Bathing in a Bucket and other Peace Corps Stories

In 1993 I joined the Peace Corps as an Agricultural Volunteer in Thailand. These are the stories from my journal and the letters written home. In addition to keeping a journal, I wrote a giant letter home to everyone. Tera (my sister) would copy the letter and send it to all my friends, this was her idea and it was a really great one!

In Thailand, I lived in Nakhorn Sawan Province, in a little village called Takfa, which is about 3 hours north of Bangkok.

I was a very lucky volunteer. partially because I was older (32) and the village I lived in had a volunteer before and so they knew what I was supposed to be doing there.

The United States Peace Corps is really a great organization. They take very good care of the volunteers. Once you have made the decision to join and get accepted you will have seen a million pictures of hippie looking young people living in a third world country, wearing shorts, sandals, and baggie t-shirts, making a difference. The truth is once you have made that decision, you realize your life is about to change, but it really only gets better, it is still you - adding on to your personality.