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Welcome to the standard Peace Corps entry starter: this thing should have been updated five times by now. Being home again for a month gave plenty of opportunity to share Peru stories by word-of-mouth. Unfortunately, my own priority list therefore shifts from a hermitic schedule in front of the computer to venturing out to see familiar faces. So I’m proposing a compromise: come to Costa Rica! A simpler option—more befitting to current times—is to park yourself down on the couch or cushy cubicle chair and take a look at some photos. Both the Guinea evacuation and Peru are pretty well captioned on Flickr, so a lot of the story can be found there.

Also available are a few additional entries on the Clark-2-Guinea correspondence page, my ongoing correspondence with a 4th grade class in the Indianapolis area. Here’s a sneak preview:



Time at home has been a refreshing mix of cold weather and hot showers. Stepping out of Logan airport with only a fleece was a chilling welcome back home. My dad reminded me of a distant phone conversation, probably around Christmas. Apparently I had alluded to a lingering nostalgia for snow. The apparent amnesia must have been a result of my good senses having left me, but not before punching me in the face at my sister’s doorstep on Comm Ave. The resulting swollen sinuses and cold were probably due in part to the stress of the Aguas Calientes evacuation. Regardless, it probably just aided my planned schedule of sleep in between visits with friends. I was back in the States. I was with Bec, with close friends…good coffee, clean clothes. Happy.


• Favorite traditional Boston experience: visiting the USS Constitution with Bec
• Favorite non-traditional Boston experience: a woman walked up to me on the T saying only, “I just love your Hello Kitty bag.”

Parents were waiting at the airport. The first stop was a long-anticipated visit to the Homewood Aurelio’s, the longtine pizza haunt for the Roche family, from a time long before I even had the capacity to remember. We walked in and sat at one of the red-and-white checkered tables, already knowing the order before the menus flopped in front of us. The waitress shuffled away to the kitchen.

Much of the questions revolved around what the heck happened in the four days I was stranded in Aguas Calientes, as well as the Inca trail. The theme binding them: “Can’t you find somewhere a little safer to live?! Geez Kevin, two evacuations in four months!” I heeded their advice. In my short time at home I shunned the dozens of adventure activities Northwest Indiana has to offer, like driving my SUV 20 over on I-65 during a snowstorm, and rashly sipping my americano just seconds after it’s served. Instead I played it safe. I went running. Now I sit in a Washington hotel room with a calf healing from a dog bite and an ankle still swollen after having rolled it on a frozen water bottle.

They say: Danger in Peru!
I say: At least the dogs have the courtesy to tell you when they’re attacking.
They say: Military coup in W. Africa!!
I say: At least they throw their trash on the side of the street instead of in the middle of it (somewhat a lie)

A conversation with my buddy KJ shed light on my possible changing of fortune. “Costa Rica has been stable for quite a while.” He added, “They don’t even have an army.” Hey guys, Kevin’s going to a resource rich country without a means to defend itself. Roll tape. But I usually take KJ’s words seriously. He’s a happily married father; he reads the economist and sings me breathy Marylin Monroe impersonations on my birthday. The guy knows his stuff.

Alright, early flight tomorrow. Gotta run.