We spent one day (twelve hours to be exact) in Port Louis, Mauritius.  It was fun, relaxing, and beautiful to say the least.

Yesterday, March 1st marked the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps Organization.  In celebration and recognition, a dinner was held on the ship, in which alumni and intuitive participants had the opportunity to converse.

It is dinners like this, and conversations with the countless incredible people on this ship that truly (I don’t know how to put it in any better words) make my brain hurt, in a good way.  I spent the first half hour of my dinner talking with Dean Dan, who spent two years with the Vista program, working in at-risk city areas in the United States.  I asked Dan why he chose to work in the United States instead of taking the Peace Core path; he replied by telling me that at that time he had the “why help outside countries when the same problems are found in your own” viewpoint.  Then I was intrigued by how he got to this point: the Dean of Semester at Sea, a program that takes students around the world. It was reassuring and moving when he said, “I learned that it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing, as long as you’re doing something.”  Along with Vista, Dan worked with Upward Bound and countless other programs I cannot even begin to list now.  He really has accomplished some amazing things in his life.

Then I spent almost two hours with Bill Cuff. Bill is simply wonderful.  He has the most interesting and heartfelt viewpoints of anyone I have ever met.  Bill always gets my head spinning.  We started, of course, talking about his experience with the Peace core in Africa, why he chose to do what he did, and how it became one of these most meaningful things he has ever done.  He described the Peace Corps as the toughest job you’ll ever love.  The conversation quickly turned to other things, though.  We always end up on the subject of “Why we’re here” and how it’s not really about what happens in these four months, in his words: “take your shots while you can” but it’s what you do for the rest of your life that matters.  And even though you may feel that you are not making any impact in the countries you visit for small amounts of time, you are doing something.  Everyone waits for the opportunity to be a hero or heroin.  Bottom line, that time wont come for most of us…. We cannot all do one huge extraordinary thing, but we can all do little things extraordinarily. 

SOOO… I have big plans. I want to get my BSN, then take it to the Peace Core for two years.

Other big plans: Beginning in April (I will join in May after school is finished) of 2012, at least four students and I are planning to hike the Appalachian Trail (from Georgia to Maine), raising money for an organization called Freedom In Creation, which is based on issues surrounding the lack of clean water and its impacts on people around the world.  MORE INFORMATION ON THIS TO COME