Living Poor?

Sorry if you were using a search engine to find information about Living Poor, the book. It is a pretty good book and I do recommend it. There is always the saying floating around other volunteers, “That's so Peace Corps!” That may make you wonder what constitutes “so Peace Corps.” If there was a scale from one to ten (ten being most Peace Corps), modern science would not be able to calculate where I fit on this scale. That's right I am so integrated these days, that I am practically Ecuadorian, or I just look like a poor white man.

Exhibit A would be my house. Many people have already passed through the hallowed bamboo gate into my sanctuary. What's the response I get: “Your house is SO Peace Corps!” Yeah, visitors even use caps lock in their actual words. Being the overachiever, or cheap bastard, that I am, I decided to add to the Peace Corps-ishness that is my house. How could I hang up my new mirror, spend $0, and up my awesome factor a notch- take a look at Exhibit A1:

 

Is that rope hanging up that mirror? No, that would cost a precious few cents at the hardware store. Luckily in training, I learned the center of the banana leaf was used as rope.
On to Exhibit B, my ingenuity and my desire not to shell out another $8 for a mochila. Recently, the arm strap of my prized and somewhat famous knock off Puma backpack ripped in half. Once again, how could I raise the bar on my Peace Corps scale? Spend $0 for one and look the part of an Ecuadorian while at it. Here it is, my German engineering remake of my backpack arm strap thread:

 

No, I did not spend any money for that string. I had enough sense to steal it from work.

Finally, we have Exhibit C- the white t-shirt, or what in the past used to be a white t-shirt. I came into this country with an arsenal of white shirts, hoping that they'd last at least until someone came down to visit me with a restock. Was I wrong. Four months into site and the army of shirts is about destroyed. Whenever I go to work, I look like a kid who is dressed up as a car accident victim for Halloween. This picture does not really give the messiness of my white t-shirt collection justice, but it gets the point across:

 

Here I am in Ecuador. I pretty much live at the same standard as the people, though at times I look poorer than just about everybody else. Whatever, it just adds to my ever increasing Peace Corps vibe that I emanate. Maybe if I find out I have hookworm or some weird parasite dancing around in my stomach I can win a lifetime achievement award.