Sunday, June 8, 2008

4:26 am, Arizona

Here's the thing: I've waited about 5 months now to find out where the Peace Corps is going to send me, what's another week right? Some friends and I went backpacking in Bryce Canyon, Utah last week (the week that my invitation letter was supposed to come) and I, regreatebly, had a hard time focusing on the beauty of the whole experience. In the back of my mind was a constant, nagging sensation reminding me that the document that holds the next two years of my life may or may not have been delivered to my house. I asked my roommate/friend to send me a text message with the country in it hoping that at some high point in the canyon I would get service. After three days of adventuring in Bryce Canyon we hiked out, hoping to hitch a ride back to the car. Unfortunately, it had snowed the night before at it was 7:30 am, our plan of hitching a ride was foiled. After Andrew and I had walked about 3 and a half miles my phone exploded with messages....none of which contained the information I had been waiting for. We hiked the 2 more miles back to the car and picked up our friend Andy who had some problems with blistering caused by his expensive new hiking boots. We eventually made it back to Flagstaff and I made my way to Cornville hoping that the invite had arrived in the mail, no luck. I drove the bumpy road to my house feeling a bit frustrated, my future seemed to elude even the US Postal Service. Later that day I decided to go to the grocery store and hopped back on the road. I started to think that maybe my invite had been shoved into my neighbor's mailbox, after all they are always messing up our rural address. About half-way down the road my neighbor flagged me down from his truck. He had received my invite and for some odd reason had opened it. "Cambodia", he said, "I don't really know what they were talking about, but it said something about Cambodia". SO, after 5 long months of waiting the Peace Corps is sending me to Cambodia on July 20th and I couldn't be more excited.

3 comments:

Davey Wilkie said...

Heyy, I'll be joining you on the way out to Cambodia. The Peace Corps has also assigned me to Cambodia to depart in July. It's very exciting, isn't it! My name's David, I'm from Honolulu/The Twin Cities, and we'll be meeting and getting to converse once we get to staging. Cheers (^_^)

Unknown said...

Hey! Me too...I think I just emailed you too!

Anonymous said...

Hi Quinn, it's Lindsey. Just wanted to wish you good luck and that I will be reading this from time to time to see how you are doing. Also, when you get a chance, facebook me your address so I can send you letters. Living in Germany away from family and friends this past year has shown me how exciting it is to get mail. Talk to you soon!