There is a town in New Mexico named "Gallup"--Giddyup, that's where we now live!

Erin and I now have dresser drawers and a closet. For most, not a spectacular achievement. However, for Team Farver, this is a monumental accomplishment. Since moving from California to Michigan in March 2006 and then joining the Peace Corps in the Philippines for 2 years later that month, to traveling Asia in May of 2008, to returning to Michigan in June and July of 2008, we have lived out of a constant stream of suitcases, boxes and backpacks. Don't get me wrong. We loved the experience of traveling and living abroad, and without sounding like a braggart, I am now very good at packing for multiple year jaunts in less than 2 bags. During that time, though, we never really had that sense of ever being unpacked. There was always stuff we had not unpacked. Even while living in Casa del Farver in historic San Jose de Buenavista, Antique, Philippines for 2 years, we still kept some of our stuff (sweatshirts and parkas we had mistakenly brought, not knowing the temperature in our new home would never drop below 187 degrees Fahrenheit) packed away under the bed. There was also a sense of foreboding as we knew our time there was going to be more or less temporary. We also had a number of boxes (approximately 5,382) of things necessary for living when we would eventually return to America (like 2 punch bowl sets, my trusty walkie talkies and a candelabra) tucked away in over half of my mother-in-law's house some 7000 miles away in northern Michigan. Well dear friends, that time of struggle is behind us. We don't have sweaters under our beds or punch bowls buried in a Michigan basement. We are back in America. We have moved and taken everything with us and we do not plan on moving again for some time. Our backpacks are empty, our dresser drawers and full and we just purchased some appliances. We are back. We are Americans again and we are loving it.
Since we got home, being American has been pretty cool. It's funny. Erin and I thought we were so 'worldly' when we were Peace Corps volunteers. We wore sandals everyday. We drank out of coconuts. We walked everywhere. We had a mosquito net (which was actually balled up next to the sweaters and parkas under our bed). We roughed it. We vowed never to be sucked back into the commercial America whose grip we had escaped for so long. We would go home and be different than everyone! We would live simply! We would shop at local co-ops! We would be models of change for everyone around us! This lasted about 2 days. Not only have we NOT resisted the pull of commercialism so prevalent in the good ole US of A, we have succumbed to it with a vigor unseen in any our previous life endeavors.
Erin and I both got accepted into a fellowship program for returned Peace Corps volunteers at Western New Mexico University. We will teach in high-need elementary schools while going to graduate school at the same time. Erin will be teaching 2nd grade and I will be teaching 4th grade at different schools in the small town of Gallup, New Mexico. We emptied Erin's mom's house of all our stuff (with a special box for my walkie-talkies), tossed everything in a U-haul, and lumbered southwest, just over the continental divide into the one, the only, Gallup. It has been an exciting few weeks. Now, instead of a hut on the beach, we have an adobe house on a hill. Instead of hand washing clothes, we have a Maytag machine to wash AND another one to dry. Instead of riding to school on a motorcycle with 12 of our neighbors, we have a made-in-Detroit 6 cylinder hunk of steel to take us places. No more Asian, pirated, DVD's, we have satellite TV. And to top it all off, we now have a freezer filled to the brim with ice cream and Eggos. In all honesty, there have been a number of times when it has been a bit overwhelming to be back Stateside. Part of me misses the simplicity of life as a Volunteer, but another part is glad for the change. While we loved our time away, it is nice to be American again. Plus, I really missed my walkie-talkies.