Thanks Marianne for that wonderful post. It was much enjoyed and appreciated!
I am currently eating breakfast at the Salt Lake City airport.
If you were paying attention at the beginning of summer, you might be wondering why I am not in Cambodia. To give myself a break from my often long-winded, meticulously-detailed and often mundane summaries, I'll keep it short and simple: the NGO's budget dried up faster than a sponge in the Atacama desert. Furthermore, as an education team, we had exhausted our on-site work. We were great-well prepared, organized, all of our ducks are certainly in a row. We were ready to start something up, but unfortunately, the Cambodia Project is not at the stage where it can become a reality. I had the option to stay in Southeast Asia and use my time to my advantage by seeking work at another NGO, or I could have hopped on a plane back to North America to attend my sister's wedding in Maui. I decided to do the latter.
The wedding was beautiful, simple, and awesomely backlit by Maui's famous beaches. The rest of my summer will be spent dividing my time between Texas, California, and New York. While my time in Cambodia is done, my work with Cambodia is not. I still have work to do during the summer. I will be finishing up the work that I started abroad stateside. But, for the most part, I see this as an unexpected opportunity to spend time with friends and family. And I intend to live it up.
If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or remarks, you know where to reach me.
Love,
-robert.
p.s. Keep those blog posts coming!
Welcome back!
ReplyDeleteAnd congrats for your sister! The wedding must have been wonderful!
Have fun!
Robert,
ReplyDeleteI'm just catching up on these blogs. Thanks for continuing to share your thoughts with us.
I have huge respect for your decision to go home and cherish some time with your family. In the rut of traveling and working and studying abroad we sometimes disconnect with family and "home" in ways that are realized later. After being home for 4 months pre-Columbia I really felt how important it was for me to spend that time there - talking to my grandmother, listening to her stories about India-Pakistan partition, recognizing that she won't always be there, you know....
Two of my summers panned out in the way that you describe yours, where a long before planned project didn't come through, and I to, both times, went off to spend time with my family .
I'm sure you can work well on the Cambodia project from stateside. Recognizing the reality of the project, understanding it's present dynamics is so important, and looks like you made an educated decision.
Did Julia leave too?
Sending you tons of positive energy - and yay for sisterly weddings!!!!
When do you get to see Jacob again?
Love Z