10 months have passed.

Wyatt has been gone from this life for 10 months. So many thoughts go through my mind. I was reading an email Wyatt sent Greg and I on October 30th 2005, 17 days before he died. It is such a beautiful email from a son with such zest for living. I want to share it with all of you. Here it is in it's entirity:

Mom and Dad,

I've been in the bush for a couple of weeks now, and though I should
have gotten internet access at some point during that period, the
phone lines were down so there was no connection. I'm sorry for not
writing the last time I got on the internet (the fifteenth, I think).
I wrote you a nice letter, though, hopefully you've gotten it by now
and it's quelled your fear that I won't write.

I have so so so so so much to say. I covered most of the bases in the
REAL letter (a medium which I for one strongly prefer to email), so I
won't repeat myself but I will tell you about my last couple of weeks.

Like I said, I was in the bush. It was our "second site visit,"
meaning that I got to visit the area I'll be working in and actually
finally see the village I will be living in for the next two years.
I've had so many thoughts buzzing through my mind recently it's really
difficult for me to even decide what aspects to focus on...

I guess I'll focus on telling you a little bit about my site. The
name of the main village is Kanyama. The sub-village where I'll be
living is a farming habitation of a 3 generation family of 41. Seven
brothers, their wives and children, and their parents. And me. You
can about imagine. I saw my hut, and I think it will serve me nicely.
I'm sure you sell houses that have more square footage in their
bathrooms alone, but I'm not exactly in the land of plenty here so I
can't complain. The thatch roof kind of sucks when it rains and is
dripping in ten spots, but I suppose you can get used to anything if
you're forced to. My new "dad" is Albert. He's a 35 year old guy,
and a semi-ambitious farmer. When I say farmer you're thinking of
tractors and fences and rolling fields....not the case. Sometimes the
farmers have nothing more than a single hoe. One hoe. That's it.
Their fields are small and rather unproductive, as are their fish
ponds. They just don't have the initial capital or access to
resources necessary to grow any more food than they need to eat (and
sometimes not even enough to do that). It's weird to be in a culture
where there is a word in the language meaning "a time when there is no
meat."

The country itself is beautiful. It's all rolling hills and crystal
clear creeks and rivers. Those high canopy trees which are so typical
of Africa are everywhere. I have an avocado tree in my front yard,
and we have a mango, orange, papaya, banana, and other trees in the
village as well. The sky seems huge here, and everywhere the world
seems to be looming around you. I think it's just the untamed nature
of it. I'm so used to everything being paved, groomed, controlled.
There is no such thing as wilderness in the United States, or very
little of it anyway. It's amazing being in it, working in it, being a
part of it. Picture this: me standing with a farmer beside a pond
trying to speak Lunda with him as we discuss the options he has for
integrating some other crops using irrigation drawn from a nearby
furrow. I'm sweating in the hot sun after having ridden 10 miles down
a ruddy footpath through the forest. I am looking down into a valley
that is absolutely untouched. I have two months of beard growth and
am probably not smelling too great despite the fact that I shower more
often here than I ever did back home. I am constantly covered with a
film of dirt from the roads, unless it's raining, in which case it's
mud.

My village is 70 km from Mwinilunga, which is the nearest
approximation of "civilization." By civilization I mean they have
electricity and plumbing and not much more that you would recognize.
The cities here are so strange, so completely unlike anything in our
country. Most of the buildings are crumbling, all have tin roofs.
Only here a tin roof is a sign of affluence (no drips!). People walk
and ride bikes down the center of the highway, which is literally the
only paved road for hundreds of miles in any direction. No traffic.
Every time a vehicle drives by, and especially when it's filled with
"ayindeli" (white people), everyone rubbernecks and stares after
you've passed. In fact, when you're riding your bike through the
village kids will be yelling "CHINDELI! CHINDELI! HOW ARE YOU?! HOW
ARE YOU?!" It gets annoying. When I yell back, "I'm fine, thanks,
how are you?" they just stare at me in a mixture of shock and
fascination, and have no idea what I just said. They only know those
three words in English.

I still don't feel I've given you a good feel for what it's like to be
here. It's strange. It's definitely challenging. I ate bugs -
flying ants. They were actually pretty good and tasted kind of like
sour cream and onion potato chips (and I'm not just saying that).
I've slept on bare concrete with nothing but a sheet to cover me and a
balled up t-shirt under my head. I've been wet for days on end. I
sweat constantly. I've learned more Lunda in two months than the
Spanish I learned in two years of high school. I also know fish
farming. I know integrated farming. I know conservation methods. I
am amazed at how many hoops I've had to jump through, at how many ways
I'm going to have to be flexible in what I ask for in comfort, in
understanding, and in stimulation. It's going to be rough going, but
I think it's going to teach me a lot about myself and about my place
in the world. Nothing is better for revelations of selfhood than
taking yourself completely out of context. Suddenly you don't have
your friends to tell you who you are, you don't have your family, you
don't have your hobbies and your belongings reminding you of who you
are. Suddenly you just are. It's weird.

I guess I'm going to have obscene amounts of free time. I have a
hammock, I am going to build a porch onto my house, and I have a
garden. I plan to read. A lot. I'm going to read classic
literature, modern literature, some nonfiction (history, biographies)
and whatever else I stumble across. I've already read six (seven
maybe) books since I've been here. It's great. It really has quieted
my mind.

My friends are all harassing me to get this email wrapped up so we can
catch a bus back to Mwekera to get back to training. After my two
weeks of freedom and finally being able to see my site I'm not really
looking forward to the overscheduling of training, but it will be over
in two weeks and I'll have my swearing in as a volunteer. Do a toast
for me on the 18th!

About mailing stuff - sorry about not letting you know whether or not
I had gotten things. Yes, I did. And I really appreciated it. I
hope to have a really good mail correspondence with you guys so that I
don't have to be a slave to the internet any longer. It's a shame
that the mail here is so unreliable, but most things make it
here.....eventually. I got your card, which was really nice, and the
couple of letters that had my loan forms and bills and the like.
Speaking of that I will write another email telling you about my plans
for dealing with that. Nothing is remiss, and no permanent damage has
been done. Late payments aren't good, obviously, and frankly I'm
ashamed of myself for forgetting the forms at home because it has
proven to be a HUGE hassle to get things taken care of here (contrary
to what they told me). Oh well, I'll save this for the next email.

I found out my new address, that is where I'll be getting my mail for
the next two years:

Wyatt Ammon
PO Box 160073
Mwinilunga, ZAMBIA

Easy enough, right? If you send a package there it should be getting
in right as I'm getting posted to my site. Exciting! Once again I'm
sorry for not having written you an email last time I was on the
internet, I didn't realize it was going to be this long before I was
going to be able to get back on and I wanted to ask some questions of
the Peace Corps officials about the loans and stuff (and to get the
forms in the mail, which I have) and formulate a plan so that I could
quell your apprehension. That backfired, but I have now gotten the
info I need and have a workable plan that puts very little
responsibility, financial or otherwise, on your shoulders. Thanks for
being willing to help me and putting up with me.

Let me know if you got my letter, I'll have another one off in the mail shortly.

Much love,

Your only son


Just the other day I ran across a stamp collecting book that Grandpa Ammon gave Wyatt. I thought I will save this for Wyatt when he is older and settled down. But immediately over top of this thought almost simultaneously the reality that Wyatt's future will never be. He is no more. He doesn't see the season changing, he doesn't feel the sharp crispness of the morning air. He won't be back to get his childhood things: legos, micro machines, baseball cards, stamp collection, his scrapbook, all his little treasures stored away. My beautiful, curious, boylike son is gone. How can I endure? But of course as time passes everyone else lives into their future with their children around them, they don't see the emptiness I hide. I don't want to be a miserable person no one wants to be around. I am trapped with no way out. There is no way to comprehend this world where all we can be totally sure of is death, yet we all live like there will be no end to us. Now I see clearly it really is only a question of "Who's next?".