Year 2 begins...

"Keep me in your heart for a while" --Warren Zevon

Well, I have not really felt like keeping up the blog recently but I would like to change that. Good things are happening in Peace Corps Suriname, now I have consistent internet access in my village and hopefully I will be able to inform people about my work and life at least once a week as opposed to once a month or once every two months which I found to be rather bothersome and unenjoyable because so much of the day to day nuances were lost to the stories of big adventures or summaries of the month that had passed. Please continue to comment if you are reading the blog that will give me some much needed encouragement to maintain the blog.

Since I have not blogged in a while, I will bring the uninformed up to speed on what has transpired in my life over the past couple of months. In May, Suriname had its elections and one of my counterparts was elected to parliament. It was an exciting time to be on the river and see the boats loaded with drummers and politicians pass the village. Also in May, the new Peace Corps Suriname group arrived which was exciting, 24 new volunteers. Unfortunately, that meant that the Peace Corps Suriname 14 group, the group which arrived before my group, would be departing in July. I miss those guys more than they probably know.

In June, I went back to the grand ole' United States of America
. Back home. Day 4 in America, I was at the ballyard in San Francisco and John got in a fight with the Giants' mascot, Lou Seal. John, you're an idiot but an inspiration to every bleacher bum opposed to a sports organization mascot... I also had my money on the seal, sorry dude. I took a few trips while in the States, I went to Lake Tahoe for the 4th of July weekend and also made a day trip to Sonoma. And of course, I took what was supposed to originally be an over-night trip to Chico and turned it into a 4 day extravaganza. All the while I was filming these trips with a video camera so I could bring the finished product back to the village.

Once I got back to Suriname, I made it back for the World Cup Final, Spain Vs. Holland--me, Chris Rodriguez vs. those strange Dutch tourists, errrrrr, I mean our friendly paying clientele at the tourist camp. Myself and two Peace Corps friends of mine watched the game at a public gathering where we were 3 of 10 people rooting for Spain at a place that held at least 400 people.

Arriving back in the interior, I went to a going away party for one of the volunteers who lived in a neighboring village. Finally making it back to my village, Gunzi, I delivered post cards and a letter to children who had written my family in America. My village also congregated at night and watched the video I made of America.
They were blown away when I walked through the Chico State library and showed them how many books were in a library. They were also amazed at the skyscrapers in San Francisco. And finally, I may have finally found a woman for my dear friend Jimmy Hok who appeared in my video; the woman in the village is like 60, only has one kid and runs her own business. She also cooks a mean rice, fish and okra dinner. I'd say a solid find for Jimmy.


August was a pretty wild month. Things were going fabulous--I stopped doing the dreaded English lessons and began giving computer lessons to the kids which are much more productive. My friend in the village, Stefano, graduated from school at the top of his class. People were enthusiastic that I had returned from America and were more receptive to working with me. And us Peace Corps Volunteers have even begun to receive funding to do bigger, more high impact projects! And best of all, two women in the village had begun feeding me every night. Everything seemed to be going right, then BAM!

Got a call out of the blue from home and was informed my grandmother had died. The news really broke my heart and has had me in a funk the past few weeks. This news was really hard to swallow alone, again. My grandfather also passed away about a year ago while I was in Peace Corps. But I feel fortunate because the last time I saw my grandparents they were together and I had some interesting discussions with them about their younger years that I otherwise may have put off having if I had not been leaving the States to join the Peace Corps.
So, although it was a tough loss I am going to hang in there and stay tough like they learned how to do.