I neglected to mention last week that I received an e-mail from my aunt which included pictures of my cousin Ben. They met up somewhere in Europe for a week or so to visit.

For those who don’t know, my cousin Ben is in the Peace Corps, and has spent the past two years since he graduated from college in Kyrgyzstan (Yeah, it’s been two years and I still hesitate over the spelling of Kyrgyzstan). He’ll be coming home this winter, at which point, I’m not quite sure what he’s going to be doing.

I was disturbed to learn that Ben had been mugged on 4 July, although I have to be honest, I wasn’t particularly surprised. Kyrgyzstan is as much Asian as Russian, and I figure that a six-foot something blonde really sticks out. He wasn’t seriously hurt, although he had a black eye, and was still pretty sore by the time they saw him, but was otherwise good.

I’m very curious as to what he’ll be doing when he returns. He’d talked about going to graduate school, but I can also see him signing up for another tour of duty. In his most recent pictures–despite the black eye–he looks like a young college professor, which is what I suspect he will end up being. Teaching is, I think, in our blood–both side of the family for both of us–and if he’s even a little bit like his father, I know he’ll make an excellent professor/teacher.

As I said, I’m curious to see what he actually does, though it also wouldn’t surprise me if he ended up becoming a priest. Apparently he and my cousins ended up with the faith that I lost.

But I can’t wait for him to come back, to actually be able to talk to him. Since he graduated high school I’ve barely seen him, except at large family gatherings, so it’s sometimes a shock to realize he’s no longer my kid cousin who wandered around the farm naked. I’m pretty sure I’ll like the grown-up just as well if not better.