Erin

Sunset view from the hosts balcony

Ira (lawyer friend in town) and Beth

Michaela looking bemused at the BBQ

Picking up Nic and the arrival of the Peace Corps

Last weekend, Beth, Tanja, and myself went to the airport to meet Nic, one of the other World Teach volunteers. He was returning for a short trip to Kosrae (also a state in the FSM where seven WorldTeach folks are working this year). He was happy to see us at the airport, maybe just pleasantly surprised in a better way to put it. With him on the plane were 28 new Peace Corps Volunteers, so we sat around in the lobby of the airport in hopes of catching a glimpse of them and maybe meeting a few (I swear we didn't have any ulterior motives). These same PCV's are now living with host families near to me and Matt and doing there training close to our house (like maybe two hundred yards). So after two months of seeing outsider faces maybe once a week at most around our house, suddenly there seems to be hoards of them around.
As we waited the rest of the airport emptied out (maybe one flight a day here leaves and arrives, maybe) so we were sitting just sort of waiting. When they started to come out of the doors into the lobby, I think they saw the first four foreign (or not foreign?) faces and came over to us to introduce themselves. It was funny and overwhelming and they were quickly herded away from us by a Peace Corps staff person. The whole ordeal was highly amusing and the feeling of it all is hard to capture is this short little bit. The Peace Corps is awhole'nother beast from World Teach, this much is true.
To entertain ourselves while we waited for Nic and the PCV, we (mostly Beth) made up little thought dialogues for the rest of the people coming off the plane (OK, so you probably had to be there for this one). Just a bit of a tangent, Beth, and I are sort of like Nitrous Oxide when we are together, meaning that we make each other laugh hysterically, which is you know how crazy my laugh can be, you can imagine is pretty funny. She also a a really great laugh that sometimes comes out like a santa type ha-ha-ha which just sets us both off even more. All that laughter without any sort of altered consciousness too...

After picking up Nic and ogling the PCV's at the airport, we took ourselves to a BBQ at the home of two menwih folks, Boris and Karien (sp?), who work for the World Heath Org. and Red Cross, respectively. They were gracious to invite all the World Teach people to their house to have some R&R. We spent the late afternoon and evening drinking, talking, and eating, and just generally having a good time. This experience led me to consider the life of ex-pat's in general and sort of think that it would be something that I could see myself doing with a chunk of my life. In any case, there are a few photos of the event above. (and a random picture of Tanja and Beth doing up some gnocchi the other night, unrelated event, below)