EAGLE VS. STOKES

Approaching two months in Peru buta more interesting milestone is fastly approaching- less a week before I am told where I will spend the next two years of my life. On Tuesday we are given our site assignments-from what I understand they do it in some campy way……fish it out of a pond in a plastic pod or dig it up in the backyard dog bone style type of activity. Fact is and remains this is a significant day for myself and all those I have been in training with. I will either be in the mountains or on the coast-in a large city with running water and internet or a small campo site with less or none of the previously mentioned. The list of potential variables goes on and on-the dilemma I sit in and it is not necessarily a bad one is that I do not know which I desire. Regardless of the path it will be drastically different than life as I have known it and that part holds a bit of fever and excitement. Last week we had what is referred to as Field Based Training-I continued with my ass...

The last time I was in a similar circumstance to this was in 1995. I was a recent high school graduate on the bad end of a terrible life experience. I was not ready to in any way to venture off to college and begin the next leg of my very unsuccessful academic career. Earlier in my senior year of high school my sister’s friend and then admirer Tomo Yamanaka stayed with us over the Thanksgiving break. He slept on the floor in my room. One night I arrived home relatively late and stepped over Tomo to climb into my bed….he was awake so we exchanged pleasantries after which he indicated to me that he thought “that God wanted him to ask me if I wanted to go to Japan”…..I of course had no idea how to respond but only chuckled in an appreciative way and let him know that I would most likely not be spending any times over seas in a country I knew nothing about….I did not even ask any follow up questions…I dismissed it and went off to slumber. Fast forward 6 months and one tragic life i...