Monday, August 28, 2006

I hate this house and PC is testing my patience

I hate my house. It's 3am and I just woke up - against my will. I'd left and went to Antigua this weeekend again (with special permission) to actually feel well for a day and returned only to get rained on HARDCORE and have another fucking lake in my house. The water entered through the same place it always does, two windows that are on the same wall of my house in my hallway. This time the kitchen, hallway, and my bedroom were covered in water. I'm already starting to get sick again like I was in June. I expect this house to smell moldy in less than a week and I expect the worst is yet to come (a repeat of how I felt in June).

Sometimes I wonder, why am I still here? There's only so much bullshit one can take. During my service, I've been offered to come back and work in two different companies, in similar roles to what I did before, and they even hinted that the pay would be way more than before. Is it time to pull the plug. As tempting as they had sounded, no, sorry I just can't. I'm fucking stubborn, as a lot of you know. This experience will not benefit me personally and professionally unless I complete it. (How is living in a moldy house that makes me sick all the time during the rainy season benefitting me personally and professionally? What skills am I learning when I play this dangerous game with my health?) Are we really volunteers, or is this worse than corporate slavery. I had a discussion about this with Larry, a 64 yr old small business volunteer almost a year ago. If you quit, it's quitting a job, but worse. Everyone will ask, why did you quit? They may not look at you badly if you tell them for health reasons, but they will look at you in such a different light if you said you completed it. I'd feel pretty bad. I really like these people in my town. I wouldn't want to leave without finishing.

Any "benefits" (the few there are) received are only upon completion and with poorly managed practices by PC and now super strict rules they are seriously testing our patience and our tolerance for bullshit. Isn't our tolerance for bullshit supposed to increase here? In some senses yes. I sit cramped up on chicken buses on my way to Antigua and get offered higher prices in the mercado and on taxis sometimes but I just have to bargain a little harder than the average Guatemalan to get to an acceptable price. But there are some places were the bs is unacceptable. For me, it's my home, and my health care. When I come home, I don't want to feel like I am in Guatemala. I prolly won't eat huevos and frijoles in my house. :)

I like my ham and cheese sandwiches, spaghetti, and other assortment of non-Guatemalan quick prepare foods. I have had some posts in the pasts just describing how happy I was to eat Kraft Macaroni and Cheese or the ham and cheese sandwiches. You just don't know what you take for granted. :)

Unfortunately this experience has become even more difficult which makes that light at the end of the tunnel even further away. I hope they hurry up with that new apartment, I won't be dying here. There's still so much to do with these people and it would be more efficient and polite if I wasn't attacking them with allergic sneezes and coughs...

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