Americans living overseas can remain connected with friends andfamily, even during some challenging circumstances.
After the recent catastrophe, several local people working inJapan were able to call home via wireless phone or contact familyand friends through the Internet to share their experiences.
Contrast that with people who were part of another recentinternational story, the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps.
Mike Waite was featured in The Columbians story about formerPeace Corps volunteers. Mike and his wife, Mary Lynn, who died in2001, worked in Liberia for almost two years during the 1970s.
Mary Lynn and I made one phone call home, to her family, Waitesaid.
To make sure her family would be home to answer the phone, Wewrote a letter, weeks before, telling them the time we were planningto call.
Mike and Mary Lynn went to the capital, Monrovia, to place thecall.
There were only one or two places you could go, he said.
The new generation of telecommunications technology hasnt solvedall of Waites long-distance issues. Old friends in Liberia now tendto call him at 3 a.m.
I always need to have paper and a pen handy, he explained. I taketheir number and call them right back, because I have more money tomake a call.
A-fort-able travel
Richard Rystrom, another former Peace Corps volunteer, describedpromoting tourism in the ancient Ukrainian fortress of Kamyanets-Podilsky.
Just before The Columbians package ran, The Washington Postcarried a travel story about the enchanting city of Kamyanets-Podilsky.
He couldnt take credit for the Posts plug, Rystrom said, but hewas glad to see it.
John Pancakes Post piece noted that if any place neededfortresses, it was Ukraine.
Scythian, Mongol, Tartar, Cossack, Russian, Polish, Turkish,Lithuanian, Austrian, Hungarian, Swedish, English, Greek and Germanarmies have all come this way, he wrote.
Which explains a joke one of the locals told Rystrom:
A visitor strikes up a conversation with an elderly Ukrainian,who recites an extensive list of countries where hes lived in hislong and eventful life.
You sure must have moved a lot, the traveler said.
No, said the Ukrainian, Same house.
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back fromour newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in thestory or just tell a story.
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