The countdown

Today I decided to make a paper chain to countdown the rest of my time here.  I decided to do weeks because the days would be too many (and possibly a little disheartening) and the months would be too little--I mean how boring would a 5 link chain be, right?  Well, I counted off the weeks and I have about 23 weeks left so I will take one chain off every week (on Sundays) to count down the time until I finish my service.  It's not necessarily a countdown of how many weeks left until I get outta here (although I have thought that before), but more of like how many weeks are left until I complete my service, which is a positive thing.  I've been here for quite some time now and I've had small accomplishments (and failures or "lessons to be learned") along the way, but completing my service and ringing the bell in the PC office (a PCV tradition) will be so great! 

I used pieces of paper from my construction paper scrap pile, so don't worry about paper wasting here...and I'm sure I'll recycle my chain links (probably not gonna happen...).  But, the chain sure does look nice in all the different bright colors, right?  Something else that I like about the design is that I purposely made different size links.  Usually I'm all about uniform and organization, but as I began cutting strips, I thought Hmm, some weeks are probably going to be harder than others or feel longer and more difficult.  Some might breeze on by and feel light or short.  My paper strips don't necessarily align with what week will be difficult (can't tell the future yet) but I feel it represents it well :)

I've been feeling a little down lately, just missing home, family, friends, and everything comfortable.  Maybe the chain was some sort of therapy.  I like doing crafts and things with my hands to keep me busy, so I guess that's a good thing.  Although I have been feeling a little down and frustrated at the "common" things here such as buses, being overcharged or given the "gringo" price, no water, the heat, students, class stuff, etc. I have been able to find encouragement to keep with it. 

This past weekend I visited Frank and we decided to make some wine (something he has been talking about forever and now we finally went out and bought stuff).  I peeled 20+ mangoes to boil in sugar water so I didn't get to eat those delicious things, but fortunately, we saved all the meat and just drained the liquid for the wine.  So, cooked mangoes with some cinnamon (including the sugar it was cooked in) is absolutely amazing!  We mashed the mangoes and added the cinnamon and it tasted similar to apple sauce.  Yum!

Things were going well until Sunday when the bus came flying through town 20 minutes, which usually does not happen.  It barely stopped (sort of rolled) to let us on and drove on through town.  Unfortunately, even though it was driving very fast, I still missed my bus at the cut off for Boaco.  Fortunately though, I only had to wait for about 45 minutes for the next bus.  Sunday buses are pretty hit and miss and if that one hadn't picked me up, I would have had to wait for probably close to 2 hours. 

Well, I got home and this weekend my room didn't flood so that's another thing to be thankful for!  I'm looking forward to trying some of that mango wine after it's done fermenting.  I'm not a big wine drinker but I gotta try this since we made it :) 

Another countdown: just 3 weeks and Frank & I will be in Maryland!