Estamos juntos

I apologize for not having updated in a few weeks. Things have been hectic, what with the holidays, my trip to Taiwan, and the tragic accident involving 5 of my Peace Corps colleagues and friends. When I sit down to write, I’m overwhelmed by all the words and sentiment swirling around inside me.
As many of you know, on Dec 20, 2011 two volunteers were killed in a car accident in Macia, a town just 50k away from me. Three volunteers, one from my group Moz15, survived and are still in the recovery phase.
Despite the fact that the Moz17 volunteers had just arrived at site, I considered all of them friends and I felt tied to them in a special way. Alden was the closest volunteer in proximity to me, in Chissano. Mary and Lena had just replaced my old sitemates Erica and Alycia in Chibuto. I was so looking forward to getting to know them better in the coming months. Indeed, I had just gone to the beach with that same group several days before and we’d all been laughing and joking and swimming in the Indian Ocean together. How could something like this happen? It seems almost unreal.
Yesterday, Jan 8, I attended the final memorial service for Lena and Alden in Maputo. (I was unable to attend the previous services throughout the country because I was in Taiwan.) The service was held at the Ambassador’s house on a hot sunny day. All Moz 17ers were present, as were several members of Moz 14, 15, and 16, and many other RPCV’s. It was a beautiful ceremony filled with laughter and tears and I like to think that Lena and Alden were probably smiling down on us from heaven, seeing how their deaths have united our Peace Corps family in the last couple of weeks.
Life’s short. Live it fully. As we often say here, “Estamos juntos.” We are together.