October 3, 2007

12:00 PM

Here I am.

One year and three months removed from the day I began my new chapter. The storyline has taken some wonderful twists and turns throughout the past fifteen months. I have spent days lost in depression and others floating in the ecstasy of life around me. With the arrival of autumn (or based on the temperature, I would say more like winter), I have felt a flood of emotions return to me from the first winter I spent in country.

I say this like it was a lifetime ago. In reality it was a year ago. In my reality it feel likes a light-year ago. The emotions of fear and anticipation from starting my new life in my village a year ago have fluttered through my memories in a very new and unique manner. I have begun to notice, now that I am reliving my life of the past year and starting another year, just how special and important my decision to come here was.

Usually the arrival of autumn brings about a happiness in me that only cold weather can bring. I love the autumn and winter seasons. They mean so many great things for me. From gatherings of family to the serene morning silence of a fresh snow fall; the life of shortened days brings about more sunlight for me. Yet even with my lifelong love of these seasons, there was something much different about them last year. Last year they became part of a new life with new challenges. More importantly, they became part of a life that, even in all of its chaos, was finally heading in a direction I was content to follow.

I have not thrown out my oars, but I am more comfortable letting this new river carry me where it chooses. The river that led my life until I came here was not a bad one; nor did it lead me in a bad direction. I never really felt content with it, though, and thus tried too hard to control where it was taking me. The river I now travel down has carried me to a place inside me I am content with. I trust its flow now and expect the rapids rather than fear their surprise arrival.


October 3, 2007

8:10 PM

“If you’re willing to take a chance, the view from the other side is spectacular”
- Meredith Grey (Grey’s Anatomy)


Don’t ask. Amy got me into the show. It’s addicting. Sometimes, though, the best quotes come from the most unexpected places.


October 5, 2007

7:15 PM

Me: Fiona, you are now officially a being that resides in the crevices of my brain. I really don’t know what you were before, but I know for sure now that you are a friend for life; a central character in my inner thoughts.

Fiona: Do you ever think about the fact that people think you are kind of strange to be a twenty-four year old with an imaginary friend?

Me: Do you ever think about the fact that you are having a conversation with me and still calling yourself “imaginary?”

Fiona: You can’t answer a question can you? You look for loop holes in the questions you are given. Rather than answering questions, you find a sadistic pleasure in dissecting and discrediting the nature of the questions you are given.

Me: I see nothing wrong with that. I think that is the problem with so many “smart” people my age. They spend so much time “knowing” how to find answers to questions and never bother questioning the question itself.

Fiona: Explain.

Me: Look at it this way. I know a lot of smart people my age. A lot of them are light-years beyond me in their grasp of facts and information. But those same friends of mine are so lost in accumulating so much new information that they never have time to ponder what they have. So much of life’s knowledge, I believe, is given to us free of charge. The lessons of life don’t always have to be calculated and analyzed. Life gives us so much. So many of us seem to look past life’s simplicities in the hope of finding something more challenging and intellectually stimulating.

Fiona: You seem to be arguing the different types of intelligence that people have. Am I correct?

Me: Somewhat. I am heading down that path a bit, but I don’t know much solid information about human intelligences and the science and psychology behind them. Put simpler, I am one of the people that thrives off intuition and the ability to read life. Other people are the exact opposite. They see life in multiple choice options and encyclopedia excerpts.

Fiona: Encyclopedia excerpts?

Me: Yeah. I know a lot of people that could recite A-Z from an encyclopedia but are incapable of questioning any of the facts they can recite. I would choose any day to question and discuss the first entry under “A” for an hour rather than be able to recite A-Z.

Fiona: You sound like you are a person that questions life just because some fool created the question mark a bunch of years ago. Do you question life just because you can?

Me: Honestly, sometimes, yeah. I have this involuntary part of me that always wants to believe there is another way to see something. I question answers and I question questions. Sometimes it gets me in trouble because I will critique something just because I want to find a hole in it. I search for imperfections in life. To me imperfection is prettier that perfection could ever be. That fact alone drives something inside of me to be an ass sometimes and question life just because I can. Where I get in trouble is that I find myself questioning against my own beliefs sometimes.

Fiona: Arguing the wrong answer until death just to prove a point?

Me: No. You suck sometimes. It’s a part of me that questions my own beliefs because I don’t always believe I believe the right things.

Fiona: Justified. Though I do believe it would do you good to find something solid to believe in once in a while.

Me: True…I want to talk to her.

Fiona: Talk to whom? Were we not just talking about believing and questioning life?

Me: I can see her when I close my eyes. She rests in the back of my eyes. Her scent puts me to sleep at night. I feel her on my hands. She is the inspiration behind my smiles and the passion in my thoughts.

Fiona: Are you drunk? Who are you talking about?

Me: Her. Just listen, she is here right now. I don’t let her me leave me.

Fiona: Answer a question for me.

Me: Sure.

Fiona: Do you know what time it is?

Me: Only the people that were here in the beginning really know what time it is.

Fiona: It was a simple question. Most people would have started with the hour and then stated the minutes, sometimes following up with an A.M or P.M.

Me: Simple is complicated.

October 19, 2007

8:00 AM


“History shows that the proverbial rock can be rolled, if not to the top of the mountain, then at least to successive plateaus. And, more important, simply pushing the rock in the right direction is cause for celebration.”
- Paul Rogat Loeb


I am finally back into full swing at school and my life here feels much better. My mind is spinning when I walk into the classroom. I head into each week excited for what could and will happen. I get excited thinking about how my students will surprise me somehow throughout the week. I get excited knowing that uncertainty is waiting for me in the upcoming week. Most of all, I get excited that I will walk into a classroom of students that all have the power to make this world a better place; all they need is to learn to believe.

That is where I come into play. This is also where I face the greatest and most exciting challenge of teaching here. Teaching students to believe in themselves, and the power of life around them, is tough when I question it myself sometimes. Being a Peace Corps volunteer, or any volunteer, doesn’t make me immune to the realities of trying to make a better world. I have spent a lot of days here (and documented some of them in this blog) questioning my role here. The reality of my life here is that there are days when I stumble over, question, and despise the drive to help others. I don’t do so out of a lack of care, I often find myself doing so out of faltering hope.

At the end of most days, even the worst ones, I always return to the most inspiring and energetic emotion I have: belief. Not belief in any one specific idea, religion, or cause; but an overlapping belief in them all. When I wake up in the morning, I need to believe that the pain, the hate, and the suffering I see can change; I need to believe that the power of who we all are can prevail, even when it seems like the power of who we are all is the oppressing force.
I need to believe. I need to believe in the life I live, the choices I make, and the people I help. Without a belief, even in the faintest existence, I falter and struggle to regain footing in a world already lacking solid ground in so many ways. The images I see and stories I read from around the world are sobering. They pull at my heart and force me to really question humanity as a whole. Nevertheless, I hold onto my belief with a grip rivaled only by that of a newborn.

I need to believe. I need to believe that the work I do can make a change. I need to believe that my friends, from Police Officers to High School Teachers, College Professors to Parents, can all and do all make this world a better place. No matter where we are or what we do with our lives, we all are part of a world that makes it so easy to do good; to be good. Teachers guide and inspire, Police Officers serve and protect, Parents raise and teach. But I don’t believe we need to have a role or a work title to really do something good with our lives. We just need to believe.

I believe. I believe that through the simple power of who we are, how we treat the people next to us, and the decisions we make, that we can make this world a better place. When I walk into my classroom I see the future not only of Kyrgyzstan, I see the future of our planet. I have watched my brothers grow up and I see the future in them; I see their future in me. Our parents gave us the belief that we could become and do what ever we put our hearts into. It is a simple thought, but so many parents and teachers look past one of the most important roles of helping a child grow: help them to believe, guide them towards a belief in whom and what they are.

Belief is a word that when turned into an action can overcome. From the sometimes difficult task of rising from bed in the morning all the way to stepping up to oppression and challenging it, belief is the source of life I have chosen to carry me along.
I need to believe, and I do, that our world can become a better place for those who have it the worst.


“…only a person who knows how good life can be is in a position to appreciate what’s at stake when life is degraded or destroyed.”

- Paul Rogat Loeb from the Introduction to “The Impossible Will Take a Little While”