Patience in the Peace Corps….
Takes on a whole new level of meaning…
WAITING. I don’t think I have ever spent as much time WAITING in my life as I have here…
WAITING for the school year to start…which it eventually did 2 weeks late…
WAITING for people to show up to meetings…typically 30-45 minutes late…sometimes an hour or two…
WAITING for class to begin—which meetings often cut into or completely cancel without any notice…
WAITING for someone to schedule your big meeting so you can work on a big project/great opportunity for the community….currently still WAITING…been waiting 3 weeks….
WAITING for one person to sign a form for a friend’s project…I have been every day this week—sometimes twice a day--- to pick up a piece of paper for another volunteer…every day I am told it is not there but to come back tomorrow at a different time..WAITING now for 4 days…
WAITING WAITING WAITING….let’s just say, I read a lot. And am slowly learning to not get so frustrated about these things, but it’s hard. I would like to plan other activities, DO things with my time, but how can you make new plans when you already have plans even though you know the plans you already have probably aren’t really going to happen? Welcome to the life of a PCV!
MY 5 DOLLAR PILLOW
So, we recently had our MID SERVICE—that’s right! MID SERVICE Medical appointment. It went smoothly, no big issues, no cavities etc. I told the nurse that my neck has been bothering me for a couple months on one side. She felt it for a few seconds and declared it safe—suggested I buy a real pillow from the fancy grocery store near the office. For those of you who don’t live here, pillows are pretty dang hard to come by—especially out in our little town. If they exist, they are usually pillow cases stuffed with balls of sorts etc. So, I followed her advice. I bought my close to five dollar pillow in Managua—and I AM SO ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE WITH MY PILLOW. I can’t believe I haven’t done this sooner…We’ll see if it helps the neck joint or not, but man oh man, I have never loved a pillow so much!
The Maternity Ward
As many of you know, our host sister here just had her little baby girl, Nicole or Nicolita. Well, before she arrived, I spent a Saturday night in the maternity ward at the hospital here in our little town. It was a small room with about 6 or 7 cots in it. A few little fans…which when the power goes out here, of course, they don’t work. There were about 7 women in there, all looking ready to pop. And it was so hot! But, I don’t know how to explain it, there was just this overwhelming feeling of happiness in that room despite what many of us at home would consider “tough conditions”. Despite the fact that the women were discussing whether or not the doctor would actually arrive to deliver because there was a holiday that week----so maybe they have to wait a few more days---no one knew…. But as we sat around and chatted and shared food and coffee, I got that awesome feeling again…the feeling that this is something special…that my being welcomed into such a personal part of these women’s lives so openly and warmly is pretty incredible. And the smile spreads wide across my face, and I think, yes, this is what life is all about.
WORK
Haven’t had much of it lately…No class for a variety of reasons…sort of makes me crazy…and lazy…and out of practice with having good practices. Now I am a little nervous about our next “site visit” or when one of our bosses comes allllll the way out here to watch our classes and see how we’re doing.
On the plus, Matt got a gig working a camp at the US Embassy in December. He will be teaching Nicaraguans who are studying to be English teachers. Pretty cool.
RAIN
Still not as rainy as I expected rainy season to be…but we hear October is the worst. Recently it has started raining HARDER. So hard that the gutters on our tin roof can’t handle the flow and our house pretty much floods. Well, just the hallway so it’s all good. We almost have enough buckets to catch it—and then we just sweep the few inches left over on out to the street.
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