Wednesday, July 21, 2010

COS Conference

A couple things:

1. Tulum, Mexico - Julie and I took our last vacation this month. We took a trip to Tulum, Mexico and it was glorious. Anyone who doesn't believe in heaven, hasn't been to the beaches of the Yucatan: white sand, crystal blue water, warm weather. We went snorkeling with sea turtles, snorkeling in fresh water centotes: Dos Ojos, to the Tulum Ruins (whoa!) and Playa Del Carmen for the day. It was refreshing to be in Mexico again, it is such a nice break from Belize and everything is a lot cheaper. I did pretty well on using my vacation days while being in the peace corps. Each volunteer receives a total of 42 days of vacation for the 2 years, i have 7 left. Not bad. I made some phone calls a few weeks ago to buddies back in the states, and one of them stated: "It looks like one big vacation down there." There are a lot of nice places in and around Central America and Peace Corps allows for regional travel, but let the record state peace corps work is no vacation.

2. COS Conference - we had our Close of Service conference this month at Hopkins Bay Resort in Hopkins, Belize. It's the last of the Peace Corps in service training seminars, but this one fills volunteers in on exiting Belize and transitioning back into life in the USA: saying good bye to host families, host country agencies, friends and filling out your DOS (Description of Service) and completing your resume etc. It was an awesome conference and it was nice to be with my training group one last time. Our group started with 42 volunteers and we are down to 22 as of yesterday. A lot of people decided to ET (Early Termination) due to a variety of reasons. I am really proud of myself for sticking it out down here. 3 years ago when i started talking about doing Peace Corps, my friends thought i was crazy and it was "un-weiss like."

3. 64 Days left in the Peace Corps - its crazy to think I have been in Belize for 2 years now, this whole experience flies by. I am COSing on September 22 and should be back in the States on September 23.

4. I am working on starting a non-profit: VolunteerPlacement.org. More to come at a later date.

Far From Home,

Christopher Wilkins Weiss

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