12.31.2007

2007 minutes in heaven.

Last year for New Year's I spent a surreal period of time with Matt, Matto, and Stewie reaffirming that I wanted to live fully and wildly. It was wonderful. We decided that along with the ever-appropriate "on to glory" "2007 Minutes in Heaven" should be the slogan for this year.
I lost track of my time counting and I've had some decidedly un-heavenly experiences in 2007 but overall I think I've at least approached the goal. It's weird to think how different my life is today than it was a year ago.
I'm on vacation in Durban with a group of Peace Corps friends. We're eating way to much, sitting on the beach for innumerable hours (it's a last minute cram to reach 2007 minutes), wowing Afrikaners with our karaoke skills, and having smart conversations. It's a good vacation but I'm also excited to get back to my village and get working again.
I know this is short but internet time is expensive here.
happy new year's. 2008 will be the only year I spend completely in South Africa which means I need to make the most of it!
someone please ride the monorail for me tonight. it's the best way to honor me.

12.04.2007

World AIDS Day

Hello friends. I only have a minute and I realize I'm a few days late on my World AIDS Day message but I'm oporating on the better late than never assumption.

Before I came here I never knew someone with HIV or AIDS. People in the US seem to have stopped talking about HIV and in some ways this has led to it disappearing from our consciousness. HIV is a serious problem in South Africa, it has lowered the life expectancy by almost twenty years, it has left hundreds of thousands of children orphaned, and it contributes to the economic problems this country faces. HIV is not just an African problem. It is a worldwide problem and the privlages we have in the US do not protect us from HIV.

Living in South Africa I'm seeing first hand how horrible HIV and AIDS can be. I'm also meeting people living healthy and productive HIV+ lives. Above all, I'm beginning to realize how essential it is for people to be tested and to know their status.

PLEASE. Please, go and get tested. It is simple, it is confidential, and it's essential to your health and to stopping this disease. If for no other reason please go in honor of me and the work I am doing here. But really, you should go to honor yourself and any partner you have now or you may have in the future.

11.24.2007

the ongoing heartbreak of no pumpkin pie.

Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful for me. I spent the last week visiting other volunteers in my area, meeting lots of teachers and principals and spending some really good times with friends. I was in the constant company of my friend Megan for the week and it was great. She's really cool in that special "we can make fart jokes AND talk about serious stuff" sort of way. The fart jokes are obviously the more important part of that equation. Megan and I whipped up a very traditional Thanksgiving dinner of store bought bananna bread, pasta with red sauce and tea.

Now I'm spending the weekend with my friend. I made him my world famous (people on three continents know about it... so it counts) pizza dumpling. Tonight I'll make make-shift green bean cassorle because I can deal with no pumpkin pie, I can survive no stuffing, I can even endure no Wild Turkey with Matt, Pete and Matto but I refuse to leave Thanksgiving weekend without some sorto fo green bean cassorle. Actually, Thaksgiving is a great holiday for me here because I'm so preoccupied with food and Thanksgiving gives me an excuse to expose that preoccupation to everyone.

I'M OFFICIALLY ERIN GANNON, MA!!
My ass of an older brother (who will go unnamed but I suppose you might guess who I'm writing about) has been keeping this information from me for awhile. It's really cruel to mess with your little sister who is all alone, thousands of miles away, crying herself to sleep every night because she's not sure if the only thing she worked for in the last five years was actually acheived. He's a cruel man. Don't let his peaceful exterrior fool you.

All is well.

11.14.2007

its getting hot in here!

It is starting to get really hot here. I know the heat is really coming in December and January but November has been pretty sweaty for me so far. Along with the heat November has brought a formidable fly and mosquito population into my room. I finally gave up and put up my mosquito net. Now I fall asleep listening to the high hum of mosquitoes who I imagine are pretty pissed they can’t get to me. The roaches are starting to show themselves too... especially in the pit toilet. They’re spectacularly big, the smallest are usually the size of two quarters next to each other. My friend Erin has implemented a policy of killing the big lizards in her room and adopting the small ones as insect eating pets. I have adopted a seven-legged spider as my pet... although I must admit he has only seven legs because of an early skirmish where he narrowly survived my swat. My tolerance for all things creepy crawly has grown exponentially. So, seriously, who wants to come and visit me??
Every week I feel a little more settled here, a little more at home. Some of the surreality of a new lifestyle on a different continent is wearing off. At the same time at least a small amount of the novelty of having a white girl living in the village seems to be wearing off which is a relief. There is something pretty exhausting about being stared at all the time.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still regularly causing a stir. Last weekend I was running through the village and a driver was so busy staring at me he didn’t realize he had stopped his car in the middle of the road blocking another driver’s way. The little ones still yell “la kgoa” (“white person!”) when I walk down the road. The bus and taxi drivers still refuse to believe I live in my village and not somewhere in town. Maybe I’m just getting used to being a novelty.
Last week my supervisor came to see me at school. She was having a hard time finding the school so I told her I would walk out to the tar road so they could spot me and then we could take the dirt road back to the school. I told her, “I’m wearing a black sweatshirt and a black and white skirt”. She laughed so hard. Apparently I forgot I was the only white person in the village and I’m pretty easy to spot.
I’m giving a workshop on encouraging critical thinking in the classroom tomorrow. I’m pretty excited about it, and I’m hopeful it goes well. I’ve worked pretty hard to make it practical and interesting for the teachers at my school. It will be nice to step back into a teacher role. I really miss teaching kids but language is such a barrier between me and the students at my primary schools.
I’ve been reading with small groups of forth graders after school which has been really fun. Literacy is a huge problem here. It is compounded by huge class sizes, incredibly high adult illiteracy rates (which means parents often feel they can’t help their kids learn to read) and the fact that students are supposed to be literate in both their mother tongue and English by the time they are in fourth grade. I’m doing my little part by reading with kids, helping them sound out words and praising them for their efforts.
I only have two and a half weeks of school left before the December break. It’s hard to believe I’ve already completed training and almost an entire school term! I suppose time flies when you’re disoriented, stressed, excited, homesick, learning, and adjusting.

10.31.2007

Halloween.

I love Halloween. I've tried to explain it to people here and they are willing to try to understand but it's pretty hard to express exactly why it is so fun to dress up and eat candy. So, alas, here I am on Halloween without anyone to make cool costumes with or get a candy belly ache with. I hope all of you in the US eat an extra Snickers in my honor.
I have so many good memories of Halloween. Digging in the leaves on the front porch in Blue Ash, looking for candy not found by the trick-or-treaters. FILLING pillowcases with candy (including the big candy bars from the Blue Ash cops). Mom hiding our candy in the dog food so we wouldn't all simultaneously develop diabetes. Crazy Halloweens in Kent (Abe Lincoln, Y2K girl, "No, You're Stupid", Mario and Luigi, the bloody wig, Tom crawling down the hall in Terrace, Denine dressed as Danny DiVito). Waiting for trick-or-treaters at Everett and no one ever coming. Athens. I suppose I can take two years off from the mania without losing my ability to create an absurd costume and eat sweets all night.
I've finally started to get mail here but I know there is a stash of mail that was sent to Pretoria that I have yet to see... it gives me something to look forward to! Thanks for writing to me. Thanks for sending me emails. It makes Halloween alone on the other side of the world seem not so bad.
Maybe I'll go to town and get some candy so I can at least have the belly ache...

10.13.2007




These photos are pretty awful but they give you an idea of what it looks like where I live. Don't let the mountains fool you. My new village is very flat... these photos are from my training.
It has been about two and a half months since I arrived in South Africa. I’ve started wondering how this experience is going to change me. So far I’m pretty much the same person I was when I left the US. The following is a list of ways I have changed/habits I have developed/skills I have acquired since my first day in South Africa:

- My hair is slightly longer
- I’m more tan
- I pee in a bucket at night
- I drink at lest two cups of tea a day
- I know that “now, now” actually means some time in the near(ish) future
- It takes me no less than an hour to get ready in the morning
- I read more than I ever thought possible
- I am getting really good at sitting and thinking for extended periods of time
- I can speak a little Setswana
- Hoards of children shout my name as I walk down the street and (I swear) it doesn’t go to my head
- I’ve lost any inhibition I had about saying “I don’t want to talk to you” to persistent men
- I’m becoming more tolerant of being called “sweetie”
- I’m becoming less tolerant of being called “baby”
- I sweep my room two or three times a day
- I polish my shoes a few times a week (although I should polish them every night)
- I no longer cringe when I see someone litter
- I go to bed around 8:30 most nights
- I have given in and started sending SMS’s (text messages)
- I carry my money (and sometimes my jump drive, my cell phone, my id, my bank card...) in my bra
- I’ve finally accepted that the flies are just part of my décor
- I know how to wrap my hair in a scarf and not look like a total idiot
- I’ve become inordinately possessive of my “good pens”
- I eat oatmeal almost every single day
- I have become obsessed with ice cream and rarely escape a trip to town without caving to the urge to buy a cone from the grocery store
- Children touch my hair so much I have become almost completely oblivious to it.
- I have learned that lots of wind can make you very tired.
- I now know most of the words to every ABBA song (they are inexplicably popular here)
- I find myself giving in and saying “black American” because explaining the term “African American” to African people is laborious and often slightly maddening
- It no longer bothers me to be openly mocked, laughed at or talked about and being stared at is just an accepted reality.
- I now know that rain on a metal roof is a pleasant sound but hail on a metal roof is one of the loudest, most horrific sound experiences possible.
- I’ve convinced myself I actually look better now that I only wash my hair every four days.
- I’ve taken to saying “aaaysh!” when I am tired, exasperated, frustrated, confused, amazed, clueless...
- Amazingly, I’ve become pretty neat.

Don’t worry, you’d still recognize me if you saw me on the street (especially if you saw me on the street in my village because I’m pretty much the only white person around). I’m the same awkward, absurd person I was when I left. I’m just developing some new quirks that may or may not become part of who I am permanently.

9.26.2007

my first live post from SA!

I know it’s been awhile but...hey, I live in Africa now, which means many things, amongst them: I have pretty limited access to the internet and time has ceased to have any meaning to me. I’m working on figuring out my cell phone so I can turn it (magically it seems) into a modem. Until then I’m reliant on my new access to internet cafes in “town” (more on town in a moment). My goal is to be more regular in these posts and to post them myself instead of relying on mailing them to the US and having my WONDERFUL, AMAZING, KIND, INTELLIGENT father post them. We’ll see how it goes, but to those of you still bothering to read this, thanks.

Time really does mean something different here. I was taught to arrive on time (or early) by school bells, a brother who hated being late, and a culture where “time is money”. Living in South Africa is teaching me that it is actually pretty nice to just sit for hours with people whom I only sometimes understand, dinner should take at least an hour to cook, multitasking looses its charm when you have nothing to do for an entire day and even school starts and ends on a flexible schedule. In SA “Your furniture should be delivered two weeks before you move in” translates into at least a week of sleeping on the floor. As an American this has proven to be pretty maddening but I’m getting over it and embracing a more general conception of time.

Since my last post I’ve become an actual Peace Corps Volunteer. Until now I was just a trainee but I’ve moved up in the world. I took my language test and did well (something I’m pretty proud of). I met the American ambassador to SA. I swore to uphold the constitution (!). I listened to inspirational speeches. It was like graduation but multi-lingual and not as long.

I also moved to a village outside of Mafikeng. Mafikeng is in the Northwest Province near the Botswana border. It is the provincial capitol and is a pretty big city (not like Jo’Burg or Pretoria... more like an African Akron). My new host family has made me feel welcome and the two schools I’ll be working in are going to be exciting because the teachers and administrators seem really committed to improvement. My host family has running hot water (this is a true luxury here) but I’m living in a small room across the driveway that has electricity but no water so I’m still getting that “I carried water on my head” Peace Corps experience (I’m not really carrying water on my head... yet). I’m getting settled in and starting to explore my new village. It’s a slow process because I have to figure out what is safe/culturally acceptable but yesterday my host sister took me on a walk around the village and this morning I went for my first run so I’m starting to get a feel for what lies beyond my house and my schools.

Running has become a really important stress relief for me. I run in the morning when there are not too many people out and it is still cool. The visual stereotype of African sunsets and sunrises has proven to be pretty dead on and each morning I see the sun rise over baobab trees. Constantly working to integrate into a culture is hard work, and the time when I’m running has become a really important way for me to take time to be outside of my room but not working so hard to fit in. Greeting is really important in this culture and running also gives me a great excuse to greet lots of people in Setswana without feeling obligated to stop and have extended chats with them. I plan on running a half marathon while I’m here and that plan has left me with a good, attainable, personal goal to attend to every day.

The first waves of loneliness are starting to hit me. It’s harder than I expected to try and relate to people when my language skills are so limited and I’m still trying to figure out how to navigate cultural differences. I’ve had the luxury of fellow trainees to debrief and relate to throughout training but now that we’re full-fledged volunteers we’re all living scattered across three provinces. My first three months of service (from now until right before Christmas) I am on “travel restriction” which means I’m not really supposed to leave my village except to go to town for groceries so I won’t be seeing many of my fellow volunteers but luckily some of my closest volunteer friends share my shopping town so we’ll meet up every once in a while to go grocery shopping and maybe eat lunch together. I’ve also met some volunteers who have been here for a year and I’m encouraged by their optimism and their assurances that they are not isolated hermits. It’s hard to be away from everything that is familiar and the people I love but I’m tough (and spoiled by things like having some internet access) so don’t worry about me.

I’ve become obsessed with Chackalacka which is a popular dish here. I’m so obsessed I’ve sent the recipe to some of you but this is the improved recipe AND I’m trying to start a Chackalacka craze in the US so for those of you who I haven’t shared this wonder food with...

CHACKALACKA

- Carrots (1 bunch)
- 1 Onion (diced)
- Hot peppers (I think they're just called "chilis")
- 1 Green Pepper (diced) – totally optional
- Cooking oil
- Approx. 1 tsp. Curry Powder – also optional but I’m a pretty big fan
- 1 can baked beans (the blandest, most generic you can find)

Peel and grate the carrots. In the bottom of a pot big enough to fit all of the ingredients sauté the onions and hot peppers until the onions are just starting to brown. Add the carrots, curry and green peppers. Continue sautéing until the carrots are cooked (not at all crisp). Add the baked beans and cook for two(ish) minutes. Enjoy on bread or just by itself. Think of me when you’re eating...

Thanks for the letters and the emails (as of yesterday I can check my gmail on my phone but it’s really hard for me to write emails on my phone key pad!). It means a lot to me to be connected to all of you.


As I am about to post this it started raining... the first rain they've had here in almost a year. I feel as excited as if it had been a year for me without rain... just thought I'd share a little, happy moment with all of you...

9.11.2007

Blog Entry # 2, from exile

August 26, 2007

Today is my host brother’s birthday. We began the day by singing “happy birthday” to him while he was still in bed. He’s fifteen and very much a teenager who puts a lot of effort into being cool. I really, really like him. During breakfast a song came on the local radio station and my host mom and brother got up and sang and danced together. It was fun and sweet – a great way to start a Sunday! I only have two and a half weeks left with this family. (I’ll be gone for a week visiting my permanent site in a week) and I will really miss them when I’m gone. My host mom blows me away with her independence, her sassy-ness, and her sense of humor. I’ve promised to come back and visit during the next two years and I know it will be a promise I will fulfill.
Today is also special because I’m learning to make “dumpling” which is bread that is steamed on the stove top instead of baked in an oven. Our oven is a wood burning oven that the family rarely uses (it hasn’t been used once in the four weeks I’ve been here). We cook on a hot plate, outside on the fire, or on a paraffin stove. I’m afraid of the paraffin stove (it explodes sometimes and lets off nasty fumes) so all of my cooking is adapted to the hotplate or the fire. Learning to make dumpling is huge for me because it means I can make my own whole grain bread when I’m cooking for myself at site. The dough is rising in the sunshine as I write this.
This afternoon I’ll probably see my friends Megan and Mike. Megan is a passionate “bollo” (soccer) player and she has organized a Sunday afternoon game. Megan and Mike are great company. They are clever and tough minded with a good mix of dark humor. When we get together the conversations are often a bit absurd but always good. It’s nice to have people around to keep my mind sharp! I won’t be playing soccer but I feel an obligation to learn about the game as part of my cultural assimilation. For the record, I’m officially a “Chiefs Supporter” although I’m not totally clear what that entails – I just know everyone in my host family likes the Chiefs so I have become a fan by association.
My language skills are developing slowly. I’m pretty frustrated by my slow progress but I have to remember four weeks ago I couldn’t express ANYTHING n Setswana and now I’m regularly having simple conversations entirely in Setswana. Mostly, I just push myself to us as much Setswana as possible mixed with my English (I’ve mentally dubbed this combo “Swinglish”). Sure, I have the vocabulary of an inarticulate two-year old but at least I know I worked hard to sound like a toddler! I’m getting used to being laughed at for my blundering word (mis)use.
I’m getting really excited to find out where my permanent site will be. We find out Friday. It’s really strange to have so little control over where I will be living for the next two years. Within a week, I’ll know what village I’ll be living in, if I’ll be living in a host family’s main house or outbuilding, what schools I’ll be working with, who my supervisors will be, what town I’ll be closest to ( and how close – some villages are 2+ hours from the shopping town), and what Peace Corps volunteers will be closest to me. There are so many variables that will shape my experience for the next two years! This week promises to be a waiting game filled with questions/demands from some of the other trainees who seem less willing/capable to realize they don’t have control of the site decisions…..
I need to go study Setswana. The adjectives are driving me insane but I suppose someday, under some unforeseeable circumstance, I may need to say “the tall man”.

8.27.2007

ON BEING REFILWE

August 11, 2007. As of today I’ve been in my training village for two weeks - in South Africa for three. I feel like I am finally beginning to get over my initial culture shock. By this I suppose I mean I’m no longer overwhelmed by daily tasks like going to the bathroom, bathing, cooking, and drinking water. [for those of you who are interested…I go to the bathroom in a pit toilet in my host family’s yard.] (don’t get wild ideas – it’s just an outhouse.) I take bucket baths & I’m still working on perfecting my hair washing technique. I cook with my “Mma” almost every evening (more on cooking and food later). I boil water before I drink it to be careful but the water here tastes great [is very clean]. It’s beginning to set in that South Africa is my (temporary) home. That idea stills blows me away a little!

I am living in a small village outside of Zeerust in the Northwest Province near the Botswana border. I will be here for six more weeks of training and then I will move to my permanent site where I will live and serve for two years. The people who live here are Motswana. They speak Setswana – a language that is spoken in Northern South Africa, Botswana, and parts of Namibia. I am trying desperately to learn Setswana and so far, I’m doing pretty well (meaning I understand about 5% of the conversations around me). The people here are so friendly and kind! I never go anywhere without being greeted.

The village itself is really beautiful. It is in the mountains so the views of the hilly village are impressive. The soil here is red & sandy with lots of rocks. Everything is coated in a thin coat of red dust. Here are small, scrubby trees and little thorny bushes. The houses are concrete or brick, single story with tin roofs. Almost everyone in the village (including my host family) has electricity. The “rich” people (everything is relative) in the village (excluding my host family) have running water. We get our water from the community tap & store it in huge barrels in the kitchen & in the yard. Rural South Africa is pretty segregated and our village is no exception. I’m pretty sure Peace Corps trainees are the first white/Asian/not black African people to be here.

My host family is a HUGE part of why I am so happy here. I live with my host mom & my 14 year-old host brother. I call my host mom “Mma” (the Setswana word for mother). She is a super kind, funny little woman who speaks a little English and who I really love spending time with. My host brother is like most fourteen year-olds – he spends most of his time trying to be cool – but he’s also great fun to be around and he’s teaching me to dance! Like many rural South African families, the rest of my host family (my host dad, host sister, and four other brothers) live and work four hours away in Johannesburg (Jo’Burg to every South African) because there is very little work in the villages. My host family is loving and a lot of fun. They have been helping me learn Setswana & avoid embarrassing myself in the village. I feel so lucky to live with my “African family”. Sure, often we can’t really talk because of my pitiful Setswana an my Mma’s broken English but still I love living here with this wonderful family.

One of my favorite parts of every day is cooking dinner. I usually get gome from training around five and I’ll study for awhile & then cook dinner with Mma. Almost every meal involves pap – the staple food here. Pap is kind of hard to equate to anything in America – it is made of maize meal and it’s a little like very thick, stiff grits. Many trainees fail to recognize the culinary genius of this starchy, tasteless blob-food but I have a corner of my heart (and at least ¾ of my stomach) reserved for it. I cook on of the three vegetables cooked n Motswana homes: “pumpkin” (butternut squash), cabbage, or beetroot. I was never overly fond of any of these before I came here but considering they are my only options, I have decided to embrace them whole heartedly. South Africans LOVE meat and my vegetarianism has become a curiosity that is accepted in a “crazy American” sort of way. Often I’m introduced (in Setswana) with the qualifier “she only eats vegetables! NO MEAT!” All of you reading this should ready yourselves – I’ve promised Mma I would “cook African” for everyone when I get back to the US.

I’ve also learned to “clean African”. Tomorrow I will do laundry which is a three hour ordeal involving hauling bucket after bucket of water from the community tap, scrubbing every inch of each article of clothing while trying to avoid rubbing my knuckles raw, rinsing each article of clothes in a basin of clean water, hanging everything inside out (to protect it from the sun), and lastly ironing each item (including undies!) because: a. South Africans really care about wrinkly clothes and b. it kills a burrowing parasite that sometimes lays eggs on drying clothes (How’s that for motivation to iron?!) Tomorrow we’ll also sweep and shine the concrete floors with a homemade broom, a dry scrub brush and a rag. If I’m feeling really wild/vain, Ill even take a bucket bath and actually wash my hair! Keep in mind all of our water is heated on a fire or in an electric kettle (our “stove” is a pitifully slow hotplate) so even bathing becomes a chore. Don’t get me wrong- I’m not complaining – these choices are part of my new life and learning to do them has helped me to better understand what it means to live in rural South Africa.

Another new part of my new life is my new name. I have been given an African name – Refilwe – it translates (loosely) to “we have been given” – an appropriate name if you ask me. So this is my new life – where I give myself freely to an adventure, to the work ahead of me and to the people I meet.

P.S.: To all of you who have written me: THANK YOU! It has been great to get mail and to remember that although I am on the other side of the world, under the stars of the Southern Hemisphere, six hours ahead of most of you (nine hours ahead of some of you), and a long time from seeing you again, I am still a part of your life and you are part of mine.

7.16.2007

it's time to go.



Matt took this picture of me at Great Sand Dunes but it seems appropriate for this post.

I'm leaving in the morning. First to Philly and then to South Africa. It still seems a bit surreal. I'm really excited and still minorly overwhelmed because I have yet to finish packing but overall I'm not even sure how to feel exactly.

I know this is huge. Rationally, I know that it is silly to even speculate on how my life will be different because I am completely lacking in the framework to understand the change that is about to happen in my life. Maybe my quest for more rationality in my life has led me to the point where I feel calm and ready and not much beyond that.

I am really going to miss people. The focused time I've had with my friends and my family lately has just magnified my awareness of what I am leaving behind. At the same time I feel like this choice is really right for me. I can't wait to meet people tomorrow, I can't wait to be in South Africa, I can't wait to stumble through language training... this anticipation is what is reminding me that it is totally worth leaving behind people I love for twenty seven months.

I bristle at all of the implications of most romantic movies but I feel like I've been socialized to swoon at the idea of someone leaving behind the life that they love for someone they love... the old "he moved across the country to be with me" fantasy. This is my version. I'm leaving behind the life that I love for myself because I love myself.

It's time to put not being afraid to live into action. It's time to share what I worked so hard to learn. It's time to go out into the world and live.

I am so ready.

p.s. I won't have Internet access for a long time... hopefully I will be sending posts home for my dad to post for me but please be patient. If you're wishing you were reading about my life send me a letter and maybe my response will beat my next post!

7.10.2007

One Week!

In seven days I'll be on a plane, headed for Philadelphia for two days and then I will be off to South Africa! I cannot even imagine the ways my life is about to change... but I feel as ready as I can be.

Yesterday I was driving around our suburb, through the urban sprawl that even in it's homogeneous anonymity has a familiarity to it, and it was evening and even Target looked a little beautiful in golden light. I was struck by the idea of dusk, when everything is lovely. These last few weeks have been like a dusk on my time in the US. The beauty and fun and wildness of the times I have spent with family and friends has been illuminated by my waning time here. Okay, so this is a little more romantic than I usually venture to be but really, there has been something really special about the last few weeks.

I took the train to Denver to attend the wedding of my friends Matt and Amanda. It was a really fun wedding and a celebration of two really amazing people having a go at married life. I saw friends who I don't see enough which was a good reminder that distance and time do not always cancel friendships. Matt and Amanda are friends from high school and it was fun to look around and realize how a wild group of oddball teenage punks turned into a wild group of oddball adults.

After Denver Matt, Matto and I drove across the middle of the country back to Cincinnati. Before the long haul home we camped in Colorado above Golden and down at the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Both places were beautiful (although notably different). Golden Gate State Park is full of vistas and views of far off fourteeners. We camped in a grove of aspens that seemed to glow in the twilight (I couldn't resist bringing it back to that) and stretched conversation past the limits of the absurd. Great Sand Dunes is exactly what it sounds like. The Dunes are appropriately identified as "great", they are huge and surreal in a basin between two mountain ranges. Matt, Matto and I stretched our bodies past the limits and climbed the dunes in an effort that surpassed absurd. It was sandy and wonderful. The drive back was marked by a visit to an abandoned state park (which was bordered by a non-existent town), being harassed by some very shady police in Kansas (because we were going to OHIO which made us suspected drug runners), a visit to Columbia MO (good times with Matt's friend Steve and a little too much whiskey), and listening to the Clash for hours. I live for these times with my friends, especially good friends like Matt and Matto, especially time on the road.

When I got back to Cincinnati I arrived home to find my maniac aunts cleaning my parents' house. My parents were headed for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to attend my older brother Michael's wedding. My plan was to sleep for a few hours and follow them up. My aunts had come down to be with my mom during her last minute back surgery (there is never a dull moment in the life of a Gannon) and, inspired by the unending need of the women in my family to do SOMETHING to help, they had decided to stay and clean the house so it would be nice when my parents came home from the wedding. Although I had expected to come home to an empty house and a few hours of privacy, it was nice to come home to a very real example of how my family sticks together.

(I know this entry is getting long but it's been awhile since I posted anything and I have a lot to document!)

My brother's wedding was really amazing. It was held at the Hiram College field station in Wetmore, Michigan. It was wonderfully isolated and the whole weekend was full of quiet peaceful moments and raucous times with family and friends. The ceremony itself was really nice, designed by Michael and Julie (my new sister in law... weird) to honor who they are and how they see the world. The reception was punctuated by SIXTEEN total toasts which was a little out of control but fun none the less. My mom, with her back brace and her incredible smile, hardly appeared to be in any pain which is notable for a woman who had been hospitalized for pain for three days and then had back surgery less than 48 hours before the wedding! Although the decision on the "wedding ass" (a distinction given at every Gannon wedding) is still out my vote is for my sister's boyfriend who, at 7:45, was so drunk he tried to walk twelve miles back to the hotel on dirt roads despite the fact that we had shuttle vans available.

On the way home from the UP I picked up my friend Kevin in Cadillac, Michigan and we playfully argued all the way back to Cincinnati. It was a nice trip down and it reaffirmed (again) my guilty love for road trips. When we got back to Cincinnati we met up with Matt and Matto for more good times (always good times).

Roza and Jesse, my friends from Akron, came in for the fourth of July which was not only fun but it gave me renewed faith in my ability to have lasting friendships with my friends from college. On the night of the third we went to a basement show and spent hours "shortcutting" through Burnett Woods. We saw Heart play on the fourth for free they were amazing and kind of crappy and the crowd was old and not very rocking but in the end it was great fun and a hilarious foil to the metal show we went to directly afterwards. It was so good to see the two of them and share some of the craziness of Cincinnati with them.

THEN my dad and I went to Graceland. Yes, Graceland. It was like the ultimate American Pilgrimage. For me it was more about Paul Simon and less about Elvis. We saw crappy country in Nashville, we took pictures at Elvis' grave, we met the "first lady of Beale Street" in Memphis, we stayed in a town called Paris in the middle of nowhere that had a tiny Eiffel Tower, and we had some really good father/daughter time. I would recommend everyone take a road trip to Graceland with their father.

Now I'm back home trying to get my act together and start packing. It's a little bit less exciting than what I have been doing for the last few weeks but I suppose it's important. To take the metaphor too far... the sun is setting. I won't really take it to the "dawn of the new day" next logical step but you can...

My reality is really awesome.

6.17.2007

one month!

Today (actually, tonight... actually, this morning at 1:15am) I returned home to Cincinnati a whole lot closer to being Erin Gannon, MA.
In the last three days I "finished up" all of the little things I have inexplicably been putting off for the last four months. I had to drive across the state to finish which I had been convincing myself I didn't have to do, but in the end it's out of my hands so I suppose it was worth it.
I spent hours at a print shop pretending to not freak out as we worked through problems printing my final copy of my thesis. I talked to multiple university employees in multiple offices while I smelled strongly of my own sweat and thinly veiled panic. I found secret joy in turning the final copy in while wearing my favorite Pogues shirt with a great Fugazi song running through my head. I had a few smiling-like-an-idiot-in-my-car-alone moments. Tonight, to finish off the victory lap of Ohio, I gave my dad a copy as a father's day gift.
In a few months you will be able to check my thesis out of the Kent State library. I bet it'll be FLYING off the shelf so you may want to reserve your copy early.

I leave in a month. I've already started awkwardly saying goodbye to people, although some of those goodbyes proved to be premature because of the aforementioned unexpected return trip to Northern Ohio. I'm incredibly bad at saying goodbye. I just keep saying "see you later" or my new fallback, "see you when I'm almost thirty" which is the adult version of the old "see you next year" said by soon-to-be clever third graders as they leave for their two week winter holiday break.
I will always remember pulling out of the Everett driveway with my motley friends singing to me and waving like fools. It was beautifully strange and wonderful. I suppose I'm lucky to have friends who are more adept at saying goodbye than I am.

5.24.2007

buy, buy, buy, sell, sell, sell, trash, trash, trash

I know, you (the imaginary "others" who are reading this) are dying to know what is new in my little world. Mostly I've become someone I hardly recognize, some consumerist wild woman buying and selling and (worst of all) throwing things away. I have been spending most of my waning time here in Akron thinking about what I need, what I don't need, what I really want, and wondering what made me such a hoarder of junk. In the past few years I've tried to be really conscious of what I consume but recently it has set in that I was not conscious enough! I am still really overwhelmed by all the stuff I own and hopefully will not own soon.

On the positive side, I made $55 selling a bunch of my stuff last weekend at a garage sale. Plus, I've been able to give a lot of my stuff to friends who "need" it. And, if I am going to be honest I also need to admit I have acquired some pretty sweet stuff recently. I bought a new backpack, a sleeping bag, TWO new pairs of shorts, TWO new shirts, TWO new pairs of pants, and TEN new pairs of underpants! This is like a major shopping spree for me. In my own defense, for those of you who haven't seen me in awhile, I've lost some weight and none of my summer clothes fit me anymore.

I'm not sure if I should put the buying in the "on the positive side" paragraph because I feel pretty uncomfortable about spending that much money but I'm trying to be excited about all my new stuff.

My invitation is officially accepted, my passport is applied for, my visa is applied for, I've applied for graduation, I'm approaching the state I would identify as "packed and ready to move to Cincinnati", I have a dress for the weddings I'm attending this summer ($6 at a thrift store... SCORE), I have a bus ticket/train ticket TO Denver (who knows how I'm getting home), I'm really pumped for my road trip to Graceland with my dad, and I'm ready for some weird and aggressive times before I leave.

5.16.2007

it's not even official


I admit it is not official that I am going to South Africa because I have yet to actually see my invitation and thus I have not accepted the invitation but I am so excited I'm starting a blog. I'm already ahead of myself, forgetting not everyone spends their days obsessing over my impending Peace Corps assignment... so I'll begin by explaining what an invitation is and why I have yet to accept it.

Applying to Peace Corps is a lengthy process. Applying to Peace Corps while simultaneously finishing a thesis, working in cities all over the country, traveling and trying to maintain my reputation as a minor maniac has resulted in a lengthier process. I initially submitted my application for Peace Corps a year and a half ago. After that I went through medical tests, very expensive dental work, eye exams, waiting rooms at the VA hospital (where I received my blood tests for free... thanks US government!), three very lengthy phone interviews, and lots of waiting. The waiting is for the invitation which tells you in what program and what country you are being invited to serve. The invitation is a packet of information which informs you (loosely) what your life will be like for the next two years.

My invitation... the holy grail of the Peace Corps nominee's life... is in the hands of my parents. It ended up in Cincinnati as a result of an unknown sequence of events which have had me shooting the very innocent mail carrier in my Akron neighborhood dirty looks all week. It is so very close to being in my possession. Although I gave them permission, my parents have declined to open it and peek before I see them (and more importantly IT) on Friday but they did see through the window of the envelope a confirmation of my suspicion that I am headed to South Africa!

Now I have to get rid of pretty much everything I own, move home to Cincinnati, complete the next load of paperwork Peace Corps sends my way, attend two amazing weddings, go on a road trip to Graceland, finally submit my thesis to Kent and try and learn as much about South Africa as I can. So far I'm pretty overwhelmed, but I'm using my ability to convince myself things are not as big a deal as they are to cope.

I want to keep a blog so I can keep my friends and family posted on my adventures, my great love of hand written letters, my general whereabouts, and my clever wit (humor me). I think this is a pretty cool way for me to share my life with the people I love. I hope you enjoy reading about my increasingly crazy life.