12-19: Its been awhile…
So, I have completely failed to update in the last 2 months. Sorry about that.
I plan on spending the next few weeks catching up on a lot of blogs but here is a short overview of the last few months:
– We started a program to bring 3 ni-Van youth home to train at the dojang in Minneapolis. It has been a rollercoaster of emotions and failures and small successes. More information about the program available at: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hwa-rang-do-exchange-program–2
– I got a book contract to write a travel guide to Vanuatu.
– I wrote a travel guide to Vanuatu. (This is a significant part of why the blogs stopped. Too much book writing.)
– We competed in another Judo Tournament with the club we’ve been training with.
– I ran a Girls Leading Our World Camp with three other PCVs. It was fantastic and I’ve been able to see the change in the girls as they try to apply the skills they learned there to their lives at the Youth Center.
– We’ve continued our HRD/TSD martial arts club at the Youth Center to great success. We have 6 yellow belts and 4 orange belts who train regularly. They have promised to continue training next year using the videos and with a different instructor we identified.
– There were many Christmas and Break-Up parties at the Youth Center, Wan SmolBag, VIT, and the volunteers we’ve befriended.
– There have been hundreds of other little moments that deserved recognition, but trying to crank out a book took precedence. Expect me to better in the next few months.
We are leaving Vanuatu on Friday the 20th of December. We will both be finished with our Peace Corps service and off to new adventures. We will not be returning home in any kind of a timely fashion, but we will get there eventually.
Our plans at the moment are 3 nights in Australia then fly to Bali, Indonesia. We will spend 2 weeks in Indonesia then hop across the sea to Singapore, Malaysia. After a few weeks in Malaysia, we are hopping over a different sea to Cambodia or Vietnam. We’ll backtrack sometime in early February to meet up with my dad, brother and brother’s girlfriend in Thailand. After that, plans are quite up in the air.