2 Years of Posts, Part 1: A Love/Hate Relationship

I only have a month left in my service, which means I've been in country for over two years.  And in those two years, I've written 239 blog posts.  Thats a lot of writing about one's service in country.

I've been looking back over what I've written as I look for some closure to a two year chapter of life.  There's some pretty bad writing in there, but there's also some pretty good posts as well.  As I wrap up my two years, I thought it would be fun to post selections from some of my favorite posts written and give a little commentary on them now that I have a year or so of perspective.  I've picked 5 posts and I'll post one a week.

A is for Azerbaijan, B is for Baseball

A is for Azerbaijan, B is for Baseball, posted June 9th, 2011

We approached the field like every sports movie ever made featuring a rag-tag group of kids. And just like every first game played in those movies, we got slaughtered. I mentioned that our team only had about half the rules down. Baseball is an incredibly complicated game and our team just had begun to understand where shortstop stands and which base they'll throw to; we had to save concepts like tagging the base after a fly out or force outs for game two preparation.

In this post I described the very first tournament (and game) for the Khachmaz Maximum.  Baseball was definitely a project I was roped into.  But as time passed I found myself enjoying it more and more.  As a teacher it was rare for me to interact with children in a fun way; a teacher is not played with, a teacher is respected.

Throughout my service I would oscillate between loving and hating baseball.  I knew that I 'enjoyed' it, but it was also a ceaseless pain.  Baseball was the equivalent of a toddler, of course you love it-but that doesn't stop you from wanting to throttle it.  Curiously, my love for baseball depended on how it fit into my day, the more time I had to dread practice the more it annoyed me.  Once practice was switched to 9:30 in the morning, I loved it.

Despite my feelings of love or hate in service, after service I'll remember baseball fondly.  Its an activity that will be easy to talk about with Americans.  What could sound more 'Peace Corps' than teaching kids to play baseball?  Just this week, we received team shirts from Kelsey's sorority; real baseball shirts with Khachmaz Maximum emblazoned on the front, they look amazing and will be an amazing souvenir to take home with me.