10 Unexpected Joys of my site:
1. Discovering how much fun bucket bathing
is
I know, I
know. It sounds kind of weird, right? I get to fill up my bucket from a tank of
rain water next to my bathroom, then use the bucket and a hollowed out
coconut(calabash) to bathe with. I kind of love it a lot. I thought I would
hate the fact that there's not running water, but it makes every day feel a
little more like an adventure, which I totally dig.
2. HAVING INTERNET
Let's face
it. I have an addiction. Whatsapp is my new favorite thing because I can
message people from home for freezies. You should definitely try to add me on
there. Send me a message on Facebook or email or something with your number if
you want to chat on there c: I'm not an expert on it, but I think we should be
able to figure it out. Seriously, living next to a cell receptor is kind of
amazing. I remember being terrified I wouldn't have any form of communication
home aside from high speed iguanas, but the communication is worlds better than
I thought it would be when I pictured hinterland.
3. Frog in my tea cup
When making
tea in the morning, there is a very short list of what I expect to find in my
cup. Mostly air. And sometimes a dead ant or some water. But adorable, itsy
bitsy, green frogs are not high on my list. Well, I guess they are now because
I always check my cup BEFORE I pour water into it. I really don't think either
the frog or I would enjoy finding out what frog tea tastes like.
4. Speed boats
Read that
first word again. And again. Speed. Sometimes, if you get the right driver, you
go sooooooo fast. And I love it. You know how I like sticking my head out car
windows? Yeah, a boat has no windows, and so that wonderful air in the face
sensation is EVERYWHERE. I love it. Seriously. But you need to put on a ton of
sunscreen because if you're going fast you won't notice how hot the sun is
until you're all burned. Take it from one who knows. As I came into site I
totally forgot about my hands, and they got nice and crispy.
5. Knocking mangoes from trees
And then
eating them. Right then. Fresh. And delicious.
6. Filtering my own water
I really
wouldn't expect to enjoy this. And it's entirely possible the only reason I
enjoy it is because I have it conveniently right outside my room. It's neat to
see the process as it gets from the monumental rain to the drinkable water in
my filter.
7. Living in a rainforest
Not so much
unexpected, but it is gorgeous here. Coconuts, pineapples, mangoes, avocados,
passion fruit and bananas grow abundantly. Coffee also grows here but I haven't
seen much about the preparation process of that yet. Whenever I go for a walk I
end up wandering through massive amounts of vegetation. I love it. Things grow
so well here. In fact, they have to weed(and by weed I mean chop the business
out of most plants other than the trees) to keep them from running rampant.
8. Yogurt
Did you
know, if you purchase yogurt in the little individual serving containers it
requires no refrigeration? #thingsIlearnedinPeaceCorps
I do not have a refrigerator or an ice box so
this becomes pretty important. I do, however, have electricity that comes on at
night from a generator so I can still charge my business and have light.
Anyhow,
yogurt. It is delicious. I eat it with elation, with joy beyond bounds. Dairy
is hard to come by, and if it's not it's hard to keep cause it's hot hot hot
down here. Therefore, my source of yummy dairy is yogurt which I eat with corn
flakes for breakfast. It sounds weird until you try it. Then you'll understand.
9. Going to bed, relatively, early
When the
generator goes off between 8:30 and 9:30, there's not much else to do. I can
turn on my flashlight or mess around with my phone, but it's usually easier to
just go to bed. Doing this lets me wake up pretty early(6 or 6:30) and then
have time to exercise before I go off and do other stuff. So far I've been
exercising every morning which I'm very impressed with myself for. I think not
having a set routine yet and being able to make my own accounts for part of
that. Not to mention my #1 goal for joining Peace Corps was to get super
ripped. #sarcasm #whyamIusinghashtagsinmyblogthisisridiculous
10.The people
Before
leaving for Peace Corps there were a lot of things I was worried about. One of
the monstrous, doubt spewing, world shaking, worries was if I would become
friends with the people down here. Living in a foreign place, even with all the
support in the world from home, is hard if there's no support locally. Don't
get me wrong, it's totally doable, but that doesn't mean I would look forward
to two years with my only friends being far away.
Before I
came, getting an in country support network terrified me. How would I meet
people? How would we become friends? Would people like me? Would I like them?
Would our cultures get in the way? All these questions and more rattled around
my head. Who would think that the people here still love to laugh, and smile
and love just the same as me? Crazy, I know. It's been amazing meeting the
people I've met so far, and I cannot wait to meet more.
When I was
mentally preparing for Peace Corps, I never got sick of thinking about the
connections I would make, the lives I would touch, and how my life would be
touched. Even after only being here for 3 months, I already feel that my life
has been changed for the better through the people I've met. Two years is an
awfully long time, but when I think about the threads of friendship I'll weave,
it doesn't seem so long at all. (When I talk about these things I feel like I'm
standing up on my soap box preaching about Peace Corps. I hope it's not too
much. I for real want to show how much I appreciate all the people I've met and
giving them a shout out on here seems appropriate.)
What I've actually been doing here at site:
- Reading to children, mostly at the school. They seem to love it, and I love reading to them. Reading to a massive group of children is definitely what I pictured myself doing when I signed up for Peace Corps, so I can check that one off the list.
· Playing with children in the afternoon, again in hopes of meeting people. I now have a small crew of little girls who I adore. They are great. The boys who play football(soccer) enjoy laughing at us, because we are a rather comical team. It is wonderful.
· Lying in my hammock. It gets too hot to walk around all the time, so I sometimes read or write or plan my summer camp from my hammock.
· Planning literacy summer camps. I'll be running two literacy summer camps(July 21-25th), (August 18th-22nd) on two of the different islands here in Wakapoa(Myrie), (Massarie). I mentioned that I'd like to do summer camps to my head master and it sort of evolved from there. So far I've been working on it solo, even though I know I should be working with the teachers on it, because school just ended and it's hard to find a time to plan together with everyone. But, the teachers said they will help out with them, so maybe next year they can sort of take over and keep the summer camp thing going. I will keep you posted on this cause I'm really excited about it, but I'm not too sure how it's going to work out. I'm nervous about it, but it will be wonderful, I'm quite sure.
· Being the tallest person on my island. I checked around. I am the tallest. Unless someone really tall is hiding and I haven't met them yet. But I sure like being able to claim that I'm the tallest. It's a blast.
· Making lists about my experiences so far. I don't know why this blog post is so listy. It just works out that way.
· Having a deeper love and appreciation for: peanut butter, air conditioning/ fans, hot/not freezing cold showers (Seriously. Don't ever forget how wonderful these are), family, friendships, canned tuna, my guitar, and myself.
Love you all
lots and lots! I figured out a way to post my blogs weekly through elaborate
connection magic, so expect to see more of these in the future! If you have
anything you want to know specifically about, comment, email or send a high
speed iguana my way.
