Here in lies the final entry for this Blog. After a long 30 months, my travels and experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer are over. I write to you know from the home of my in-laws in San Diego. Now, what have you missed sincE Thanksgiving? After Bikaner, we traveled by the cold midnight train to Jaipur, the silver/jewlery capital of India. It was our intention to find our wedding rings, but

Its the day after Thanksgiving and while you all may be out shopping, I sit in an internet cafe waiting for the night train to carry me away to Jaipur. Last week Shannon and I spent a surreal few days in the fort of Jaislamer, and I do mean fort! What an experience, here is this little sandstone town in the middle of nowhere desert and they have this old fort built around 1161C.E. sitting on a

Today finds Shannon and I in Udaipur for the last full day and night. We have been residing at a phenomenal hotel, which is an old converted Haveli (essentially an old mini castle). I'm sad to report that Udaipur on its own has recieved mixed reviews from us and is sort of a let down. Compared to the chilled climate and easy pace of life in Goa, Udaipur is just a bit too hustle bustle,

I realize that this blog has been designed to document the time I spent in Bangladesh as a Peace Corps Volunteer; but due to my laziness, I will continue to write about my post PC travels until I reach home. Enjoy... So, this vacation/trip has been quite a trip thus far. Here is a quick update of the last 12 days or so. Oct. 26, Flight delayed causing us to miss connection flight so we work

"This is the end, my one and only friend The End." 27 months have past and now it is my turn to move on and beyond Bangladesh. But before I go, it would only be approriate to take a quick look back. What are the highlights, the things I have learned, the things I have seen? On arrival, the view from the plane as we were coming in was of a country that appeared to be completely underwater,

Invited Shuvo, a Bangladeshi friend of ours, over for pizza night the other day. He has been pestering Shannon and I for nearly a year now that he wants to make pizza. Well, it so happens that recently Shannon and I have been indeed learning to make completely homemade pizza. So, we invite him over and the three of us work in our kitchen, making mozzarella cheese (completely from scratch! A

ITS SIMPLY RIDICULOUS!!! So, I’m at a football game (soccer) that one of my student’s was in. Its in a inter District tournament, nothing big, just two local soccer teams playing each other. Well, this was a quarter-final game that we were at and the opposing team, which is being sponsored by the Chairman of the Portasavar (basically he owns Waterworks and Electric Company for the town in

The Update: Life here for us here in Bangladesh is beginning to wrap up in a crazy whirlwind of activity. We are now 2.5 months away from our official Close of Service. Anywhere from the 19th of October and beyond we can leave, and obviously Shannon and I are itching for the 19th. That said, it is easy to conclude that we are done. But we are not. We still have our classes that we are

As many of you may know, Shannon and I have been working on a photo project with the children of sex workers at the NGO that I have been involved with while living in Jamalpur. Well, today we were in Dhaka to collect a small donation that was granted to us by the parent NGO. The following is a brief description of just how that went. We arrive at the main office of the NGO at noon. We called

Time. It is odd how we view and experience time. For the majority of my life, I have always viewed the passage of time in terms of school years and academic calendars. My life flowed on the redundant river, which is way over used, as I passed through an easy nine month block of scholastic progress with the needed three month vacation when I somehow managed to evolve to the point of jumping up

A Bus Ride: You arrive. In front of you lies a colossus mass of confusion, noise, and filth. Finding your proper bus in this mess will be an impressive task. After dodging numerous hawkers assaulting you in the attempt to temp you to take their particular bus, you are correctly directed to your personal chunk of piecemeal metal, scrapped and twisted, set on top of a set of dubiously bald

Click click click goes the gas before being ignited and filling the square box full of heat. The main course is stripped down to just its skin and placed inside as the heat steadily rises and the flames lick at the fresh flesh that it is being served. As the food bastes in its own juices, they cry out in misery. The flesh is still alive, and the creatures writher in misery before the all

Chillin' in the Singapore airport (MY FAVORITE) and just saw on the forecast that it is 36 degrees Celcius in Dhaka. WE ARE GOING TO F*CKING MELT!!!!! The flights haven't been too bad, got a complimentary room at the SIN Airport for 6 hours, which was very nice. One flight left and we are back. I just consumed my last deli sandwich for at least 6 months, and also will be holding my wife's

"Well, we now have to medically seperate you." These were the words that sent my heart racing and my stomach to plummet. Good ol'boy Jimmy Austin (imagine the full thick Don't Mess with Texas accent) very casually said to me after the camera that I swallowed came back with a completely normal record of my small intestines, "Normally no news is good news, but in your case its bad." So yes,

Pause...Stop...Breath. Brain crashes about in a whirlwind of thought and confusion. Tests are done, more to come. Results inconclusive, future dim. Chaos reigns in this foreign land and foreign home. All that is known has been left behind and adjustments to this stress remain elusive. What has happened? As you know, Shannon and I returned to the United States to deal with a family

Ready for a mind trip? Shannon and I are coming back to the states...tonight!!! F_cking crazy! This is only for a short time though, last week Shannon and I learned of a family emergency in San Diego, so we are giving up a large part of our readjustment allowance that Peace Corps has been hanging on to and flying out. Needless to say, we were totally unprepared for this. The states. The United

In stark contrast to the previous few posts, I shall work on something a bit less depressing. Bangladesh may be bad at the moment, but it is bad for me. It is all a question of perspective. I walk through this land and have no choice but to be a foreigner; yet, there is so much that I see that I wish I could really observe, closely and intimately. I am prevented from fully integrating myself

And this is a little something from my Beautiful Wife: Spirits have risen. It’s my belief that David and I are getting into the groove of our lives within Bangladesh. The month of February was emotionally hard and for some reason we battled with the reality of eight more months in Bangladesh. A couple of weeks ago, we spent an evening reevaluating what we wanted from our two years of service

(Warning, this came from an email to a friend where I was just getting things out. I am not going to say that all that I have written is untrue, or even that any of it is. Seriously, I am not even exaggerating. I am just trying to express how it is. Peace Corps is not all glamor.) A little steam… …imagine being isolated and locked into a small room crammed with all these people that are

Personal Journal Entry 13/02/2005: ‘Bailey died. We had to put Bailey to sleep a week after he suffered a terrible accident. For a week we all wallowed in the pain of Bailey’s two unusable hind legs, destroyed internal organs, and dead tail. But there were those moments when Bailey was Bailey. Incredibly cute, with huge longing eyes and an insatiable curiosity, and lets not forget a stomach

Married life is so GRAND!!! Especially when you don't have to work, are given a good stipened, and can spend all day in bed with your new wife if you wanted to...which I did. Shannon and I don't start classes until after this curent Eid, which takes place over the next three days, so we have spent the past two weeks at home, doing home improvements, playing games, watching movies (Shannon got

And this is a sweet write up of the wedding by my Beautiful wife Shannon: Hey y'all, I have to apologize for being a horrible correspondent. Organizing the wedding, moving, breaking my foot, and not having good Internet access has been major factors in my lack of communication. David and I have arrived safely back in Bangladesh and we are taking a bus back to Jamalpur this afternoon.

Happy New Year!! This has been a phenomenal week on the Island of Koh Tao. Minus the scam and being placed in the Buddy suit, we are well and having fun. We have explored this tiny secluded island and have deemed it wonderful. Not high end resort like, and not grungy backpacker either. It is a perfect blending of all those componets. The resort we are staying at, the Thipwarmin, has been

A few minutes for a quick update of the adventures in Thailand: 1st: Bangkok Rocks!!! Old white guys with young Thai girls is disgusting. OH MY GOD THEY HAVE MOVIE THEATERS!!!! The Incredibles is hilarious and Ryan Reynolds is very funny in Blade Trinity. Has anybody else noticed that Ryan Reynolds and Scott McIntosh could be twins? Same look, same humor, and same delivery. Damn I'm

I am getting married! Yes, you all knew that, but its going to happen really soon now. As you can imagine, the stress level has been rising and dramatically shot up these past few days. But, we have packed nearly half of our belongings into an incredibly overstuffed beast of a suitcase, which my father will have the dubious honor of hauling back to the states with him. I can garuntee that