Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Re-entry

It sounds like coming back down to Earth, re-entry. But that's what Peace Corps calls it when we volunteers head back home. Makes me laugh.
Well, I'm afraid this is the end of Legers Abroad, at least for now. Thanks for viewing. I'll still make sure everything works and set up a good photo gallery for all of you who are interested in the Peace Corps. But our adventures are far from over, at least if I have anything to say about it. For now we'll be at out new blogsite, *Legers at Home, where we will surely continue reflecting on our Peace Corps and Timor Experiences. It's also linked on the side over there.
There seems to be fighting starting up around Dili, according to online reports, which is the best we have right now. As I've said before, God be with Timor.

Especially now, I thought this picture of a littel girl holding flowers during a Santa Cruz memorial expressed more than my words could say.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Writing therapy

Here's a good one: our neighbors push-starting their red tractor in our front yard.

Each day, each hour that goes by brings with it different feelings about what we've done and what we want to do next. I've said, no, I don't want to go back to Timor because it was so hard on us; and then as I was catching my breath thought, but there's so much I left unfinished there. The other day I looked up on PC Mozambique, a possible destination for us should we want to try somewhere else. It's a former Portuguese colony, just like Timor, so you'd think we'd be prime candidates. And it looks gorgeous. And more developed than Timor - which, by the way, we've heard is actually one the toughest Peace Corps countries around. But since then I've thought, no, I'm ready to move on. I've grown a lot with my experience and I'm ready to start a career and a family.
And write. Thus the title of this entry, Writing therapy. I've written very short stories about different things that happened to us from even before we left. And I have a good one half about Peace Corps and half about how I got to where I am now. I added a new link to PeaceCorpsWriters.org on the side there. I'm trying to figure out where to try to get stuff published. I've read a few stories from Peace Corps Writers and another sight called Peace Corps Writers - Blogs about the Peace Corps Experience, also linked on the side, and other random sights I have linked or have googled. Reading a few will give you a good idea of what a volunteer goes through. Most themes are universal.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Are you Experienced?


I've written before about the Peace Corps Experience - the experience you imagine when you think about the Peace Corps. I'm finding that our Peace Corps Experience does not end with the end of service.
I'm not saying we're signing up again, though that is a remote possiblity still, and I'm not saying we've been out giving talks and speeches about Timor since we've been back (though we did show our family a slideshow of all our most recent pictures the other night). It's actually hard to explain.
In the picture above you see Bekah and Kuku, our little dingo, not long before we were evacuated. We've been reflecting on our whole experience since then. Many emotions linked with many memories. There were really hard times, and thinking of those makes me happy to be home again. There were great times, too, too many to write out, actually. Fun with fellow PCVs, with our neighbors, with each other.
This morning Bekah was waving goodbye to me as she was going to the shower, just as a joke, and it reminded me of the way the kids would wave at me when I walked down the road and shout, "Charles, dah!" which means, "Charles, hey, wave!" The kids all called me Charles because Travis was too hard to say.
I didn't know those kids. But they knew me. And every day they'd say that to me when I walked by.
I said to my mom yesterday, "You know, I think the reason it's so hard to come back home is because we all made it such a big deal when we left." It was almost as if we were never coming back. But now we are back, and in some ways are worse off than when we left - suddenly unemployed and reverse culture shock on top of it. Many of our fellow volunteers are taking advantage of their time in Southeast Asia by traveling around. A few of us have come home already. One or two have decided what they want to do, like go back to school, but the rest of us are still trying to figure it all out.
I'll end with this, a little something to think about. My Peace Corps Experience was both harder than I imagined and better than I imagined.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Last day as PCVs

Imagine us walking around busy Bangkok and riding the sky train here and there. That's what we're doing. Today, this day, Thursday, May 11, 2006, is our last day as PCVs. When the clock strikes midnight, our coaches will turn to pumpkins and we will turn back into normalish people. Except, we will officially be RPCVs.
We are trying to work on closure, on emotions. Yesterday an RPCV from PC Thailand led us through a ceremony that helped in that department. When the Thai people go through something traumatic, they believe their soul and heart leaves their body, leaving them troubled. This ceremony is to call the soul and heart back. They said there's usually more to it, but with such short notice we did it like this: We sat shoeless in a circle and one by one wrapped a white string - blessed by a Buddhist monk, no less - around each others' wrists and said what we felt like saying about our experience. In the end we were all united in calling our hearts and souls back and felt a lot better about it. Then we cut ourselves loose and tied the white strings like a bracelet on our wrists where it should stay at least 3 days for the magic to work. But Bek and I, and others, have no intention of taking it off at all, at any time, anytime soon.
We had a farewell party last night at a pub. I had put together a slide show with everyone's pictures, collected over the last few days, for a collection of over 500 pics. We watched it after we all arrived and it was, thankfully, a hit. I had thrown it all together and was late to the pub because I was still working on it in the hotel. Today, our friend passed out black LIVE STRONG bracelets to all of us. They have a double meaning because, as I've mentioned before, the Timorese wear black when they are in mourning, and they wear it for an entire year. We plan to do that, too. In a year we'll all get together and have our own kore metan (take off the black).
This is our lutu, our black mourning bracelets, and our white Thai bracelets. We're riding in a tuk tuk around Bangkok.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Bangkok?!

Yes, Bangkok. We have found ourselves, all of the Volunteers in Timor, Evacuees.
It was a surprise. Most of you have heard about it already, from us or on the news. You can find some info on BBC and CNN. But not all of it is true, so take that grain of salt with you when you read it. We are all safe and have been pulled out because, as the saying goes, it's better to be safe than sorry.
The situation in Timor involves fired military who aren't happy about it and old East vs. West rivalries. East Timor is a new country, the world's newest, so I guess these kinds of things are bound to happen.
We're all really sad, lots of mixed feelings, because we were pulled out so fast. Lots of us had no time to say goodbye to our friends. Projects are being left unfinished.
I will write more and put up more pictures soon, but for now know we are all going through our Close of Service and will be RPCVs ,the R is for Returned, as of Friday, May 12. There is an option of returning to East Timor once the situation is better. There is also the option to try a new country, and there is the option to go back home.
We're all trying to figure out what that next step will be for all of us. We all have to make our own decisions.
God be with East Timor. We hope they resolve their problems quickly and peacefully.