home pics blog Cape Verde

Day 30 - 2 August 2005 thoughts of back home so I got to thinkin today, which as you all I know I try not to do too much of, and I started lookin at some of the slideshows some of ya made for me. I started remembering certain events and people- all fond memories of course, and I actually got a li’l nostalgic. only about a month since I left and I’m already heartachin. so weird to think about how I’ve left all I’ve known for the past 3 years to be here, in this strange world, so new and so different than I could ever explain to any of y’all here. I started thinkin about how great all of you are and how much all of you mean to me. and how I’ve basically ditched you. how I’ve set out to do this great thing while basically severin any and all ties we’ve built together for the past however many years. that really upset me for a sec, knowing full well how stupid it is to feel that way about feelin that way. it passed, so dun trip. then I started thinkin about who from back home would make it out here. in these living conditions, in this constant state of the unknown, misunderstood and flat out third world. I remember folks who were movin out for the first time complainin about old houses and dirt, and now I just laugh. this whole country is covered in dirt and dust and so many of the houses are just cinderblocks, no cement, no wood frame, no paint, no roof on parts of the house. and this is the "posh" corps. think about livin in a mud hut with a pit latrine on the continent a mere 400 miles away. this place is nice, and still in a major state of development, in a major way dependent upon so many other countries in this world just to survive. it’s ridiculous, but so amazing at the same time. I actually ran through a lot of my friends in my head and thoroughly & critically analyzed y’all in terms of how y’all would survive here. the option to leave early is always open. like most trainees, I’ve thought about just givin up, about just goin home- it’d be so easy. but then again I came here to do suntin, and I ain’t leavin till suntin gets done. how many of ya would do that, and with these living conditions. I’m not tootin my own horn at all...I’m just thinkin of how crazy this really is, and how crazy it really could be all over the world. and I’m also thinkin about how to completely crush through the level of comfort and land so far past it that you instantly find another level of discomfort. seemingly in time I get used to it and crush through again, only to find another and another…it will probably never end and then I’ll return to the states (probably) and go through it all over again, just in a different (and/or much more subtle) way. who can say? would you ever do this? why or why not? things that make you go hmmmm... <--- language of the land                quisno's, singin & shwank --->