while you're meditating, perched atop the mountain of your forgotten hopes and dreams, there is an almost imperceptible rustle underneath you, and you discover that just one of them has risen, just one of them has a chance.

But you no longer rejoice. Because arming yourself against the sting of failure has immunized you against the joy of success. Because you know in Vanuatu, and maybe everywhere, you're always just one rainstorm away from a mudslide. And the Day After Tomorrow no longer beckons you in the way that it used to.

And so you keep your head down and get on with it. Because at the end of the day, it's only A Day. And even mud is beautiful in the right light.

*I know there is a big black hole hanging over these updates (as in, the month of January and why I'm jumping ship far earlier than planned), and I promise once I am officially a free agent again I will fill in all the blanks, but for now...you know, 'diplomacy' and all...