Quotation


“To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions.” -Sam Keen

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Blog Resurrected

It has risen!
It has truly risen!

Today is Easter Sunday for my blog. Hallelujah! After a half year of up and downs and no documentation, I’ve decided to start updating A Peaceful Traveler again. A big thanks to all my family and friends who were reading before and who have encouraged me to start again. A lot has happened since the Bicentennial celebrations I posted about in May, but for the sake of brevity, I’m going to try to summarize my experiences in 140 characters or less, à la Twitter.

Here goes:

Unfortunate Host Family, Family of Mice in the Ceiling, Emergency Housing, State of Emergency, Sprawling Backyard, Sprawl of Children, Community Center-to-be, Changing Communities, Best Friend Visits, Visiting the Virgencita, Leaving San Pedro, Home Leave.

And now I’m back in Paraguay, anxiously awaiting my move to Caacupé. I have a complex mix of feelings about leaving San Pedro de Ycumandyyú, but ultimately I think it’s for the best. I won’t get into the specifics of why I’m changing communities, (that’s one of the reasons I stopped writing in the first place) but let’s just say it wasn’t working about. Yesterday we went to retrieve my belongings from my old house, and to be honest, the experience was numbing. Now I’m just hoping to leave all that bad juju behind me, back in 2011.

In about two hours, I’ll be on my way to my new site, Caacupé. It’s much larger than San Pedro and much, much closer to the capital. I’m planning to devote an entire entry to “the Caac” (rhymes with rock), so I won’t go into a ton of details here. I’ll just say that it’s the religious capital of the country, they have their own Virgin, and my new host mom’s name is Lourdes. I’m really excited about change, but perhaps a bit more weathered--a little less naive--about what this experience has in store for me. I’ve been in country for a little under a year; I’m no longer a newbie dying to get out of training and into the role of super-volunteer. I’m just hoping for the best.

Today begins a new chapter in my life as a Peace Corps volunteer. So maybe it’s my Easter, too.

Wish me luck.