Time Flies When You're Having a Crazy Foreign Experience

I've been here a year already. Say what?! I know, it's hard to believe. Everyone says that the second year goes by faster than the first; well that's pretty much impossible because this one flew by.

For the past couple of months I've been stuck in a rut here in site. I guess it's that time of my service where I get depressed and question everything and blah blah blah. It's also summer and people here have wanted to do as little work as possible; that includes not working with me. So I've spent a lot of time working on my house. I have a shower finally and yesterday my boyfriend and I built the cement floor for my latrine. Once it fully cures in 2 weeks well slap it over the hole that's already been dug and build a little house for it. So, after living in my house for 6 months, it'll finally be complete! I also have a beautiful garden that many people have come over to admire. When I suggest that they too could have a linda garden they tell me it's impossible during the summer. Yes, they are normally standing right next to my flourishing garden when they say this.

It's frustrating. I wonder why I'm here if no one wants to work with me. But it's not me they don't want to work with; they just don't want to work. I get it, it's hot. I don't really want to work either. I have also not really enjoyed sitting on my butt doing nothing for 3 months. I've felt worthless and unnecessary here.

I was a little inspired yesterday as we were building my losa (cement floor for latrine). Several neighbors came over wondering what the heck we were doing and after seeing the finished project and the fact that 2 people (1 was a girl for heaven's sake!) did it in 2 hours, have expressed interest in building losas for their latrines. This is great because I've used some of these latrines and some are just a board or two over a 2 meter pit of poop. Diseases and flies fester, not to mention the smell is awful.

Like I mentioned before, school is scheduled to start on February 23. We've had great weather, rainy and cool, so hopefully it won't be delayed because of heat or anything. At the end of last school year, the director expressed interest in reviving the school garden, which right now is just a fenced-in jungle, so that will be quite the task. This year I'll be working in both the escuela basica (pre-k - 6th grade) and the colegio (7th-9th grade) so I'll have more kids to teach and different topics (adding drug addiction, self-esteem, etc).

So it's been a rough couple of months but I've made it a year so far and I'm looking forward to 15 more months of this crazy life called Peace Corps.