The Time

So..
Where has the time gone?

As you may have noticed, our last blog post was quite a few months ago. Strange as it may seem, it feels like just yesterday that we were saying goodbye to Guinea/Mali and were on an airplane back across the ocean. Between that time and the present moment, it seems that we have lived many and various, and strangely inconsistent lives. It is hard to articulate but upon landing in America, after a few days it felt like our year in Guinea was this strange and vivid dream. Jon and I went to visit our friends Kate and Jim in Hawaii and that again felt like some alternate reality from the cold snows of the New England winter. We have only just hit our 2 week mark here in Liberia and it feels as though home and holidays were ages ago in some other realm. Time is strange like that…sometimes it leaps, sometimes it crawls, sometimes it stands still…and sometimes it just seems…fragmented…class After our evacuation from Guinea, we were sent home for a few months of R&R to await our return to finish our Peace Corps service in Liberia. We came home to a surprise visit from my parents at Logan airport and a warm welcome to freezing northern Maine. We spent a few weeks with Jon’s family, enjoying every minute…and putting back on all the weight we had lost! We spent Thanksgiving with my family in Boston and en route were able to visit many of our Maine friends. During this time I was studying for the GRE (not very fun or exciting) but as soon as that was over, Jon and I dashed off to Hawaii.

We spent two weeks snorkeling, hiking, lazing on beaches, and driving around The Big Island, Kauai, and Oahu. Kate and Jim were amazing hosts and really helped us to get out and see their favorite parts of the islands even though they had busy work schedules. We managed to make it to all the different sand beaches, including a pretty long, hot hike to a green sand beach. One of the best days was when Jim and Kate took us out to Makala’awena Beach a beautiful (and again hard to reach) pristine white sand beach. We drank Coronas, laid in the sun and played in the waves. Another Peace Corps Guinea Volunteer, Jake, who happened to be in the area, met us there. Then we headed up to Mona Kea, the highest point on the Big Island. Up on top is an internationally renowned astronomical observatory. Because of it’s location and strict light pollution ordinances, the observatory offers some of the most pristine images of the night sky. After a race to rent a car, make the trip there and a little harrowing race up the winding roads, we made it to the top just to see the sunset. We stayed as night fell and watched as the entire milky way lay above us. Jon and I also visited a botanical garden and offered a lei to Pele, the volcano goddess as close as we could get to an active lava flow. On Kauai, one of the most incredible things we did was to go on a boat ride with HoloHolo tours along the picturesque Napali Coast and got to do some more snorkeling near the “Forbidden Island” It was great…7 1/2 hours and more food that could ever be possible to eat!

Hawaii was incredible. Pictures will have to suffice since we are running on a generator right now and I could go on until it ran completely out of gas.

When we got back we had to fight the jet lag and jump back in a car to return for a northern Maine Christmas. We had a blast with our nieces. We have some really cute photos of them dressed in fairie and hula girl costume that they got for Christmas. Very shortly thereafter I had to run back down to Massachusetts to visit with my brother and other family coming into town. We spent New Years in Boston with my family, saw the parade and went skating on frogpond. We then met up with friends and went out to dinner in the north end and ended up staying with PC Guinea friends at their hotel overnight.

Which finally brings everything up to date.

We have been in Liberia for 2 weeks now. The town that we live in is called Tappita and we are teaching at Tarpeh Memorial High School. Jon will be teaching Grammar and Composition to the 10^th-12^th graders. I will be teaching Physics to 10^th –12^th and Chemistry for 10^th grade. The school has a library desperately in need of some help as well as a computer lab that is suffering from lack of funds and the inundation of harmattan dust amoung other things. So we have some great projects to look forward too. Also, it appears as though the paints that were donated for our world map project did not make the return trip with the rest of our belongings so we are going to try and have that shipped here so that project may yet get off the ground!

We bought a USB internet card and a generator so we have entered the technology age and will have more constant access to the internet....and yes.....that may mean more blog posts for the 2 of you who actually do read this!!!

I will post photos next time we get the generator going....Be well all!

Love Kim and Jon