Our pets' heads are falling off!

Remember in Dumb and Dumber, when everything seems to be going wrong and their pet parakeet loses its cabeza,  Jim Carrey exclaims to Jeff Daniels: “We got no food, no jobs...  our PETS' HEADS ARE FALLING OFF!"?  Yeah, that’s sometimes how I feel about my Peace Corps experience.

For example, a few weeks ago, our water went out.  This isn’t unusual, in fact it goes out almost every day for a few hours.  But this time it went out for over a week.  We have a few back up tanks in the side yard that we keep full for such occasions, but within 48 hours those were also completely dry and we are NOT in the rainy season.  And hey, I enjoy a good bucket bath as much as the next PCV, but when there is nothing to put in your bucket… I start to get grumpy when I can’t shower every few days.  And then our power went out.  Sometimes I like it when the power goes out, because the town is quiet- nobody is blaring reggatone at full volume.  It just sucks that the fridge stops working.. If you could only buy groceries once a week and had to go an hour each way, you would feel my pain!  Ok, so power is off, water is off.. and I’m sick.  Fever, aches, chills, sore throat, throbbing headache..  I was just praying I didn’t have Dengue.  But what can you do except lay in the dark, ration your filtered water, and wait it out?  The power came back first, the then water several days later.  I know I shouldn’t complain since some of my friends here in country bathe in a river with dirty diapers floating past, or use a hose on the side of the road and have to shower fully clothed.. but sometimes you just hit the trifecta of power, lights, and sickness and then yeah, your pets’ heads might as well be falling off.  Most days are not like this (although I am currently 4 days into a different water outage), but then again some days are.  And then what can you do? Like I said, lay in bed with a book and a headlamp (or in my case, your kindle with a light in the case!) and wait it out.  As I wrote this, no joke, a worm fell from the rafters onto my arm… A very slimy one. Yep, it’s gonna be one of those days.  Book #27, here I come!