Sweezy Lake. Yep, that's the name of the
place: "Swee-zeee." Pronounced just like it's spelled. Sweezy is a
tiny lake in a tiny town whose name I've forgotten. For a couple of
summers when I was a kid, my parents had a cottage on that lake. …
I'm not sure this place would meet anyone's highfalutin
expectations of a summer home. The dumpy yellow house had a kitchen
almost big enough to turn around in, provided you were alone. And
slim. And not carrying anything. And the back porch had nary a
rocker. There was the red-and-green couch from the house my parents
lived in before I was born, and I think I remember a card table
with assorted chairs. … At Sweezy Lake, we kids ran around covered
in dirt, hyped up on grape sodas and hot dogs. We'd burp the
alphabet loudly. (I never got past E in one belch. I'm quite
dainty.) Our cottage at Sweezy Lake had a three-seat outhouse, the
first I'd ever encountered (and the only one I've seen since). I
could never understand why three people might decide to take a
sit-down in an outhouse together. … At Sweezy … my brothers taught
me to fish. For me, fishing meant waiting for a hook with a worm
already attached, and holding the fishing pole until it got a tug.
Then I'd shriek for someone to "get the fish, get the fish!"
Someone would take the pole and reel in the three-inch-long
sunfish. … After a few days straight of
swimming in the lake and
drying in the sun, we'd get a bit rank. So Dad would toss us kids
into the boat with a bottle of shampoo, and we'd head over to the
sandy-beach area of the lake. I don't know how clean we could
possibly get by bathing in lake water, but that counted as bath
time. After so many years, Sweezy Lake remains a snapshot in my
mind.
-
Amie Wyrostek,
San Antonio, Texas
The West African nation of Guinea-Bissau.
Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest nations on earth and lacks a
tourist industry, which makes travel there adventurous and
different than in other locations. Throughout my life, I'd never
given much thought to
Africa. All I knew about it were the pyramids
and mummies in
Egypt, and that Stanley found Livingston in the
jungle, Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding shot an elephant in his
pajamas (how it got in his pajamas I'll never know), the armies of
Patton and Rommel fought there, and Humphrey Bogart told Sam to
"play it again" in
Casablanca. …
Guinea-Bissau changed my whole concept of Africa in general and of
the plight of the impoverished in particular. Outside the city of
Bissau, people live in grass houses. Children and women walk a
mile or more to fetch a few bucketfuls of water and then walk back
to their homes so they have water for cooking and washing. People
traverse land contaminated with deadly munitions of war, just to
pick the delicious cashew fruit for their meals or to farm a small
plot where they grow crops. Forget about what we consider life's
essentials: plumbing,
electricity, the Internet, and watching CSI.
The people there endure what we know to be extreme hardships, but
they're not unhappy or bitter. The people in Guinea-Bissau are
friendly and quick to smile. … What brought me to Guinea-Bissau is
the need there for expertise in destroying the military munitions
scattered throughout the country: bombs, rockets, and projectiles
remaining from the various armed conflicts and military occupations
that Guinea-Bissau (like many African and Asian nations) has
endured. … The country is special to me because it has a unique
need that I can help fill, and in the coming months and years,
Guinea-Bissau will become a better place for its citizens. - Dennis
Hackenberger,