A Holistic Approach

Hey Everyone,

You guys are going to love this one, I went to Dili recently for a S&S meeting and didn't take any pictures. I'll make sure to take some next time, but for now I have a few including one from me planning my English lesson on ABC's and 123's. It's been interesting planning lesson's because I definitely don't have a process down (at least not one I'm sticking to). I have found however that I am good enough at improve and public speaking that I can run through these lessons without needing to stick tightly to my lesson plan (#humblebrag).  Chilling with my friend's here in Baucau has been great and I'll give a shout out to my friends in the Foho! 

I went to the PCMO during my trip to Dili to check on my health (mostly relating to weight I've lost) and I found out I've lost almost 30 lbs.! I'm actually under 200 now which is a strange thing because not only are my pants all baggy, but I've also found myself not recognizing myself in the mirror. Mum, I'm feeling great though and she said my blood test came back showing I'm getting all the nutrients I need, I just need more calories.  Over all the trip to Dili was a great chance for me to meet up with some friends and reconnect a bit before my actual reconnect in March.

Besides that fun stuff (and the pizza I had witch made me extremely happy) I've just been doing the same ol' thing I do every week.  I got to my taxes and have been discussing a way to to use my microphone here. At this point I've had a lot of interest in a dialog series I'll be hosting on Sound Cloud and embedding here for anyone to use.  It will be a three part dialog that will be English-English then Tetum-English and finally Tetum-Tetum. This will hopefully be a nice tool for my class, but also I'm hoping it can be something future PCV's and PCT's will be able to use when trying to learn English or Tetum. If you have any ideas, or if your looking for some kind of resource I can help create let me know, because I'd love to help bring that to Timor. I've also been thinking of recording my English lesson's, but that is still tentative because dang that would be a lot of work to tack onto my 8-5!

Living here is hard, adapting to life here is hard. I never take the fact that I have a plane ticket back home on deck, but at the end of the day I look at what I'm doing as an investment in the person I will be in the future. Someone who I can trust to commit to something he plans. Someone I know will stick to their guns when the chips are down. Someone whose personality and happiness is tied to something that extends past their living situation.  I'm doing this for my reasons, but if you are reading this and have a different situation then I have some unfortunate news. Nobody can make your decision for you...

We grow up being able to rely on others to make the big decisions for us, usually our parents, but sometimes our teachers or just relying on an external locus of control to blame our circumstances for the choices we chose to ignore.  This injustice is unfortunate because it trains us to look for advice and other peoples answers to our situations. The thing is though that we are all in charge of our futures, each person is able to make the decision that would be best for them. This can be a liberty and it can be a freedom, but it can also feel like a curse because often to open a door we need to close one first.  I hope this helps you, but at the end of the day your choice will be your own and the only thing you can control after you make your choices is how you feel. Stand behind your decisions, make them yours! Don't let anyone make your decisions for you! Don't let someone take your life away from you! I'm making my decision to stay here because it's a choice I made and one I choose to stand behind. 

If you are going through something or have to make a choice that will affect your future, I hope only that you make the decision that is yours. rarely are things black and white enough to where you can know if you made the right choice, but one thing you can know is if YOU made the decision or if someone made it for you. I got to go plan a Saturday and Monday English lesson now, but until next time I'll leave you with this.

Happiness is a choice. You can choose to be happy. There's going to be stress in life, but it's your choice whether you let it affect you or not. 

~Valerie Bertinelli

Much love,

~BW

A Quick Update

Hey everyone,

Just a quick update today to let everyone know that I am healthy and safe. On the health front I've lost 10lbs in the last month so I need to watch that. As far as safety goes though everything is dandy, my family here is the best protection I have against being a stranger in a new land.

For anyone looking to join the Peace corps with the desire to have independent housing, I have one thing to say. It's fine to want and be in an independent house, but having a host family gives you a much better way to integrate into your community, so don't take it for granted. Also if you are reading this from my old Highschool and will be on a future video call, I look forward to hearing from you!

I'll leave you all with this!

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals." 

~Henry Ford

Much love,

~BW

Response I

Hey everyone sorry for the delayed post,

I just got up and realized that through the process of trying to choose a topic for this post I had forgotten to do it yesterday. I'm sure nobody cares to much, but it's a standard I'm trying to hold myself to. Regardless, if you do want to see my updates when they come out subscribe using the bar on the right. If you are on mobile and confused about what the hell I'm talking about, I'll be creating a page for mobile user's to subscribe for updates.

So this morning I'm going to mass, as well as tomorrow and Sunday. It's going to be.... boring I can admit that. However for any PCV's who find themselves being brought to mass, I hope you know it's because your host family cares about you enough to drag you along 😉. I look forward to meeting people after, even if I only understand 50% of what they're say right now lol!

I woke up and read a letter at random because I was feeling a little home sick and realized I was reading my mother's letter. So as her son I feel I have a duty to address some of the concerns in her letter. I hope for the majority of people reading who are not my mother (but maybe someone else's) that this can be just as reassuring for you as I hope it is for her.

First off I wanted to let you know that I'm feeling great and I have been eating well. I actually got a Tetun bible recently which I'm hoping will help me learn the language and get in good with the Avo's. I'm using my filter daily and have been taking a multivitamin, fish oil and my daily malaria medication. You can see from the huge first-aid kit that it's fairly easy to seek respite in the case of illness. Also on the safety note, the reason we are paired with a host family for the duration of service is because they protect us from being victims of crimes due to being an outsider. My siblings call me big brother and my host dad calls me son, which is enough for people to think twice before they are cast out of their community for going their brother wrong. Also I have like 2' on 90% of the population, so intimidation is not a problem lol.

I hope this post finds you in good spirits. I am currently working on creating a new page with a forum so we can communicate publicly for future soon to be volunteers to benefit from. Let me know if you want anything else on here and I'll try to make the next post prompt. Till then I leave you with this.

"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding." 

~Albert Einstein

Much love,

~BW