Life is really good at giving you just enough to go on that you begin to think you are awesome and then coming up behind you and knocking you flat. In my head I call it the god complex. If you start to think you are god, you are getting ready to get muddy.
I spent the weekend doing exactly that. Literally. By Friday I had found out that I will be living in my current house for the rest of my service, which means having a roommate for the next couple of months before he goes home. I got a bed from the bureau that is awesome, and I was all set to clean up some and get really, finally, moved in. I was feeling pretty good.
Then I broke the water main that goes into the house…
It had nearly rusted through and after messing with it for a little while I figured out that I could replace the parts pretty easily. I biked over to a plumbing shop, where i purchased a new piece. Equipped with a lock-wrench, I spent the next 30 minutes fixing things before discovering that another piece was also rusted. No problem, I’ll just nip on over to the plumbing store again…
At this point I’m feeling pretty awesome, because I’ve fixed my own plumbing, and that with a massive shortage of tools. And so now you know what comes next.
I spent the next four hours attaching everything, seeing that things leaked, and taking them apart to reattach. They use some kind of grass instead of plumbing tape here, so that was part of the problem. I was muddy. It wasn’t working. Maybe the pipe was too short. Oh yeah, and it started pouring rain.
I announced to the world that I was already muddy enough and hardly needed more help in that respect.
At present we have very leaky water and are hoping for a plumber to come by and fix what I couldn’t.
Sometimes you just have to laugh…
Also, Mario is the plumber from Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros, for the uninitiated.
sounds like me. In Taos, as you know, you save 300.00 then your tranny goes out and it cost 300.50 to fix.
Hello! My name is Jon and I am a student at CU Boulder. I am currently in a Reporting 2 class and I am writing a story about what future peace corps volunteers can expect to see if they leave for a West African country. The story has to have a science or environmental theme to it.
After reading your blog, it’s obvious that some of the stuff you write about has a lot to do with my story and I was hoping you could answer some of the following questions if you have the time: What vaccines did you have to get before and while volunteering? What diseases and/or general illnesses are common in your country? Have you been sick at all? What different creatures, animals, insects, etc. do you encounter (or not want to encounter) during your volunteering? Also, if there is anything else you could share about the environment you live in, that would be great. For instance, is it stifling hot? Or too rainy?
Thank you so much and I (as a hopeful future peace corps volunteer) look forward to reading more of your blog.
p.s. this story won’t be printed, it is just for my class
@Jon. Please read the post here: http://peacecorps.potterzot.com/2010/09/some-questions-answered/. Good luck!
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Thanks a lot for the great information! It will really help!