"When I went to bed that night, I could hardly sleep for anticipation. . . . I awoke at sunrise and was surprised to feel the heat again. . . so different from the high mountains of Colorado. . . . Slipping on the only cotton dress I had . . . I stood on the big front porch in a buzz of insects and heat from the sun which stunned with its power. But the greenness, the brightness of the colors compensated. . . . This at last. . . was the mysterious and dangerous tropics!. . . . I wanted to go to the camp urgently. Into my impatience a tropical rain began to fall, so suddenly that I barely had time to get a mini-recorder and tape that rushing music of the tropics. . . . It was May 29, 1982. Walking on the main road between Puerto Princesa and the Vietnamese Refugee Center, I was yearning toward the spot I'd been imagining. Would it strike me with pity and horror when I saw it? And whom there would I meet, teach, know and love? I had no doubts that morning, as the Filipino tricycle bumped two kilometers along the dirt road. . . that I was going toward the place where I belonged."
This is an excerpt from the first chapter of my book NOT ONLY A REFUGEE: AN AMERICAN UN VOLUNTEER IN THE PHILIPPINES--about my service in the Vietnamese Refugee center on Palawan. It is published by Rose Dog Books and is available on their website or on Amazon.com. I will present more excerpts on later blogs.
