Sin Verguenza

Hi guys,
Stinky nicky here, The aquaduct system broke in my mountain and so we have been getting water from the river, which doesn't flow at the point where we get the water from, I am dirty, Perla is dirty, my clothes are dirty, my ropa interior is dirty, the floors are dirty, we have to ration the water and it sucks, when will it be fixed, the world my never know.
Luckily next weekend mon thru fri i will be in the south staying with other volunteers and camping on the beach in Bahia de las Aguilas!!! wooo hooo its a fourth of july celebration!!!! Its supposed to be one of those beaches that have been untouched by resorts and human hands. I don't have a tent, like most people here, so i'll be setting up my mosquito net. i have a sleeping bag.
I'm getting really really excited to move out of my house which i will be doing promptly on August 1st!!! When we get water back i will go over and clean the house and find some men to pay to put a cement floor in the kitchen area.

Any ideas on what colors i should paint it? I was thinking canary yellow with bright blue trim, or pink with green trim... oh yea i'm living in the tropics we paint houses those colors. What'd ya think?

While i was on the jeep this morning coming down the mountain, it was packed with people and this lil girl had to pee so her mom emptied a plastic bag and pulled down her pants and she took a leak. Now thats what i call sin verguenza!!!!

love you all!!!!

ps i don't have Dengue!

SOOOOOOO, I have had to extend my stay in the capital for a day b/c there are strikes/riots in Santiago and the buses aren't traveling there today. There are about 5 volunteers that travel through there so we are all in the same boat. Thats alright tho, this way we can go to the pool at the embassy and our pc country director is taking us all out for lunch!!! I want a cheeseburger with fries. If the riots aren't over by tomorrow i will have to stay again.
Saturday night i went to the mambo concert and it was awesome. Both of Stephanies dominican flip flops broke and since i'm such a doll i let her wear one of mine, so in the morning i had one dirty foot and she had one dirty foot. But the concert was great, if anyone is interested in hearing the song thats my favorite its called Bombero by Omega. Download it. Omega is just awesome, seriously my world was at peace when i was dancing, i'm actually listening to the song right now, the guy next to me has it playing on his computer. And on the way to the beach yesterday it was playing on the bus. Oh and not only did i just have one shoe on at the concert but my fly on my jeans also broke so i was shaking my tail feather all night with my fly permenantly down. Needless to say those jeans are not going to be worn again.
Sunday it was girls day out at the beach in Juan Dolio. Really relaxing. And then last night we went to a casino a 10 minute walk away from the hostel. its really super fancy. I lost 40 pesos ($1.15) in the slot machines, my friend won 575 pesos at the blackjack table thats like $18. Mucho dinero in the peace corps salary mindset!
Thats all my news for today.
Love you all!

Fungus free is the way to be

So I'm at the peace corps office right now. Going to actually do some work. At the end of July I have to give a presentation and write a report about the interviews that I am supposed to be doing in the community, pretty much like a census. I have done 2 interviews so far which isn't enough (obviously), but I am having the youth group do the rest of them (98 more) in exchange for me teaching them English. I think its a pretty good deal. So today I must type up and print out the questions, so that they can start that.
Last night we went out for Mexican food. I had a quesadilla and a margharita. Pretty good stuff. Tonite we are going to a mambo concert. The band is called Omega and they are really perty good. Rock out!
There are alot of volunteers here so its been fun so far. Another PCV, RyRy is on his way to the capital now. But he has scabies so I don't want to touch him. Speaking of health schtuff I am offically fungus free!!! It took almost 4 months but I beat the fungus!!! Yippee
Ok I must begin my work now
LOVE YOU ALL
Ps Crimandos I mailed you a letter on monday. That means it could get to you in 2 weeks - 2 months. haha
Speaking of mail I still haven't recieved 2 packages from mom and dad and the one from Alesha. I'm ticked. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that they come eventually.

This week in Ranchito

Soooooooooo as you could tell by my last blog the week before was very frustrating. Let me just say this week was equally frustrating. Lola drives me crazy. She makes a good cake tho. And she is finally washing my clothes after 2 weeks. I'm starting to wonder tho why its always on the cloudy foggy days that she washes MY clothes.
I taught an English class on thursday, which wasn't very good b/c i'm not a teacher, i didn't even prepare anything, but i taught them "head and shoulders, knees and toes" and they enjoyed that.
But this weekend was pretty fun actually. Saturday night i went to a birthday party which i was positive it was going to be a bunch of people sitting around in a circle of chairs with no food and the women not drinking, but it was actually really fun. They had a merengue tipico band with the palo drums, acordian, maracas, and those cheese grater instruments, i forget what they are called, but i was so frustrated from having a sucky week that i just danced my lil heart out. It was really fun b/c i'm starting to get to know the people in the community so it wasn't like everyone was a stranger. Alot of my kids from the youth group were there and i really like them. I feel like they are starting to look up to me, so I am making sure I'm a good role model for them.

Last night I went to play pool in my town, which i didn't even know they had pool tables and i'm still trying to figure out how they got them up the mountain. but anyway, a fight broke out and I'm fine, it wasn't anywhere near me, but one guy had to go to the hospital, from what i gather his head got cut from a glass bottle. Now this sort of thing doesn't happen in Ranchito, its the talk of the town. And until the fight i was contimplating becoming a pool shark, but the table is on a slant and they don't have chalk for the end of the stick, they use dirt, and the lights kept going off cuz the generator would fail, and then there was the fight, so now my idea of becoming a pool shark has been smoothered. Probably better that way. I'll find another hobby. haha

OK so get this, last week when i got back from Santiago my 15 year old host sister was sitting on a mans lap. I was cornfuzzled. It turns out he is her boyfriend from newyork, he has family in Ranchito too and thats how they met. The story would be fine if it ended there, but it doesn't. He's 35, and let me repeat, she's 15 years old! They are talking about marriage and planning the marriage, of course he has to wait until she is of age, but he is taking her to ny in 6 months, but just as a girlfriend, my dona says. Ok you think that is bad enough, theres more. This 35 year old man is MUTE, he doens't speak, he cant speak, says no words what so ever, and you would think that they would do sign language or maybe write on a piece of paper to have a conversation, but that doesn't happen either. So wierd. And here's the kicker, her mom, my crazy dona Lola thinks ITS GREAT, they are in love, and even though he's mute "he drives his own car and has money!" She is sooooooooo crazy. Its not great, its the craziest situation i've ever had to pretend isn't crazy. So anyway thats whats going on in my world

This week i'm going to the capital, so i'll be on the computer from friday until monday without fail if anyone wants to email me

dogs, chickens, cows...

So this was a frustrating week to say the least, the woman i live with is so uneducated and ignorant but i can{t say anything to her b-c it just won{t go through her thick skull. So i made it through the week by keeping my distance.
Saturday I hiked with the youth group in my town to the peak of my mountain, round trip it took 8 hours, my legs are sore but it was really fun.
Then yesterday i was in Santiago all day at a earth day celebration. I participated in the longest and slowest savenger hunt ever. I didn{t even run once.
Not much else is new besides that.
Oh but one day one of the dogs damaged a chickens wing so my host brother who is 17 just decided the best thing to do was to cut off the wing all together, and the chicken lived, so that day when i was feeding the dogs and the chicken started eating the food i didn{t want to touch it like i usually would b{c of its bloody numb so i just cringed and let it eat with the dogs, i figured it was the least i could do. So that night the dogs ended up sleeping in a coop that a rooster is usually in so that they couldn{t get at any of the chickens. When i went into the chicken house in the morning there were also 3 calves in there too and a load of cow poop outside of the coop that the dogs were in. It was actually pretty funny.
By the way we have 3 dogs now, mine-Perla, Jens-Lechoza, and my dona{s a new little boy- Scooby. So yeah i take care of three dogs. It keeps me busy.

Just a day in life of El Ranchito