Final Post

The time has come. Three years, four months and twelve days after my departure from the US, I have returned... for the immediate future at least.

I returned to El Salvador on Wednesday. The bus from Guatemala City was held up somewhere between Tapachula, Mexico and the capital so we were three hours late in leaving. I got back and went right to bed. I spent the next days trying to get things wrapped up, packed and sold.

Friday night at about 6p, my friends Carlos and Gloria made me a tia to a beautiful baby girl, Camila Rosivel Sanchez Casteneda. I was thrilled to be able to meet her before I left. I spent Sunday hanging out with them in El Espino, and then Monday, began the goodbyes for real.

Monday night, my friends John and Nadia were married. I also feel fortunate to have been able to attend their wedding. I also got the chance to meet the Boltz clan. Things were flying by pretty quick so I am hoping to be able to make it out to San Fran some time and hang with them for reals.

Tuesday morning I had my last Salvadoran pupusa with my friend Hugo who had just arrived back in El Sal from Sweeden. We got to hang out just long enough to hug and catch up before I left for the airport. Armando and Raul (El Mae'tro) drove me to the airport.

So I arrived in Denver late Tuesday night which officially ends this round of Latin American adventures. On to job searches, culture adjustments and, I predict, freezing to death. Thanks to everyone that has kept up on my blog and shenanegans, I hope you have enjoyed the ride, as much as I have.

La Gringa Perdida, signing off....

UnMission Slideshow

Last stop....

I'm in Antigua, Guatemala. I grabbed a shuttle her on Sunday. I even got to ride co-pilot.

My friend Aaron from Grand Junction is here volunteering and studying Spanish. We have gotten to hang out the last couple of nights and it has been really great to catch up. Kinda feels like a torch passing. He is just beginning his Latin American adventures and I am wrapping mine up... for now. I head back to CO a week from today. It is hard to believe that I am goign to be leaving without a foreseeable return date. Bittersweet.

I got up early Monday morning and climbed the Pacaya volcano. It is currently active and errupting and you can climb right up to the top of it and get as close to the lava as you dare. Definately a country without liability laws. There was a spectacular view at the top that you could enjoy as long as you braced yourself against the wind. The wind was amazing, it nearly blew me off the hillside a couple of times. There were also a TON of people. I think there were at least 40-50 people there and this is the off season!

So I am here again tonight and then head back to San Salvador tomorrow. My how time does fly....

Copan, Honduras

I got up early Friday morning and caught the 7am ferry out of Roatan and am finally free of that obnoxious Alicia. She was such a pain, always holding my stuff while I was in the bathroom, keeping me company, splitting costs, laughing with me. Ugh! Good riddance!

I have also, sadly said goodbye to the ocean for the foreseeable future. Que horror. It's hard to believe that this Central American life I've had for over three years is coming to an end. It will take some getting used to.

I arrived in Copan, Honduras just before sundown, found my hotel and settled in. Copan is officially called Copan Ruinas because it is the site of some pretty impressive Mayan Ruins. I toured them yesterday with a group of Salvadorans. They were really pretty cool. I must say that the first half of the tour was more enjoyable than the second half because about halfway through I had to pee like a Russian Racehorse. My torture hit its peak when our guide showed us the Mayan bathroom but refused to let me use it.

I woke up this morning and then got a little bit of a panic. I was watching CNN and the ticker reported a 5.9 earthquake in El Salvador. I jumped up, got ready and headed to the internet cafe. I called Carlos and Gloria to make sure everything was okay. Carlos said they were fine, that it was "soft." He did tell me though that the senatorial candidate he has been working for was killed a couple of weeks ago. I didn't get much of the details because the connection was bad, but it was clear that he was killed violently. What a place.

I am taking a shuttle around noon to Antigua. My friend Aaron, from Grand Juction is there learning Spanish so I am going to hang with him for a bit before heading back to El Sal for the final, final goodbyes.

Wow.

Calm, Cool and Collected

We spent two nights in and near Tegucigalpa. The first night in the city and then we met up with Rob (PCV from CR) at a Cathedral and then ate lunch with him in the cafeteria before heading to his site just outside of Danli, called Nueva Esperanza. Rob is working at an orphanage for HIV positive kids. It seems like a pretty neat place. We were only there for a few hours in the morning before we had to take the bus back to Tegucigalpa to catch another bus early the next morning. We had a lot of fun and a LOT of laughs. I met a girl that Rob works with that was at CSU the same time I was there. We even stayed in the same dorm! Small world.

We took the bus and then a really bumpy ferry ride (complete with staff members running around providing barf bags) to Roatan, one of Honduras' Bay Islands. It is really a gorgeous place. Most people come here to get diving certified, which is exactly what Alicia is doing, as it is one of the cheapest places in the world to do it. I opted not to as I am not sure that it is something I will do much of in the future. I am sure that will guarantee that at some point in the future I will have wished I had taken advantage while I am here.

We got in pretty late Sunday night and grabbed a hotel room in the middle of a blackout, which meant that there was no power or water. Not a big deal. The second day though we decided to switch hotels and are now staying in a magnificent place that has a hammock and a view of the ocean. So I am happy as a clam. I got a thai yoga massage this morning from a woman that lived in Carbondale for a while. Random! She had also lived in BC Canada, so there was lots of connections being made. Craziness.

So we will be here for a few more days. Then it looks like the UnMission will be split. Alicia is going to head to her beloved Belize and I am going to go to Copan, Honduras before meeting up with a friend in Antigua, Guatemala and then back to El Salvador. It will be a rough parting. We thought it would be easier... we thought after spending so much time together, our fair well would sounds something like "I hope you get bug bites..." but it looks like our friendship has survived and our reconciliation tour will be unnecessary and a reunion tour will suffice.

Still Ridin' the High

YES WE DID!!!!!

Amazing night. I've been looking at my country from afar for over three years now. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not so good. Tuesday night it was great. There are no words. It's difficult to explain to Americans what America looks like from the outside. It's difficult to explain to Americans why what we do, matters outside of America. There is nothing in the US to compare to the influence and presence that the US has in other countries. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not so good. We talk about justice and equality and freedom and opportunity and then every once in a while, we actually do it. It's just the beginning. Now the real work starts and it is going to require every single one of us standing up and taking responsibility to work toward being something great again. But now it seems, once again, anything is possible.

We hopped on a bus 3 am Wed morning and arrived in Managua at about 11am. We are hanging out with a couple of other VMM volunteers Christine and Laura. They have been working at the Batahola Community Center for the past year. The center seems pretty amazing. It's a quick visit, we head out again this morning at 11. But I am glad we got to stop in and put their work and stories in context.

Tonight we will be in Tegucigalps and hang with Rob Orton, fellow RPCV. We will go to his site tomorrow and then , the new, latest plan is to head on to the Bay Islands and hole up on the beach for a few days.

In Chepe for Obama

I am back in San Jose at the Hotel Aranjuez, a personal favorite of mine. We spent two nights in Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica. Puerto Viejo is a nice place, the coast is beautiful, lots and lots of tourists though. We went ziplining on Sunday morning. It was a lot of fun. It was the most beautiful one yet. The jungle on the Caribbean coast is amazing. We were at least 100-150 ft above the ground on a couple of the runs. We saw a howler monkey and a toucan. It was my first time to see a toucan so I am glad I got to see it before I say goodbye to Costa Rica again.

Now we are back in San Jose. I have some errands to run today and am going to hook up with the few friends still in San Jose. Actually, I think we are going to go to a skeezy gringo bar tonight to eat good ol' American burgers and watch the election results with a bunch of current volunteers. It'll be interesting to see if I still know any of them.

I picked up Obama's book Dreams From My Father. It was really an amazing book. Honest, insightful, intelegent, compassionate, inspiring. It has actually helped motivate me to write my grad school essays. Made me remember that I used to have hopes for making the world a better place too. If he weren't running for president I would be wishing he was. Course, I'm not sure how I feel about having a literate president. Might take some getting used to. hehehehe....Anyway, get out and vote if you haven't yet. It's a big day for America!

One down, six-ish to go

We followed up a very bad hotel experience with an amazingly good one. We stayed at the Bocas Inn in Bocas del Toro Panama. We had an INCREDIBLE view of the water right outside our window as well as two hammocks from which to gaze at it. We spent two days there, doing a whole lot of not much. It was wonderful.

We left Bocas on Thursday, took a wet water-taxi ride to the mainland and then two more buses to the border. The border between Panama and Costa Rica is a river which you are able to walk across over a rather dilapidated bridge complete with haphazardly placed wooden planks. So we officially mark one country off our list and have landed safely in Costa Rica. Two more buses and we arrived in Manzanillo, a very small Carri bean town at the end of a rough dirt road. Manzanillo had been on my list of places to see that I didn't get around to while I was living here. It is beautiful. I managed to get myself up and went for a run yesterday morning. We spent another two nights there, enjoying the jungle and beach. This morning we took the bus into Puerto Viejo and are going to spend two nights here. We are going to go zip-lining tomorrow, swinging through the trees like monkeys.

Things are good. AS a side note, while traipsing through Central America, I am also trying to get references and essays together to apply for grad school. This is a not an application tactic I would recommend to anyone else as it is hard to wax poetic about my future when all I am really interested in doing is staring at waves from a hammock. Hopefully though, I will be able to talk someone into letting me into their program.

Panama City

We arrived in Panama City after a surprisingly painless 7 hour bus ride from Boquete. I was very disapointed that I didn't get a window seat, but survived nontheless. Panama is really a beautiful country. I am wondering how it has taken me so long to get here. Panama City is also a fascinating place. We only spent two days there, but I would definately like to come back and spend some serious time.

We went to the Panama Canal early Sunday morning. It was actually quite impressive. We saw a couple of enormous barges go through, watched a video and checked out there museum. It was all very impressive and well run. But, I think the most impressive part was that on each of the floors of the building, they had these box shaped aparatus' that when you pushed a button, water flowed out of a spigot into an arch from which you could drink without worry of intestinal distress. Fascinating! We snapped some pictures of this modern engineering wonder.

We also visited Casco Viejo which is the oldest part of Panama City. It is part ruins, part ghetto and part gentrified tourist neighborhood on the bay. It was really beautiful.

Unfortunately, our hotel was really, really, REALLY bad. We decided to splurge and then immediately regretted it. We got a room that had no hot water, no cable and looked like it was rented by the hour. When I complained to the front desk clerk he was amazingly rude and insulting. It was an amazing display of disrespect that nearly bordered on verbal assault. I am working on a strongly-worded letter to the owners of the hotel (that outta show'em) and am telling anyone I can get in contact with that they should not, under any circumstances, stay at the Costa Inn Hotel in Panama City. There is my mouse's roar.

We landed in Bocas del Toro yesterday and after dodging and icky gringo that wanted to charge us $60 a night for a concret box with no windows, we found an AMAZING hotel right on the water that is slowly healing the damage done by the Costa Inn. There just may be hope for the world after all.

Travel Route

For those of you keeping track, here's our travel route so far. You'll need to zoom out to see it. I will keep it updated as internet cafe technology allows:

View Larger Map

Boquete, Panama

We are officially flying by the seat of our pants. We have essentially tossed our original itinerary and are going which ever way the wind blows us. We caught the 11 am bus South out of San Jose, Costa Rica and made it as far South as Paso Canoas and we decided to call it a night. We found a hotel that is located literally between the Costa Rican and Panamanian borders. We took advantage the next morning to do some duty-free shopping and then crossed the border on foot. We were navigated back and forth between the Latin American beurocratic stamp windows by a 12 year old. At one point, just after we both handed him our passports and five bucks, it dawned on me that we were putting quite a bit of trust into him. I mean, he didn't even have an official looking vest. All turned out well though. We grabbed a bus into David and had an hour and half of the most pleasureable ride so far on the trip. Even included air-con. The highways in Panama are amazingly nice. In David we grabbed a bus North to Boquete.

We arrived here at about 3:30 in the afternoon in a complete downpour. It became immediately apparent that my raincoat, which has been molting liner dandruff on me for the entire trip, is absolutely penetrable by rain. So, it is getting tossed. Which leaves me raincoatless in Central America in hurricane season. Not to fear though, I'm sure I'll be able to find something in Panama City on Saturday. Until then, I bought a crappy umbrella from a local store.

The most striking thing about Boquete, after the lush green mountains poking out from the mist, is that there are a boatload of gringos here. Apparently, the AARP ranked Panama amond the top five countries in the world in which to retire. So there has been a flood. I hate to generalize too much, but my experience with Ex-Pats in Latin America has been that they generally come lurred by lower living costs and then proceed to try to make their new home just like the one they left behind. They end up raising the cost of living for everyone, fine for them and their American pentions, but economic death for the locals. They end up pushing locals off properties they have lived on since the beginning of time, evidenced in Boquete by the fact that there are more real estate offices than there are hotels. Anyone that makes the argument against immigrants that "If we went to their country we would learn their language and respect their culture," has likely never been outside of the U.S.

It is beautiful. We went rafting this morning through some amazing Class IV rapids. It was a ton of fun. I am glad I got it in when I did. At one point we floated past one of the 17 damns they are constructing. Next year, that river won't be floatable. I don't know what we are heading towards, but I am pretty sure it's not progress.

Tomorrow I'm getting a massage.

Plan B: Make Plan B

Against all logic and odds, I managed to get myself up early enough yesterday to go for one last run in the Puerto. It's really the best time of day, between 5:45 and 6 am. The ocean is gorgeous and the sun is not yet baking your insides, but also rather easy to sleep through. Then I went to dance class with my little old ladies, they are still a kick.

We were set to leave Puntarenas at about 2 pm and go to Monteverde, when a vendor guy came up and told us that the road to Monteverde had washed out with the last rain storm. We just looked at him and thought, "Well, that's not right. We are trying to get there." His story was confirmed when the bus didn't show up. So we sat there looking lost for a good twenty minutes trying to figure out our options, and also commenting that maybe we should start coming up with Backup Plans. We finally decided to head to San Jose and substitue Boquete, Panama for Monteverde, Costa Rica. We stayed last night at my the Hotel Aranjuez, my favorite San Jose spot and ate an amazing dinner at Tin Jo. Still rocking my Peace Corps discount, YAHOO!

So we were going to head to the border this morning, but when we got there, the bus was full. So we are set to leave on the eleven o'clock bus. We'll see how far we get. With a little luck we can get all the way to Boquete tonight and sleep in tomorrow. We are looking forward to holing up in a hotel for a couple of days. Do some rafting and swing through the trees on a zipline.

Gira de Despedida

Alicia and I arrived in the Puerto last night around 10 pm. It was a pretty easy bus ride. I think it helped immensely that we went out with the mara the night before we left and went straight to the bus without even a nap. So we slept most of the trip. It's a long ride, but buses are a completely different story in Latin America and are much more comfortable than you would imagine. Course, my standards are also pretty low.

So we landed back in the Puerto. We are staying with doña Julia, a family I hung out with a lot when I was living here. This morning we went for a walk through the community and said Hi to lots of people. Lots of surprised faces. Almost everyone remembers me so I guess that is a good sign. Even Fat, Nasty Bar owner got throw out a catcall for old times sake.

Most everything is still pretty much the same. The kids are a little bigger. The bridge crossing over the estuary into Fray Casiano has finally become completely depleted. Only an iron skeleton remains. Even the concrete steps have been taken apart. I was sad to hear that don Luis, my initial host dad has been battling cancer. He looks good, but much thinner. They say that he should be coming out of it. Ojala.

The puerto is still amazingly hot and we have already sought refuge within the air conditioning of the internet cafe. This afternoon we are going to hang out on the Paseo de Turistas, and keep ourselves cool with chilled beverages and maybe come patacones. Tomorrow we are going to go to dance class with my little old ladies and then head out to Monteverde.

Despedida

Things are coming to a close. I had my last day of work at SHARE on Wednesday. The last couple of weeks have been a flurry of running around, trying to wrap up lose ends. The reality of leaving is slowly starting to dawn on me. But not completely yet....

I was fortunate that I was able to see and personally say goodbye to some of the people I have been working with. It is a tough thing to do and carries with it an aura of abandonment, or so it feels to me. Salvadorans continue to be as I have always known them to be; gracious, resilient. It's been an honor to be here. I know it's time for me to go, but I don't have to look far ahead to foresee a visceral aching for this place. El Rinconcito. This heart-breakingly, beautiful place.

Fortunately, I have a month of beach/bar sitting with Alicia to buffer my angst.

Karmel Juyu and Antigua

We had our annual VMM retreat at Karmel Juyu which overlooks Lake Atitlan. It is simply a spectacular site. The pictures do not do it justice. It was great to be able to hang out with the other volunteers. Quite a few of us are getting ready to transition back to the US, and there were also a few new faces.

We spent the weekend at Karmel Juyu and then all piled into a mini-bus heading to the Moran's site. Most of us hopped out at Los Encuentros, Alicia, Laura, Christine and I were headed for Antigua and the Salvadoran volunteers were headed back to Salvador. It was raining pretty hard and we were thankful that a chicken bus was going by right as we pulled up. Apparently I dilly-dallied too long getting out my raincoat. Everyone piled onto the bus, and then it left without me. Ooops.

Not to worry. If there is any place in Guatemala that I feel confident I can get myself to, it is Antigua. I ended up catching another chicken bus about 3 minutes later. I was able to get a seat and I wondered if my traveling companions were so fortunate (they were not). As I mentioned, it was raining pretty hard which in Central America means that roads become rivers and often large parts of the mountains slide away. In dry weather, the chicken buses swerve around cars and corners at approximately mach 10. When it is raining, the chicken buses swerve around cars and corners at approximately mach 9.5. I long ago accepted that the act of traveling in Central America is an act in which I surrender any control over my safety or well-being. I think it is best to accept this and enjoy the ride. I was pondering this reality, and morbidly thinking of the role of chance in life. Thinking that missing that bus was really a minor event, but how often things like that can change your life. I was sitting in the front seat so I had a descent view out the front window (only one wiper on driver's side) and out the front door where the attendant stood calling out destinations and collecting fares. At one point, the door was open, and the attendant yelled excitedly to the driver "Dale! Dale!" which means "GO! GO!" I looked outside just in time to see a wall of water shoot off the mountain and clip the mid-section of the bus. It wasn't enough to knock us off course, but it was definately enough to get my heart beating and other anotomical regions puckering. Needless to say, I was content to meet the girls in Chimaltenango with nothing more than a good story.

We arrived in Antigua soon thereafter, found our hotel and then set out for dinner and internet. Kelly and Lisa, two Costa Rica PCVs traveling Northward by bus, were also in Antigua. They had passed through El Salvador, the week before. We had plans to meet up in Antigua for my second cameo on their "MesoAmerican Farewell to Freedom Tour." We didn't find each other than night, but I stumbled upon them the next morning in a cafe. So we spent the day checking out the sites of Antigua, a really cool city, except for the tourist inundation. It was a good time. We tortured the VMs with PCV talk. We split in the afternoon as Kelly and Lisa went to climb the volcano in the rain and Laura and Christine headed back to their site in Managua. Which left Alicia and I to pre-trip preparations for our own upcoming farewell tour. We did some shopping, ate dinner, drank a margarita and listened to an obnoxious, tortured ex-pat kiss wooden ducks in a Frida Khalo bar.

I made it back to El Salvador on Tuesday night and am trying to get things wrapped up here. I finish at work on the 15th and then we hit the road on the 18th.

Yo como Jimmy

I made it to Guatemala Wednesday. I stayed overnight at a house of nuns. It was very, VERY tranquila so I had time to do some more studying before the GRE on Thur. All I have to say about that is that it is LONG, looooooooooong. I think I did well enough that someone will take me, but don't think anyone is going to start throwing money at me. The best part is that I never have to take it again.

Thursday afternoon, I caught a bus to Alicia's site. I sat at a bus stop in Guatamala City for over an hour inhaling bus fumes. I made friends with a couple of the kids selling candies and other sweets when I asked them for the bus to Paoquil. They got quite a bit of amusement out of my pronunciation. After assuring them that I didn't want to go to Antigua, they made sure that the guys with the clipboards tracking the buses would tell me when the bus for Paoquil came by.

When the bus finally did arrive, it was a two hour ride to Santa Apolonia. It was a beautiful ride through the green, green Guatemalan countryside. I didn't even mind so much that I was squished in a bus seat. I arrived in Santa Apalonia and hung out with Alicia and the orphans. (Will post pics when I get back to Salvador) The kids are very cute and sweet and onery. They seemed to like it best when I would turn them upside down and shake them for change. The first kid I did it to was name Jimmy, so the rest of the kids would ask for a turn by saying "yo como Jimmy" or "me like Jimmy". They thought it was a game; I was looking for busfare.

This afternoon we are headed to Solola for a VMM retreat. The retreat site is suppose to be gorgeous.

Semillas de Esperanza/Seeds of Hope

The following is a piece I wrote for the SHARE eNewsletter.

“Work won’t kill you, but not eating will.” Maria Cecilia Salinas began working when she was thirteen years old. She says, “I worked in the fields. I went to the capital and worked there.” Now she is a forty-five year old, single mother of three boys. She is taller than most Salvadoran woman, her body stretched, thin and wiry as she pulls her dark hair back and fixes it behind her head. Maria Cecilia, along with others in the San Vicente Region, received a small loan through SHARE’s Semillas de Esperanza, or Seeds of Hope program. Seeds of Hope combines micro-credits with organic growing workshops to offer an alternative means of growing, if not survival, for Salvador’s poorest residents. The credits hover in the area of $200-300 and are used for buying seeds, renting machinery and, in some cases, covers rent on a plot of land. The workshops train the participants in the basics of organic growing.

Sixto Rene Diaz says he stopped using chemical fertilizers and insecticides five years ago when he began having liver problems attributed to his exposure to harmful chemicals. He said he tried growing the first year without anything and lost nearly his entire crop to worms. He started asking around and got some tips from different people on ways to grow naturally. He spent the previous day at a workshop on organic growing techniques. He says he’s excited about what he’s learned, but also feels encouraged that other people are out there doing the same thing. The group says that when they first started, people laughed at them. They didn’t believe you could grow crops without heavy-duty chemical pesticides and fertilizers. They said they knew the chemicals were not good for them, but they had always been told it was the only way. Blanca Estela Ramirez, admits that she wasn’t sure at first either, but that she had had success raising cattle with the ACAMG Cooperative, another SHARE partner, so was willing to give it a try. “I believe it now,” she says. Many in the group say that they joined the program out of desperation. Chemical growing is expensive and the genetically-modified seeds don't reproduce which means you have to buy new seeds every year. They were skeptical, but also out of options. Now, they say that sometimes it seems too good to be true, that they can grow their food without poisoning themselves; not in the growing, nor the eating.

Don Lucio Porfirio Hernandez walks with us through his cornfield in the community of El Arco. He has recently “folded” the tall corn plants over so that water will not collect in the ears mold the corn. He explains to me, that once the plant is mature, it will continue to grow doubled over. He points to bean plants growing between the rows of corn. He says corn and bean plants are good friends and that they will grow well together; the corn stalks providing structure for the climbing bean plants. “You can’t do this if you harvest with a machine,” he says. When the corn and beans are mature he and his son will harvest the crop by hand. They will keep part for their families and sell the rest.

Don Lucio and Esmerelda Villalta, the project coordinator from CRIPDES – San Vicente, discuss the bean and corn market. He calculates the figures in his head and most of them come out pretty low. When CAFTA dropped tariffs on agricultural imports, it put small Salvadoran growers in direct competition with US corporations. With the aid of government subsidies, the industrial growers in the US were able to sell larger, genetically-modified products for less than native products, even after adjusting for transportation costs. Naturally, Salvadoran growers stopped growing and began buying. Recently, the rise in fuel costs has sent food costs soaring. But now, when Salvador most needs local growers and local products, there are few to be found. Don Lucio tells me that a lot of people don’t think it’s worth it in the end; to work so hard for so little.

“But it has its advantages,” he says, “This way, my family eats.”

Upcoming

I have been studying lately for the GRE so, as you can imagine, not a lot seems blog-worthy. I am headed to Guatemala next week to take the GRE and also to participate in the VMM Retreat. I am looking forward to it. One, to be done with the GRE. Two, to see more of Guatemala.

Next month, October 15th, will make one year in El Salvador and bring to a close this episode of my Central American work. My how time does fly. I am going to do one last bit of traveling around Central America with my friend and fellow VM Alicia, who is also finishing up her service in Guatemala. A “farewell” tour of sorts that promises to be, well, memorable.

I am posting a link to the website of a photographer in El Salvador that has taken some really amazing pictures. Enjoy. www.jesusfloresfotos.blogspot.com

Getting Settled...

I made the big move last weekend, so today officially, makes one week in the new house. So far so good. The only domestic hang-up being that my washer is on the fritz. I think the pump has gone out. I have a theory on how it went down, but theories don't fix washing machines. I was able to do one load of laundry this morning by filling the tank with buckets. Worked quite well I might add, but I would really prefer a fully functional washer.

Other than that, things are pretty tame. Worked all week. Work is work. I am scheduled to take the GRE on the 25th of this month. Which means that in leiu of studying I have, rearranged my underwear bucket, calculated my student loan interest, and watched both the democratic and republican conventions. Desperation.

Barack Obama 8-28-08

That's my America.