Monthly Archives: December 2002

Yuletide beatings

I've edited and rewritten this preface more times than the entry it proceeds. I guess what I want to say, really, is, this story isn't mine to tell. To read what's here is to open to the middle of a novel and read a single page. I know that volunteers past and present who read this will be able to relate and empathize, especially if they served in Nepal, a place where animals live difficult and occasionally brutal lives.
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Way back in July

Way back in July it was hot—really hot. The hot that you can't escape, that makes you uncomfortable in your skin. Since it was July it was also the thick of the monsoon. Since it was July, I still wasn't half sure why or what I was doing in Nepal—or if I'd even be here a week later.
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Collected stories, part 1

Let me tell you, some days when I make the first morning appearance in Birganj just outside of my flat the three-year-old kid, half-naked, covered in the black muck of Birganj, yells at me, Hello seto! Hello seto, and, finally, Hello whitey! I think to myself, Gee, was he talking to me? I think I've abandoned such naïvety a while ago. And I think I can pinpoint the exact moment.
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Rethinking Thanksgiving

We were supposed to have a turkey. By we, I mean everyone congregating in Biratnagar for Thanksgiving. The celebrations had been planned ahead of time and your invitation merely required bringing something Thanksgiving related, where it was food or an accordion-style turkey for décor. I hadn't thought of what I was going to bring for Thanksgiving until Vijay, operator of Himanchal Cabin (the Birganj Cheers of sorts), said something to me about Thanksgiving.
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    The contents and opinions expressed in this blog, The Peace Corps Experience of Scott Allan Wallick, do not represent official positions, views, intentions, et cetera, of the United States Peace Corps nor the government of the United States.