The one common denominator has been the people. They are same everywhere on earth. I sat down tonight at a neighbor's house and talked about children's behavior and how difficult it can be. We talked about an accident and how to set a broken arm without paying a doctor. We talked about blood sugar and how pork affects it (well maybe I didn't follow that one too well). We talked about the holy day yesterday and when church services were. We talked about when my house-grown tomato plants and basil would be big enough to put in the garden. And we talked about how the neighbors say her front window is like a big screen TV - seeing everything that goes on in the settlement. And we conversed only in Georgian. Not bad! But it doesn't matter. We all feel the same things in life and can easily empathize.
Here is my Facebook anniversary quick post, since many of you tell me you don't use facebook (good for you!)
Now, I want to thank you all for your readership and interest, and your supportive emails back to me. I reviewed some earlier posts: boy they were rough. So thanks for sticking with me as I hammered out the technology and hopefully improved my writing style.
As I begin my second year, I would like to share a few quotes that resonated with me about the Peace Corps. The first is from an article that I think truly catches the spirit of the Peace Corps experience better than I could express, and the second is an inspiring quote from a young PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) colleague of mine here in Georgia. It's nice to know young people can still be inspirational.
“While different
people join the Peace Corps for different reasons, most Volunteers hope for
what we might call the Peace Corps experience. That is, they seek a profound
encounter with a foreign culture, a series of experiences that changes forever
the way they think about the world, their own country, and themselves. They
expect-and very much want-to be challenged, to have their patience and their
mettle tested, to be pulled, pushed or otherwise forced into new ways of
thinking and behaving. They want, in a word, to grow. And the Peace Corps
itself wouldn’t have it any other way; this is, in fact, a large part of its
mission and raison d’etre.”
"I increasingly think it is the primary work of human
beings to seek to understand one another as best we can and through
understanding empower our better humanities." Hannah Combe
