This week there was an All Volunteer Conference for Peace
Corps Volunteers in Botswana. I spent three days surrounded by more Americans
than I have seen in months. This is usually a source of some anxiety for my and
leads to some inevitable comparisons amongst volunteers. However, with less
than 5 months left of my service and only two more working moths (the last
three months I am not supposed to start new projects but simply stay in my
village and start saying goodbye) my attitude was very different this time. I
was able to celebrate the accomplishments of my peers, provide stories of both
my successes and my failures and mostly just have a great time catching up with
people. It was the first, and probably the last, time that I saw some
volunteers who were not in my intake group. I was able to make new friends and
catch up with old ones. For many people in my group who do not live near me, I
will see them one more time at our close of service conference in July (before
we are all commanded to stay put in our villages until we leave in October). I
am so grateful to have shared this experience with so many amazing people.
Through out our service there has been a lot of talk of the “Peace Corps
Family” which I did not necessarily buy into and was more of the mindset that
these were some “government mandated friends” however after over 21 months
together and a multitude of shared experiences, even if they were happening on
opposite sides of the country, I know that this is my peace corps family. These
people will be my Peace Corps family no matter where in the world we are.
I am a peace corps volunteer serving in southern Botswana. The views expressed in this blog are my own and do not reflect official peace corps policy or the US government. Enjoy!
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Botswana? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Botswana in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez