Here's where the story ends....Susan and I are home in Granville. We scrapped plans to travel through Argentina (we will go there in the near future though) and decided to return sooner to our friends and family. This journey that we call Peace Corps has been incredible and I thank all of you for following the blog and providing support during our service. I will continue to post blogs related to my Peace Corps experience so don't tune out too soon. I also would like to take this time to provide you with my new cell number in the States: 740-877-9868 [View Full Entry]

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PHOTOS COMING!!!! Just didn´t have time to download them today. So my service is winding down rapidly. Peace Corps just recently approved our March 20th Close of Service date which means that we will be leaving country soon after that. The last month or so has gone exceptionally well - some of the best experiences of my Peace Corps service. To start, a few weeks ago I was in the community of San Pedro to collect some GPS data points for one of CODEAMAs projects. I went on a 5 hour hike with one of the teachers in the school, the [View Full Entry]

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Greetings to all blog readers. As many of you know, I have written about fellow Puyo Volunteer, Matt, in a few of my blogs. He is working on a project along the same lines as my Env. Education guide. My project was to train teachers, his project is to provide ¨workbooks¨ to actual students who lack any real materials. It is a worthy project that was started by former Volunteer Katie Wallace and Matt has refused to let her hard work go for naught. I know that economic times are tight, but I´ll ask you anyhow to take a look at [View Full Entry]

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Sorry no pictures this time - this is a long blog, I warn you, but definitely worth the read. Our Close of Service Conference (COS) came and went in Quito this week. Each Omnibus has a COS conference to talk about the paperwork that needs to be filled out, how to prepare resumes and describe your service, and to provide feedback to Peace Corps. Normally, the standard for this conference is 3 days. However, since our group is the most beloved we got 1 day. I have done a lot of complaining during the last year about PC Administration, so in [View Full Entry]

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So Susan and I have celebrated another Christmas in Puyo, as well as, ushered in another New Year. Just like last year, we invited friends down to Puyo to spend Christmas with us. Last year, there were 8 of us, this year we numbered 20. Somehow, Susan and I have become social chairs of our Omnibus, or so we have been told. People heard about the great Puyo Christmas of 2007 and thus, more wanted to come this year. We invited people to come anytime from Christmas Eve until the 27th, when the real party would occur. Our friend Roger came [View Full Entry]

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Susan´s parents arrived in Quito on Thursday night, December 4th. Their flight was a little delayed and one of their bags was missing, but, they were here…in Ecuador. I never thought I would see the day, but it came. Of course, after a full day of traveling, they were very tired so when we got back to the hotel, we got them into their room and Tom, Hannah, Sue and I visited for a few minutes then we all went to bed. The next morning, we all ventured to the Peace Corps office to store some of our bags and then [View Full Entry]

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Honestly, where does one begin when trying to describe trips to both Machu Picchu and the Galápagos Islands? The last 4 weeks have been simply amazing. There is no possible way for me to do any justice in my description of the trip, however, I will do my best to at least give you the basics. So, the trip began on November 21, at 11:00pm. Sue and I boarded an overnight bus from Puyo to Guayaquil. Somehow we managed to be on the bus filled with people who had weak or absolutely no bladder control. 20 minutes into the trip we [View Full Entry]

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Sue and I are about to begin our travel adventure to Peru. We leave Puyo tonight (Friday) on an overnight bus to Guayaquil (the largest city in Ecuador). From there we are going to attempt to find a place to watch the OSU-Michigan game. Susan´s brother Tom and his wife Hannah fly in later that night. The next day we head to Lima, Peru and from there to Cusco and the Inca Trail. We will spend 4 days hiking to Machu Picchu. I am very excited to see Tom and Hannah and excited to actually be taking a real vacation from [View Full Entry]

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Well, I am having one of those weeks. On Sunday, I was shaving with new razor on my upperlip and managed to slice the hell out of my nose. It bled and bled - I am still trying to figure out how I did that. On Tuesday I woke up with an incredible pain in my right eye as though I had a piece of glass in it. I must have scratched it with something and after multiple flushings and standing under the shower with my eyes open I think I cleared out whatever was in my eye, but am left [View Full Entry]

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So, I put my baking skills to the real challenge yesterday morning. I finally got around to baking the two cakes that my brother and his wife sent me for the toaster oven. Of course they were easy bake mixes for a child´s easy bake oven which pretty much meant that I would screw them up. The more simple a job is the more difficult it is for me. The recipe called for the addition of only water to the mixes - I did that to perfection. I had neither the easy bake pans nor the easy grabber oven mitt, but [View Full Entry]

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