Feel comfortable being uncomfortable.

So I'm coming up on 2.5 months in Brazil.  In 2.5 months I must admit I've made some progress on many fronts.  I still remember a comment my mom made to me when I first arrived in India and I was confident that I should leave on the next available plane.  She said to me "Honey, you're learning something new everyday.  Everyday is going to be easier than the day before.  Just think, today you know where the bathroom is, yesterday you didn't.  That is huge."  Or she said something to that effect.  And the bit about the bathroom is 100% true.  My hostel manager never gave me a tour or anything so I had to wander around on my own to find the bathroom and everything else.  In the grand scheme of things, the bathroom is a pretty important place to know how to get to.

So - with that reminder tucked away that everyday is a little bit better than the last I have to admit that my mom is right again.  Sure, I have my days when it's lonely and scary here.  I have moments at work where I just want to get up and leave.  Walk out the door and know that not a single person will notice I'm gone, or miss me for a while.  I sit at dinner with a group of people (potential friends?) and get really frustrated because I don't understand the joke and cannot join in conversation.

But - mom is right.  I gave my first presentation in Portuguese last week.  A whopping 4 slides (2 of which were just graphs) but it was 100% in Portuguese.  I think that day was leaps and bounds better than the first day I arrived.  Just today I learned where the apostrophe key is on my work laptop.  Since I received my Brazilian laptop I had been mistakenly using the accent mark instead.  Another small step forward.

Every day I am reminded of something another SCMP said during recruitment one year.  We had a panel discussion of current SCMPs talking about their experiences and a question was asked about what the hardest part of the program is.  The response pretty unanimously was all the moving.  It is fun, absolutely it is fun.  But it is also very, very hard to uproot every year and try to make another place feel like home.  And in a single phrase, all the emotions were summed up quite nicely  "You have to learn to feel comfortable being uncomfortable."  

I'm still learning to feel comfortable will all the uncomfortable parts - but as with everything else.  Each day gets a little bit better.

Missing home a lot recently.  Thank goodness I have a vacation next week to be spontaneous and fun again.  And I'll have something to post pictures about!!! 

Ecuador - HERE I COME!!