Why Ryan doesn't lie... aka how I got the "dumbest volunteer" award!

So, here's a funny little story about a volunteer named Ryan. This volunteer got the great idea that she would plan a suprise trip home in the middle of her service. She planned and planned this (since last winter). She knew that her mother, seeing the credit card bill for the ticket, would know she was travleing... so she made up the story that she and several volunteers were going to Morrocco on vacation. She didn't tell a SOUL stateside! She even wrote on her vacation leave form that the Peace Corps requires that on the OFF chance someone from the states called, that they were not to be informed of this trip as it was a surprise! She had planned on calling her sisters boyfriend the week before she arrived in order to pick her up and plan a surprise dinner out with her mom and sister. She planned on showing up at the school for the deaf and surprising all her friends and students. This was in the works.
Then, one night, she was on the phone with her mother. She needed a power cord mailed to her but there was a problem with the packaging. So, she made up another story. She told her mother that a volunteer from Fresno was going to be home in January and if her mother just held onto the cord and mailed it to Fresno, the volunteer would bring it home (knowing full well that she would be home to pick it up in January herself). She was so excited when she got off the phone that her mother had no idea that she was coming that she text messaged her friend Adam, who has been the co-conspiritor of this little plot. She told Adam how she had decieved her mother once again with the "Fresno" story and how excited she was that her mother had no clue that she was coming home.
Then, in a truly Freudian moment (I guess... maybe there's another psychologist but can't think of who) when she had her mother on the brain, she proceeded to send the text message not to Adam, but to her MOTHER! It was one of those classic "oh shit" moments where right after the send button was pushed, she knew what she had done! So, after keeping the secret for over a year, Ryan blows it just a month before she is scheduled to come home.

There you have it folks! Most of the volunteers in the area spent the evening laughing at (and with) me so I thought I would share the joy! Really, I am the worse liar I know! But, I take solace in the fact that 1) no one else blew my secret... cause then I would have been really mad and 2) that I didn't blow someone else's big secret! Just did something stupid to blow my own cover.

So, here is the deal... I will be home for three weeks in January. From the 9th-31st! (I know Dan, I am bummed but I am just going to miss you by a few days... sigh! What fun it would have been to see you.... smile).

There are so many of you I am looking forward to seeing! Kathleen and Barb, I will be making a trip to school to see everyone but we must get together for dinner one night when you don't have work.

Miguel... I must meet david!

And John, if you have access to a plane... I think I have forgotten what a small plane feels like (much less, how to fly one)... smile

So, there is my news... for the whole world to know!! I can't wait to see all of you !

See you in a month,
Ry