25 February 2013

peace corps week: grow your peace corps family tree

Yesterday, February 24th, officially kicked off Peace Corps Week. Utilizing a different theme on each day of the week, the intention is to share specific aspects of what Peace Corps Volunteers do when they serve overseas. The week culminates on Peace Corps Day, March 1st, when President John F. Kennedy signed the executive order to officially establish the Peace Corps in 1961. Fifty-two years later, the agency continues to be "one of the greatest success stories in U.S. international development." While the main facilitators of Peace Corps Week tend to be Returned Volunteers hosting an event in their community, I figured I would take the opportunity to use the themes as guides for my writing. You can read more about Peace Corps Week on the official Peace Corps website, but you can also follow along with me this week as I touch on select themes and relate parts of my experience I might otherwise overlook.

02 February 2013

eight fourteen

             It was 8:14 somewhere. It did not matter where. Her watch was set to some American time zone and had not been adjusted for Daylight Savings since who knows when. But at 8:14 somewhere, they were laying in the hull of her aunt’s mustard narrow boat. They breathed the boat’s musty atmosphere in the dim of another gray morning.