whoever removed that huge post i made, thank you!!! you are amazing! sitara didi, thank you also for your generous words. yeah, i feel like i left my heart in palpa (hence, my sign-in name) in paricular and nepal in general. and i can totally appreciate what your friend was/is going through in vermont. coming back to this world is not easy. i know i will have opportunities to return to nepal, but i don't know in what capacity. in all honesty, i still haven't accepted that i will never be able to live and teach in chirtungdhara, palpa again. with regards to pc, though, my understanding is the first program went to ghana in 1961. i don't know if i agree with the phrase "academic colonization", especially since, as you pointed out, so much of what pc is about is cultural exchange. it's about mutual understanding and respect and about crossing divides between people. i really appreciate your post, thank you. dyamn, wow- those are some powerful words! thanks for your strong feelings about pc volunteers. but you should realize that often times pc volunteers get so much more out of their experience than what they give to the communities in which they live. this was certainly the case for me and most of my other friends who were in nepal. and while you blame the maoists for pc leaving, i blame the ignorant american government, as they blindly provided the nepali government with more money, more weapons, and more military training. that is what fueled the maoists' anti-americanism. to think the american government thought it was helping the people of nepal by providing those things....and now pc has left as a result of it. the officials in dc that made those decisions are most likely very unfamiliar with the realities of life in nepal. and let's not forget the army is just as guilty as the maoists in terms of violence, brutality, and kidnappings against their own nepali brothers and sisters.