QT

*this is a post that I wrote back at the end of march when the weather was finally warming up and just finished now*

As the winter months come to an end, it’s hard to imagine what I did during the cold and dreary months that were inundated with rain and occasional snow followed by severe slush. Sometimes it would rain for five days straight—the clouds never allowing even a sliver of sunshine to escape—and on those days I found myself sitting at my desk staring upwards towards the sky hoping to catch a glimpse of unfiltered light. I was tired of seeing the world in gray, and sometimes I got so desperate for some sort of light that I sat in my bedroom at night and flashed my flashlight on and off in my face. The light from the flashlight was warm, and as I closed my eyes I liked to pretend that I was sitting on a beach in the Caribbean. “Yea,” I thought as I cupped my hands around my ears, “Peace Corps Jamaica would have been awesome.” Instead of the rhythmic pounding sound of rain on the sheet metal rooftops, I could hear the ocean waves gently splashing against my imaginary sandy beach, and though I contemplated waking up and asking my host brother to make seagull noises to add to the effect, I thought that might be going too far and would push the tolerance of my host family. I have been at the office lately until 7—sometimes 9—at night, and after walking back at night I find that I am too tired lately to do anything but hide under my sleeping bag and keep warm. Lately, though, my habits have been colliding with my host family’s desire for me to sit with them for hours and drink tea and talk about politics, religion, and anything that may stir up during the conversation, but after a long day I am usually not in the mood to sit in their company in front of the blaring TV.

After being here a while I have come to the conclusion that this is what Peace Corps is. Eating, drinking, talking, and spending long, slow, and oddly entertaining and refreshing hours doing nothing and accomplishing nothing at all. But in this nothing-ness there is something—I think—and it hit me in that moment of sanity-search that I was not being proactive enough. I was hiding my head deep in my sleeping bag with my flashlight just millimeters away from my face and basking in the little warmth it gave. Realizing the stupidity of the situation—but also realizing that if I did that any longer I would spiral down into depression—I crawled out of my sleeping bag and went into the only properly heated room in the house.

“Yuta!” my host family screamed at me, “are you hungry? Of course you’re not! You’re never hungry!” I grinned and told them I’d just stick with some tea, and as I sat down next to my host mom (Ketino) she began immediately to talk about what she had heard through the Georgian-grapevine (which I assure is extensive and stretches across every valley, over every mountain, and across any desert). “Scandalous,” she’d say in feigned shock, “can you imagine that the baby was born only six-months after they got married?!”

Admittedly, when I first moved in and started to hear the gossip and the oh-so-shocking stories of other families I was enthralled and completely sucked into what I considered my host mom’s dramatic retelling of these stories that would always carry a plot twist so unpredictable that it could only come straight from a Georgian soap opera. “And after the prostitute had cut out his kidney,” she’d say with a dramatic pause, “can you believe that he had the strength to carry his own bleeding body to the hospital?!” The old Yuta would have said, “but Ketino, surely he would have fainted on the way there due to the massive amount of bloodloss!” The new Yuta, however, was smarter and could tell a hyperbolic story when he heard one. When Ketino moved on to tell another story (this time about a heroine addict that somehow delivered twins while completely under the influence), her eyes darted about widely and her arms waved in pure excitement. “And when the second baby wasn’t breathing the addict swatted it like a fly!” At this dramatic point of the story I couldn’t help but roll my eyes on how unrealistic and delusional a person had to be to actually believe these stories. As I looked around and saw my host family enthralled by her wild story, I couldn't help but wonder, “were all Georgian stories and myths this insane?” All the PCVs have heard their fair share of stories that sound completely unrealistic, but was it really possible that in a country the size of South Carolina that so many improbable things could happen? I mean, did the Golden Fleece really exist in Georgia? Was wine really invented in Georgia? Did God really set aside land for Georgians? The old Yuta would have answered with an enthusiastic “YES!” but the new Yuta—having lived through an arduous and depressing winter—now says, “I’m thinking no.”

The gossip is the same in any culture or country though. Someone is getting married; someone has just gotten pregnant; someone has stolen money; someone has been arrested; someone has just become fantastically wealthy; someone’s relative has recently passed away—the cycle is never ending. So it was not that the stories were becoming boring (quite the opposite, really, because every time I came to sit down the story was even crazier), but it was the routine of it all. I began to question exactly why I was sitting down drinking tea for hours (staining my teeth in the process)—day after day—instead of reading, studying, or doing work. Then it hit me. I was doing it for the QT (quality time). Where else could I hear such outlandish stories while sipping on tea that had the opacity of black coffee and the taste of rotting fish? Maybe in an insane asylum, but seeing that I will never willingly go into a place like that this was the next best option. And Ketino, with her stories that were clearly 90% false and made up, provided for her family by entertaining them in those dull winter months. We, in turn, respected her by sitting down for hours and listening to her recall implausible tales of risk and return, daring and death, and anything else she could muster up while the caffeine ran thickly through her veins. Yes, QT was not bad at all when the best other option was to be huddled in my sleeping bag clicking my flashlight on and off in front of my face while imagining incredibly attractive people strolling on sandy white beaches. The flashlight clicking on and off as I tried to soak in any heat it radiated. The flashlight clicking on and off until I eventually fell asleep while my feet went numb. The flashlight clicking on and off…on and off…on and off…

Short update

I know that I have been really bad about updating, but life has been pretty hectic. It is finally slowing down a little bit this week so I will be posting another one by Friday.

holla~

yuta

New Emmy Pics

Emmy has two lower front teeth coming in now, and her hair is finally long enough to tape a bow to her skull. haha.

Japan Picture update

This section I'll just post pics from traveling around Japan.

-Cherry blossom madness:

-Tokyo at dusk:

-Tak sucking up to Emmy:

-Some bling we saw that we were tempted to buy:

-Me pigging out on some good cake!

-Tak, Emmy, Sumiko, and Lowell on the boat:

-The condom store (seriously, that is all they sell):

-Harajuku during the weekday:

-Wishes that people left at the shrine:

-Sumiko and Emmy on the boat ride:

-The guy that strung our boat along:

-Bamboo forest:

-Pics from inside the bamboo forest. We got a little bit too excited about pretending to be reenacting scenes from crouching tiger hidden dragon:





-the god of hotness (jk):

Adventures in the Empire of the Sun Part 1: Getting there

My past experience leaving ROG for vacation was difficult. Psychotic customs officials, ticket fiascos, and flight delays—it seemed that I would never leave. This time, though, everything was different. I even paid a reasonable cab fare to the airport, and as I checked in I was told that I wouldn’t need to be checking in my large backpack because it could be “carry on.” This, of course, meant that my gargantuan backpack would be violently thrown in the back of the aisle instead of the overhead compartment (it wouldn’t fit), but it was nice that I didn't have to worry about my luggage getting lost in Moscow. My plane schedule was as followed: Tbilisi-Moscow-Tokyo. Moscow was, well, cool I guess. I had a 9 hour layover, but because I was too cheap to pay for a visa (mainly because I knew that even after applying I wouldn't be getting one) I sat in the airport for 9 hours listening to music and reading about a drug addict going through rehab—very inspiring. After 22 hours of traveling I finally made it to Tokyo and met up with my family.

After I stepped off the plane I was excited. I hadn’t seen my family for a long time (the Masuda clan rarely gets together due to scheduling conflicts) and the fact that I’d also get to see my niece for the first time made my mind race with exciting fantasies of amazing uncle adventures. Being the obsessively competitive type that I am, I was determined to leave an amazing impression on Emmy that would make me the things of legends to her. “Perhaps,” I thought, “after she sees me her first word will be ‘Yuta,’ and her first sentence would be ‘Yuta is the greatest person—ever.’” As a side note, on a scale of 1 to awesome I think I scored an awesome during the ever-important first impression.

Going through customs and my journey to the hotel alone proved to me how much I had changed while living in ROG. I had always assumed that I was not one to change easily, but as I went through the motions of what I considered to be “regular life” it was evident that ROG had really molded me in its image. I was not molded so much to its rough, callused exterior, but, rather, I found that my personality had been slowly molded (or evolved) to be able to live in ROG. These new survival skills, though, proved to be less useful in a country that had laws, rules, social order, and, well, manners. Standing in line at the passport check irritated me to no end, and I didn’t understand why no one was cutting in line or shoving their bags into people to get to the front. “Who do I have to bribe here to get to the front!?” I thought, and I instinctively sighed heavily so that everyone around me would notice my irritation with the slow pace at which the line was moving. It wasn’t that I was in any rush to get to anywhere—I was on vacation after all—but after living in ROG for so long I didn’t understand why it wasn’t a “dog-eat-dog” world where only the physically fit or incredibly attractive would get to the front of the line in one piece. As the line slowly ticked forward I wasn’t sure what was worse, the fact that I saw all these innocent Japanese unaware of their weakness in line-cutting skills or the snail-like pace we were moving at.

I finally got through customs and rushed to catch the appropriate hotel bus service. There was an initial price-shock when I was told that it would cost me approximately $30 to go from the airport to the hotel, and I was tempted to bargain with the polite lady at the counter because, after all, that is what you do in ROG. “Outrageous! Do I look like a chump to you?!” I wanted to ask in protest, but as I saw her spotless uniform and sparkling white teeth I remembered that people here were paid livable wages that pushed the price of everything to the stratosphere. “Relax,” I had to tell myself, “She isn’t trying to take advantage of you. It’s just market price.”

As I climbed into the immaculate bus, I was, for some reason, half expecting to see linoleum-lined floors and torn curtains that blocked all sunlight and views from passengers. Riding in marshutkas in ROG has always made me feel like I should have a burlap bag shoved over my head because, not only is the ride just outrageously frightening, but every marshutka dons black curtains on all the windows except the front that makes sure that passengers have no idea exactly how they are getting to their destination. The presence of deafening music just makes it seem that much more probable that all the passengers are, in fact, being kidnapped. As music blares over one large stereo speaker that is somehow plugged into the car, it makes sure that all passengers won’t hear anything that might indicate they are being driven over a bridge, a railroad track, a pasture, or even a cement factory.

In Japan, though, this was not the case. The bus was spotless, and there weren’t even cigarette burns on the seats! As the bus started to go, the driver spoke through the speakers to inform us of the approximate time that we would be arriving at the hotel, and he informed all of us to wear our seatbelts for safety. Upon hearing this I scoffed—both in protest and at the thought that seatbelts were necessary—and I gawked at the thought of being told what to do. “You are not the boss of me!” I thought. In ROG, I remember the first time I was riding in a car with seatbelts was with my host father in Khasuri, and as I reached for the belt that I was told saved lives he slapped my hand and shook his finger as if I had been a very naughty child explaining that, “In ROG you don’t have to wear seatbelts because it’s safer than America.” Of course this was complete nonsense. The best way to describe the driving experience in ROG is this: Imagine that your scariest, worst, and most terrifying nightmare happened while you were conscious. Got it? Good. Now imagine that nightmare’s “scare-factor” and take the one-billionth power of that. That is what the driving experience is like in ROG. You can then imagine what I felt like being told to wear a seatbelt in a country that had driving laws and drivers that did not frantically pass each other like every ride was a Nascar qualifying event.

As I entered the hotel lobby I was shocked by its opulence. Dazzling crystal chandeliers with golden accents blinded me with a certain brilliance that I would never find in ROG, and as I instinctively squinted my eyes I reached for my sunglasses. It was like walking out of the movie theater after a daytime movie, and as my eyes slowly adjusted to my surroundings it hit me that I didn’t know the room number or phone number of where my family was staying. To think that post-war Japan was something like present day ROG was mind-blowing, and as I walked up to the check-in counter I couldn’t help but wonder if in 60 years ROG would look like modern day Japan. My instincts said no, but maybe that is just the pessimist in me. Alone and without hope, I went up to the check-in lady and I gave them a name and when I merely told them that I was a family member, a bellboy was promptly summoned to take my bag and take me to the room. At first I was caught off guard when the bellboy grabbed my bag, and I almost reflexively dropped kicked him. Thank god that I was somewhat still accustomed to service. After waiting about 30 minutes, my parents finally came to the room and it was, I suppose, an exciting reunion.

brief update

Hey I'm trying to finish up some blogs to post, so don't worry I'm not dead. Expect a blog entry + pictures tomorrow!

Yuta: Superhero teacher in tights

“Hi, my name is Yuta and I will be your teacher.” As the word “teacher” escaped my lips I quickly closed my mouth realizing that if the word made itself audible there would be no turning back from this terrifying obligation. As I closed my eyes for a minute, I had to remember that I was not at an AA meeting introducing myself, but, rather, I was in front of a row of teenagers who were eager to learn about American essay structures. It was bad enough that I was teaching a topic that I really had no expertise or real knowledge on, but the fact that I was actually teaching made it even worse. Before I realized it, though, 15 eager faces were staring at me and waiting for me to do something, say something, anything. “Well, sucks for you that you’re stuck with me!” I wanted to say in desperation, but with Chris by my side to help me teach I was confident that if I slipped she would be there to help me out. Almost on cue, Chris started to speak and conduct the lesson with experienced finesse that I lacked.

With certain talents I think that no matter how hard you try you either have them or you don't, and teaching is a talent I definitely do not possess. To me, teaching is like trying to be a circus contortionist or using a squat toilet—I just can’t do it. It requires this intrinsic kindness and a desire to nurture others that I completely lack, and no matter how hard I try I can’t seem to find these traits. Offering a compliment to someone is oftentimes difficult if not impossible for me, and because being an optimist and positive person is part of being an effective teacher, I know that I am not made for this kind of thing.

The main difference between Chris and I can be seen by the way we grade papers. We split up the essays that we collect every week and fix the grammar and essay structure of each individual essay, and then we write comments at the end of how they can improve their writing. While Chris always starts her critiques with, “That was a really interesting and great essay!” I usually start mine with, “This essay was interesting, but I think that you could have written it a lot better had you answered the actual essay question.” My method is subconsciously centered around “tough love,” while Chris’s method has a more paternal and encouraging feel to it—seemingly kumbaya. I am the yin and Chris is the yang. If you were to compare our teaching styles to talk shows, I am the direct and pitiful Dr. Phil while Chris was loveable and intellectual Oprah.

Teaching also requires that a person be incredibly patient, and being the youngest of four siblings I feel that I was the one who was always waited on—not the other way around. I admit that living in ROG has taught me the importance of being patient (sitting for hours on train rides or idly twiddling my thumbs for hours while waiting for meetings to start), and having endured nine months of it I don't know how people do it on a daily basis. It would be easy to blame my impatience on American culture—information at my fingertips, service that is extremely expedient—but that might be a lazy explanation. If it is to be blamed on western culture, then I suppose Glenda will be my proof to support my claim. I remember very vividly what it was like when Glenda shopped online. Once the purchased product had been shipped from the warehouse, Glenda—like the diligently obsessive person he is—would check the UPS/FedEx online monitoring system almost hourly. It was like the ultimate litmus test for a store’s supply chain management when Glenda shopped online there. Departure scan in Cleveland 11:15AM, arrival scan at sorting facility in Memphis 8:13PM, departure scan in Memphis 1:14PM, arrival scan in Atlanta 5:32AM, departure scan in Atlanta 8:14AM, arrival scan in Athens 11:15AM. “OMG it’s in Athens,” he’d say impatiently after checking it for 24-hours, “where the hell is the delivery guy!?” Yea, the more I think about it, it might be easier to blame my impatience on living with Glenda instead—just kidding.

To say that I had absolutely no teaching experience would be a lie. In December I taught an adult writing class, but that was a completely different experience. With adults you can hold them accountable, and discussions and essay topics are more interesting and controversial. With kids, I feel that there are limits to their attention span, and that most topics of interest are completely off-limits. Limits. That is the word that would best describe teaching children. I feel like teachers that teach from elementary through high school must possess two personalities: one for school and one for outside of school. Eve once told me she has a “teacher voice” (she refuses to demonstrate it to me to this day) when she speaks to children at school, and I imagine that it is a necessary skill that all educators possess. A “teacher voice,” I think, is when a person sounds powerful and controlling without sounding condescending—not an easy task. Speaking to these kids in my class, I can only sound condescending and disrespectful and I lack the ability to switch over to a “teacher voice.” Chris—just as I expected—had firm control of the class by demonstrating that she also had a split personality as well. During class discussions she would calmly talk and facilitate—prodding and encouraging the kids with a smile—but the minute the discussion went off topic she immediately switched to her “teacher voice.” “HEEEEEEEEEEY!” She’d yell out unexpectedly, and the entire class would instantly fall silent—jaws agape and eyes bulging—out of shock. The façade of the innocent, nice, and sincere Ms. Chris was gone, and a monster had suddenly emerged—albeit just for a second. It was like seeing a female Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in person, and I have to admit that I was also momentarily scared sh*tless. In my imagination I had violent images of Chris suddenly turning to me and ripping my head off, and when she turned around, smiled, and told me to go on with the lecture it took me a minute to remember where I had left off. Whether or not this is something that is taught during PST is unknown to me, but I can see how it could also be a Darwinian personality adaptation that all teachers eventually develop as a defense mechanism.

One of the hardest things about teaching non-English speakers, though, is simplifying—or “dumbing down”—your language and vocabulary. Colloquial phrases are absolutely out of the question, as well as most metaphors and analogies. Asked a simple question during class, I responded once by saying, “Well, that kind of rationalization would be contingent on a lot of factors—perhaps based on the synopsis of your outline—that a person may or may not have exposure to.” After a minute of silence and blank stares Chris cut in and said, “It just really depends,” she paused, “gaachnia (Georgian for it depends).” The frustrating part is that most people will not actually say that they don't understand something when I use difficult language or speak too fast. Maybe they are all embarrassed to tell me that I am a bad teacher, like the story about the King and his invisible clothes, no one wants to break the bad news first.

Regardless of all the challenges, I feel that Chris, myself, and the class had a lot of fun. We have had lively debates and discussions, and during the latter part of the writing class we even had some fun essay topics. One was based on early marriage, and it was an argumentative essay where the students utilized their knowledge on essay structure and logical arguments. One of our favorite essays from the class stated, “I think that people only get married early because of the sex,” and in the middle of the essay this daring writer even declared, “life is not only about love and the sex, and it is important to remember the institute of virginity.” Chris and I never found out where this “institute of virginity” was (though we are sure he meant institution of virginity), and instead we imagined that it was an abstract place like Heaven or Hell and was an interesting concept that we enjoyed both reading and thinking about.

By the end of the class, I felt that all the students somewhat improved. Whether it was through the discussion, handouts, lectures, examples, or something else I don’t know, but on our feedback and evaluation forms we got great reviews. I’m sure they were more impressed by Chris’s ability than mine, but it was nice to read glowing and positive reviews having struggled somewhat during the course of the class. To celebrate, Chris and I held a mini snack supra at the end to thank them, and during that time we were able to casually discuss things that were not brought up in class (hobbies, their families, etc.). If I learned anything at all, it was not so much from teaching as it was from the student who boldly claimed, “life is not just about love and the sex.” He is so right.

-Picture of Chris, myself, and the writing class:

Bebia

When I came back from the Ukraine I was expecting Bebia (or grandma) to be living at the house with the rest of the family. I had heard it through the grapevine from the day I arrived at the house that she was coming because it was apparently tradition that Bebia came down the mountain (perhaps on a donkey) and join the family during the harsh winter months. At 83, my host sister explained that the mountainous village life near Kazbegi was too difficult for the 83-year-old vixen. Bebia, however, has resisted my host mother’s persistent nagging and begging for about four months, but, just recently, she had a change of heart and decided to trek out of the mountains to join her family in Batumi.

When I first heard that Bebia was going to stay at the house until the ice and snow thawed from the moutain roads I was scared. I wasn’t sure exactly how long it took the ice to thaw from the mountain roads, but I imagined it would take just as long as a glacier or icecap to melt. Even with global warming rapidly raising sea levels, this was not fast enough for me and I secretly thought up of ways to sabotage her coming. It was not that I knew what Bebia was like—really, I had no idea—but it was merely the fact that I had heard horror stories from other PCVs about their Bebia experience. “Bebia yells at me to wear socks ALL THE TIME,” one PCV recounted one day while visiting in Batumi, “I swear sometimes I just want to throw that wrinkled face into the petchi!” Grandmothers in ROG were not like grandmothers that I had ever heard of or experienced. They were not sweet, smiling, or generous, but, rather, in ROG they were nagging, paranoid, and sometimes psychotic. Bebias were always over 80 sporting a prominent hunchback, and the majority of them were widowed from age 30 and wore black and mourned for their husband everyday since then. Some—like John’s “Grandma in the closet”—just waited for death and were often neglected by their families. There were also set things that Bebias just did not do, apparently. It was common knowledge among PCVs that Bebia a) never relinquished control of the kitchen; b) always knew best; c) could kill, pluck, and prep a chicken in a blink of an eye; d) had health treatments that are highly questionable but always better than any western method (hence a Bebia’s average life expectancy is approximately 110); e) may have a large vocabulary of Georgian and Russian, but “no” is not a word she knows; and f) had a scary amount of facial hair. I had been warned, and because I had months and months to contemplate what my Bebia would be like, I was frightened.

With seven people already living in a three-bedroom house, I was not sure where Bebia would sleep. Would she sleep in the shower stall? In the toilet? Maybe even in the cupboard? “Maybe,” I thought to myself, “grandma would sleep a shoe!” Luckily, my host family seems to have a talent for making space when there seems to be none available. Bebia, it seemed, would be sleeping in the same room with the youngest host brother and host sister, while the eldest son would be sleeping in the living room on the sofa and the middle son would be sleeping in what is known as the “didi matsivari,” or the big refrigerator. After finding this out I no longer had fears of opening the shower stall and finding Bebia curled up sleeping in the corner while I was stark naked in front of her, or going to put on my shoe and finding Bebia somehow contorting her body to fit my enormous boot.

The first day I saw Bebia it was very awkward. Bebia is hard of hearing, and upon seeing me she asked me my name and when I replied, “me Yuta var,” she seemed to draw a blank look that indicated that she was not all there in the head. As I looked into her milky eyes I wasn't sure what to make of her. Her eyes indicated that she had just gone unconscious, and for a minute I contemplated slapping her or splashing her face with water to bring her back to reality. Since then, though, Bebia and I have started to understand each other pretty well. There is a predictable script that we follow every morning that goes something like this (translated):

Me: Good morning
Bebai: Good afternoon
Me: How are you doing?
Bebia: How are you doing?
Me: Great, thanks!
Bebia: ::nods::

After a pause I will, as always, go to my water filter to fill up my water bottle and do my morning routine, and when I come back she is curled up on the sofa looking exhausted at 9AM. My host mom will usually talk to me about her as if she is not there, and when she criticizes Bebia while she is standing there I can’t help but look completely trapped—like a deer in headlights. Part of me wants to remind my host mom that it is her own mother that she is badmouthing. “You do realize that your mother is right there, right?” I want to ask, but seeing that she is criticizing Bebia about how she reads all day I am usually left staring at her in disbelief. As her children watch 12 hours of TV a day, Bebia studiously reads novel after novel and is knowledgeable in the most profound things. Bebia, for instance, can recite poems in Russian and Georgian without ever pausing, and I find this amazing at the old age of 83. “Oi!” my host mother says in disgust, “Bebia is always reading! She will lose her mind soon if she does just that!” “Yo mama,” I want to tell her, but seeing that this will have little affect on her I keep my mouth shut.

Sometimes when I just come home from work I sit down with Bebia to drink tea with her and talk. She has an inquisitive mind and is curious about the English language and will oftentimes pick up things and ask how it is said in English. “This one,” she says to me as she points, “how do you say this in English?” “That is called sugar,” I tell her. As she repeats it slowly over and over again to retain her one vocabulary word of the day I analyze her wrinkles on her face. There seem to be an endless amount of folds that amazingly make up her tiny face, and I can’t help but wonder if in those crevices lies bits of food or bugs that might be found in an old man’s beard. I am drawn to it like it’s one of those pictures that if you stare hard enough a 3D picture will appear, and so I look at it intensely focusing and unfocusing on her face with intense concentration. One day I had an intense desire to just grab her facial skin and stretch it sideways to see what she looked like when she is younger. “Don’t do it Yuta,” I have to tell myself, “that would just be, you know, rude.”

Bebia is growing on me more than anyone in the family, I think. The fact that she is clueless and knowledgeable at the same time amuses me, and I am actually sad at the thought of her returning to her mountain village near Kazbegi. I have even begun to share the same sentiments of my host family by wondering about how Bebia cope all alone in the rugged lands of the north? More than anything, though, I think it is a selfish desire to keep her close for my entertainment as well. She, like me, can pull off cluelessness and competence pretty well, and if she goes I am, again, alone in the jungle of ROG.

Where's me gold?

On St. Patrick’s Day John, Erin and I decided to get together to work on the PCV newsletter that we are editors of. Because Erin and John claim some irish heritage, I felt compelled to participate in the celebrations while we tried working at the same time. This, of course, was not very successful, but it was fun nonetheless. Erin explained how she tried to teach about the tradition of St. Patrick’s Day at her school earlier that day, but encountering lots of cultural barriers had little success. Leprechauns, rainbows with gold at the end, four leaf clovers, and green beer are all hard to explain, and I imagine that upon hearing these rumors of catching little ugly men and being granted three wishes, every child scoured the village to look for this mythic creature. Here is a picture summary of our festivities:

-We toast to catching leprechauns (I am wearing a glove for some reason):

-Group pic in front of the St. Patty's Day sign we made:

-In the spirit of St. Patty's Day i post the sign on my face (the leprechaun i drew is asking "where's me gold?!"):

Throw me in

It was exactly one year ago when I visited Yohei in New York for my spring break, and I remember being excited by the fact that he was now working full-time and that I would get to see his window office facing the Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was mid-March when Manhattan still had a biting wind and the occasional snow flurry, and as I rode from La Guardia to his apartment I looked out the taxi window and took in the dirty and sooty city that was glorified by so many. “Best city ever,” some people advertised confidently, “there is no world outside Manhattan.” I liked New York, but having flirted with it on my prior visit I no longer held romanticized views of the city. Things were different now from the last time I visited. During my previous visit my brother was still in law school, and though he was bogged down with his studies, he still found time to take me out to restaurants and listen to me prattle on about things that were of no particular importance.

My oldest brother—as I remember it—always entertained my brother and I even though we were 7 and 9 years younger. We had our ritual of watching the Simpsons every Sunday, and we would always find ourselves quoting Simpson episodes like it was some holy scripture. His toys became our toys, and although we lacked his artistic flare for Lego building, he was always kind enough not to break our lackluster blocky structures to pieces and place them back in the big box where they came from. My poor sister was even subject to ridicule from her older brother and two tiny tikes. My oldest brother in the lead, we loyally followed his chants of mock cheers as she practiced her cheerleading moves in front of the glass kitchen door—her eyes locked on her reflection—in a desperate attempt to tune out the ridicule. “W-H-S!” Yohei would lead, “We Hate Sumiko!” The acronyms for their high school became a hateful jeer that was both creative and hilarious to me at the time. Thinking back now, all my siblings were good at taking care of me without being condescending in an obvious way. Sure I was probably used by them sometimes (to persuade my parents to buy coca-cola), and maybe even guilt tripped (when I got coca-cola at restaurants while they all dutifully got water), but as a whole they always looked after me in a responsible way while insulating me from the outside world. It is no surprise, then, that whenever I see them they are always eager to share any knowledge they have based on their past experiences.

“I’ve figured out,” Yohei said with clarity, “that for me I just have to be thrown into a situation before I realize that it’s the right decision and I thrive.” My oldest brother—ever the logician—concluded that the uncertainty that we all feel before the unknowns and risky paths we face in life are best taken with a leap of faith—sometimes with an unexpected shove. I forget exactly what we were talking about—maybe it was about marriage or careers—but as we sat in his tiny and cluttered apartment at 11PM devouring the take-out Indian food that we belatedly ordered, it was hard to take him seriously. “What about planning?” I wanted to ask, “what if just being shoved into something doesn’t work out?” At that point in my life I had been plotting and planning my move after graduation, and having decided on Peace Corps I was going through withdrawal symptoms of turning down private sector jobs. Questions of whether or not it was the right career move for my future plans swirled around in my head daily, and during my shopping spree through SoHo earlier that day it hit me that in the third-world I would not get to keep my standard of living. For Yohei, the Spartan method that encouraged drastic and uncomfortable change in lifestyle worked for him, and his theory on life seemed to be justified with each success he encountered following his doctrine on life. As I dipped my Nan bread into the curry sauce I couldn’t help but think about whether his take on life planning—or lack there of—was for me. Is that all I needed, a strong jolt of electricity in my life? It’s true that I would be graduating from college and moving on to something different was a goal of mine, but I had a hard time gauging how different I wanted my life to be after college. Moving to a different state would be a start, but would moving to a third-world country seemed drastic when comparing my situation to others?

That weekend it was St. Patrick’s Day, and so we went out to drink and have some fun. Since Yohei was working everyday until at least 11PM (that’s what happens when you work for the Man), his friend Nick took me out instead and Yohei met us up 2 beers and 2 vodka gimlets later. When Yohei finally came and met up with us, I was talking to Nick’s friend who was a former PCV that was evacuated from Jordan. “Yea, it was crazy,” he said hesitantly, “the training was pretty rough so I decided not to go back after being evacuated.” Not sure what to say to his lukewarm words, I smiled and told him that was ecstatic to be going. “It’s hard to adjust to,” he said calmly swirling his drink in his hand, “very Spartan.” Hearing this I felt like it was a recap of the night before, and I came to the resolution that having already agreed to go to ROG I would be going by the Yohei theory of life—straight from Paradise to Hell. Unlike Dante’s character that traversed slowly through each circle of Hell and purgatory to reach Paradise, I would be going the other way at light speed. I would, in essence, be going from hero to zero, and the thought of that was daunting.

It is 6:30AM right now as I write this, and I have not slept well for the last week because my mind has been clouded with thoughts about why it is I’m here. I’ve jumped into this situation and I think that it is working pretty well, but part of me still finds it difficult to adjust and it is frustrating. After going through two months of grueling training and seven months at site, I feel that I should at least feel comfortable with my living situation, but that is not really the case. Is it the culture, the language, the food, the location, the weather? I can’t say for sure, but from the moment I arrived in DC for staging I knew it would be different—really different. Yohei would thrive in a situation like this, and maybe I feel that because he would thrive I should too. I don't know if I’m actually making a substantial difference, but like Yohei did in the past, I just told them to throw me in and I’m trying to make the best of it.