Category: Thoughts and Reflections

  • Packing up – planning for the year ahead

    Training had come to a close, I’d begun the training program to become a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader, and I was busy readying myself internally for the next adventure. Sitting on the lower corner of my bed, I straightened and focused on my breathing. In the small, cluttered room of my lodge, I was surrounded…

  • CoS Conference: Saying Goodbye

    It’s been a little while since I was able to write in an update, and a lot has happened in between, but let me start off today by jumping back to early July – July 8th through the 13th in fact. I left off having just arrived in Lusaka, lost in the shining mirrored glass…

  • Visiting Stephanie and meeting new friends

    Good Morning! I’m continuing to post and trying to catch up, and on that note here’s the next update! I’d left my site the day before, and after settling my dad’s big Osprey backpack into a corner of the provincial house, and my little orange Quechua pack sitting on a bunk in the dorm rooms,…

  • Back in Chisunka, the final stretch

    Good Morning! Well, I am happily back in my village (I arrived back last night just before sunset), and I’m once again writing you via my Cell. It’s an interesting feeling being back for these next two weeks. Doing the final rounds of checkup and looking after a few loose ends. I’ll tell you it’s…

  • Headed down to PST-GToT

    We’re almost half way through May, and let me tell you, Provincials was good! Saturday morning at 5AM we bundled up all our gear, and started off on transport – we were on the road and making good time – my mind was a mixture of excitement, sadness, and contemplation – the 10 hour trip…

  • Dreaming of EQ

    Dreams: I’ve always been a big proponent of following up on your subconscious dreams – perhaps it has to do with the stark reality that I don’t dream often, and when I do, more often than not I don’t remember them past the initial phases of waking up. I think that’s pretty common, slight subconscious…

  • HIV, Stigma, Fear, and a personal experience.

    In my last post I helped you all catch up with some of the more recent, and quite painful events. I focused in on a tragic example from this past week, and I mentioned a little about teaching methods, stigma regarding HIV, and fear. It’s important to note that my last post was focused in…

  • A tragic end to January –

    Good afternoon folks, I have been trying to decide how to write this post for a long while now, and I can honestly say that it has been a long time coming, but is unfortunately a dark and difficult topic at best. I think it is fair to start with recent events, which have been…

  • REPOST: Sundays free write: a precipice of kinetic decisions

    This is, as the title implies, Sunday’s free write. I have this interminable feeling of hunger and anxiety today. Yesterday marked the funeral of the third community member this week, and as the weather continues to shift into its rainy season pattern, malaria cases will rise, coupled with poorer nutrition due to hunger season. So…

  • Before I left the states

    Coming up on my birthday (just 4 days and it’ll be my second birthday in Zambia!!) I’m reminded of my last few weeks stateside before I left for this magnificent journey! Before I left the US I encouraged and pushed my mother to record and put together all of her original songs for me, so…