Mileage
Why did I join the Peace Corps? It’s a question that gets asked of me all the time, and one to which there are as many answers as there have been volunteers. Some people wanted to serve. Some wanted an adventure. Some didn’t know what else to do. But what about me? Continue reading “Why I Joined The Peace Corps”
On the course of the Boston Marathon, there is only one milepost that is not exactly at a mile interval: the one in central Wellesley, MA that marks 13.1, the halfway point of the marathon.
Our halfway point passed just this week, which is an unbelievable milestone that, just like the marathon, I was doubtful that I would ever be able to achieve. I’ve faced some incredible challenges in this past year, including language barriers, isolation, illness, abuse, and even crime. But I’ve made it this far. And, by sheer luck, I was able to mark the occasion by welcoming another Harvard alumnus to Osh: Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet. Continue reading “Mile 13.1: A Visit From Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet”
When you’re not allowed to finish (or even start) a marathon, what do you do? Why you pick one the next month and enter it, of course.
The thirteenth month of my service saw my visa get renewed and a lot of planning take place. Then we had a bunch of holidays, and then a really awesome and productive trip to Issyk-Kul where I taught health lessons in a bunch of schools before running a marathon. Let’s dive in.
Continue reading “Mile 13: Health Lessons And A Sixth Marathon”
Today marks the one-year anniversary of my arrival in Kyrgyzstan. It’s been an incredible year, filled with amazing experiences and beautiful memories. I should be celebrating. But I instead I am despondently livid. Continue reading “Mile 12: Regarding Almaty.”
As many readers know, I was a runner in the 2013 Boston Marathon, and was less than a mile away from finishing when the bombs at the finish line exploded 3 years ago today, at 2:49 PM Eastern Time.
I was one of over 5,000 runners who was unable to finish the race because of the explosions, and I was one of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people who experienced and continue to experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder after the events of that day and those in the weeks that followed.
Well, I’ve let the blog slide quiet again, but that’s another temporary situation. Things have been busy pulling together a variety of work plans, revising them, bouncing for the occasional training, and a lot of other boring work stuff that you don’t need to hear about.
Outside of my vacation, December and January were not particularly exciting months. It was hard to top the excitement that was my HIV/AIDS Stigma and Discrimination Awareness Training at the very end of November, and then it was hard to do much of anything knowing that I was going to be gone for nearly 3 weeks. But, we got a lot of things planned and some good stuff is launching… finally! Continue reading “Mile 8-9: Winter Recess”
People told me when I came here that you’ll feel like nothing is happening, then at about 6 months, you’ll hit a massive wave of work and you’ll also get kind of depressed at the same time. It’s called the six-month-slump, and it’s kind of like the collegiate sophomore slump. You’ve been here long enough to miss some things about home, like friends and food, and suddenly you’ve got work. Luckily for me, I’ve got a lot of really exciting work to look forward to, and was kept on my feet by a series of literal disasters in the past few weeks.
Well I missed a month in there of my monthly summaries. Oops. Probably because there hasn’t been much in the way of excitement here that I thought fit well with this grouping of posts, and that which warranted inclusion also warranted its own post (namely, my hiking misadventures). But, in the spirit, let me catch you up on what I’ve been up to these past two months. Continue reading “Miles 5-6: Getting Started Again”
When you join the Peace Corps, you know that you’re going headfirst into an unknown of knowns. You know that you’ll get sick, but you don’t know when. You know you’ll have an adventure, but you don’t know how or where. You know you’ll have ups and downs, but you don’t know the nature of those challenges. In fact, inasmuch as we have been trained to know how to handle a pretty insane number of wild and wacky situations, many of which are genuinely likely to happen, not knowing if and when they will happen means that, at most times, you still feel completely immersed in the unknown. It’s the fundamental paradox of the Peace Corps.
I spent a lot of August wandering in that wilderness. Continue reading “Mile 4: Adventure, Uncertainty, and Illness”
