What is your schedule like?

This question comes from my sister, Gabby. Who is one of the two most important people in my life right now.

Time is a funny thing. Sometimes it seems to fly by and sometimes it seems to drag on. Volunteers are constantly working on projects. Finding good projects, avoiding bad projects, and finding a way to make our current projects work. When we think about going to America for our first visit two months seems really soon, when we think about the time spent waiting for a grant two years seems like an eternity.

My timetable, which is mostly based on my old site since I am still in a bit of a transition in my new site, looks like this:

Yearly: I have two years in Peace Corps. I am either in the first or the second. Right now I am in the first. That means i have a whole 'nother year to get it right.

Monthly: This is probably how I most look at my schedule. At the beginning of each month I look at what conferences and Peace Corps activities I have coming up. What I have already committed myself to at my site, and when I want to fit in my R&R days. It's best to link up travel with other travel and find a way to get someone else to pay for it. I keep everything linked up in my calendar on my computer and my iPhone so I can plan better.

In my old site some months were conference and travel heavy and others found me sitting in my old campo watching gallos for days at a time. I am still finding a rhythm in my site. Now that there is actual work I can do I am trying to find the balance between Peace Corps initiative and life, and life and work at my site. It doesn't help that I moved into a site during the holiday season, right before I use all of my vacation days at once, and right before I have a bunch of PC things for my one year in country. After my one year In Service Training I think I am going to have a lot more going on each month.

Weekly: I have certain things I try to do every week. As example, I started a Chicas Brillantes group with my roommate and this will continue after she leaves. That means I have a group of girls, and one boy, coming to my house every Tuesday night. I also use the Peace Corps initiative "Me Toca A Mi" in the Puerto Plata school for my organization every Friday. I go once in the morning and once in the afternoon. I try not to have anything specific for the weekend, because that is typically when Peace Corps events come up and I like to feel free to go to those. As example, I took two students from The Puerto Plata school to a youth sports event in the capital one weekend. Those won't be every week, but I can generally count on them to be on the weekends.

Now is when we get into the secret of a Peace Corps life.

Daily: This is much more random. Sometimes I teach in the morning and when that happens I am up, dressed, and ready to go by 0830. If I don't have anything to do I get up and mosey into the world around the same time, but I won't rush the being dressed process. All of my free time is spent watching a new t.v. show, reading a new book, or crying because I don't speak spanish practicing spanish. I spend time talking with my room mate and making plans to get things done. Sometimes I spend the day washing my laundry and sometimes i spend the day getting something done, but each option seems really go with the flow. Sometimes I take a car into town and go grocery shopping. Sometimes I work on spreadsheets or lesson plans. Sometimes I feel like all I did was call my other PCV friends to talk.

The thing about my days are, I tend to have things that need to be done during the week, so when I wake up on a day I can choose to get my stuff done, or walk to the beach. I can have plans do my laundry, wake up to a rainy day, and choose to watch every episode of Homeland instead. The laundry will come tomorrow. I can get work done in the morning, grab a car into town for groceries in the afternoon and not know what I'm doing in the evening.

The thing about thinking about Peace Corps on a daily level is you only think about what you did that wasn't work. In Peace Corps, the work get's done in the week, but there just isn't the same amount of work type things to do cada dia as there were in the states.

When we think about the day we think about nothing, when we think about the week we think about getting things done, and when we think about the month we think about being super busy or flojo, and when we think about the years we think about how much or how little time we have left.

All that said sister, I can pretty much be available to FaceTime, Skype, iMessage, or Viber call you anytime you want.