Blogging: Past and Present

I’ve blogged before, but always with a direct source of travel stories. My first blog was about my trip through Southeast Asia backpacking with a friend. It is filled with long, detailed stories of adventures and pictures of backpackers not really sure what they were doing.  Looking back at that blog and thinking about those times brings back a lot of great memories, but it was pretty much just a day-by-day journal of our experience.  That trip through Asia was my first experience in a developing country and I don’t think I fully analyzed my time there until I got home and had time for it to soak into my mind.  I wish I had documented more of my daily thoughts on that trip and less of my daily actions.

In a tuk tuk in Cambodia on a backpacking trip through Southeast Asia.

My second blog documents the two years I spent living in Ethiopia as a Peace Corps volunteer.  In contrast to my first blog, I hardly ever talked about day-to-day errands (aside from my “day in the life” entry), but decided to focus on special holidays and travels.  I love going back and reading my stories from that blog, but I know I was afraid to really express a lot of the hardships I went through, for fear that I would worry my friends and family back home.  Not that my stories are all “happily ever after,” but I wonder if I edited too much.

Walking along the road in Ethiopia with villagers on their way to market.

This blog is… I’m not quite sure yet. I hope this will be a place to tell all those stories I didn’t have time to type-up in Ethiopia.  I also hope to be able to write about upcoming travels and plans.  Often I find myself telling one too many stories that start with, “Well, in Ethiopia…” But maybe this blog will give me the freedom to tell all the stories I need to tell.