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Life and such

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For all intense purposes I have five months of service left which is both an eternity and a heartbeat.   It has also probably been five months since I spewed anything onto this blog.  I had started writing quite a lengthy one just a week ago but it turned into something that could only be shared with one person....and apart from that the things I experience and feel are in my mind not communicated effectively through my ability to write....so I go silent.  I go silent essentially with other volunteers in relation to my time here...they all know I love my town but I leave out the details of my work and the things that transpire for the most part.  The truth is looking back I never joined the Peace Corps for anyone else but myself but it has turned into something very different.  One could say that anyone who joins the Peace Corps joins with the desire to help others but I can tell you underlying that was a selfish need for change in my life and career.  Did I desire to help others, y
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Peru and what not

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Forgive me as it has been many months since my last blog.   As penance tell of your life in very general terms and say nothing of real significance. I believe it has been months since I last pecked anything on my blog which has been described to me as having the layout and design of an five year old…so with that in mind I sit here in my bedchambers reflecting on all that has passed over the last number of months….the good, the bad, and the indifferent….but alas what is actually indifferent.  Everything has an outcome whether it be positive or negative…a lesson learned or forgotten so we can repeat it.  I am now more than half way done with my term here in Peru and with this comes a number of different emotions, thoughts, and the like.  None of which I will indulge you in at the moment.  A few highlights to my last months As some of you may know I am bald.  Two weeks ago I was invited to what I consider to be a dear friend’s 50 th birthday party.  Here in Peru the
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Insert cliche title about going home here

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In a few short and at the same time very long days I will be voyaging home for the first time in over a year.   With mixed emotions about my first half of my service behind me I cannot swim against the current of being slightly reflective and sentimental looking back at the last time I was home and for all that I have experienced here.   As I pack my now relatively tattered wardrobe into my suitcase and glance through photos of my family and friends I am not only feeling anticipatory but nervous, anxious, and grateful all the while. I stare back at the   twelveplus months behind me and see a roller coaster, but who of us who has ridden the coaster has not enjoyed it although terrorized at times during the ride.   We may pledge not to ever do it again but somewhere, at some time in our minds there are fond memories.   For me the ride continues to improve.   We are the blessed, those away from our homes and feeling like we are now at home at the same time.   I can not wait to see
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Bag o Urine

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It is in fact a hard reality that the bathroom situations here in Peru are simply not as they are in the States…and for this I pen this entry knowing that the above statement cannot make someone not experiencing them appreciate it more or less if they have not walked a mile in the shoes of those who have. Before I go any further it should also be said that my bathroom situation within my home here is not a bad one and an effort to keep the previously mentioned bathroom clean is maintained..by no means is my home here a dirty one but it is in fact different…..I have lizards in my room, rats, and mice on occasion….cockroaches are and have always been one of Gods most disturbing creatures to me…..hence my fear of the night bathroom trip has emerged. My room is on the second floor at the very back of the second floor…my room is nice…in fact the nicest in the entire house…..my two “brothers” sleep in two rooms further towards the center stair case that leads down to the first floor…
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The Return to the Chair

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                        It had been 17 years since-I now hold 34 years, doing the simple math-a half life since the last time in the chair. I was Seventeen years old walking down a side street in Osaka, Japan two days before my return to the States.  After a long stint away from my family, friends, and a life that was left in pieces.  During my time in Japan I put myself back together the best I could emotionally-Isolated without the language I formed unlikely friendships.  Communicating with hand gestures, sports, and drawings resembling that of a six year old.  I began drawing the same figure in the second grade and have never adjusted it regardless of circumstances see below                             regardless of this somewhat difficult yet magical time my hair began to exit my dome (note this hair was blonde and luxurious) at a pace similar to the evacuation at Saigon.  To realize this at this age was traumatizing to say the least of it.  Laying on my bamboo floor every ev
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RETURN TO THE CHAIR

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It had been 17 years since-I now hold 34 years, doing the simple math-a half life since the last time in the chair. I was Seventeen years old walking down a side street in Osaka, Japan two days before my return to the States. After a long stint away from my family, friends, and a life that was left in pieces. During my time in Japan I put myself back together the best I could emotionally-Isolated without the language I formed unlikely friendships. Communicating with hand gestures, sports, and drawings resembling that of a six year old. I began drawing the same figure in the second grade and have never adjusted it regardless of circumstances see below regardless of this somewhat difficult yet magical time my hair began to exit my dome (note this hair was blonde and luxurious) at a pace similar to the evacuation at Saigon. To realize this at this age was traumatizing to say the least of it. Laying on my bamboo floor every eve running my hand h
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Not much but a feeling

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Any decision of note in life is to involve doubt and with doubt comes risk and with risk reward and repercussion. The further I go in this process the clearer I see these things….I walked away from an above average salary and an above average lifestyle for one fraught with frustration and elation. Some would call that an even trade- I would state life without extremes as sleepwalking…frustration and elation average out to normal but within the average you never experience the highs and lows I believe we are intended for. I cannot describe the feeling of growing close with a group of strangers who I now consider family in many ways, I cannot describe the embrace of a member of my community after returning from an absence, and I can certainly not describe sitting around a town square with my fellow volunteers and our Peruvian friends sharing drinks and life as it comes to us. I have always held tight to the idea of one time around…and more and more I feel the sentiment within t
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