"Storytime"

On July 3rd we passed the one-year mark, or halfway point, of our Peace Corps Guyana service. (Peace Corps consists of two to three months of training followed by two years of service.) To mark that milestone we attended a week-long conference called "Mid-Service Training" in the first week of August. During the training we had the opportunity to reflect on our first year in Guyana and then planned ways to become even more effective in our work during the second year.

As part of the conference, each Volunteer put together a short presentation to summarize the highlights of their first year. Given that Kathrina and I are nearing two years with Peace Corps and that we have spent time in two wildly different countries, I thought that a video showcasing those differences might be a good way to go.

Two years is a long time, time enough to accumulate thousands of stories, big and small, so each image in the video was selected because it reminds me of one of those stories. Of course pictures are more evocative with musical accompaniment, so I racked my brain for an appropriate song. With powerful music and poetic lyrics the Nightwish song "Storytime" seemed like a perfect fit for the theme. The lyrics and the video are below.

I hope you enjoy watching as much as I enjoyed putting these images and words together!

"Storytime"

It was the night before,

When all through the world,

No words, no dreams

Then one day,

A writer by a fire

Imagined all of Gaia

Took a journey into a child-man's heart...

A painter on the shore

Imagined all the world

Within a snowflake on his palm

Unframed by poetry

A canvas of awe

Planet Earth falling back into the stars

I am the voice of Never, Never Land

The innocence, the dreams of every man

I am the empty crib of Peter Pan,

A soaring kite against the blue, blue sky,

Every chimney, every moonlit sight

I am the story that will read you real,

Every memory that you hold dear

I am the journey,

I am the destination,

I am the home

The tale that reads you

A way to taste the night,

The elusive high

Follow the madness,

Alice you know once did

Imaginarium, a dream emporium!

Caress the tales

And they will dream you real

A storyteller's game,

Lips that intoxicate

The core of all life

Is a limitless chest of tales...

I am the voice of Never, Never Land

The innocence, the dreams of every man

I am the empty crib of Peter Pan,

A soaring kite against the blue, blue sky,

Every chimney, every moonlit sight

I am the story that will read you real,

Every memory that you hold dear

I am the voice of Never, Never Land

The innocence, the dreams of every man

Searching heavens for another earth...

I am the voice of Never, Never Land

The innocence, the dreams of every man

I am the empty crib of Peter Pan,

A soaring kite against the blue, blue sky,

Every chimney, every moonlit sight

I am the story that will read you real,

Every memory that you hold dear