November 5, 2007 (written by Jason)

So last week I wrote a really emotional e-mail. I really appreciate all the words of encouragement. It has been a long and really weird week. It was emotional going to school today talking to the teachers about the funeral and working out how it is going to work. It looks like due to a prior commitment that I won’t be going to the boy’s funeral. I think that this is probably better for me anyway. I am going to go to the families house on Thursday and pay my respects then.

The crazy part is that we have been gone now for exactly 1 year. We had our going away party on the 3rd of last year. We then left for Washington on the 4th really early in the morning. I can’t believe that this year has already flown by. It is totally nuts. We have had our ups and downs here but I still feel that we are happy to have come.

One thing that is frustrating is that the postal service here has decided that it is going to start charging sales tax (on what exactly we still don’t know) that is about 20 to 30 US dollars per package. Needless to say because our salaries are around 250 dollars they are sitting in storage until we get paid or they revoke the sales tax. My favorite part about all this is that the post office never notified us that this change would take place. We just went in one day and the charge had increased by 500%. It is so the way things sometimes work here. Cracks me up!
Well I hope that you are all doing good. We love and miss you all. Drop us a line if you get a chance!
Peace Corps Out!
Jason