Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Never Have I Ever...

....Until I moved to St Vincent and the Grenadines
  • Ate so many bananas, plantains
  • Known there were different types of bananas, and have a favorite kind
  • Eaten a fresh mango or guava
  • Ate chunks
  • Hitchhiked
  • Had a cavity
  • Shared my house with a family of bats and named said bats
  • Washed my laundry by hand
  • Partied literally around the clock, multiple times
  • Hiked a volcano
  • Had a stranger zip up the zipper on my dress while walking on the sidewalk
  • Swam with sea turtles
  • Had to cook literally all my meals
  • Not worn a seat belt while riding in a car
  • Been the center of attention because of my skin color
  • Been referred to as Whitey, Miss, Teach, and a slew of other cat calls
  • Been proposed to by total strangers (or ever for that matter)
  • Eaten eggs that weren’t refrigerated
  • Eaten eggs that were laid by chickens walking around my yard
  • Openly walked around the streets with a bottle of beer
  • Whined (type of dance)
  • Peed when I want, where I want, no matter what
  • Seen people (men, women, children) pee anywhere they feel like
  • Lived only a few miles from the ocean
  • Not stopped sweating
  • Used so much OFF! Bug spray in such a short time period
  • Slept in a bug net
  • Had a shower that drained directly into my backyard
  • Been excited by the simple things
  • Appreciated life so much
  • Slept on a 3 inch foam mattress, and subsequently realized how sweet a real mattress is
  • Had such difficulty understanding different accents
  • Not have perfect grammar
  • Been away from my family for so long
  • Lived anywhere even remotely tropical
  • Spent Christmas day sweating
  • Not spent a holiday without family
  • Held complete strangers' babies
  • Been offered a baby/small child from a stranger
  • Been looked at strange for putting on a seatbelt
  • Bathed twice a day every day
  • Fist bump with a Filipino catholic priest
  • Had in depth conversations about abortion with a priest
  • Ride in the back of a truck
  • Gone to a holy communion
  • Gone to a Pentecostal, Methodist, Anglican or Baptist church
  • Simultaneously cared so much and so little about what others think of me and what I look like
  • Tried to fit in
  • Thought 70F was cold
  • Collected a stool sample
  • Bought an entire fish-scales, head, everything in tact
  • Eaten an entire fish
  • Bought a fish from a truck driving around my neighborhood with an old refrigerator as a freezer
  • Scrubbed a concrete “yard” to clean it
  • Walked around the capital in nothing but a bikini
  • Thrown paint on strangers/have strangers throw paint on me, and have it be ok.
  • Picked tons of fruit from my yard and ate it
  • Bargained with old ladies for my produce
  • Bought sugar, flour, milk, beans, etc. in bulk in unlabeled knotted plastic bags
  • Drank milk from a can
  • Drank powdered milk
  • Eaten a strictly raw diet for 6 weeks straight
  • Not been able to cook for 6 weeks because I ran out of gas
  • Not been able to get gas because the company was on strike
  • Not been able to buy sugar because the country ran out of money to import it
  • Owned a dog
  • Seen/owned puppies that were literally just born
  • Had wall paper on my floors
  • Bought bags of chicken parts (necks, backs, feet, etc.)
  • Woken up to find a dead chicken on my porch
  • Used the rain as a valid excuse as to why I was late/didn’t go to my job
  • Bathed outside using a bucket in the rain
  • Lived in a foreign country
  • Enjoyed reading
  • Lived alone
  • Had brown water
  • Had no water for days at a time
  • Taught a student how to read
  • Such great health care and basically my very own doctor who responds to me instantly
  • Eaten ants and not cared
  • Boiled water on the stove so that I could take a "hot" shower
  • Been so up to date with world and US news
  • Experienced an earthquake

2 comments:

  1. your adventures with life inspires many..keep up the good work! :)

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  2. It’s never too early to think about the Third Goal. Check out Peace Corps Experience: Write & Publish Your Memoir. Oh! If you want a good laugh about what PC service was like in a Spanish-speaking country back in the 1970’s, read South of the Frontera: A Peace Corps Memoir.

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