It's been too long since I've blogged--9 months now.

I'm hoping to publish some of my writing, maybe even a book about my Peace Corps adventures.  Any advice would be much appreciated.

Here's an excerpt from something I've been working on about sakau (this passage is about the singing on one particular night):

Imagine a black Baptist choir doing a rousing rendition of “Go Tell It on the Mountain” on a beautiful Sunday morning.  Then change it.  Remove all of the congregation, all of the women, and most of the choir.  Make all of the men over 40, shirtless, and only partially employed.  Imagine they’d imbibed a bottle of whiskey and were in that mellow, quiet, bluesy stage of drunkenness.  Make it dark outside, with starlight, moonlight, and a single fluorescent bulb the only illuminations.  The men are sitting at a table under a guava tree.  The linoleum-covered wooden table has been chewed by termites and mold.  It is crawling with tiny sugar ants.  The men’s 88-cent flip-flops are all that’s between the dirt and their gnarled toes.  One of the men is strumming a guitar with long dirty fingernails.  A couple are chewing beetelnut; one is smoking a cigarette.  All have plastic cups of sakau in front of them.  The beauty of the notes, the soulfulness of a Baptist choir is still there… but quieter, subdued.