Jeff -- Homeward Bound

Dear All-

I've come to the end of my journey, in a matter of hours I'll be embarking on my epic flight(s) back to the homeland. It's been a while and I can't say I haven't thought about this moment since before I left. A lot of thoughts are in my head about what it will be like to land back in Minnesota after so much time away. What has changed? What is surprising? It will be crazy to see our funny little country again.


My Peace Corps service in Kyrgyzstan (you can say it right: Kir-Giz-Stan) ended on November 9th. I can't even begin to explain what an impact the experience had on my life, in fact I don't even know the extent of the impact. I really miss that little stan and all the wonder and befuddlement it embraced. Adjusting back to American life will probably be boringly easy. When I see you I hope to share some of my experience but please don't let me bore you with "In Kyrgyzstan..." Ask good questions and you will get good answers.

Over the last six weeks me and three of my peace corps buddies have been travelling in South East Asia. This trip has been absolutely rad. We've had a good bout of decompressing from the experience and are all even more ready to repatriate ourselves. I think if I had gone straight home I would have just talked about Kyrgyzstan way too much and made too many comparisons... in short: really annoy my friends and family. Additionally why pass up an opportunity to watch women shoot darts out of their rahrahs, drink till 6am on a beach in Thailand, snorkel amidst naked dutch men, watch your friends and fellow tourists chance death on motorbikes, sleep in chicken coupes, ride angry elephants, gawk at Japanese tourists, drink with the Irish, sweat your balls off in a Cambodian jungle, eat everything from spiders to frogs and from snake to dog, feel the surprise of an extra happy pizza... for 24 hours, brave moped mayhem in Saigon, crawl through tunnels of the Viet Cong, be assaulte!
d by transsexual prostitutes on the beach, shop till you drop for crazy cheap tailor made clothing, enjoy countless nights sleeping on a bus, enjoy 10cent beer squatting on the streets of Hanoi, and most off all: doing it all with your buddies.

So now I'm no longer on my adventure abroad, no longer a peace corps volunteer, a tourist, an expat, no longer employed. So I will be hitting the job search as soon as possible and if anyone can help me out... please do. I'll be in Minneapolis on the 23rd and then down in Wisconsin in the early new year, as for the rest of you... I'll see you when I see you. You've been warned.

P.S. If you want to call me, my home phone is 763.434.8676

Take Care,
Jeffrey James