I’m not one for putting out a year-in-review, but 2011 seems to warrant such a debriefing, especially due to my current location isolated in the southwestern corner of Ethiopia. Ever since leaving my job at the Eugene Weekly in February 2009 I’ve felt as if I’ve been plunging into an open-ended abyss (a beautiful, breathtaking & heartbreaking abyss, mind you) that would only end once I became a Peace Corps Volunteer. Now that I’m on more solid ground, I can reflect a bit. So tuck in, folks, with a big glass of milk, this one’s a long one.
January: On January 2, I flew to Philadelphia, PA, to be picked up by a bus and spirited away to East Stroudsburg, PA, a dump of a town that probably has some industrial history but most importantly is the world headquarters of Beyond the Wall, Inc., a company that dispatches ruffians like myself to all corners of the USA to hawk cheaply-made posters and other appropriate products at college campuses and the like. Long story short: I needed a short-term job to fill the gab between Northwest Youth Corps and the Peace Corps, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time to take up an offer from a friend-of-a-friend to join him on this money-making endeavor. The bad news was: The moneymaking part wasn’t nearly as lucrative as I thought it’d be. The good news was: I got to spend six weeks trucking up and down the East Coast, scouting out great eats and craft brews, working up a sweat, seeing a lot of snow, exploring Washington D.C. and Philly on foot, and making just enough money to make it all worthwhile. It was an epic road-trip taken just months before I would hang up my driver’s hat for 2.5 years. Lots of fossil fuel burned. Lots of close-calls driving a huge Ryder truck through big cities. Got to see my best friends Ruby in D.C. and Rachel in Philly, but just missed running across Colin as he biked up the East Coast during one of the worst winters of recent memory. I made a friend out of a friend-of-a-friend, had a couple of revelations on the beaches of Delaware, and was clearly reminded why I really don’t miss the college life. (If you ever want to gaze at the shallowness of American college students through the clear prism of poster sales, look no further than a stint with Beyond the Wall.)
February: Got back to Astoria in mid-February and had a week or two to reassess and decompress before starting my new gig as Astoria High School’s pole-vault coach. Initially I told them I would come three days a week, but without any proper excuse for not showing up five days a week, plus weekend track meets, I pretty much ended up devoting my life to the track team for 12 straight weeks. Life was pretty sweet in Astoria. I took up residence in the Green House for the sake of my sanity and biked to track practice through the rain as much as possible on the blue hipster bike Rachel left behind in A-town. The February weather was liquid sunshine, a potent combination of blustery storms and golden light. Perfect.
Because of the great February weather, Andrew and I went on a weekend backpacking trip up the Eagle Creek watershed in the Columbia River Gorge. Little did I know that this would be my last backpacking trip before coming to Africa…oh well, it turned out to be quite the journey. We trundled as far as we could until our boots sunk into three-foot deep snow and we turned back, camping at a spot previously taken over by a Northwest Youth Corps crew (I know this because they left their bear-hang equipment and flagging everywhere).
March: I began to brew my first beer this month. At first I was ambitiously plotting a Chocolate-Chili-Raspberry Stout, but then I sobered up. I decided to combine two chocolate stout recipes into one, borrowed & bought the equipment and ingredients needed, and got down to business. As Graham (my brew-partner) and Andrew can attest to, I was pretty paranoid about “contamination” and whether I was doing it all the right or wrong way. I set the 5-gallon glass pitcher in a bedroom, covered it with a box to keep light out, and a down sleeping bag to keep it insulated, and let it do its thing.
My pole-vaulters had their trials and errors. We were rained-out of so many competitions I was wondering if we’d ever get to compete…I lost a few of my original crew (as the track team shrank in half after spring break) but a few dedicated souls stepped up and committed. Pole-vaulting attracts a rag-tag assortment of athletes: those lost souls who either find no other event to their liking, or those who want a challenge, or those with split-personalities. Rarely does AHS Track attract actual pole-vaulters: this year wasn’t any different. I had a girl who weighed 106 lbs. and could hardly do a pull-up; another who was 4 foot 5 inches and had a hell of a time clearing any height at all. I had our star high-jumper, who had a distaste for hard work and practice and it showed. I had a prima donna male pole-vaulter who had the strength and gymnastic ability of a vaulter, but a mental block prevented him from accomplishing most of his potential. I had a rail-thin male vaulter who liked to think about pole-vaulting more than actually doing it. I had an extremely dedicated lady hurdler who would do run-through after run-through until she broke out in tears because she was waiting for me to say “Enough! Go home!” And I had a good-hearted kid who wasn’t an athlete, was always academically ineligible to compete in meets, but nevertheless was just a joy to be around. I’ll wait til the May category to tell you how they did at Districts…
So sometime in early March I somewhat haphazardly became involved in a local choreographed dance show put on by the esteemed Astorian and Columbian Café chef, Marco Davis. I went to the audition on a whim, and thankfully I didn’t have to audition (I had nothing prepared). Pretty much everyone who came to the audition took part in the show in some regard. Rehearsals were every Wednesday and Thursday nights from 10pm to midnight at the Columbian Theater, which fit nicely into my nocturnal existence. The dancers were all amateurs; most had never done anything like this. Because of my brief brush with choreographed dancing in college, I had more experience than most. The dance numbers were jazzy, sexy, funky, blasphemous and hilarious. The show was dubbed “The Eruption” and featured other pieces from individuals, duos, and quartets.
In late March I made a return to my old stomping grounds, Eugene, and went on a hike with Ida and her boyfriend to the sand dunes south of Florence, one of my favorite places to be in the world. Later, I reconnected with Sir William Hough, former co-leader extraordinaire in Youth Corps.
April: Sometime in early April we had a final dance party at Pearl’s old apartment, just weeks before a fire tore through the building. Our hot dancing made flames, apparently.
The last week of April, before Phil and Hannah’s wedding, I jetted off to Colorado to spend a week with Jonah and his family. Little Mateo was in a lower-body cast, which made for some funny exchanges. Sadly, the body cast prevented him from attending Phil’s wedding and being the ring-bearer. Jonah, Marisol, and I drove to Moab and reunited with cousins, aunts, uncles, Moab miscreants, and met Hannah’s extended family. Phil and Hannah settled on a wedding location in the final week and we all tried to pull it together in time.
Meanwhile, many of us spent the day before the wedding rafting the Colorado River. I was happy to be asked to “captain” a boat; unfortunately it was the smallest raft and the hardest to navigate in the heavily swollen river. In a tight spot I piloted the raft into a hidden boulder, turning us sideways into a churning bowl of cold, brown, river. Uncle Steve, Fred, and Harmony were pitched over the side while John Goodenberger, Ethan, and I tried pulling them back in. Meanwhile I was steering the boat clear of the whirlpool we were stuck in and Phil was paddling like a madman trying to catch up to us. It seemed like they were in the water for about five minutes, but I’m sure it was only about 45 seconds before we pulled them all in and I steered us through the remaining rapids to a sandy beach where all the boats had pulled onto for a lunch break.
While the rest of the boating party went obliviously about the tasks of eating and drinking lunch, my boat was busy stripping off soaked denim and other unfortunately chosen rafting attire and switching into a random assortment of dry clothes donated from those who were smart enough to pack some along. We were in shock. Things could have gone from bad to deadly real quick. Uncle Steve’s life-vest wasn’t even securely attached to his body (I’m not sure he knew how to swim). We were stuck in an eddy and thankfully no other boats plowed into us. Only half of us went overboard, leaving the other half to help the others back in. If we didn’t have dry clothes to change into hypothermia would have set in real quick as the temps were around 55 degrees, cloudy, with a wind-chill. I may not be the most decisive captain, but I did keep calm and give urgent instructions to Ethan and John while piloting the boat away from danger. Little wonder nobody wanted to get into my boat (Phil’s puny, vulnerable raft) after lunch, instead preferring to be in the professional raft Hannah’s grandma was riding in.
Later the next day, Phil and Hannah got married on a bluff overlooking Mill Creek, just a five-minute drive from their house in Moab. It was a beautiful outdoor wedding with a spectacular backdrop. I’ll never forget the image I have in my mind of all three of my brothers and I tying our ties Full Windsor style in front of Phil’s huge wall mirror, just 20 minutes before “showtime.” I guess that’s why one has weddings. Big shows in front of lots of people are highly stressful times in ones life, but it does have the bonus, if pulled off with grace, of instilling vivid memories that last a lifetime. I’ll also never forget mishandling a knife to cut the wedding cake; Marisol’s spastic dance moves at the reception; and my Dad and Uncle Dave discussing points of contention civilly, face-to-face, at 11:30pm at night, stepping out from behind their glowing computer screens to chew the fat in real life.
As a bonus, I was able to bring out a case of my freshly-brewed Black Lab Chocolate Stout, with labels featuring Sinclair, the ring-bearing dog, on them. The brews were my wedding gift to Phil and Hannah. I really suck at giving store-bought gifts. But ask me to hand-make a gift and I pour my soul into it, so to speak.
John, Andrew and I drove the rental car back to Salt Lake City and caught a flight back to Portland. While waiting to board, the TV screens beamed out the shocking news: Bin Laden was just killed by Navy SEALs on a secret mission.
May: Speaking of “big shows,” the dance extravaganza was set to debut the night of May 14, the capstone to a week of near-on endless track-and-field practices, meets, and dress rehearsals. I was literally running from one thing to the next, with no downtime, for a full week before the “big show.”
On Tuesday was JV Districts. Just the head coach and I attended the meet held 2.5 hours away from Astoria in Yamhill, Oregon. I got to see my JV vaulters clear some heights and come away as happy as can be. On Thursday and Friday I had to take the high school bus to the District Meet held in Forest Grove, Oregon (2.5 hours away), return home at 9pm, and then immediately roll into dress rehearsals at the Columbian. It was a rush! On Thursday I got to see an AHS freshman distance runner win the 3000 meters (a young lady I talked out of pole-vaulting because I thought she had more talent in distance running; apparently she was easily bored by running); I also got to see one of my lady vaulters win the high jump. Against my advice, my one boy Varsity vaulter borrowed a fancy new pole from a Seaside vaulter and cleared a paltry 8 feet, 6 inches, a full foot and a half below his personal best. What a disappointing end to his senior year.
But Friday was truly special. I told my two lady vaulters that in order to place 8th or better (and earn a Varsity letter) they had to clear 7 feet, 6 inches at the minimum. M., the 106-lbs freshman and A., the sophomore high jump champion, were in the thick of it. With their season bests, the best they could hope for was 11th and 12th place, respectively. M. had only cleared 6 foot, 6 inches before. A. hadn’t done much better all season long, but had plenty of potential and positive energy after her win in the high jump. I took M. aside prior to the competition and made a few minor, but crucial, tweaks to her approach and pole-planting technique. In warm-ups she implemented the new technique and soared high as a kite. She dismounted the mat and screamed, “Now that’s a confidence-booster!” In competition, I stood off to one side, remaining silent but visible. M. got up and cleared height after height on her first try. It sounds cliché, but things were finally clicking just right. She was making it look easy when just a few weeks before I was comforting her after the sixth meet in a row where she no-heighted (didn’t clear opening height, which was generally 6 feet). And A., the prima donna, was not going to let this freshman girl best her. She, too, cleared 6 feet, then 6’ 6”, then 7’. They were both reaching new heights, and I could hardly contain my excitement for them. At 7’ 6”, they struggled a bit, but both of them cleared it (M. on the 2nd try, A. on the 3rd). At 8 feet, they finally hit the mental wall. I have video that shows M. soaring over 8’ 6”, but she didn’t have the experience to complete the vault. A. was in the 4x100m and had to rush her last jumps to go warm up for the finals. I hugged them both, a proud coach. Later I would deliver the good news: M. got 8th (getting top 8 at Districts is an automatic Varsity letter) while A. got 9th. “Congratulations,” I told M., “You just earned your letter.” She was ecstatic, as only a freshman can be about lettering in a sport.
I was the ecstatic, too, but the weekend was just starting. On Saturday morning I woke up and drove up to the Middle School. The AHS track team was running the Middle School Track Districts as a fundraiser, and I had to make a morning appearance and help out where needed. I had some great talks with the team, the last I’d see of them, pretty much, before scuttling down to the Columbian for our afternoon dress rehearsal (our all-ages show). Then we broke for dinner.
My nerves were shot. All I could do was drink a beer and nibble on a Clif Bar to mentally prepare myself for the show. I arrived at the Columbian at 10pm. Showtime was 11pm. Already the line to get in was stretched around the block. I knew friends were in line, but I didn’t know which. I didn’t tell my parents about the show because I knew they wouldn’t get there early enough to get in. Many folks were turned away at the door due to fire safety regulations. I’m pretty sure the Columbian can fit over 700 souls, but it seemed like over 1000 squeezed in. Time passed and the show started, as we rehearsed it, with a jazzy number, one of our most eye-popping, frenetic dances of the night. I knew, once the song was 1/3 of the way through and no mistakes were made, that the rest of the night would be gravy.
And it was. We whipped through a tight hour and a half show with nary a hiccup. The second dance was set to a chant-driven song that was probably once used in a French perfume commercial. I started the dance in monk’s robes and ended it in black boxer-briefs…that about sums it up. The third and final dance was set to Cee-lo Green’s hit “Fuck You,” and featured us starting the show in choralwear and finishing in custom-made underwear. We got to choose our footwear; I finally broke out my white Air Jordans held in storage since 7th grade, 1996. The show ended with the cast flipping off the audience, but in a rebellious, cathartic way (not offensive in any way). It was a tremendous high to be on that stage, on that night, capping off a week of activity.
Then I got to relax on Sunday. I had a week to decompress and gear up for Peace Corps. I took the bus to Portland on Monday for a dermatological screening at OHSU where I was told I needed a biopsy on a skin growth to rule out cancer. I deflated in the office. I stayed another night in Portland with friends and was able to schedule the biopsy the next day. I hopped the bus home to Astoria, thinking, “This is not what I need this week, this is not what I need this week at all.” I continued to pack and arrange my life for Peace Corps. I would be departing Astoria on May 21 and flying out of Portland on May 22. On Thursday, May 19, at 7pm, I got a call from the doctor saying everything was normal and fine. I breathed a sigh of relief. The next morning, Friday at 8am, I got a call from Peace Corps Medical Office, demanding that I fax in my medical file at once, that if the PC doctor didn’t receive it by 5pm (3pm PST) they would pull me from staging (and my PC dream would end right there). I desperately called OHSU, asking what my options were. In the end, the only option was to drive the 2-hours to Portland, to OHSU’s records office, retrieve my file and fax it myself. I got in my car and I floored it. I listened to a Radiolab podcast about “Stress,” and felt it flooding my body. Then, while driving over the Longview Bridge, I got a call back from Peace Corps. The woman’s voice was softer than before, more reassuring. She told me not to kill myself driving to Portland, that it was going to be OK, to get the paperwork in as soon as I could but that, regardless, my spot at Peace Corps staging in Atlanta was assured. I thanked her, hung up, pulled into a gas station parking lot, and bawled my eyes out. It was happening. It was really happening. I guess I never felt it was real until the PC lady said my spot was assured that morning in Longview. Then it all hit at once. Stress does strange things to ones body. The week before flying off to Atlanta, and then Ethiopia, was one of the most stressful of my life. But I made it through. I made it to Portland for the 2nd time in one week. I faxed my medical records. I drove back to Astoria. I finished packing. I said goodbye to friends one last time. I woke up early the next morning to catch the bus back to Portland. I said goodbye to my parents, my brother, and the two dogs outside of the bus. I couldn’t really form words; I just cried it out. Then I got to Portland (for the 3rd time that week), where a huge birthday/going-away party was being held at my friends house, and we lived it up as much as possible, and I lived it up a little too much, as I woke up the next morning feeling ill and spent all of take-off curled in a ball with barf bags arranged all around me and when we reached cruising altitude I went to the bathroom and purged all the stress of the past several weeks in one glorious arc, through the germless air, down the stainless steel hole, and I hit flush, and it was good.
Then I passed out and when I awoke we had arrived in Atlanta and I was a Peace Corps Trainee. It was like entering into a new skin. Out with the old, in with the new! From that point forward, until August 5, 2011, the Peace Corps training staff would dictate my life. Some things were well thought out and organized while others were less so. But overall it was a tightly knit, brightly colored introduction to the life and times of a Peace Corps Volunteer. My roommate at the Westin Hotel in Atlanta was a Bay Area dude named Brendan, and we hit it off as “roomies.” We have remained roommates ever since, even sharing a room as recently as the training in Addis last month. The last night in Atlanta (and America) was spent looking for a much-lauded pizza and beer joint. We ate excellent pizza and I had a pint of Bells Brewery Big Two-Hearted IPA, one of the best beers I’ve ever tasted (I previously had this brew in Raleigh, NC back in January during Poster Tour). The next day we woke up early, got our Yellow Fever vaccination at the Federal Building, and then were dropped off at Atlanta airport to navigate our way to Ethiopia on our own. The flight from Atlanta to Germany was terrible. We had a real long layover in Frankfurt. I ate German food and walked around. I didn’t have enough money for a cup of coffee…Europe being expensive and European airports being stupid-expensive. From Atlanta onwards I would only spend the money given to me as allowance from Peace Corps, and it wasn’t much at all. Just enough to survive. It’s all we really need. The flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was much nicer. I slept almost the whole way. We landed in Addis at night, were driven to the Kings Hotel, where we were pretty much holed-up for the next week and change for an onslaught of powerpointy presentations and witches brew of inoculations. Oh, and somewhere in there we all boarded the only double-decker buses in Africa and were paraded around the capitol while Ethiopians cheered us, jeered us, flipped us off and generally freaked us the fuck out. I’m sure the feeling was mutual.
June: In June I moved in with my host family, consisting of a mother, Dirbwork, a 11-year-old sister, Saron, and an 18-year-old niece, Genet. That first night in Asela was awkwardness manifest, as most first nights with host families are. But things warmed up quickly. I broke out UNO cards, let the three of them type on my computer, made coffee Ethiopian-style, and generally made myself the Fool to many of their jokes. I was happy. I dare say I now miss them dearly, and will travel back to Asela (a 3-day journey) for Ethiopian Christmas on January 7. Also in June I found out my site location, Bonga, and made a weeklong visit to scope it out. It was my first time beyond the grasp of the Peace Corps training crew, and freedom tasted nice, though I was beyond broke within about three days. Laura (the other Education PCV assigned to Bonga) and I were mistakenly only given 440 birr to live on for a week. After bank, transportation, and post office fees, that left us with about 48 birr/day ($3/day) to spend on food and lodging. Enter Mike and Dave, the other two PCVs currently living in Bonga, who helped us out by lodging us and buying our meals. It was a pretty sweet couple of days in the rainy, muddy jungle hilltown I would soon call home. I cringed a bit at the dingy campus apartment I was told would be my home, but at least I had a home; Laura’s house was still pending, and the options didn’t look inviting.
July: This month was intensive language and technical training. I only logged online about once every 15 days since service was glacially slow and super expensive. I immersed myself in the study of Amharic and the educational system of the Ethiopian government. At one point PC drove us all out to a hot springs resort that had a deep pool and a high dive, which was a divine excursion indeed. I experienced my first bout of intestinal distress, projectile vomiting, and the wonderdrug Ciproflaxin. And then my second bout. Both times after eating my host mother’s chicken stew (doro wot), thus cementing my dislike for the festive dish. My ability to stomach injera (rubbery flatbread) ebbed and waned. I took ice-cold bucket showers every day (we had plenty of water in the rainy season). I ran at the local stadium with other world-class athletes in the early morning hours. I went on “picnics” with my host family that turned out to be just going out for coffee at 6pm in the evening. I pushed my host family’s boundaries by staying out after 7:30pm to walk my female friends home so they would be safe. I gave a speech during a Host Family Appreciation Luncheon that was mistranslated and ended up making my host mother cry the entire afternoon. All in all, Pre-Service Training closely resembled a study abroad experience I had back in 2003, in Siena, Italy. Good times, lots of learning, crazy cross-cultural juxtapositions.
August: I became an official Peace Corps Volunteer this month! That was the good news. The bad news is that I had to say goodbye to all the 69 friendly faces I’d come to bond with over the course of the past two and a half months, move to site, and start dealing with long periods of alone time. I focused the first few weeks on setting up my house and making a nest for myself. Time really sped up and slowed down based on how busy I could make myself. I plunged into my work some days, other days I just hid out in my house, completely exhausted from being a foreigner and acting the part every time I stepped out my door. Also, the rainy season hit its peak, and it was a muddy slog to get just about anywhere in Bonga. It was a weird month. I think it finally clicked when I went for one of several of my Sunday distance runs, washed my clothes, and spent the afternoon drinking coffee and watching Satellite TV with my neighbors.
September: This month I branched out a bit. I met up with some Tourism Bureau folks and went on an epic hike to the oldest coffee tree in the world. I traveled to a small town 2.5 days away for a get-together and BBQ with other “Jimma Loopers,” what PCVs who are stationed in SW Ethiopia are dubbed. I celebrated Ethiopian New Years, Meskal (Finding of the True Cross), and the Kafa New Year (cultural festival with raw meat and lots of dancing). I had meetings with Peace Care, an NGO that wants to set up a partnership with the Bonga Hospital, and hung out with those folks a fair bit.
October: I was under the impression that college (and my work) would officially start on Oct. 17, so much of early October was spent preparing for this fortuitous event. Did I mention that pretty much between Meskel (Sept. 19) and Oct. 17, not a soul walked the campus greens? At least I was given keys to my ELIC Classroom, so I spent a good chunk of time setting up the room and making it ready for class and club meetings. When Oct. 17 rolled around, I was told college would start “maybe next week.” The next week, “maybe in two weeks.” Classes really didn’t start until Nov. 3, so it was a strange waiting game I played. In the meantime I got the English clubs up and running, so the students had something to do while the teachers sat in endless “self-reflection” meetings assessing the previous school year strengths and weaknesses.
November: November was a whirlwind. All I heard from PCVs already in Ethiopia was how much of a struggle it is to find solid work to do. I did not have this problem. I launched several new English clubs. I made appearances at several “welcoming” ceremonies. I gave inspirational and introductory speeches to several hundreds groups of students. I began teaching a group of college instructors advanced classroom English twice a week. I made appointments to observe classes both at the college and at local primary schools. I typed up a 14-page needs analysis document. I finally broke the ice with several teachers and staff at the college, integrating into their closed-circuit collegiate community. For better or worse, Peace Corps rescheduled the In-Service Training that was supposed to begin Nov. 27. I still ended up going to Jimma for Thanksgiving (lounging by a pool eating homemade brownies and drinking St. George’s about sums it up) and onwards to Addis for a half-day training and a full weekend of good eats, long nights, and many reunions with fellow PCVs. On Nov. 27 I ran the Great Ethiopian Run, a 10km parade-style run, completely ninja-style. By this I mean that registration for the race filled up months in advance and so the only way to run the race would be to just get lost in the crowd of 35,000+ people and to be swept along the racecourse. It was, hands-down, one of the top 5 experiences I’ve had this year of years, and I must personally thank a fellow PCV for talking me into doing it, regardless of my personal guilt over being non-registered. It was a great 29th birthday present to myself, I suppose.
December: I lost a lot of steam on projects at the college after I left for a week. When I returned the teachers were administering mid-term exams prior to departing for the two-week Practicum Experience. I typed up a proposal to conduct a survey at regional primary schools on the status of their English clubs and got it approved. One weekend Andrew and Faith, the administrators at the Chiri Health Center, a Catholic-based American health center located near Bonga, picked up me, Mike, and his girlfriend, Carly, and drove us out to Deka, where another PCV, Jon, lived, and we embarked on a 16.5 mile hike to a waterfall we’d only seen once in a photograph. On the drive home we spotted Honey Badgers and Wild Boar on the side of the road. Then I started my Practicum study, which you can read about extensively at Narrantology. Then I had a family emergency that compelled me to return to Bonga earlier than anticipated so I could be in contact with people back in the States. Then Christmas came around and some Jimma Loopers congregated at the Chiri Health Clinic for an American Holiday in the Jungle. I don’t have high expectations for this NYE. The plan is to eat good food at another PCV’s house and then venture out into Bonga’s “nightlife” to see if there’s dancing to be had. But sometime around the stroke of midnight I’m pretty sure I’ll be surrounded by an endless starry night, a crescent moon, the nearby threat of marauding hippos, and perhaps contemplating the absolute absurdity of time, and what it all means, and the life, the universe, the everything.
Coda: Throughout the year 2011, there has been one overriding theme: I have been blessed a thousand times over with positive outcomes. Opportunities arose, the universe conspired, and I lucked out every time. I try not to dwell too much on the nascent feeling of having escaped a bullet; that this year could have turned out much, much worse than it did. Who knows: Maybe in the face of such extreme poverty, I find it hard to be pessimistic. Or maybe being an ambassador of peace has made me ever proud to be an American. You know, the oath I swore as a Peace Corps Volunteer includes the words “I will defend the constitution against foreign enemies.” Aside from the hawkish wording, I take that to be a heavy-handed way of saying, “I stand for freedom, democracy, and basic human rights: So go ahead, make my day, punk!”
Peace on Earth, folks.
2012 is just another year to be here.
Keep hope alive.
Chuck Adams
Bonga, Ethiopia
12/31/2011
