If you're reading this right now, I want to sincerely welcome you to my new blog. The purpose of this is to document, to the extent that I can, my adventures in Micronesia as a Peace Corps volunteer over the next two years.
A bit of context: I am being sent to the Federated States of Micronesia, an island archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, to teach English as a Foreign Language to 1st through 8th grade students. Working with children in one faculty or another has been a passion of mine for the last 3 or 4 years at least; my attitude about this sort of work, more than any innate talent for education, has blessed me with the ability to make a palpable impact on students in the past. My thesis (as I am also a graduate student at Humboldt State University, working through a jointly-run program called Master's International) is essentially that community involvement in the educational process can move mountains. I have seen this to be true everywhere that I have lived, and unfortunately, I have witnessed the effects of an educational system without community support as well. Through pictures and written documentation I hope to bring you as a reader along with me through what should, by all accounts, be a transformational process for myself as well as for islanders.
A note on departures. There is something intensely bizarre about leaving my stomping grounds in southern Illinois to help children halfway across the world. I say this not because the islanders do not need help--if they didn't, volunteers such as myself would not be asked to serve there--but because my home area is far from flawless itself. I have visions of returning one day to St. Clair County and using whatever gifts I have been given, as well as my experience, to give back more to this community. Until then, the name of the game is change and grow. Nothing happens if we sit and wait for it to happen, and so I know why I am leaving so soon.
As a more general statement, leaving has been especially wild this time around because I got back to southern Illinois so recently from California. I have wonderful friends, some of the best I've ever made, out there. Leaving them was difficult, as are all goodbyes with true friends. Here, I have many people I love, but these are also people that I see maybe once or twice a year to begin with. I called my good buddy Chad yesterday and described the experience as being a "goodbye-vacation." This concept still feels appropriate for my situation.
We'll see how this whole "updating" thing goes--if you have known me for any length of time, you'll know that regular contact is something I struggle with even when I have reliable and easily-accessible internet, and I will quite likely be without these luxuries over the course of the next two years.
Once I am around internet again, I'll update this site with a mailing address*, perhaps some photos, and whatever observations I may have made at that point in time. In the meantime, feel free to contact me by leaving comments on this blog. Alternately, my email address is btaylor70@gmail.com, and my Facebook profile is "Ben Zion" (hint: I'm the guy wearing a turban).
Stay bold and beautiful, America. It's been real.
*UPDATE: Here's that address:
Ben Taylor, Peace Corps Trainee
Peace Corps/Micronesia
PO Box 9
Kolonia, Pohnpei FM 96941
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