A busy week

What a busy week it has been. Actually is has really sucked, but with glimpses of good times scattered throughout. My birthday was this past Wednesday and my host family threw me a barbecue to celebrate. All night they kept saying that we were cooking chicken, but I know a sausage when I see one. It was actually really nice to be able to relax, drink wine, and eat meat with ketchup. I was starting to loose hope on the condiment situation here. One funny thing about my birthday night is that more hedgehogs kept showing up in the garden. When I was younger I had a friend with a hedgehog, but never really thought about where the come from, and now I can safely say they probably are all exported from Moldova because these suckers are everywhere.

Language classes and technical training is starting to get really intense. Every time I meet with my boss from ARBD I get the chills thinking about the difficulties I will face over the next two years. I am fully appreciating all my teachers from college, and want to thank them for preparing me so thoroughly in AgBusiness. Sometimes I wish I was teaching English over here. Not that they have it easy, but I'm working in a country with absolutely no business sense that has been under communist control for decades now. I've got a nice blog written about this, but my computer is my village, and I'm in the capital so I'll post that later.

Last night I went to my neighbor's high school graduation ball. Man do they know how to throw one hell of a dance party. After receiving diplomas they all went into a reception hall and I sat at the biggest table stuffed with food, champagne, and cognac. After eating, everyone went outside and danced the night away. I had to leave around midnight because I was starting to feel really sick. I started throwing up and that's when it started going downhill. I couldn't stop throwing up. It was so bad I didn't even make it out of my room, I found the nearest bag and the floodgates opened. I had some water rationed out for the night, but after I drank it all, then threw it all up, I started to get a little worried. Around 4 am the diarrhea kicked in, and when I mean it kicked in I would go to the outhouse, use the bathroom, and before I could get back to the house I had to go again. I was so dehydrated, didn't have access to any water, and was really freaking out. It was one of the more terrifying experiences of my life. I called the medical staff and had to be rushed to the hospital in Chisinau. So all day I've been napping in an apartment they set me up in. Well napping broken up by either vomiting or diarrhea. Sorry for being so graphic. I'm extremely homesic already. I can't believe it's still June. I haven't received any packages yet, but I know they are somewhere around here. Hope everyone is doing well.

Neal

There are porkypines in my backyard!

June 21, 2009 PM

Imagine that every second, of every day, you are misunderstood. I feel like my basic needs and wants have been lost in translation. My highs are high and I feel like I’m on top of the world, but my lows are unfathomably low. I’ve given up Moldovan pizza; it is the catalyst that ruined my relationship with my vacheo (outhouse). It is easy to dismiss the notion that if you grow up in circumstances like the ones here in Moldova that you get used to it. Not true. The Moldovans know life is hard for them, and it is probably the same way in all underdeveloped countries. I have taken my comfortable lifestyle for granted, and am finally seeing life from the other side of the mirror.

June 22, 2009
I feel a lot better this morning. Last night was pretty rough on the stomach, and it definitely affected my mood. I had one final “Oh shit” (quite literally) moment this morning and could barely put clothes on and run outside to the outhouse I had to go so bad. I’m stealing one of my favorite terms from management classes, but it was undeniably J.I.T. Now let me fill you in on how I roll in the vacheo; I’ve improvised the “crab” and like to have one hand on the back wall for a little leverage. I’ve tried the “catcher”, but it’s not for me. However, I may have to switch because I encountered a major problem with my posish when I crashed through the back wall of the outhouse with my pants around my ankles and a roll of TP in the other hand. Jesus Christ what a wake-up call at 7am. Fortunately I was finishing up my business, because I was so startled that I probably would have shit my pants, err self, if it would have been three minutes earlier. I’m going to place the blame on the cheap, Moldovan plexiglass material used to build the torture box, instead of my technique because I can get down in a concrete outhouse, no joke. I tried explaining to my host mother what happened, but she grabbed the dictionary from my hands, closed it, and commanded me to eat my breakfast (spaghetti and fried egg) and then went back to bed. I ran off to class shortly after and told my teachers what happened, who are supposed to be our ambassadors if we have any problems, but all they could do was laugh hysterically. They claimed that they would call and explain what happened for me and reaffirmed that everything would be all right. My host family hasn’t mentioned the gapping hole in the back of their outhouse, so either they are saving me an extremely embarrassing moment or they haven’t seen it yet. Time will tell. I just know that my entire village will know me as the American that falls ass-backwards through outhouses. Super.

Anyways, I hope everyone finds this situation as amusing as I will. I know that there is a couple letters en route for me and I really appreciate everyone that has sent cards and letters. However, I found out that these probably won’t reach me, but the packages will. If you think the US Postal Service is bad, and anyone that has stood in line at the post office can attest to this, at least they aren’t opening envelopes in search for money. I love getting snail mail, I haven’t gotten any yet but I know that I love it already, so when you send letters put a big dollar sign on it with an X through it. They say this is the best method; just make sure to stuff it full of Benjamin’s when you do this. This time a happy birthday email or comment on the blog will make do…

Sleeping is my hobby

A gypsy in the woods dancing. Seriously.
A view from the monestary near my house.
The matriarch at the monestary.
One of the million cherry trees that line the streets.
Dinner. There are fifteen more in the box behind me on the windowsill.

After missing my alarm the other day my nieghbor Ana keeps telling me that I shouldn't make a hobby out of sleeping. It is one of the many English phrases I can't help but laugh at. When I first got to my village she asked me if I wanted to be single. I couldn't believe it, I had been in their village all of ten minutes before they were fishing for an American husband. Of course this ellicted a ten minute response from me about how I am in a foreign land for two years and being in a relationship is definitely not a priority. After confusing the hell out of these poor girls, I realized they were asking me if I wanted to be alone. I'm an idiot. Besides that, we are all progressing very nicely in each others languages. Everyday my Romanian doubles, although I still have the vocabulary of a one year old, and people think it's funny to tell me this everyday. The girls' English is coming along quite nicely as well. I can't wait for them to encouter another American, because they have the most southern repetoire of idioms we could come up with. I guess that's what you get when you put someone from South Carolina in one house, and next door someone from Louisiana. It brightens my day everytime I hear "What is up yall?" from a Moldovan. Everyday on the way to school I pass a small pond that is chalked full of frogs. One day I asked some Moldovans if they eat frogs here. Oh man they're reaction was priceless, the thought of eating a frog obviously had never crossed their minds before. Whenever I get stuck in a really spotty situation where you can cut the cultural tension with I knife, I always bust out "In Moldova, no voi muniest brazca. In America, noi munican brazca" which translates into "In Moldovan no one eats frogs. In American we eat frogs". This is seriously the best crowd pleaser and had my host mother throwing up from laughter. Laughter is great, and its nice that the host family and I have an open relationship to bust a gut at each other. Last night my mother made me eat an entire bowl of goat cheese. I'll tell you what, that definitely will put some hair on your chest. My vision started getting blury halfway through, but I persevered, mainly because I had a tank of a Moldovan woman screaming at me to eat it. At the end of my two year service I'm coming after Kobeashi in the Coney Island hot dog eating contest and bringing her with me.

Disclaimer for this post, I'm in an internet cafe right now and the computer keeps telling me that every word is mispelled because it is formatted in Russian so my grammer and spelling are probably horrendious. I had a great blog post saved on my flash drive, but my host sisters have been using my flash drive and it is now completely distroyed. Trust me when I say don't download any Russian software onto a flashdrive. I got rid of that as soon as I learned it was on there, but the girls rip the flash drive out of the USB port without ejecting it first and it now doesn't work. I have another one that PC gave me, and there is no way it is coming off my person.

Yesterday we went to a monestary close to my village. It was beautiful, and the place was entirely self-sufficient. There are only nuns there and they wear all black with black hoods over their heads. I've got a great picture of the Grim Reaper gardening with the slasher tool (for a lack of a better word that you call that scary machette). Afterwards we all went to a party in the woods and got to watch some pretty badass Moldovan, Russian, Ukrainian, and gypsy dancing followed up by a huge feast.

Above is a great video of the typical Moldovan dance, called the hora. The women make the craziest bird/cajun call I have ever heard. I'm pretty sure you get to hear it on the video so turn it up and jam it. I'm sorry this blog is so short and crappy. This internet cafe is definitely not the optimal place to write out your thoughts. Our clandestine bus trip to Ilalovine, the biggest city closest to me, was crazy from the start. Our bus was an hour and thirteen minutes late, but it wasn't crowded which made it worth the wait. We were discussing how nice it would be if the unfinished bus stop was outfitted with a capaccino machine and wireless internet, but then there would be no need to sit in this awesome internet cafe/disco that has fifteen little kids playing World of Warcraft with Russian techno and popmusic on full blast over the speakers. I can't even hear myself writing on the keyboard, and just succumed to the beat and bought a beer. I will post again soon, I promise. I'm not a huge baseball fan but I hear LSU is kicking some major ass in the tournament. Geaux Tigers!

..........Okay I'm sorry but this video isn't posting and I've been waiting for about an hour and have got to get out of here. I'll try to get it up soon because it's great.

Outhouse

June 18, 2009

My relationship with the outhouse is improving. There is definitely a strategy that you have to empirically master; if not you will be living in fear, as I have been, and also in pain. I would have given my right arm for a little Gold Bond yesterday. Nothing like walking ten miles a day daydreaming about an abundant supply of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste. It’s ironic that I used to laugh every time I went into a CVS and saw it on the shelf, and now I’m craving a product I’ve never used. Getting off this subject….I’ll get back on the topic of food. Language lessons have been paying off and I now know how to say “No more, thank you” about seventeen different ways, including some pretty legit sign language that I’m going to submit to be added in ASL. No one is punctual in Moldova, except for my host mother, and thus me as well. The other volunteers, and even Moldovans make fun of me for saying that I need to get back for the exact time my host mother told me. Besides being respectful, I have learned that I will pay for every minute I’m late in the quantity of food I will be forced to consume. I told her that I would be back from school at one for lunch today, but got held up and was ten minutes late. I could have gone for a swim in my soup bowl. Fortunately the soup was a delicious blend of herbs, potatoes, and onions, which was refreshingly lite.

I still haven’t gotten the internet and have gotten into the pattern of writing out my blog entries and emails on my computer, saving them to a flash drive, and uploading whenever I get a chance to take the Moldovan mobile sweatbox (microbuz) to hub site. I brought my wireless router with me to Moldova, and yesterday was pretty sure I was going to be able to hook it up to my host family’s modem. With the family gathered around, I plugged it and it started working. For ten seconds. And then I fried all the electronics attached to the surge protector. Fortunately after some Moldovan/American tenacity the computer and everything else came back to life; well everything except for my router. The family was pretty upset over my situation and was ready to bust the thing open and try to fix it. Unless they have a sautering iron and extensive knowledge of Chinese-made microchip appliances I’m pretty sure it’s beyond repair. But who knows, it seems everyday something new shocks the hell out of me here; especially when I find the kids trying to put some kind of Russian spyware on my computer to rip the songs I have on iTunes.

Yesterday I was in hub site for medical training, a lecture on Moldovan politics, and technical agriculture/business training. We spent two and a half-hours going over things we can’t drink/eat, how to identify if things have been properly stored and/or canned, etc. The medical officer showed us some pictures of street vendors with water bottles full of wine, and she warned us that we shouldn’t drink this because we don’t know where the bottle has been, how the wine has been made, and how it’s been stored. I didn’t even make it a day before I found myself hanging out in a makeshift Moldovan tree house in the woods drinking wine out of a liter bottle that smelled, and tasted, like gasoline, which just so happened to be stashed in what they referred to as a basement, but in reality was just a big hole in the ground. After a couple hours we had a swarm of about fifteen Moldovan boys, all about high school age, chatting us up in broken English about Steven Segal and repeating every slang/cuss word they could recall from movies they’ve seen in English. After we all shared the biggest bottle of beer I’ve ever seen (about $1.50 here) and a couple rounds of arm wrestling I told my neighbor Andri that I had to get back home because my host mother usually has second dinner ready around 10:30. I got some slack for that and was made fun of all the way back home by Vince and Andri…until they got stuck at the dinner table with me. While I was happily chowing down on chicken stuffed pasta, they had to finish gigantic bowls of mayonnaise, sour cream, and cottage cheese, combined. At some point a round of cognac shots were poured, and I don’t think there has been a point in my life that I’ve been happier not to have a belly full of sour Moldovan dairy products. Exodus 3:12, “God is good”. (One of the few Bible versus I can recite of the top of my head, and coincidently is very applicable to this situation).

Already had a couple volunteers drop out. I’ve found solace in my sense of humor. If you can’t laugh at all the awkward situations and just flat out crazy situations that we get ourselves into here, this isn’t the place for you. Slowly starting to come around to the microbuz, but everytime I see them unload I can’t help but crack up. I’ve got to post a video of this. Alright, I’ve got to go do my job and spread peace and friendship (Actually one of the mission statements of PC that Congress signed, how BADASS is that). Ciao!

Above: The hora, typical moldovan dance and singing
A school in my village and the well.
Other peace corps trainees with me in the capital.


The village I live in is about 4,500 people. Most of the ARBDs are training here, except for those learning Russian. Like I’ve said, I would have liked to learn Russian, but am really grateful that I’m not in that group. The alphabet is extremely intimidating. In the magazines, our equivalent of a neighborhood store/mini-mart, a lot of the goods are labeled in Russian. It calls for a good time when I want to get a bottle of water that isn’t carbonated and people stare at the foreigner shaking all the water bottles to make sure it’s natural water. But what can you do right? We already stick out so I’ve come to embrace it.

Tomorrow I get to go to hub site, which is where we doing all out technical training during Pre Service Training (PST). Here I will be able to refill my cell phone with more minutes. I’ve already hung up on two people from running out of minutes. I can still receive texts, even internationally, and really like waking up to “I miss you” text messages. I can’t respond to them, but it still seriously makes my day.

A little story about Moldova that’s pretty, hmm, cum se spune engleza, cute?:
“God was giving out land to all the people, but the Moldovans were out in the fields working hard all day. When they returned, God told them there was no more land to give out. However, he wanted to reward them for working hard and being good people so he gave them a little piece of heaven, and that is how Moldova came about”.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that folk story so I guess it had to make the blog. I’m getting a bath boiled for me right now and it’s going to be fantastic. It’s the little things in life that count, da? Just as good as any bath back home so don’t feel sorry for me. Well, except I’m still afraid of the outhouse, and the rabid dog that resides next to it. It’s only about half a foot tall, but its got the loudest, sharpest bark I’ve ever heard. I tried to tell my five year old host sister, Paula, we need to put a muzzle on it, but she just screamed and ran away. I really need to work on my sign language I guess. She’s precious and I’ve got a great picture of her trying to hide from me in the garden when I was trying to make her smell the flowers I was bringing to my teachers on the first day of school.

Language classes have been going well. We go all day long with a break each hour. They’re called coffee breaks, but should be redubbed “Cherry breaks” because I’m yet to find the coffee. That’s the way it’s been the entire time here, fruit breaks. Once I found a bunch of packets of instant coffee, but no water. It wasn’t a problem actually, I simply did what any logical, caffeine deprived Peace Corps volunteer would do, opened up and poured it down the hatch. I almost ralphed on the girl in front of me, but it was well worth it.

This morning I was running seriously late for school. I set my alarm on my phone, but forgot to take the phone off silent so I woke up at 8:05 and had to be at school in ten minutes. After arguing with my host mother that I didn’t have time to eat the four eggs, three hot dogs, an entire tomato, and two whole cucumbers that she was intent on feeding me, I had to haul ass twenty-five minutes down the road to school. Every time I see her now she thinks that she has to make up for the lost meal and continually is giving me sandwiches, peanuts, soup, candy, fruit, and bread to eat. Usually I beat my alarm because the rooster starts crowing at some asinine hour in the morning, but not this morning. I asked my host father why the rooster wasn’t crowing today and received the straightforward answer “Because we ate it last night for supper”. Awesome, just when I start to see the good of a natural alarm clock we go off an eat it.

Weird, but fascinating customs about Moldovans:
They eat off the serving plate. You have small personal plates but that is simply for cutting the food if you want.

Bread is served individually on the table, not on a plate.

You can always fit more people on a microbus. These things should only hold ten people max, but I swear, we were about fifty deep yesterday. Without air conditioning, and they don’t believe in circulating air because they think it will give them a cold. A clown would be seriously impressed by the ability, agility, and tolerability of Moldovans in buses. For all you Seinfeld fans out there, it reminded me of the episode that Elaine was on the subway when it broke down and she had a screaming dialogue in her head. I can empathize.

There is a cactus next to every computer because they think it absorbs the radiation. They’re convinced I’m going to drop dead from cancer from my laptop any day now.

Moldovans don’t like to drive their cars because gas is expensive. When you’re walking down the street they will tell you to be careful every time a car passes. I guess that’s because when they do get behind the wheel they try to defy gravity and lift off. On my walk back from a pickup soccer game this afternoon with some of the kids in the village we got a ride from Vince’s host brother’s friend. Our twenty- minute walk back turned into a twenty-second drive.

I hope everyone back home hasn’t melted from the Louisiana heat and humidity. Also, happy 29th anniversary Mom and Dad! I’m glad I was able to talk to you on the phone that day. I promise I will be able to call home more often now. If anyone receives a call from a bizarre looking phone number, don’t freak out, it isn’t blockbuster telling you that you are about to be turned over to a creditor for an overdue movie, but it’s me calling to hear a friendly voice.

Buna ziua!

A winery in my village that has the biggest wine cellar in the world.
Out for a walk in my village
From left to right: Ana (my host sister), Ana (Vince's host sister), Vince (My neighbor/another PC volunteer)
Masa and big lunch for us at the first day of school
A park in the capital
June 14, 2009

Buna zia! (Good day!)

I have almost made it through the first week of Peace Corps, yet it feels like I’ve been here a year. Life has been hectic lately and it has been hard to get on the internet or call anyone. My group, M24, is the twenty-fourth group to arrive in Moldova and we have a little over sixty in our group. After an almost 48 hour excursion to get here we all arrived in relatively good spirits. Instantly we were whisked away into buses to our hotel. For two nights we stayed there; in the daytime we would be in meetings, lectures, classes, demonstrations, in-transit, etc. At night we were still doing these things, but after we got paired off into groups with our mentors, who have been here a year already. Going to grab dinner and/or beer was a great way to get to know the current volunteers (PCV) and they helped answer the millions of questions we had. Chisinau is a nice city, about 600,000 people, and is everything that a post Soviet/wanna-be-European city would be. Agriculture Business and Rural Business Development (ARBD), my project, is composed of about ten people, some young, some old. Fortunately, only two of us, not including me, had to learn Russian. Although I would like to know the language, it looks like the craziest language to learn, and some Moldovans get offended when you speak it instead of Romanian, even though all Moldovans speak Russian fluently. The M24’s got split up yesterday by projects, and the ARBD’s went to a little village not far from the capital. Driving in you pass gently rolling hills lush with sprawling rows of grapes. Yes that’s right, I’m in wine country. In my village there is a winery that boasts the largest wine cellar in the world. I went the entrance of it today and it was BEAUTIFUL.

Now on to the good stuff, my host family. They are great. I was the first one to be dropped off which only caused my anxiety level to skyrocket even more, although by that point you wouldn’t even imagine how many knots were in my stomach. They are very nice people; my mother is Vera, father Viscile, sisters Ana and Natalia, 20 and 18, respectfully. Ana does her best with English and isn’t very proficient, but she’s trying and I applaud her effort because she knows more English than I do Romanian. This will change very quickly though. After about ten minutes of both the family and I being completely freaked out by each other because the complete inability to communicate, in walks another trainee named Vince, whom is in my ARBD group. He lives next door to me. Hell yeah, I cannot convey how much this helps. To add on to that, his host sister, Ana (18), knows a good deal of English and is good friends with my host sister Ana. Last night both families had dinner together. I was feeling sick and really couldn’t bare the thought of eating the mayo salad with a couple cucumbers and tomatoes thrown in for garnish. But I ate it. I was also singled out for being shy and was ignored by the other volunteers host father who kept trying to get people to take shots of cognac (at this point I would have loved one to cut the tension in the room). After leaving dinner at the neighbors house we came back, attempted communication, failed, and I went to unpack. By this point I was really hating life, and freaked out that the rest of my service would be this awkward. I decided to come out and make contact again, this time equipped with laptop and pictures. and singled out my host sisters. I showed them family and friends, and we had a translator on their computer that helped immensely. After a couple hours I left with a feeling of accomplishment and enjoyed showing them my life in America.

Today was spent at the school dancing the hora, a typical Moldovan dance, and eating the same meal that I’ve had for a week now (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) that consisted of cucumber, tomato, bread, cherries, salami, cheese, cookies, and chocolate. The fresh fruit and veggies are great, but I’m really starting to hate chocolate. Yes I said it, sorry ladies I know that this would be paradise, but there is just something about eating a moonpie at 7:30am that doesn’t sit right with me. Just say no and not eat it right? HA. For all of you back home that thinks I am somewhat of a peer pressurer, you haven’t dined with a Moldovan. My host mother has almost come close to literally shoving food down my mouth, even after explaining, rather shouting “Sunt plein! Sunt plain! nu vreau manic!” (I’m full! I’m full! I don’t want to eat more!). This is just their way of being a great host, and all in all I love it. They are wonderful people and I’m pretty sure they would give me the shirt off their backs. They live a very simple life, the gas is currently shut off because of a dispute between the next town where the pipeline first goes through (Haven’t really figured the details out on this one yet). I had my first bucket bath today…and it completely rocked, although I wasn’t the one boiling the water. Still not sure how this was accomplished since the village doesn’t have gas. Anyways, I’m going to end it on this note because while you are just sitting down to a dinner table, it is one in the morning here and I’ve got to get up in six hours and then put up with a full day off language class and cultural immersion. Before this I still have to take a trip to the outhouse before bed, which is no Pot-O-Gold. More like four tin walls and a hole in the ground.

PS- If the FML fad is still going strong, post the link to my blog. Outhouse and mayo salads trump “My boyfriend called me over to his house two hours away just to break up with me. FML” any day of the week.

La revedere!

Sitting in Limbo

Our first day of Romanian lessons
We finally made it. "Look at all the Americans"
Clusterfuck
JFK

What I've learned in the Peace Corps thus far: I can function on a very small amount of sleep. These consecutive days of getting up at 6am have been rough, and it has only been compounded by the fact that I love naps and I haven't gotten to take one.

Like I said in my earlier post, we left Philly this morning around 7. Our bus driver conveniently disappeared when we all came out to load our bags, and so I ended up crawling inside the bowels of the bus and loading luggage (literally thousands of lbs). By the time I got on the bus I was drenched in sweat, which will only add to the misery of me and the people I sit next to for the next 10 hours on a plane to Istanbul (deodorant has proven worthless). Upon arriving at the airport, our group leader informed me that my passport was missing....GREAT. Settling upon the fact that I will be spending an undetermined amount of time in a hotel in NYC, another volunteer comes up and tells me that on accident he was given my passport, checked in and got his (my) ticket, and even went through security. We look nothing alike. After much undeserved headache we finally got it situated. Then came upon the issue of my overweight bag. I can only bring 2 bags that each can weigh 50 lbs, and one of mine registered at 60. Determined not to pay the $150 fine, I took out what I thought was roughly ten pounds....the scale registers 42 lbs...I start adding things slowly to my bag....43, 45, 48, 50. Everything I originally took out was back in the bag. Serendipity is my middle name.

About an hour ago I discovered that I forgot to put my "No Jet Lag" pills into my carry-on bag. I was told that these work great by several different people and was really anticipating the promoted no jet lag. Curious to see if I could home remedy these pills, Leah checked the internet and informed me that I would be one ingredient off from conducting witchcraft. All in all, couldn't find the pills, but did stumble upon free wifi and am now able to jot down this blog.

I'll go ahead and fill you in on what we've done so far: The entire day yesterday was spent sitting in a windowless conference room going over Peace Corps rules with (sorry PC, just my personal opinion) pretty shoddy analogies. After that all the trainees went out for pizza and beer for our last dinner in America. That pretty much picks up on where I started this nonlinear story.

Here is my address that you all can send me letters, pictures, goodies, etc:

Neal Collins- M24
Peace Corps Moldova
12 Str. Grigore Ureche
Chisinau, Moldova 2001

Peace Out

Alright peeps, this is my last "I'm bugging out right now" update. D-Day. Its 6:15am, the bus leaves at 7 and we're off to New York to catch the airplane to Istanbul, then finally arriving in Moldova a good 24-36 hours later. My group is an ecclectic bunch, kind of like a big summer camp so far. It's good to know that I'm not alone. I'll update more when I have time, I've got a little luggage configuration to tend to. Adios!

Another day done

Four days left. Today actually turned out to be horribly unproductive. There are days that unplanned and unpredicted events WILL occur, and no matter how hard you try it will completely screw up the rest of your day. I'm envious of people that can roll with the punches and adapt to the situation at hand. I will get upset over things that go askew, but have learned to release that frustration soon after. A lot of events that I would have loved to attend today didn't happen, and in the end plans were broken. I'm sorry that it happened. I would much rather have been able to do everything on the agenda, instead of nothing that resulted. I anticipate that these kind of days will be plentiful in the days, weeks, months, and years to come; Not only in the Peace Corps, but for the rest of my life. So for now I'm going to work on being more flexible in life.