My Peace Corps Service in Punctuation Marks

I think my host brother's expression would be best classified as an exclamation mark!

     Grammar is one of my favorite things to teach in school.

   I love breaking down the comma, examining the exclamation mark and explaining the period.

   You better believe I have a song for each one so my students can remember the function of each mark and have fun.

   Now, if my Peace Corps service could be any punctuation mark, it would be three of them.

Read on:

-The question mark: During my service, I’ve questioned a lot of things: Did this man just whip out his willy and pee in that bush right **in front** me? Did this stranger just casually plop her baby on my lap in this taxi? Did I just cuss the hell out of Border Patrol police? When was the last time I washed my ass? How old is this pot of rice? If I ask a lot of questions about my Peace Corps service, then the question mark best represents it, right?

-The exclamation mark: OMG!! Life is so extreme here! Sometimes I just want to scream! Ahhhhhhh! I just screamed!! I’m homesick! Miss my mama! I want the bean burrito at Chipotle! The taxi drivers in Lesotho suck! But yay, I got a hitch to site! This is Peace Corps life! Full of exclamation marks! Ahhh!!!!

-The comma: Peace Corps service seems to filled with many commas, or pauses, or breaks, because so many things happen, all the time, at the same time, or time after time, like Cyndi Lauper, because there’s no concept of time, but things happen a lot of the times, which is why volunteers need breaks, or pauses, like the many commas in this paragraph.

   Sentences with no punctuation marks would have no meaning.
   Same goes for Peace Corps life.
   Grammatical symbols perfectly encapsulates my experience, OK?!