2 posts tagged “peace corps”
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 12, 2008 – Peace Corps Volunteers serving in China are accounted for and safe.
Earlier today, an earthquake registering 7.9 on the Richter scale occurred 55 miles northwest of the Peace Corps/China office in Chengdu, Sichuan province. There are currently 111 Peace Corps Volunteers serving in China. Individual Volunteers and local counterpart schools have collectively reported that all Volunteers are safe.
Peace Corps/Washington is in constant communication with the staff in China and the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu and U.S. Embassy in Beijing. The Peace Corps will continue to monitor and evaluate the situation and take any additional action, if necessary.
I'm late in the game on this, but I truly only recently had the time to look up this information. You see, one of my bestest friends from high school is a Peace Corps volunteer in the Sichuan province, and, well, with all the seismic activity there of late, I've been worried about his safety. While we haven't heard from him directly (you can only imagine the problems with communication lines over there), I'm sure he's been in touch with his parents (at least).
But seeing this press release certainly eased my concerns considerably.
So, I’ve (finally) caught up with my friend Thomas’ blog, and I can understand why my other friend, Jen, was so apprehensive about starting a blog of her own. For one thing, my own ramblings seem so trivial compared to his life-altering experiences.
Thomas and I have known each other since high school, and we became very close friends our Junior year at our Emmaus retreat (Flying Squirrels forever!). Among our friends from our old alma mater, we’ve remained closer friends than we ever thought we would. He flew out to Kentucky to read at my wedding (and got along smashingly with everyone there, I might add) in April, and at the end of June, he left for the Peace Corps and is now in China, where he will be for about the next 3 years.
After we each went off to college (I to San Diego and he to Sonoma), we didn’t see each other nearly as much as we once did. We rarely saw each other when we were living in the same state (of course, he lived in Northern California and, I, Southern), and even less when I moved to Florida. I’d call him if I were coming to LA, and he’d inevitably be off in the Caribbean or camping somewhere in Yosemite and unavailable for a visit. Of course, if you know basic California geography, you’ll know that the San Francisco Bay area where Thomas lived and the San Fernando Valley where we grew up (he really grew up in Simi Valley, but we went to school in the Valley, so I give him that distinction by association) are not exactly close. All the same, I think I’ve spoken to him an average of at least once a month for the past 8 years. In fact, whenever I was on the phone late at night, my husband always knew that if it wasn’t one of my childhood girlfriends, it was Thomas.
He called me at the beginning of the year in 2005 and told me he had applied to join the Peace Corps, and I was so incredibly excited for him and proud of him. You see, more than anyone I know (except Mylah – that’s an entirely different post, though), Thomas is the person I would expect to join the Peace Corps. He’s very raw and basic – genuine, if you will – and so amazingly dedicated to whatever causes he deems worthy. And when he told me that they were going to place him in China, I was even more excited. Thomas is drawn to learning about different cultures, and I knew he would thrive in China.
So, my heart goes out to him as I read about his struggles with the language barrier and his excitement in embracing the Chinese culture. While it’s not the same as a weekly phone call, his conversational style of writing is comforting to me (keep in mind we had the same English and Creative Writing teachers in high school) and serves as an affirmation that he’s okay.
