Northwest Arkansas

B - Greetings from NW Arkansas, where we are on vacation for the week. As Travis wrote, he finished his job Friday. We headed up here Monday to see family, including an aunt and cousin who are visiting from their home in St. Maarten in the Caribbean. It's great to be able to see them. Today we are headed to an art colony where people live and create and sell their work. I've been before, but we're all going just to be together. Gotta soak in as much family as possible in the next two months, because we'll be so long without them. That's it for now, because there's not too much Peace Corps-related stuff going on. We are test-running our backpacks...and I fit everything I needed for the trip into it, but it was H-E-A-V-Y! So I must get it lighter, but I guess that's why we practice this sort of thing. That's it. Have a great day.

Inspired As a Door Closes Behind Me

T - I have been inspired by PC Invitee Brian Reeves in Florida and, more specifically, his blog. His story is all there. I have been inspired to write today, on my last day as a VISTA. This door is closing behind me (I'll try not to let it hit me on the way out) and Bekah and I are walking down the hallway to another door labelled PCV.

Everyday I think about this future endevour in a different light. Each thing I read or that Bekah tells me alters my preconceptions bit by bit.

I am sitting here, listening to an archived radio interview with Coldplay on this Gateway computer in this air-conditioned office. A phone rings every ten minutes. Flourescent lighting paints the office a bright yellow. When my co-workers talk to me, we speak English. All of this is normal and we don't think about it at all.

I can go on for days thinking about what we have here and what others don't have (and if you walked into my office at any given time you would probably find me daydreaming). Anyway, I don't know where to go from here.

So, signing off from my office, adios.

Our PC twins in Botswana

T - Bekah found this sweet site made by a PC couple (PCC?) in Botswana, on the northern border of South Africa. So far, they are just like us: http://www.botsblog.com/.

So close I can taste it...

B - The time is near when I will call myself an alumna of the AmeriCorps*VISTA program. Monday is my last full day. Then I go part-time until we hire another VISTA and hopefully we'll choose one of the applicants we interviewed this week. I assume things will move quickly once VISTA is over.

We are excited to be going on vacation to Arkansas at the end of the month. I love vacation.

I had fun at the weekend barbeque as well as all of the rest of the things we did...except almost being caught in the middle of a fight in NO...not fun.

Well not much to report. Sorry to waste your time with this boring post.

The Weekend

T - It couldn't have gone better. Well, who's to say, but it did go very well, in my opinion. We met 6 or 7 RPCV's. They all served in Africa except for one who served in Eastern Europe. One couple was there. The guy is our age and the gal one year older. They got married around his college graduation and in a few months were in Africa.

Generally, thanks to the RPCV's, we feel a lot more relaxed about the trip. A lot of our worries have been forgotten. Just meeting with them and talking to them made things seem, well, doable.

All the credit goes to our RPCV friend who gathered them up and to the hosts of the party. You know who you are. I don't know how much of an impression Bekah and I left on them, but I am sure that they fell in love with the hosts. Thanks, guys.

By the way, our wildlife advisor assured us that a python, like the one we mentioned before, cannot eat a human because our broad shoulders will not fit in it's mouth. One less worry.

fish on the barbie...

B- Hello and welcome to the latest update. This weekend could not come soon enough! We are headed to New Orleans tomorrow for a fun-packed three days. Tomorrow night, we are lucky enough to be hosting several RPCV's at my sister's house in New Orleans for some barbequed tuna and PC discussions. (RPCV=returned Peace Corps volunteers). Our good friend at Tulane, C, who was a PCV in Ecuador, has arranged for her friends to come over. A lot of the students in her Masters program were themselves in the PC and one of them is indeed our recruiter, who served in South Africa. We hope she comes. We can't wait. We're very lucky! I know we'll get some good advice.

Then on Saturday we get to go see "Movin' Out" as a bday present to me and then a nice New Orleans dinner, also a bday present to me. Not thinking I was deserving of all this, I told my sister we'd pay for it. However, she said, "This birthday celebration has to last for over 2 years," so with that I said, "Ok, you pay!" Thanks, sis!

Sunday, we'll head home and go to church and get ready for my LAST and Travis' second to last week of VISTA. AmeriCorps has been good to me, but I'm not sad to see it go.

We received this morning another email from the PCV in East Timor who has been advising us. Some items he mentioned for us to bring are duct tape, epoxy glue (strong!), and copper wire (used dually for clothesline and radio antenna), along with laptop and music. The latter items have been a subject for discussion for Travis and me lately. The laptop is a definite no, but we've been debating on the music. Travis put it nicely when he said:

"On one side we say, 'These things will make us comfortable, make us feel at home.' On the other side we say, 'These things will just make more trouble - carrying them, maintaining them, powering them,' and, 'Aren't we trying to get away from these things?' But these are our own questions we need to answer for ourselves."

Well, I try not to be too long-winded, so I'll close it up for now. Thanks to all of our fans and faithful readers! (That's you, Mom!)

And happy birthday to my niece!!! You're beautiful!

The end!

By the way...this python is Australian...but there are similar ones in Timor, according to our wildlife advisor.

Nearing the end


The middle of the end


The beginning of the end...

Moving Right Along

T - A sun doesn't set on a day where we haven't thought about the trip. We read a little, talk a little, do a little online research. We are still waiting on my backpack. Bekah has found today a picture from Dili on cnn.com of women mourning for Pope John Paul II. She also found a few old PCET (East Timor) newsletters that made us laugh. These people go through a lot and they seem to have good humors about it.

Bekah re-submitted her fingerprints with her new last name to PC, so we should be totally clear and ready to go. We went to a hiking store and I found three moisture-wicking and lightweight shirts for the trip and they were all 50% off. Two are Patagonia T's made of Capilene. The other is a Marmot T. Bekah found some good hiking boots. She was looking for North Face shoes like the ones she has now, but we couldn't find them.

I put some more labels on things around the house with their Tetun names. I put up "paun" (bread), "livru" (book), and "etu" (the soon to be our most favorite staple, cooked rice). Bekah and I plan to home-school ourselves on the Tetun language as soon as our jobs end.