January 19, 2009

a day in the life

I was writing an email to a friend of mine who wanted to know what is it that I do every day, and I thought it would be kind of interesting to do the same here. Behold, my day yesterday, a fairly typical Sunday:

7am- it was raining since before the sun came up, so I woke up to the noise of rain on my tin roof and to my dog´s nose nudging me awake through my mosquito net.
8am- ate some banana bread for breakfast and then took a chilly bucket bath}
9:15am- headed to the school for a meeting, but after waiting for an hour only 2 of 9 kids showed up because no one does anything here when it rains. so I went home.
10:15am- did the dishes, finished reading {the great railway bazaar}, walked the dog, worked on a friendship bracelet, and studied for the GREs.
12:30pm- ate lunch at my neighbors house, which was chicken, rice, beans that I think might be called pigeon peas in english, and some shredded cabbage of doubtful cleanliness, which probably explains the intense stomach pain I´ve been in for the past 18 hours. after lunch, I taught my neighbor, who happens to be one of my favorite people here, how to make a friendship bracelet.
2pm- went home and took a short nap
3pm- kids club meeting, so I read a few books to about 15 kids, talked about manatees, taught some english vocabulary related to aquatic animals, and supervised a baseball game.
4:30pm- walked around and got some information from two of the families that i am trying to help out with their kids´ birth certificates.
5:30pm- the mother of this little girl that I tutor who lives a few houses away had asked me to trim her daughter's hair, because apparently I have "good hair" so me cutting the daughters hair will somehow pass along the good hair vibe. so I did it.
6:30pm- went home and drank a can of dr. pepper, the only kind of soda i like besides root beer. put on some music and mopped my house, then shaved my legs over a bucket and filed my nails. dinner was not in the picture due to stomach ailment. studied some more GRE vocab and worked on an article a friend and I are writing for the volunteer magazine
9:15pm- brushed my teeth, washed my face, and read a little bit in bed. Sleep

So that´s a day in the life of Lily, Peace Corps Volunteer in the DR. Enthralling.