2 Days in the Life of...

First of all, Happy Halloween! I hope you all had a wonderful one. I'm not celebrating, at all. They have it here, but it's not a deal in the campo (countryside) where I live. I have however done other stuff and decided to update my blog with a list of things I've done the last two days. I received a comment on Facebook to my video that this person would like to see a video of the day in the life of a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer). I don't have that, yet, so I've decided to do the next best thing.

Yesterday, Friday, October 30, 2009:

6:30am: Wake up

6:40am: Read the newspaper online and eat breakfast

7:00am: Chat with mom for a bit over the internet

7:27am: Bucket bath

8:00am: Arrive at Alcaldía to leave for a farm

8:45am: Leave for farm

9:30am: Arrive at farm

9:35am: Start tour of farm where Israel grows bananas (4 types), coffee, mango, oranges, tomatoes, coconut, lemon, watermelon, sugar cane, hot peppers, jalepeños,plantains, papaya, zapote (no English word), beans (3 types), and matizano (no English word)

10:40am: Go inside Israel's home, eat some fresh bananas (check'd off the list of things to do before I die), and eat some blue boiled bananas from the Caribbean with an orange drink.

11:00am: Driver received call that his daughter had an emergency and was on the way to the hospital

11:30am: Arrive at Alcaldía (notice the 15 minutes less time, we cooked it)

11:33am: Talk with my friend from Mexico for a minute about soccer

11:40am: Eat sugar cane with others from the cane Israel gave me

11:50am: Explain that I don't eat animals, eggs, or dairy to Catholics because I want to live how they did in the Garden of Eden.

11:55am: Help move tables behind the City Hall - the office closes for the mayor's birthday.

12:00pm: Go inside and surf the net about the harm rodeos cause animals while people eat dead crabs. Eat some more fresh bananas.

12:25pm: Go outside and join the party after most everyone is done consuming crabs in soup.

1:10pm: Pass on cake because it has eggs

1:15pm: Accept some of the rum everybody's drinking / dance

1:45pm: Mayor opens gifts including a pair of women's undies with "Arena" (conservative political party) patched on

2:00pm: Go inside. Party is done and the City Hall (Alcaldía) is open

2:10pm: Convince others I work with to help me, this Sunday, to clean out the drain near the bridge on the road so water will drain.

2:11pm: Decide to help them clean the cemetery for a celebration this Monday.

2:15pm: Leave for cemetery.

2:2opm: Arrive at cemetery and begin cleaning up the old fake flowers and used cans (coffee cans, infant milk cans, plastic soda bottles, etc.) they used to put the flowers in last year. Watchpeople scrub off some of the graves.

3:40pm: Leave the cemetery.

3:45pm: Arrive at Alcaldía and empty the truck into the garbage truck that always sits in the back of the Alcaldía.

4:00pm: Leave for home with my friend's bike

4:02pm: Run into someone I know and live by while I'm buying some breakfast food.

4:10pm: Convince an 11 year old girl that is the daughter of my landlord that it's not a good idea to litter and have her pick up her plastic water bag she just threw on the ground.

4:15pm: Arrive at home.

4:20pm: Play with neighbor kids - baseball (way better than soccer, IMO, I'm better at it)

4:45pm: Play with parrot. Hold parrot. Scream and get rid of the parrot when it bites me REALLY hard and draws blood.

5:00pm: Eat dinner: bean soup (red beans, water, salt) and tortillas while listening to NPR News

6:00pm: It's dark. No more going outside

6:01pm: Listen to podcasts about animals and research vivisection. Spend some time on Facebook and looking at e-mails. Think about the poor animals. Chat with mom.

10:00pm: Mom calls. Talk to her on the phone.

11:11pm: I'm beat, up way too late. Go to bed without reading.

Today, Saturday, October 31,2009:

9:45am: Wake up and get out of bed. It's HOT in my house!

10:00am: Eat breakfast and dink around on internet

10:10am: Wash dishes, decide not to do laundry today.

12:00pm: Eat lunch: beans, corn tamales, squash, and tortillas.

1:00pm: Go outside and check on my worms - they've been inundated with maggots!

1:01pm: Take down worm bin and dump bucket onto some plastic I saved.

1:20pm: Put part with the most worms and no maggots in a guacal (big bowl thing)

1:35pm: Feed maggots to chickens - they love 'em.

1:40pm: Clean out the bucket at the pila.

1:50pm: Put worms back in bucket and hang.

2:20pm: Notice that the stacking option for Leopard isn't working on my computer.

2:30pm: Download a program to customize and restore the dock options - SuperDocks.

4:00pm: Plant some sugar cane with my neighbor

4:45pm: Help my neighbor put up some more sticks across some trees for the chickens to roost> in at night

5:10pm: Eat dinner: bean soup and tortillas

5:30pm: Update blog

To the right, in the last photos you can see the process of planting the sugar cane, in the back yard. We'll likely have some sugar next July. I'm stoked to watch 'em grow.

Happy Halloween! It's creepy because all the dogs are howling for the first time ever. Spooky.