behind every pcv...

why yes, that would be my mother giving me bunny ears. 

Throughout my time on this blog I have done quite a bit of shout outs. Little thank you notes or featurettes (if I can be so bold as to call them that) of my siblings, my dear friends, my favorite places, and now my Malian family. But one person I should mention is my Mom. My friends know her as “Mamma C”, a name which came about because I talk about her so often I felt silly continuing to say “my Mom” this and “my Mom” that all the time. Ergo, something had to come up. And, if I do say so myself, she is the bomb, she’s the best, the one and only.

My Mom and I have one of those freakishly weird mother-daughter relationships, we are super tight, talk for hours, and finish each other sentences. We are the real life Gilmore Girls. She is one of the handful of people I would chose to be on a deserted island with, travel with, get lost with. 

These days she is the one keeping me sane. With my super lucky internet capabilities we talk on skype often and for hours (which still, after all these years, mystifies those around us).  She keeps me up to date on everything going on stateside from daily familial life to who is going to be one Dancing with the Stars and when the primaries start. And she is the master care package sender. Queen of them in fact. I became the grocery store during homestay, helping keep my fellow BCampers happy with supplies of dried fruit and crackers (you know how hard it is to find a Ritz cracker in this country?!). That twenty-four pound package from this weekend was her good doing. I tell people that it’s because we are a military family, and my mom has had lots of practice, which I think is true, but I also just feel so utterly blessed to have someone that doesn’t set foot into Trader Joes, Target, or Wal-Mart without two lists, one for herself, and one for me.

Peace Corps talks a lot about personal sacrifice of the volunteer—asking us to choose to step away from our lives, our families, our comforts. I don’t think they emphasize enough the sacrifice of our families. The birthdays we miss, the holidays, the vacations, the funny jokes that just occur over breakfast, the ability to curl up on the couch with your family when it rains on a Saturday and fight over football versus chick flicks. We miss that. And our families notice the void.

Yet, there they are, smiles on their faces via skype, funny stories in email, letters full of pop culture tidbits, and care packages stocked with comfort foods and just because gifts.

I couldn’t be here without my mom being there for me. So this is just a little note to say, Thanks Mom. I miss you. I love you. Talk about you all the time. Skype date later? You won’t believe my oatmeal issues this morning…

me and mom. la jolla, CA