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Our daughter is back!

RealityChuck Dec 11 2009 12:55 PM

After two years in Namibia in the Peace Corps. She arrived home this morning. I don't have to say how great it is to see her.

DocTee Dec 11 2009 01:13 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

Less posting, more hugging. And thank her for us--service of this kind is as important and meaningful as that performed by the military.

metirish Dec 11 2009 01:14 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

Great news....

Swan Swan H Dec 11 2009 01:31 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

What Doc Tee said, and thanks to you and yours for raising a daughter with such wonderful character. Jeez, my son went to Boston for ten months and I was all twisted up. You must be walking on a cloud to have her back.

Edgy DC Dec 11 2009 01:38 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

For that region, Namibia is doing all right --- sharing a border with Angola and Zimbabwe, who aren't so much. I'd nonetheless worry night and day, I guess. What sort of work did she do?

themetfairy Dec 11 2009 01:45 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

Mazel Tov Chuck - enjoy her :)

RealityChuck Dec 11 2009 01:48 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

She was a teacher in a middle school in Aroab -- a small town near the South African border in the southeast part of the country on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. And middle school kids in Africa make those in the US seem like angels. :) She had a pretty decent place to live, but only a single burner hotplate for cooking (though she did have a fridge and -- after the first year -- a shower). Tonight and tomorrow we'll start going through pictures. We were lucky, though -- she had a cell phone and we could call her each week. So that helped.

Rockin' Doc Dec 11 2009 02:02 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

Glad to hear that your daughter arrived home safely. Cherish your time together.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Dec 11 2009 02:23 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

welcome home

MFS62 Dec 11 2009 04:24 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

Welcome home, kid. Thank you for your service to all things good. Great job to the family. Kudos all around. Later

cooby Dec 11 2009 05:57 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

Neat, neat, neat. My son would love the Peace Corps. How did she get into it, and how did you feel about it?

RealityChuck Dec 11 2009 08:33 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

She always wanted to join the Peace Corps, so started applying in her senior year. Very involved process, with essays, interviews, and some very detailed health checkups. It helped that she got a reference from (url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colman_McCarthy]Coleman McCarthy, who taught at her college. He wrote, essentially, "Lisa is exactly the type of letter my friend Sargent Shriver was thinking of when he set up the Peace Corps, and she's much like my former student who was director of the Peace Corps under Clinton." :) We were very supportive, since it was what she wanted to do -- along with wanting to serve in Africa. Luckily we've been able to phone her the past two years, so we had some contact, but it's nice to see her again and not have to worry about 38 cents a minute (or more).

Edgy DC Dec 11 2009 08:59 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

Yeah, it's funny about much of Africa. Such large tracts never got wired for land lines, it just became obvious to most nations 10-15 years ago to let that generation of technology pas them by, and now the continent is covered in cell phones --- figuratively. I assume that name drop of McCarthy's is a reference to Carol Bellamy? Good show.

TheOldMole Dec 13 2009 05:09 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

YAY for her! My niece just returned from a year in South Africa.

RealityChuck Dec 14 2009 07:18 AM Re: Our daughter is back!

Nice. What was she doing there? For the curious, here's a link to some photos Here's a favorite

themetfairy Dec 14 2009 08:00 AM Re: Our daughter is back!

Very nice! And those cloud shots are amazing :)

cooby Dec 18 2009 06:08 PM Re: Our daughter is back!

I am a little jealous. What a neat thing to do; makes working in a cube 40 hours a week seem pretty tame, no?