Hello Class of '68 !
Carol York told me about this website, and what a wonderful, fun place to visit -- REALLY well organized!! Kudos to the website development team. So as the Guestbook is open to 69ers as well, here goes...

As mentioned under my little article about Sid Case ("Classmates who have died"), I just bought my first house in my entire life in Fairfax Virginia, located right outside of Washington DC. It's a huge change for me, as I've lived overseas for most of the period between 1972 and 2007. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in South Korea (good choice for an Italian major!), then got my Masters at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont. That launched an 18-year career with CARE, which took me for one- to four-year assignments in South Korea, Tunisia, northern Pakistan, Somalia, Chad, the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros, Haiti, Mozambique (after the cease-fire was signed), Rwanda (right after the genocide), and Togo. I worked in a number of technical sectors: agroforestry, small enterprise development, family planning, emergency and refugee relief programs, and others. I returned to grad school for a Masters in Public Health at Tulane U. in New Orleans, but before starting the new career in international reproductive health, I took advantage of a six-month consultancy offer to North Korea. It was one of the most fascinating experiences of my life - I was able to travel all over the country monitoring river embankment rehabilitation projects, but was watched like a hawk by my "minders"! My hotel room was bugged, and there was a humongeous one-way mirror (which, for privacy's sake, I duly covered up with a humongeous map of North Korea...). After that, I worked in HIV/AIDS-related programs in Mali, Namibia, and Tanzania with different organizations. My parents' health deteriorated towards the end of '06, so after 2 1/2 years in Tanzania, I returned to the US to assist with their caretaking. They both passed away over the past year. It has taken me a bit to recover from their absence from my life, so I only recommenced the job search recently -- and at this point, it looks like I'll return to North Korea again for four months starting mid-July. I'm really looking forward to returning there, one-way mirrors and all! Fortunately, I've found a house-sitter for my newly-purchased house, so my daylillies and hostas won't shrivel and die.

I stayed with Christel Zumkeller (the AFS student who lived with my family in '67-68) in Germany way back in 1975. Google told me that she's currently working for the UN Commission for Climate Change in Germany. We haven't been in touch for years, though.

Finally, I've been an avid scuba diver for the past 35 years, and am a semi-professional underwater photographer. I do most of my diving in Indonesia, which (for now) has relatively unspoiled, gorgeous marine landscapes. I still [stubbornly] haven't gone digital yet, however. Consequently, my dive friends nicknamed me "Relic".

I hope you all have a wonderful reunion! Maybe I'll see some of you when the Class of '69 holds its 40th next year...!

Chris(ty) Gavitt