Hard rain's a-gonna fall

Greetings from Suriname. I am feeling pretty well today but there have been some ups and downs since the last blog. To start, the title of the post is named for what has happened over the past few weeks. First, for my mandolin wheelin', Bob Dylan lovin' friend who had to go back to America. He was going to be a two hour walk north of my village and was a quality guy. Mike, you are already missed bro.

"This man wasn’t as fast as a speeding bullet and he couldn’t leap tall buildings in a single bound. This Superman came with braces on his legs and sticks in his hands. I am sure people who didn’t know him might have seen him as handicapped. I never saw him this way. When he walked I always thought he was the strongest and proudest man I had ever met. He wasn’t just a man’s man, he was a Superman."--Jim Rodriguez

The hardest news over the past two weeks was the death of my Grandfather. One of my inspirations for joining the Peace Corps because of his service to the United States, it was pretty difficult news to swallow. Thankfully, I was able to talk with him twice the week before he died, once during his 60th wedding anniversary.

And there-in lies the hardest part of the Peace Corps, a total lack of communication with the state side. I found out about a week after the fact, a few days after he had been buried already. It was a very strange and awkward feeling to be so disconnected from such an important family event.

But the strangest thing happened two nights later. I was feeling bummed out throughout the day and was getting ready to go to bed at night, probably around 10 o'clock. I remember when I opened the back door I saw this blinding light in the sky. I am assuming it was Venus but I am not sure. Anyways, it was the brightest light I had ever seen in the sky and I just kind of sat there and stared at it for several minutes and felt more at ease. I have been outside to look for that light again but I have never seen it shine that brightly again. I am sure someone has some logical reasoning why that light shone the way it did at that particular time but I'd like to think it was there for some higher purpose, possibly just for me. It eased my mind in that one moment. And, when I have asked other people if they have seen that light, no one has. Maybe someone or something was shining that light just for me.

--RIP Grandpa George Kilzer