On My Way Home

Happy Holidays everyone! I sincerely apologize for the large gaps of time between my blog entries. I am currently in Hawaii taking a short vacation before I head back to the States where it is a lot colder. I will arrive in Baltimore on December 22nd at 4:44 p.m., just in case you want to meet me at the airport. I left Chuuk on December 11, stayed in Guam for 2 nights and have been in Hawaii since the 13th. I'm staying with some host family members of my fellow Volunteer friend John. We've attempted to do a lot of touristy things, but have spent most of our time riding Honolulu's public transportation system called The Bus, which is supposed to be the best in the country. However, we have done a lot of hiking , hung out on Waikiki beach and gone to a picnic, among other things.

So I know a lot of you are wondering about my water catchment project. Before I left Chuuk, I bought all of the materials and transported them to my island on a ship. Community members have prepared the site for the water tank, placed the reinforcements. and have poured the cement for the foundation. There was quite a bit of money left over. I have given that money to the new Volunteer at my site named Johnny. He has taken over my responsibilities for the project. He will oversee the construction and make sure all the materials will be used for our project. Johnny will use the leftover money to buy additional materials, such as PVC pipe, if needed. Before I left, I gave community a speech to motivate them to work on the project. I know they want a water tank, but it seems like the community leaders are doing all of the work and the youth are not helping as much as they should be. I only saw them unload materials from the ship and bring some cement blocks to the construction site. One of the goals of this project is sharing of skills between the men and the youth. By working with the men, the youth will learn valuable transferable skills they can use later in their lives in order to earn some money or build their own water tank or house. I hope the youth will get more involved when that actual tank construction happens. I told Johnny to take pictures during each phase of construction. I will do my best to post those pictures so you all can see what has been done with your generous donations. Without your help and support, I could not have not bought all the materials and witness the beginning of construction. I wish more work was done on the catchment before I left, but things move slow here on the islands. I want you all to know that the project is in good hands and it will be completed, hopefully within the next couple of months. Any leftover funds will be donated to other Peace Corps Volunteer projects around the world.

Now that my Peace Corps service has come to a close, I have to start thinking about my future. I really don't know what I'm going to do. I haven't really been able to do any job searching in Chuuk due to the rare occurrence of power at our office. I will figure everything out when I get back home. I do want to apply for some government jobs, maybe even to a job at Peace Corps Headquarters if one appeals to me. I'll probably apply to a few teaching jobs as well since, after all, I've been teaching for the past 2 years. I'm a pretty open minded guy so I'll keep my options open. If you have any suggestions as to how to go about my job search or if you know of any job opportunities in areas I have mentioned above, please let me know. I would love to hear from you.

I would love to see all of you when I get back home. If you want to meet up sometime, send me an email at bbgruver@gmail.com. I don't have a cell phone or car but I plan to get those things in the near future. Bye for now.