Peace Corps Eastern Caribbean Class 69 at our close of servise conference. The remaining St. Vincent volunteers of EC69. From left: Joe Albrecht, Erin Wright, Mr. Cool, Megan Minnick, Shawna Singer, Brian Essenmacher, and me.

"COS" 5/24/2004 This past weekend I went to the close of service conference for my class of volunteers. Most of these people I haven't seen very much - four days last July, and then three weeks in the August before that, but we are all pretty good friends. We have all been through many of the same struggles. I am proud to be one of the volunteers that made it all the way to this point. We stayed at a nice hotel in Grenada on Grand Anse beach. We had great food, hung out by the pool, and felt like we were back in America for a little while. Not all the way back yet, though. The idea of the conference was to give us an idea of what it will be like to return to the U.S. after being away for so long. We'll have to find a place to go, get jobs, make new friends, and deal with a culture that we aren't quite familiar with, all kind of scary stuff. At least I feel better knowing that a lot of all the other volunteers haven't figured out all of that stuff either.