Silver and Gold

When I was a girl scout way back in the day, there was a song we always sang which went: "make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold." The past two days have been a powerful reminder of that tune as I'm striving to get settled in this new world. I've been blessed with connections in El Paso from a friend and a professor back home, and I'm living with Brothers who are respected community members and have access to a huge number of alumni and families of students.

Yesterday night, my fellow LV and I had dinner at the home of a friend of a friend who I met up with at my site visit in May. In addition to sharing a fantastic meal, it was great to chat with new people our age who knew the area so well, and hear more about the great work they're doing with local organizations. I had run into our host the day before at a gathering of local religious and non-profit groups, and it's always so cool to see how so many people working to make positive change end up collaborating and running together.

Today I was also surprised with another friendly face, a recent alumni of the school where I'm working. He was visiting the Brothers for dinner, and afterwards offered to take us LVs on a tour of downtown El Paso. I'd wandered around before, but having a guide who totally knew the city was a whole other experience. We found two free concerts, accidentally ran away from a billionaire, made plans to visit Juarez (Mexico!) next weekend, as well as check out a bunch of other cool local sites tomorrow, 'because they look so much better in the daytime'. It seemed like a stroke of incredible luck, but as the head campus minister at school is always reminding us, "God works in mysterious ways."

And like the girl scout song says, you have to keep the old friends too, and take good care of them because they're golden. After blasting out a plea on Facebook for mail and love, today I received my first letters! So here is the promised blog shout-out. I got an awesome summery postcard from the greatest blogger ever and a perfect panda card from my mom's best friend growing up. Katie and Michelle, thank you so much! I will send replies soon.

In continuing with my silver and gold theme, today I had a lovely long conversation with two of my best college friends, and right after hanging up from that, planned an upcoming skype date with another. Those are the kind of times that can really brighten up my day. (Even though it's pretty steadily hot and sunny...!) And I guess if old friends are gold, family has got to be...platinum? Diamond? I dunno, metal's not my thing. But yesterday I got to have a phone call with my whole extended family, including the part visiting from Austria! So that was wonderful but also a surefire way to make me homesick for the first time. (Today one of the faculty members asked me if I missed Wawa, and sad to say I hadn't been until he brought it up...)

There's going to be many more new faces and conversations in my future, some planned and others I can't even imagine. I'm going to work hard to build on these connections and really get to be a part of the community here, while also still holding on to the incredible people I have back home. It's a balancing act, but I think an important one to pull off. Thank you to everyone who's reached out to me, which extends far beyond the few listed in this post. I couldn't handle it without you, you have my love.

Until next time (hopefully soon),
Catherine