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By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-245-37.balt.east.verizon.net
- 151.196.245.37) on Sunday, June 19, 2005 - 02:40 am:

PCV Matt Barison says: What to do when you you’ve spent
three months learning a very foreign culture and then
another two actualy working within it? How to say good bye
to those people who had taken you in as family and welcomed
you as friends? What to make of your experience? Success,
failure - Interruped Service - who’s to blame?

[ PCV Matt Barison says: What to do when you you’ve spent
three months learning a very foreign culture and then
another two actualy working within it? How to say good bye
to those people who had taken you in as family and welcomed
you as friends? What to make of your experience? Success,
failure - Interruped Service - who’s to blame? ]

PCV Matt Barison says: What to do when you you’ve spent
three months learning a very foreign culture and then
another two actualy working within it? How to say good bye
to those people who had taken you in as family and welcomed
you as friends? What to make of your experience? Success,
failure - Interruped Service - who’s to blame?

And it rains…
June 6th, 2005

[Excerpt]

It has been a strange week. For our last few days in
Uzbekistan, Peace Corps (perhaps out of pitty,) put us up in
a 4 star hotel in Tashkent. I was able to re-connect with my
friends from PST and spend some quality time over good food
food and good beer. Although we were in the big city,
something I had been looking forward to, the whole event was
tinged with a mixture of sadness, anger, and confusion. What
to do when you you’ve spent three months learning a very
foreign culture and then another two actualy working within
it? How to say good bye to those people who had taken you in
as family and welcomed you as friends? What to make of your
experience? Success, failure - Interruped Service - who’s to
blame?

So I check the news today and the future seems dire for
Uzbekistan. Experts say that further destabilization is
likeley and words such as: bloody, rebellion, unrest, civil
war and others are thrown into the mix. What to think about
the families who are just trying to get by and get ahead?
Who will have to pay and will there be any winners or will
everyone lose at least in the short term? All unanswerable,
only conjecture.

So these thoughts race through my head as I’m trying to
process yet another new culture, yet another new language,
yet another group of 60 plus Americans. It’s too much but
there is no turning back. I’m coming to the realization that
I can only talk about Uzbekistan here for so long before I
become just another PC Romania volunteer. Not that that is a
bad thing, but it just leaves me thinking about what
exactaly those last five months were. I wouldn’t give them
away for anything but what do I take from it?

When this story was posted in June 2005, this was on the
front page of PCOL:

Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving
Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
The Peace Corps LibraryPeace Corps Online is proud to
announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available
online. With over 30,000 index entries in 500 categories,
this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related
stories in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can
find hundreds of stories about what RPCVs with your same
interests or from your Country of Service are doing today.
If you have a web site, support the "Peace Corps Library"
and link to it today. May 28, 2005: Special Events Vote in
the NPCA Election for new board before June 15 "American
Taboo" author Phil Weiss in Maryland on June 18 "Rainforests
and Refugees" showing in Portland, Maine until June 25
"Iowa in Ghana" on exhibit in Waterloo through June 30
RPCV's "Taking the Early Bus" at Cal State until Aug
15RPCVs: Post your stories or press releases here for
inclusion next week. May 28, 2005: This Week's Top Stories
The Coyne Column: Love and War in Afghanistan 28 May Sam
Farr supports Coffee Growers in Colombia 28 May Elaine Chao
wins Woman of Valor award 27 May Nebraska has strong ties
with Afghanistan 27 May Arthur Orr to seek Alabama State
Senate seat 26 May Murder of John Auffrey remembered in
Liberia 26 May Bill Moyers says journalists should be
filters for readers 26 May Linda Seyler spent two years in
Thailand digging latrines 25 May Chris Shays blasts Bush on
stem cell research 25 May George Wolfe to head Loudoun
Academy of Science 25 May David Rudenstine heads Cardozo
School of Law 24 May Mark Schneider says declaration is
"pretty thin gruel" 24 May Robert Blackwill supports seat
for India on Security Council 24 May Chris Matthews weighs
Thomas Jefferson nomination 24 May Jim Knopf is expert on
xeriscape gardening 23 May Mae Jemison receives honorary