Wednesday, May 6, 2009

To America and Back

Life here has its extreme ups and downs (to be expected)! I had a three day weekend because Friday was ‘workers day’ so I went to the city Thursday night and met up with some friends for dinner….good Italian food. Completely felt like I was in America. Spent the night at a friends house stayed up late talking and enjoyed using a toilette and taking a real shower. Friday, was spent at the peace corps office doing work and just enjoying some friend times. That night we went to a Tapas place (Spanish food)…the atmosphere is kind of like the coffee shop with books and couches and american magazines! (its owned by an American) Friday night is music night and all the forigners come in to meet people. The later it got the more dancing we did (the fun kind, like we do at formal).

I met a lot of new ex-pats and found out what they were doing here, which was nice. Well, I met a few people who told me, I would never do peace corps, I don’t work for free…

Saturday we went to lunch and then go invited to go to the marines house. (there are 5 marines that are assigned to the US embassy to protect it). They live in a house (aka bomb shelter/ mansion) in the compound of the US embassy. They have a pool, volleyball court and basketball court outside. On the inside is a gym, living area (with a big screen tv and 400 movies), a full running bar with diet coke and margarita maker, a game room with pool and fuseball, a laundry room with 2 washers and 2 dryers and tide, a dining room, a kitchen with 4 fridges and two stoves (all filled with American food), and of course in every corner a security camera. Up stair is all their rooms…no one is allowed up there. Super fun. So basically all day Saturday was spent watching pineapple express and twilight and walking around the house with no shoes and drinking water out of the faucet! Seriously…it was just like the movie Richie Rich. When his friends don’t know how to handle all his stuff. That night we got in a bomb proof suburban and went to the club…it was fun, but disturbing at the same time. Prostitution happens all the time here and its sick to see these old white men kissing on their girl they bought for the night. No wonder some people here don’t like white people. We woke up before 8am the next day and did our shopping and met
up with other volunteers for lunch. Then back to the US embassy were we made carrot cake, chicken, rice and creamed corned! ...all American style! But before that, they brought us to the market so we could translate for them. Lol. I did not make it home until 11pm which after dark here; transportation gets expensive and sketchy! I just closed my eyes and prayed for a safe ride!


Work has been fun the past 3 days: i pretty much live for teaching english, with only chalk and a chalkboard! My students (actually they are my co-worker and friends) here are soo eager to learn, never in america would you see such determination and concentration in the classroom, but at the same time so much fun! ALSO, never in America would you see me teaching english! lol i am working on getting some resources sent from America so pray that comes through!

i finally have a bed after 2.5 weeks of sleeping on the floor, i finally had a great nights sleep!

Thats all for the day! have a wonderful day!