In the mail

When I was in Nepal getting mail was the highlight of my week. I hiked three hours into the district center, Phidim, every weekend for three things: cold beer, different food, and mail. And if I had had to make do with only one of the three, I would have really missed the beer and food.

One of my Peace Corps friends used to say, "Hey, I got a package from your mom with a letter that says she loves me more than she loves you!" It was the kind of funny that has that undertone of fear; "What if they stop writing to me?" Not that I ever figured Andy was a serious rival for my parents' attention. I mean, they had never even met the guy, so what the heck was he doing saying something like that! Dude!

Ok. I'm back.

Here in Korea it's a different ball game. I can buy a lot of stuff that I just couldn't get in Nepal, especially food stuff. Still, a package from home is a pretty special event for me. So when a package came today, for no reason other than my parents love us and miss us, we were quite happy.

Clothes for Maxine, Horyon and myself. A very cool stone box for Horyon, a CD of kids music that is not at all annoying for Maxine, and a Jayhawk pen for me. The pen plays the closing strains to K.U.'s fight song, "I'm a Jayhawk" when you press the end. At first I thought that it would be annoying hearing that every time I opened or closed the pen, then I realized that it's a twisty pen, so I will only hear the song when I forget that it's not a click pen.

I am already collecting music for Maxine. I'm hoping that the larger her collection is, the less likely she will be to listen to the same annoying CD over and over and over again. I know, it's a vain hope. But I am also hoping to avoid having seriously annoying music in the collection.

The CD Mom and Dad sent me (sorry, I meant Maxine) is Folk Playground by Putumayo Kids. Putumayo is (apparently) a world music label. This CD is a lot of fun for me to listen to. Doesn't bother Maxine, either. I hope that when she gets older she actually likes it, because I could live with listening to it a few hundred times. It's a mix of modern and traditional American folk music for kids, from "Polly Wolly Doodle" and "This Old Man" to "Got No Strings" (from Pinochio) and stuff written since I was born. It all has an acoustic feel to it, as well as a "come on, sing along with me!" vibe. Songs you'd sing around the campfire with a guitar (or banjo) if you had a fire and a guitar and knew how to play.

If you look around a bit on the Putumayo site, you can find a link to their radio show, which you can listen to on the 'net. Right now I'm listening to a Nelson Mandela tribute. Of course, I can't understand the lyrics, but the announcer talks about the songs between tracks. I'm thinking this is a good label to look into.

Well dang. I started this post more than a week ago and forgot about it. Sorry about that. It's going up now.