kristinalaska's Journal

Going to Romania with the Peace Corps
My home state of Alaska is known as the Last Frontier. It seems appropriate that now I will be sent to Europe's "Last Frontier"... Romania. Like most Americans, all I ever knew about Romania were stories of Dracula and the Gypsies. But during the next two years, I'll be getting a very intense personal education about that country.

I turned sixty years old this year. In February, the week before I leave for the Peace Corps, my daughter Dara will have her third child, and this baby will be my seventh grandchild. My son Peter will have his third child next May, so that will be my eighth. Even though in my life I've repeatedly taken "steps in the dark", and frequently seem to skirt the edges of modern society, I would never have imagined this adventure. Being a child of the 60s, naturally I dreamed of going into the Peace Corps. But like many other well-intentioned people, life and relationships and children and careers got in the way. Now it seems my biggest responsibilities are to my house and my dog. Very much like many other baby boomers. At last I somehow feel secure enough to wander off into the unknown, doing my bit to help the world.

I've always been a daring sort of person, I guess. When my kids grew up and left home, I learned sea kayaking and sailing. I leased out my house and went away sailing for almost a year, down the coast of Mexico, living on a sailboat. When they were small, I raised my children "in the woods" outside Fairbanks, in a log cabin without running water or electricity, often at temperatures colder than minus 60 degrees F, for nearly eight years. I did many things: raised my three children alone, designed and had my own house built, had a successful real estate company, spent many years in elected office, started a community public transit system, and before retiring, I lived and worked in the Eskimo whaling community of Barrow, Alaska, where the wind and cold are unbelievable. Although I've owned my house for 25 years, I've packed boxes into storage and hauled my stuff around more than I want to remember. And here I am, doing it again.

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