28 Days Later

May 2011: 23 strangers on the bus to Miami International Airport.

It’s recently come to my attention that our younger sister G will complete their two years of Peace Corps service in Paraguay in 99 days. As in, less than 100. Mere double digits. To make matters more dramatic, Kevin and I COS (close of service) just 28 days after they do.

This year passed impossibly fast. Fast in the way where if you’re not careful when you start thinking about it you risk slipping down the rabbit hole known as contemplating your own mortality. Panic ensues and then all of a sudden another week has gone by. A blink of an eye and I’m staring 80 years old in the face. I can’t hardly believe that that our time as Peace Corps Volunteers is coming to an end.

Enter, the blog. As we prepare to close this chapter, Kevin and I have taken pause to consider what we still want to accomplish and what we regret. When we arrived in 2011, I had high blogging expectations for myself. It helped that I truly enjoyed writing posts and assembling photos. I deeply regret letting this activity fall by the wayside. 

I don’t know entirely how it happened, but I have a few theories. Even while still in training, I took my writing very seriously. I know some people who can go into a cyber cafe and knock out an entry, typing directly into Blogger’s interface. Not me. I craft my posts. I hem and haw and obsess. I take notes in random places and piece them together in Pages. I start essays and them I let them simmer. Unfortunately, I don’t always remember to return.

The deeper we entrenched ourselves into our life in site, the more careful I became about this process. I think it comes down to control. As Peace Corps Volunteers we give up a lot--if not most--of our power. We’re in a new place, we don’t always understand what’s going on, and our host families often treat us like pre-adolescent children. Our entire world gets turned upside. When we find ourselves in a situation where we can actually exert control, some of us take it a little too far. Case in point, I discovered over 30 almost finished blogs on my computer waiting for review and publishing. You may feel a little whiplash, but I intend to let go and finish with a bang. Cheers.

July 2013: Two years later and now unable to remember a time in our lives before The Square G.

Three generations of CED (Community Economic Development): G36--The Square G, G39--The Independent G, and
G42--The Real World G. When people stop being polite and start getting weird.