So far away

Well, the main thing on our minds the last few days has been the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast. We feel our homestate can taken a shot to the heart and we feel the pain all the way around the world. Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected. The staff here has been very understanding to our emotional needs and let us stay in Dili last night to watch BBC World News and check out what we could online. Bekah and I are dealing with it in different ways. She is more outwardly concerned and I am taking it all in slowly. One good thing about it is we can now try to emotionally prepare for such unexpected news in the future, should anything happen back at home or here. In other words, we can realize that we will be here for 2 years and that something very well could happen...well, you know. And we can try to figure out what we need to do to cope.

In local news, the trip to our new site was great. Short, but great. It is very modern compared to where we are staying now. We will be in the middle of town. The house has water and electricity most nights. We even watched a Bollywood movie in Indonesian with the family. We will miss our host family here very much, though. They've become good friends. We'll miss their smiles and laughter. But we all have a lot to do for the next 2 weeks we'll be here. We have a project and a presentation on what we plan to do our first 100 days at site. We will also have a big party for all the host families with Timorese and American foods and activities.

Pictures are on the way - of Same and Balibar and everything in between. So, until next time, stay classy, America.