How do you feel by the end of the day? Are you sad because you're on your own?

July, 23 2008
(First package)
From the Journal of Derek Rury

I never thought that a taste had the power to transport my mind to another time and place, but I was proven otherwise when I stuffed a handful of frosted flakes into my mouth just now. I just received a packed from back home. My first (and hopefully not last). It was packed with all sorts of goodies, not the least of which was a pre packaged serving container of frosted flakes, my #1 vice back home. After I sifted through the contents; protein bars, peppermint candies, sunflower seeds, I tried to think about how difficult it would be to actually get my hands on these things here, if I even could at all. My initial reaction was not to eat them, but rather use them as a reminder of both what amazing people I have in my life, to send me all of this stuff across the world, but also as an homage to my life back home in the states. That hesitance lasted about one minute and I was quickly ripping open the lid of the cereal container and digging my hand into it’s dry, crunchy heart. A I started chewing, familiar emotions passed through my mind. If I wasn’t surrounded by harsh reminders that I was actually in Alarobia, I might have thought that I was back in Chicago, comfortably eating cereal one of the numerous occasions I had failed to successfully manage my milk-to-cereal ratio. But then I began to look around the room. The lone candle illuminated the reality that I was, as a matter of fact, not in Kansas anymore. The light flickered and reflected off of my Peace Corps provided water filter that sits like a shinny, silver tower on my desk and serves as a constant reminded that not even the water here is clean. Then I notice the countless balled up pieces of tissue and empty cough drop containers, the remnants of the toll this new ecosystem has taken on my fragile, western-world body. My eyes then moved on to the enormous Antondroy dialect book that I received today (6 weeks into training mind you, and weeks after everyone else had already received their region specific language books). It’s a book that makes War and Peace look like Clifford the Big Red Dog Goes to School. And finally I catch, on the corner of my desk, the small, brown, silver capped, paper tube that is hypothetically meant to transport my feces‘, if the doctors deem it necessary. But the taste of the Frosted Flakes was so strong that those familiar feelings were still lingering, despite my foreign surroundings. With each bite my mind remembered more and more. “Oh yeah, I did used to sleep without a mosquito net hanging over me every night (you get used to it pretty quick though, I guess). And I didn’t used to be forced to eat the same main dish 3 times a day, 7 days a week. And I used to be able to shower more than 3 times a week,”. Ok, so what if I actually didn’t, but I at least I could have.

With a Little Help From My Friends - The Beatles