2012: the year of surprises!

In my last post I mentioned just how much I enjoy the day-to-day surprises that make Peace Corps the unique experience that it surely is.  I am happy to report that [re: surprises] 2012 is most certainly not going to disappoint!

Surprises thus far:

ü  Darkness: I arrived back at my little fale [house] in January to find that my electricity had been disconnected. Oiaue! [Yikes!] No sweat.  This just meant a week of lots of ‘community integration’ and reading by candle light.  Fyi: showering by candle light is tricky. 

ü  Mice: I was also received at my humble abode by the colony of mice that have taken up residence.  …alright, that might be a bit melodramatic, but there are definitely some kumā [mice] that are frequenting my house.  I feel a bit like the neighborhood wacko jumping around with my broom chasing them away.  There are multiple plans in the works to drive them away…so far they’ve outsmarted me.  I’ll keep you updated.

ü  Cyclones!: What was supposed to be day 1 of school turned out to be our first cyclone of the season.  Luckily, it was pretty small as cyclones go.  Lots of banana trees were blown over, but most houses didn’t sustain much damage.  We did, however, lose power for three days.  I have pretty much depleted my candle supply at this point.

Bugs:  Despite hiding all my food within supposedly airtight ziploc bags, creatures managed to creep on in to my oatmeal supply.  On a recent morning, I was gazing sleepily into my bowl of oats only to be greeted by little black creepy crawlies enjoying their own breakfast.  Oiaue!  [I'm used to eating an occasional ant, but these unidentified intruders are not part of my diet plan.  Right now, it is summertime here and the weather seems to be encouraging ridiculous bug populations.  I think I share my house with about 50 unique species of ants and a constant parade of cockroaches!!!  

That’s it for surprises thus far…. I am fairly certain there will be more to come!

Over and out.