Tuesday, June 15, 2010

My Life in Azerbaijan - Maybe Someday I will...

June 13, 2010
After two weeks, finally the dizziness and the bad cold went away. I am healthy again! It is great to feel alive, to feel I can go out and face the world once more. To be healthy is more important than anything else for me. There are just too many places where I have not yet be, too many mountains that I have not climbed, too many dreams I have not yet accomplished. Too many things to do with so little time…I definitely need a strong healthy body.

While I was sick, I finished the book “J” sent me. “A vagabond for Beauty”, a book about a young man at the age of twenty, Everett Ruess who vanished into thin air in the wilderness of Utah in 1934. What fascinates me about the story is Everett’s nearly sinful lust for natural beauty. His ability to see, articulate and portray the magnitude, color, and changing moods of nature. When I closed the book, I wish I was there with him; exploring, venturing and disappearing….

The Red Rock Canyon Country in Southern Utah by far is the place I love the most. The climb to Kilimanjaro, Everest base camp, ancient Tepui and Mt. Rainer was unforgettable, the crossing of Sahara desert was memorable as well, but nothing, noting like the delicate beauty and quietness of the canyon countries in southern Utah that give me so much satisfaction, joy, serenity and deep peace. If I have to choose a place to die and be buried, it has to be an unknown canyon in southern Utah where a small running stream is nearby, cottonwoods and willows are abundant and most importantly, surrounded by beautiful smooth cliff walls…..Maybe when I am home in 2011, I will work for a National Park in Utah, spend the rest of my life searching for that beautiful burial site…:)

“Adventure is for adventurous” so true.

My fellow AZ7 PCVs,
There is beauty in adventure, go seek adventure, go live your wanderlust, whether in Azerbaijan or Utah. Serving the Peace Corps is an adventure; don’t lose sight of that.

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