I triple dog dare you…to take my challenge (but not really).

Hello friends & family! I miss everyone dearly.

There is this website dedicated to challenging people back home to “live like a Peace Corps Volunteer” to get a better sense of what life is like for us in our respective countries. It also is a pretty inexpensive and easy way to publicize and promote Peace Corps. The website (http://www.livelikeapcv.org/p/challenge.html) has rules based on where volunteers live that restrict your access to hot water, transportation, internet, electricity, toilets, etc. There are different levels so that those of you who are not that interested in intentional discomfort just for fun can take the easy road. However, I must say that after reviewing the rules for Honduras, these suckers missed a lot of key items.
According to the website, these are the rules for Honduras:
Difficulty Level I: (Choose 2 of the following)
You canʼt use running hot water, you may only use water you boiled (yes, this includes baths)
You canʼt use any microwave
No checks, no debit cards or credit cards, cash only all week.
No washing machine or dish washers – plus you must wash all articles of clothing you wore during the
week by hand.
No flushing your toilet paper
Difficulty Level II:
You cannot watch television, but may watch soap operas and soccer at a neighborʼs house.
Must keep all valuables (cash, phone, id) hidden. Some options include bra, socks, hats. Get creative.
No sitting on couches for the week
Internet only every other day and for only 1 hour each time
Men and women may not wear shorts in public (only choose this item if you live in a warm climate)
Difficulty Level III:
You can use your toilet but you must manually fill the tank or do a bucket flush. (turn off the water to the
toilet)
Power outage. Have someone else throw a dice every day for how many hours you will be without power between (5a-11p) He/she cannot tell you how long it will be out for. (And he/she must turn off your power breakers).
You can only use one burner on your stove and no oven.
Say hi to everyone (including strangers) and make a comment about the weather to people you know.
No supermarkets.
Difficulty Level IV:
Reduced living space. You may only use your living room, bathroom and kitchen.
No driving. You can use public transportation, bike, or walk.
Cannot leave your house after sunset or before sunrise.
No running water from your house, you must go fetch it from somewhere else. (a neighbors house is fine)
Difficulty Level V: (Choose 1 from each level)
No English for the entire week
Lack of temperature control. No heater or air conditioner in your house or car.
You can only use your cell phone for 10 minutes per day.
Your diet for the week must include coffee twice a day with 4 tsps of sugar with each cup or drink soda
twice a day. Also must eat tortillas, beans, and eggs daily. (absolutely no butter)

If you ask me (and granted, no one did. But hey, ask anyone who knows me and they can assure you that I am more than happy to throw in my two or three cents), they missed some stuff.
Here are my rules:

1.You must have your friends or family place at least 10 spiders and cockroaches in your room while you sleep so that when you wake up to go to the bathroom at night, you scream and race around slapping your flip-flop around trying to kill those nasty bits.
2.Pay some acquaintances to hang around on the street along your route to work. Their main job will be to yell obscenities at you (kissing/hissing noises, confessions of love, random swear words in awful English) and make rude gestures. For men, this is not as serious of a requirement but if you are a lady, you gotta get hassled on the daily!
3.Stand naked in a room filled with mosquitoes for at least five minutes. Preferably, these mosquitoes might be carriers of dengue fever or malaria. (JUST KIDDING FOLKS, DON’T DO THIS…this is my disclaimer). Also, give a lots of little kids with lice bear hugs.
4. Limit yourself to see only 2 or 3 people of your same ethnic/linguistic/cultural background for the whole day. You can call or text anyone that you like.
5.Expose yourself to more risky situations (unsafe neighborhoods, armed civilians, corrupt authorities, roads in terrible condition, petty thiefs, etc.) as much as possible
6.You can only watch tv from last year…no new episodes. Also, no youtube, hulu, OnDemand, TiVo, or vimeo)
7.Use only dial-up internet.
8.Eat beans and tortillas twice a day.
9.All the vegetables and fruit that you eat have to be straight off the vine/tree/branch
10.You cannot drive a personal car; however, you can catch a ride from a friend or neighbor. If taking public transit, let at least 2 trains or buses pass by before getting on because here in Honduras, you usually have to wait a while for your bus and sometimes they show up and break down five minutes later or catch on fire.
11.If you have meetings or anything to accomplish in the day, you can only get half of it done. Either through broken commitments, miscommunications or just plain lack of effort…you cannot be a fully “productive” member of society.
12.Only drink Busch Light, Coors Light, or skunked PBR if you are going to drink at all. If you are a woman, no drinking in public.
13.Read or practice a non-technology related hobby for a minimum of 90 minutes every day. And enjoy it! No texting or tweeting or google+
14.You can only spend $5/day. Except for one day a week when you can drop $20.
15.If you are going to exercise, you either have to run outside with a pack of wild dogs behind you trying to bite at your ankles or you have a 4×4 foot space in your room to do exercise.
16.No hugs. Only patting people on the arm or fake cheek kissing. People in rural Honduras do not hug.
17.Hire a host family who speaks your second language to move into your apartment/house with you. Preferably, there will be at least 4 members of your host family and they will make lots of noise in the very early morning.

Now, I do not want you all to think that Honduras is awful all the time as you might gather from these rules. In fact, I enjoy quite a few things here (leisure time, work successes, learning Honduran slang, catching up with old friends, coffee, etc.) but the rules on the website just don’t give you a holistic sense of what life is like here. If any of you want to take my personal “Live like Carly in Honduras” challenge, please be my guest. However, I can only promise slight discomfort, an emotional roller coaster, and a raging desire for Pad Thai to develop as a result of following these rules.