Heads or Tales

Peace Corps

Nelson and I have applied for the Peace Corps.  It has been a long process.  I have heard that thirty three percent of the people who even start the application process actually go through to the end.  I believe it.  Nelson has been requested to get a hearing aid, which I believe was a good thing, even though he questions it.  He also had to have a tooth fixed that he was ignoring.  Originally, we were told we would be going to the South Pacific, but, because of all the time it took to  fulfill our medical check-ups and must dos, we got closed out of that.  I was going to be an environmental educator and Nelson would do something with sewers and water.  When we first heard about that posting, I inhaled all the literature I could find and emerged with mixed feelings about entering a culture largely destroyed by missionary zeal.  Now, it has been tentatively been put out that we might find a place as educators in Southern Africa.  The funny thing is that two things, I initially said I did not want to do and where I did not want to go was: being a teacher and going to Africa.  After all the time and papers and waiting, it all sounds good. I’m delighted to go to Africa if we can.    Our assignment has not come to fruition and the reality is that it may not.  A site has to accept us with all our setbacks: age, teeth and hearing aids, and they have to have a place for two people, not just one.  Two, I am told is hard to place.  I’m thinking that in the next week or so we will hear something.

Finding Stories To Tell

 

Nelson, for Christmas, gave me a bunch of money in a gift certificate to spend at Barnes and Noble.  Actually, he gives me that gift every Christmas and I buy books all year for myself and other folks with it.  This year, I  spent a good portion on Margaret Read McDonald’s Storyteller’s  Source Book.  I have used this excellent reference tool many times at the library.  Her book, however, is on the shelf in the area where you can only look at books but not take them home.  Now that interlibrary loan is so easy and somewhat quick, my shelf is full of titles that I have found using her book.  I don’t have room for a large collection of books,  so I’ve been working on how to preserve the stories I like  so that I can come back to them and see if they are a story I want to tell myself.  The best I’ve come up with so far is to scan an appealing story, print it out and put it in a binder.  The binder has an index with each story numbered and a little note about why I liked it.  That kind of collecting can get big and unwieldy with lots of forgotten pieces lurking deep and waiting to fall out full of dust.  So far, that’s the best I can do.  Having the index and having everything numbered is my attempt to outsmart myself.