As y’all know, this past weekend I was stateside to witness the incredibly magical union of my two best friends Taylor Rigot and Erin Boland. 7-9-11 will forever hold a special place in my heart (not to be confused with 7-P-11 which, Erin, will end up in your wedding photos of us spelling the date with sparklers; I was completely sober, but it was a few minutes before Ryan Naus pointed out my 9 was backwards, oops). Now, I didn’t just witness the wedding, but I was Best Groomsmen—not to be confused with the less cool Best Man position, yea Michael, I said it... However, although the subject of this post concerns an American affair, it will still deal with my adventures abroad (and some at home).
The weekend started with my role as the Prodigal Son returning to America on Thursday the 7th. Travel always comes easy for me. In fact, I like traveling so much that one of my pet peeves is people who suck at traveling and thus ruin my typically effortless and stress free experience. I just don’t understand how some people make it such a problem. It seems so simple to obey airport rules, walk through the airport without dilly-dallying, treat airport staff with proper manners and respect, adapt if there is a hitch in your plan, and be on your merry way. The only part I did not foresee in my trip home was the Miami Intl Airport being a piece of s*** and getting sick from a chicken wrap in their airport. I did find that part funny though because whenever I go abroad people are always saying how important it is to be wary of food that isn’t cleaned properly or cleaned using local water and to be especially careful of lettuce. Well I guess 5 months of Grenada meant that I had to be a bit careful with Miami lettuce when I got back.
I was able to enjoy a short evening with my parents and little brother, Jordan, before calling it a night. Most people asked what I missed most so far from home. Besides family and friends, I missed my car and my dog a lot, but I greatly missed Chik Fil A. After a much needed haircut Friday morning, which turned out surprisingly decent considering the guy cut my hair in literally 12 minutes. To me, that seems waaay to short for a haircut, for all I know the barber aimlessly stabbed at my head with shearers. I don’t care if you’re Sweeney Todd, no one can create a nice head of hair in 12 minutes and then charge $20. Okay, maybe Sweeney Todd was a bad reference, but I can’t think of any famous barbers. Once I had given myself a look of approval in the mirror it was time to head off to Augusta, GA, home of humidity, for the “Best weekend the 15 best friends anyone could have, had”. Now, there was a slight glitch in the plan for the weekend. That slight glitch being the fact that my phone plan was cancelled when I left for the Peace Corps so I had no way to communicate with friends or family and no gps to guide me. I had to resort to using pay phones and writing down directions on a piece of scrap paper, soo 2000’s! Although I was not able to contact my friends, my friends were able to contact the “crazy, cracked out black lady” who now owns my phone number and was quite mad with the amount of texts, phone calls, voice mails received that weekend, some of which were undoubtedly obscene.
I’m going to stop right here with recapping the wedding festivities because I’ll just end up really depressed and missing home/friends even more. All you need to know is that I had one of the best weekends of my life and I love each of the 15 best friends (and everyone else who made it to the wedding) with all my heart.
The point of the post was not to get sappy and reminisce with friends, but to highlight something important that was a focal point of the weekend. Throughout the wedding, everyone and their mother asked “So, what do you actually do there?” which I absolutely did not mind being asked, but after describing it in a slightly different way to the 50th questioner I realized I need to provide the blog with a more detailed description of what I do here. As much as I love being locked out of my apartment, naked, I do more than that as a PCV and it is important that y’all not lose sight of that. So here is a better idea of what goes on:
Currently, I am a Peace Corps Volunteer in Grenada—pronounced GrenAYda, not GrenAHda because Granada is a place in Spain, I didn’t want to be a prick and go around correcting people this weekend, but there you have it. I am a Youth Development Volunteer living in a small community roughly 2 miles outside the capital city. My worksite is the National Disaster Management Agency where they wish to use me as a volunteer teaching disaster preparedness to youths on the island. I also teach at a primary school in the community teaching literacy and numeracy and hopefully American culture next year, plus helping lend a hand to other teachers where possible. Here is a general idea of my daily schedule:
6:30am –Wake up
7:00-8:00am—Cook breakfast, finish waking up, iron clothes, dress, prepare notes and things for work, secure/burglar proof the apartment, double check I have keys.
8:30am-4:00pm –work at NaDMA which could be anything from running to various schools or businesses around the whole island to help with presentations, disaster drills, deliver letters, check shelters, participating in workshops in the office, helping with IT skills, planning programs.
----School days start at 8:30am as well and last until 2:30pm. I think my role in school is pretty self-explanatory. After school I walk home with the kids, playing, answering their many questions about me and life in America.
4:00pm – 5:00pm –unwind from work and get ready to head to training.
5:00pm – 7:00pm – football training in the nearby pasture with the team, on some days it is a game instead of practice. Afterwards, I socialize with the team helping to integrate me into the society.
7:00—8:00pm—If I have dinner already at home it is straight home, if not, then I must hike to the grocery store first. Then, get dinner started while I hop in the shower (cold shower, no hot water)
8:30pm – eat dinner and either watch a tv episode on my lap top (no tv at my apartment) or talk to friends on skype.
9:30pm – Exhausted at this point as you can see I have a full day of work, so I get ready for bed and call it a night before 10pm. The days of staying up till 2:00am in college are long gone.
Peace Corps Volunteer work does not stop once I leave the office of my work site. On the contrary the harder and more important part of integrating into the community occurs whenever awake and not at my worksite. Thus, the work week is very rigorous and often stressful which means on the weekends IF I have a choice of remaining at home to relax/clean/do laundry (only a washer machine), more often than not I choose/need some quiet time.
That is a rough outline of what my Volunteer work entails as of right now. But, if there is anything I have learned in the first 5 months as a PCV, it’s that nothing is constant. The above schedule can and probably will take on a new form every couple of months. For instance, this summer I am helping other volunteers on the island with a variety of summer camps, next semester I will be more involved at my school attachment, I will take on one or two secondary projects that may shadow work at NaDMA. There you have it, though. I wanted to give you a little spoonful of what I do here. To recap:
I DO NOT sit around enjoying: regular beach visits, pina colidas, small luxuries taken for granted like AC, hot water, dryers, clean water, TV, radio, news, disposable income, the list goes on.
I DO work 65 hours a week including work on the weekends. I DO miss home, but I DO love what I am doing. And I DO want y’all to realize I couldn’t do this without all the love and support.
Hopefully that was a bit more insightful into the Peace Corps life than stories of stumbling through woods, being man-handled by locals on the dance floor, and marriage proposals. But because I know y’all love those stories, here is one more:
So guess where I am right now?? If you guessed the San Juan International Airport in Puerto Rico, then you might have something in common with Bruce Willis. Okay now guess where I will be stranded for the next 24 hours?? If you also guessed the San Juan Airport then that is one wicked Sixth Sense you’ve got there. As it turns out, 25 minutes is not enough time to exit a flight, claim luggage, and check into a new flight, because that ship set sailed 10 minutes before you reached the counter. Whatever, I got to hang out in the Atl airport with Taylor and Erin before they went to their honeymoon, small victories. What I didn’t mention to Taylor and Erin when I said goodbye was that I had an option of taking an earlier flight to San Juan today, but because I love them so much I am going to spend the night and next fun-filled 24 hours in an airport chair in San Juan. Honestly, I had a feeling I would be in this situation. The lay-over was way too short to begin with, but then some Air Traffic Controller yahoo in Atl decided it would be a GREAT idea if he, spontaneously, swapped the runways where the planes arrived/departed inevitably effing over countless frequent fliers. The entire flight I kept a cool head, but couldn’t keep from thinking “I think I am going to get f****d in the butt by this delay”. Normal people might be crying at this point, but I’m an expert traveler remember? It wasn’t until I reached the American Airlines desk in San Juan and he told me the flight left 10 minutes ago that I said “I’ve been f****d in the butt…” The worker informed me that I should go talk to the people at the Delta desk since it was totally their fault and not American Airlines and they might offer me a hotel seeing as how the next flight to Grenada isn’t until the same time, 7:45pm, the next day. Guess who was at the Delta desk? You’re right, no one (you’re good at this game). I wouldn’t be working at the Delta desk either when the few Delta flights out of the airport for the day have already left. So here I sit, in an empty airport, wondering what I will do to pass time, contemplating how I will sleep in this chair while also protecting my luggage. But don’t worry, thanks to my extensive practice in using pay phones during the wedding weekend and a few left over quarters, I was able to call up the Reverend and inform him that his prized possession was now stuck between a rock and a Puerto Rican airport and he needed to contact my Country Director to let him know I would be a day late to Grenada. That was a funny story right? Maybe I’m just bitter. Whatever, it is 12:15am here in Puerto Rico so I think it’s time to get 40 winks.
***Update, after 3 uncomfortable hours of “sleep” in an airport chair, I was up and about. The airport was starting to buzz at 4am so I began planning my exit. I spent a good 1.5 hours going back and forth between the American Airlines desks and Delta desks remedying the situation before I finally got a new ticket, fo free. Score, now I only had to burn 12 more hours in the airport with no reading material, and a dead iPod and lap top. Needless to say, it was a loooooong day.
To put a happy ending on this literary massage, another question I was frequently asked at the wedding was “What is the best part about your life in Grenada?” My answer, the days when I am walking home from being in the community and my little neighbor, Samore, sees me from up the hill and comes running down to me with the biggest smile on her face and jumps into my arms. Countless times she has turned a nasty stressful day into a beautiful one. Small victories.
Brice
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