Saturday, October 11, 2008

A Day in the Life

10/9/08

Hey there fan club:) Say, that’s a nice way to look at this! Sorry but I just don’t have that much to talk about so far this week. Plus, I confess I’ve been working on a super long letter to someone and it’s put my time for blogging to shame. But, in true Betsy form, I’m sure I can find something to talk about so here goes:)

My Day In a Nutshell:

Since there isn’t really anything new going on I’ll take up space talking about the everyday annoying things here. Today was kind of interesting I guess. I woke up and went running (I have to get up at 5:45 to have time to run and shower before breakfast so I can eat with Kirses, my “sister” here), came home and took a “shower” (bucket bath or course with cold water), got dressed and doused myself with the first of three applications of bug spray for the day, and was greeted with pancakes for breakfast, yum! The past few days my family has just been feeding me bread (pretty much since I didn’t eat the hot dog- chicken noodle soup for breakfast) and I can’t help but feel like they’re annoyed with making food now. It works out ok though because I just bought a package of crackers and peanut butter and mangos to sustain me plus I haven’t been having a “hungry” week.

So, anyways, I next head to Darryl’s house because I seem to remember having some Spanish homework but it escaped me as to what it was. The day before we went to a family planning clinic in Santo Domingo (where I pretty much spaced out the whole time since it was in Spanish and it overloaded my brain to think that long in Spanish) and I bought this neat looking ready-to –eat pineapple. They cut it all fancy pantsy, to me it looked like pineapple on the cob, but I had eaten a lot of fruit so I decided to save it for the next day. So, the next day- today, I did my homework at Darryl’s house and enjoyed my pineapple on the cob while making a huge, juicy mess as usual. It was delicious and Darryl took a picture of it for me:) I put a link up to the right that leads to my myspace profile where a bunch of pictures are if you want to take a look.

After my wonder treat it was off to Spanish class and about half way though I realized I forgot something very important. A few days ago I bought what I thought was laundry soap to wash my clothes in and thought since I had extra time in the morning that I would wash my underwear. The directions said to put the clothes in a bucket with water and let them soak for like 10 minutes. Well, I remembered that I left them soaking but it was about 2 hours after they had been in the soapy water, ekk! Then my Spanish teacher tells me what I bought isn’t even soap, it’s more like Downy fabric softener!! Which I guess is good because my ropa interior was anything but soft, it felt kind of crusty- washing stuff by hand will do that.

When I got home I was going to take care of the super Downy smelling clothes but I’ve been so tired that I completely forgot. I told my Dona I would just eat later and went to bed. It wasn’t exactly restful because the lights went out about 30 minutes later and so goodbye fan. It’s ok though, I have developed coping mechanisms and I didn’t even sweat. (well, either that or I’m dehydrated…) Sadly, my coping mechanisms haven’t’ developed enough for me to sleep well so two hours later I had slept for maybe 45 minutes. Then when I was trying to get out of my mosquitero there were like 6 mosquitoes on my net, right where I needed to un-tuck it to get out!! I couldn’t get out because I didn’t want them in my net! They can live up to a month with me as their buffet every night, no thank you! So, I un-tucked a teeny bit and grabbed my bug spray (always close) and sprayed the perimeter of my bed. In the time I had my net open, a mosquito got in so I had to stay in my net until I could catch her in the air and kill her, no easy task with these super mosquitoes here. My victory reminded me that I had my clothes still soaking about 7 hours longer than recommended so I went to deal with that. Three buckets of rinse water later, I figured they were as rinsed as they could be and set them in the sun to dry figuring that should take some of the smell from them. Besides, when things don’t dry in the sun, they smell.

When I walked out to the living room my Dona was there to greet me, and so was lunch which had been sitting on the table for over 2 hours. It was chicken and rice with corn. I ate the rice and fed the chicken to the cats. In the meantime I was supposed to meet up with my Spanish group so we could set up plans for our next and final CBT presentation for next week. Darryl came to my house to see where I was and inform me that there was a big fight going on past his house so we couldn’t walk by anyways. It worked out well for me because I was working on that long letter.

After a little while we went to the park to meet Kenzie who had been waiting for about 45 minutes but wasn’t upset because we are on Dominican time after all. Plus, I brought a mango as a peace offering. There were two other girls there and we all sat around and talked about lots of different things, sometimes even our Spanish homework that we were supposed to be doing. After an hour or so it started to rain which was nice because it cooled everything off and gave us more of a reason to sit there even longer. After a tough afternoon we decided to go to the river, well I decided to walk to my house while they went to the river, but we made plans for them to meet up at my house later for some more mango.

When I got home I found all my underwear neatly stacked on the fan in my room. The problem with this is that the clothes were wet from the rain (since they were still outside supposed to be drying), and they were on top of the fan that which I noticed this morning had dead flies hanging from it. So much for the sun making them smell clean, now they’re stinky and have dead bugs in them. At least the rain rinsed them a little better. My room still smelled overwhelmingly like fabric softener though, cosas de la vida I guess.

After that the other PCTs all ended up at my house somehow and we hung out for a while. Then I worked on my letter more, read Newsweek some since it’s my only source of outside news (although I don’t really have a clue what its talking about, I figure its like Spanish and eventually I’ll catch on) Later my Dona asked me what I want for dinner. Generally this happens and when I say what I would like she says oh, how about this…. And that’s what I get. So, I’m not sure why she asks. Tonight she asked with the same enthusiasm as a kid in a circus and a huge smile, “How about bread!?” Mmmm- bread again, can’t wait! I asked if she sill had mac n cheese and she did so I narrowly avoided another meal of bread. It tasted weird this time though so maybe next time I should just eat the bread, after all it is wheat bread. After all that, I wrote in my blog a little, as you can see, and then it’s time to shower by lantern while the mosquitoes feast on me. After that, who knows? Sex in the City? I have to say, season 4 is pretty good and I can watch a couple episodes before my battery dies. (remember the lights go out around 8:30) Once I’m in my mosquito net there’s no leaving until 5:45 am so I better make sure everything I need is in my bed!

Interesting comments recently:

Darryl: “I think my plate this morning that had my breakfast on it had a bugar too. (spell check doesn’t like the word bugar, did I spell it wrong?) I just ate around it, it’s amazing how far I’ve come. I used to be a bit of a germ-a-phob (spell check doesn’t like this either) in the States.”

Jessica: “Yeah? Well, my site has electricity, twenty four hour electricity” (we have to clarify that here in the DR and that’s something to envy for sure!)

Kenzie: “My Dad told me he found this thing for like $180 that he can send me so I’ll be able to watch whatever tv they watch at home wherever I am. I just need internet. Thanks Dad.” (If we had internet at home wouldn’t we have tv?)

PCT : “The mosquitoes that bite are all females so I really can’t call them basterds anymore. Bitches doesn’t sound strong enough so I call them Fuckers. That’s what they deserve, Fuckers.” (so true, these are some type of evolved super mosquito here. If I ever would drop the f bomb and not feel bad about it, this would be when.)

On that note, I hope you enjoyed a day in the life of Betsy. For not having much to talk about I still managed to write 4 pages, thanks for the genes Dad! To everyone, the next time you squish a mosquito, please dedicate its death to a PCV and remember to mentally celebrate. One for the team, go you! And as always, feel free to send me a note telling me of anything new in your lives. How are things at BCHD? Also, I heard that Uncle Greg and Karen moved into a new house? That’s exciting, congrats; I’d love to see some pictures!! Hope you’re all doing well there, I miss you all.

Love


B

PS: We went to the PC office yesterday but they had taken our mail to the training center in another part of town so we weren’t able to get it. It looks like I won’t be able to get anything until a week from Sunday or Monday (so either the 19th or 20th). So for those of you who sent something, don’t worry about it maybe being lost since I haven’t mentioned that I received it. It may be waiting for me but I won’t be able to check for a while. And Dad, I’m only moving to one more town so feel free to send me anything you want, I don’t mind really:) Yes, a flashlight is something I can still use since the one you shake (the one I have) is not really efficient. I can buy the common stuff like flashlights here in country though. I’m hoping when I get to my site (which is just three weeks from today, ekkk!!) and have some freedom I’ll be able to get out some and pick up some stuff I need. So don’t worry too much about it and save some cash (or of course feel free to donate it to my bank account:)

2 comments:

batteredbugs said...

Bummer Butts Bets!
No comments posted on Ur last 2 posts??? Yet... :) Well, Dad here to save the day! I'm on my 5th day of this infernal Levaquin anti-biotic that the Dr.'s put me on and only have a few more left to go. I'm still not handling the hallucinations very well, or the mental disconnect that goes along with it. Thank heavens that I at least have the computer each morning to tell me what day and date it is, for some reason all the calendars I have hanging around here don't seem to help me with that a bit! In the meantime work progresses onward here. The gym roof has now been completely stripped down, all the blisters in the old roof have been axed open, dried out, and patch sealed with a polyester membrane and adhesive, and is finally ready to receive it's complete new roof. So, now that everything's been sealed up up there, even though we're not going to beat our next bout of rain out here with the installation of the new materials, we should now be "high & dry"... And with this levaquin in me I think I've got the "high" part all handled. Bizzare medication, just like the acid trips from the 60's. I must appologize for all of my sensless ramblings here, but that's just kinda the way things have been for me since they put me on this stuff. It's 4:45am here now, but I'm awake already and hungry again!?! Or at least I think, but am not really totally sure about that, as I am not sure about most things right now! Except that I've succeeded in processing a few more tons of firewood for the woodburner that's already perched inside on the wood caddy in the now nice dry gym awaiting our next rainfall session and cold front to come through tonight/tomorrow... And we're ready for it! :) As well as ready to stay inside and watch "Starz" & "HBO" movies on the new big screen TV when it does hit us... If only I could remember what any of those movies were the last several days while on this medication! This really sucks, I can't even remember what it was that I was watching the night b4! But Sammy's stepped up to the plate and recorded some of the really good shows, but I don't remember watching any of them either, so it's absolutely no use. If that makes any sense either right now. At least the boys are telling me that my "acid trips" the last 2 days were good ones b/c I was smiling, which hasn't been the case with this stuff so far, or at least of what I can remember of them. The Dr. also put me on predinosone to help damper some of the crazy side effects of this stuff, and the benadryl I'm taking constantly is supposed to help that too, but I'm not to sure about all that either. Only 3 more days of this stuff and I'll finally be done with it... I hope. The doc says that if this doesn't do the trick for me that I will have bought myself 3 more weeks of this anti-biotic therapy, and I really don't think I could handle that very well at all. Even just walking requires all of the mental acuity I can muster, and I'm not even sure I'm doing all that well with just that! The other night the "boys" said that they saw me just standing in the hall and staring at the brick wall, for quite a while!?! They were all laughing at me for several minutes b4 I actually turned toward them in response to their laughter, and then began to slowly trudge towards them in my zombie like state. This stuff's just nasty. Well, sorry to clutter up Ur blog space with this zany comment mostly about me, but I thought U might like to know. I do enjoy your ramblings about Ur experience over there... That is when I'm able to actually read and comprehend them, which has been a bit of a trick lately, much less typing U up a comment to post! I've had to re-read these last 2 a couple of times during my clearer moments between medication doses just to get things this far. So crazy. Well, I hope U get as much of a kick reading about all of this lunacy as I've had in composing it to U... If that makes any sense either! So, on that note Lil' Doodles, I'm going to sign off once again b4 the stuff gets to deep for either of us to free ourselves from it's clutches. But, just in case U find Urself bored, and with an internet connection, and maybe even a little leftover battery life on Ur laptop, here's a website of posts by other levaquin "victims" that I'm sure U'll find quite interesting and amusing...www.medications.com/effect/tag/levaquin 750 mg. Oh ya, and on another note, it sure is great to have Booker back in our midsts again, but I'm just not so sure about all of the pretenses surrounding his arrival back here. I do hope that U and John might be able to iron things out a bit and achieve some sort of mutual agreement, understanding, or common ground. And I'm not trying to make Ur decisions 4 U or anything like that, Ur a big girl now and I'm sure that whatever decision U make in that matter will be tempered by wisdom, logic, and of course love. I sure do like him myself b/c not only is he so capable, but from what I can remember, also so into U. He sure seemed like a really great guy to me, especially when compared to the majority of the useless,doting masses that seem so prevalent out there now-a-days. But I'm sure that whatever U finally decide there that it will be the right decision and I'll support U there whatever that might be. It's all kind of a shame b/c U really don't need any emotional discord thrown atop Ur already fragile situation in your new place out there. Wishin', hopin', and praying only the best for U out there kid. Know that everyone else out here is behind U 110% in support of Ur effort. Keep up the good work.
Love,
Dad

Boone County Health Department said...

Hey Betsy! Mary Alice here. We're finally getting around to setting up a group access to your blog so anyone here at BCHD can post a comment. Things are going well here although kind of quiet now that you're gone. We've also lost Merry Lynn (you probably knew that one), Melody, and Maria from the front desk. There is a flea complaint waiting for someone (like you) to investigate. I'm going to be doing more food inspections since everything else is soooo sloooow. Everyone in Environmental today says "Hi", which is just Chris and me. Everyone else is out. I'm sure they send their love and greetings too, though. I've been trying to keep up with your blog but you write so darn much! It makes me laugh a lot 'cause you write just like you talk. CC's sister had her baby- a healthy girl. And ohh yeah! I'm pregnant too!! My due date is May 1, 2009 (you probably could've guessed the year). I think this is a long enough comment now, so I'll be signing out. Miss you lots!