My hope is that soon after my arrival I'll be able to start work on the latrine project I've requested funding for. The planning stage of this project has been so drawn out by this interruption in my service that it's hard to imagine the reality of actually getting it done. And there are other work goals - getting back to my Care Group and maybe helping to develop a training manual for medicinal plants - but I find myself thinking a lot about the little day to day activities that await me. I've gotten a lot of questions about this since being home and since it's never going to be big news (this is the wild card blog post to write when I have nothing else to write about) I've decided now is the time to fill you in on what a day in village consists of.
7 am : Wake up and greet the day. No alarm, no heavy eyelids. I stretch and wash up and put some water on to boil. Breakfast time is one of my precious alone times of the day and my only American meal in village. I have a little single burner gas stove in my hut which has never done anything but boil water because village breakfast is almost always tea and oatmeal. I take a lot of pride in my village breakfasts actually because I miss cooking for myself and let's face it, tea and oatmeal can get boring pretty quick. That's what care packages are good for. Cinnamon walnut raisin oatmeal and a Bengal spice chai latte (I've developed a love for powdered milk) is Peace Corps gourmet and a whole lot tastier than the moono (millet porridge) my host family eats. Before I emerge from my hut I feed Tanko and get dressed so that by
7:30 am : I am out the door with my bucket to say good morning to my compound and head to the well. Getting my water is always the first chore and I never know how long it will take. Sometimes I get to the well and am able to fill my bucket right away, sometimes I get there and am one of several women sitting on a bucket waiting for water to filter into the well, and other times I just don't feel like waiting and end up leaving my bucket at the well. Someone else fills it up for me at some point during the day and I pick it up later, or more likely I forget about it until my host mom is standing outside my hut with it on her head.
8-12 : These are my most productive hours on any given day. On "busy" village days I might be working on a mural, helping in the fields or doing work in my hut. I get sort of hung up on trying to do work that looks like work, which isn't always easy in village. Whenever I'm sitting on the floor of my hut with notebooks and paperwork sprawled around me people ask if I'm reading or studying. "No, I'm working," doesn't seem to make sense. "Work" involves sweat and you don't sweat while writing a lesson plan (in Mandinka no less!) or budgeting a construction project. I probably look busier on what I consider slow village days. On these days I pull extra water and do my laundry in my backyard (to avoid being ridiculed by the women in my village who have been washing clothes by hand since adolescence) or visit other compounds or give Tanko a bath or work on my garden. On one slow day after the plague of frogs was over for good I decided to really thoroughly sweep out my room. I sweep my room at least once a day, usually after my trip to the well, and sometimes again in the afternoon. But rarely do I get behind the buckets and under the trunks and bed. There was A LOT of dust and two frog mummies.
12-4 : By noon it's usually too hot to do much but wait for lunch to be ready and since we usually don't eat until 1 at the earliest I read. When lunch is over I usually sit with the women in the shade. They chat and nap and braid each others hair while I read or sketch or write in my journal. Kids run around and bring me whatever fruit is in season.
4:30 : Time to resume activity. When I have meetings with villagers this is usually when they happen because the women haven't started cooking dinner yet, but have presumably recovered from lunch and the heat of the day. It's really not often that I have meetings though, so instead this is usually when I wrap up anything else I might be doing in preparation for my favorite part of the day.
5 pm : Nafi alone time round two starts with a run or long walk in the woods; I have a favorite path out of the village that I take almost every time. Tanko comes with me and I talk to him in English and enjoy the exercise. When I get back to my compound it's time for my daily bucket bath. I listen to the BBC world service while I get clean and am probably more aware of what's going on in the world than when I am in America.
6:30-7 : Reemerge and read until the sun goes down.
7:30-8: Wait for dinner. Khady usually keeps me company during this time with hand games and various charming performances. Sometimes my community counterpart, Laye comes over for a visit. He's 20 and sort of a goof and I'm teaching him a little bit of English and telling him about America.
8-10 : Dinner is late. Sometimes as late as 9. When it's over I sometimes sit with my host brother Mamadou while he makes tea and listens to the radio, but usually I sit and talk with the women.
10 pm : Absolutely the latest I would ever get to bed on the average village day. Before I left in December 9:30 was starting to become the norm for closing my door and getting in bed. I read for a little while by headlamp and then go right to sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
*Note - Because I'm living by the season more than I ever have in my life, these times are approximate and subject to change depending on the length of the day, what food is in season, what farming activities people are doing, etc.
Tanko eating corn on the cob last September
A good read as usual. I know it's hard to have your service time interrupted like this. be patient!
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