Westerly

Down to a merciful 70 degrees at 10PM. Walking the dog down the wet sidewalk, I passed a neighbor sitting on her porch, smoking a cigarette. She also couldn't remember a Westbound storm on the edge of the lake. The one that just rolled through kicked up house-sized dust devils from the dry soil, pushing a 90-degree day in front of it like this were some suburb of Atlanta.

When I visited friends in Atlanta one summer years back, my Northern sensibilities weren't prepared for the amount of sweat I could produce on an early morning run. I felt those conditions again this morning: heavy and humid underfoot, leadening my legs. And while it's a cliche, in Georgia we sat on porches and grilled slowly in the evening light, moving just a little, a Southern adjustment to the heat. I could taste it again this evening as the thunderheads built.

Beer in hand, I rested on the picnic table behind our house, waiting for steaks to grill through. I had them on low flame, and wondered if they would cook just as well on the sidewalk. I idly chewed on scallions from the garden, the one crop that's fully up at this odd pivot point. It's the end of May in Burlington, and the beans are only six inches tall, the garlic hasn't scaped, the lettuce is thumbnail-sized and only the weather seems to think that it's the end of July. Everything in it's right place but the mercury.

Walking down the dark street tonight was almost total silence, but for my sandals and my dog's heavy breathing. Lightning flickered in the clouds as they moved over the valley to the South and West, and stars burned overhead. As I re-entered the house, an Easterly breeze moved the lilies by the door, breaking the stillness.

Ode to a Legendary Peace Corps Volunteer

I no longer remember why I decided to frame this as a eulogy; the volunteer who inspired this character neither died nor was "Teminated" from PC service. But man, did he leave a trail of stories behind. I think he continues to do so, somewhere in the warrens of Charleston . . .

In Memoriam: Skoobs Tirrow, 2003-2005

Skoobs Tirrow was a great volunteer. There's no getting around that. The man himself will forever vacuum controversy in his wake, but his legend will always shine through as a sparkling example of how a human being can jump into the snakepit of life and wring a few minutes of gleeful fun out of a whole lot of pain. We all owe him a great deal.

I met Skoobs three weeks into pre-service training. We were in the same agroforestry group, but somehow in the rush of culture defibrillation we hadn't crossed paths until we were sent to visit two volunteers who lived close to each other. Perched on a ridge of the Cordillera Septentrional one night and taking long pulls from glasses of brugal and fanta, we listened to Skoobs expound his theories on the wealth of nations and how our places in life were dictated by the whims of fate. Then he pointed out that I was urinating on someone's low-slung clothesline. So my first impression of Skoobs was of a quiet brilliance tempered by great powers of observation.

Skoobs was a man of mystery. He seemed to have walked out of a fog-swathed Charleston night and straight into the Peace Corps. There were rumors of his days working as a longshoreman on the Boston waterfront, as a bouncer for a nightclub in Baton Rouge, and even hushed whispers that he had parachuted into Beiruit with the 82nd Airborne. His polymorphous accent would bounce without a hiccup from a Long Island brogue to a Carolina drawl. His tattoos were in three different languages. As we got to know him through training, the pieces of his past became ever more fragmented, yet what he told us himself was never related with anything less than breathtaking honesty.

His service in the Dominican Republic was tumultuous, trackable by the changes in his hair color. Perhaps it could be said that a precedent was set when his CBT doña – exasperated at her charge’s inability to enjoy her yuca/grease soup – attacked him with a frying pan. Indeed, the culmination of Skoobs’ host-family misadventures came a year later when he returned to his site from capital business to find he had been evicted from his shack in the desert. Fortunately, the Jaragua took him in.

Midway through his service, Skoobs authored a controversial article that appeared in this publication under the title “The Chameleon.” While it inspired more late-night, brugal-fueled discussions than can be here related, the essay’s premise – that cultural adaptation can go too far – quickly became secondary to the truth hidden between the lines: that Skoobs himself was capable of adapting to any environment, society or point of view. The district of Polo is in Skoobs’ debt for his work with coffee cooperatives, Monteada Nueva thanks him for the wildflowers he scattered across hill and dale, and Leonel Fernandez owes him one for that thing in the place with the guy that time, but Skoobs’ gift to Volunteers was his Chameleon Ethic.

At the heart of the matter, it could be said that Skoobs Tirrow was more than simply a man. He was an era. For years to come, the PCDR community will be recalling events of unabashed insanity utilizing him as a reference point. We are already hearing it: "Jeez, what would Skoobs do in this situation?" "Man, do you remember that time in Azua when Skoobs got us free drinks and lapdances . . . um . . . I mean pretzels?" His influence around this little island will not expire anytime soon (Avenida Tirrow in Barahona, for example), but those of us fortunate enough to know and love him find comfort in knowing that he is now in a better place.

-Bill Boykin-Morris

Agroforestry

Vuelta Larga, Nagua

Unsettled

There was an odd split to my focus today.

It was beautiful in Burlington. Our first weekend back after nearly a month of travel to friends and family all over the country, and the snowpack was melting in 40 degrees of sunshine. Families flooded the farmers market, smiling; we visited friends outside the city and skated on a frozen marsh. Our dog chased some cows. Katlyn talked pregnancy shop with friends - with some of the many others who know damn well that this is the place to raise a child. This is why I want to be here, now and always.

But I also want to be in Haiti. The facebook news feed reads like an airport terminal at the start of a war - one friend from Peace Corps departing New Orleans for Port-au-Prince, another departing from D.C. for Jacmel. Three friends of mine from PCDR attended a technology-focused brainstorming session in D.C. today - how to help the relief effort with database coordination, satellite imagery interpretation, etc. - and I couldn't tear myself away from the computer for hours this morning, hoping to get a call for help with the mapping at least. I registered for Peace Corps Response yesterday, though I think this might be the worst possible time for me to pick up and head South without pay for a few months.

Another friend blogged today about how sick he is of hearing people talk about going to Haiti to help - how "It isn't like a community trash clean up project with rubber gloves and bottled water." I spent time with him around Cap Haitien four years ago. He knows what he's talking about. Haiti doesn't need hangers-on, however well-intentioned. But the thing is that I can help. The people in Port-au-Prince still need water, and I've built aqueducts in that very environment. Aid agencies need information on navigating the new landscape of rubble and roadblocks, and I'm a satellite imagery analyst. I could be useful, but from here I'm useless. It's infuriating.

I start a PhD in agroecology on Monday. I become a father in June. I've never felt so restless before in my life, and it has nothing to do with the usual suspects like fear of commitment or trepidation about parenthood. Where does this lead? Burlington? D.C.? Ouanaminthe?