Daily routine

written Thursday, 14 June 2007

Now that I have been in the village several weeks, life is starting to settle into a routine, although I have learned that it is best not to count too much on something happening at a particular time (like getting time to myself to read or write letters) because invariably it won't work out the way I planned, and if I was counting on it too much I will be grumpy.

But anyway, here is more of less what my daily routine is like: between 5:00 and 5:30 the animals wake up and start making all kinds of racket (the donkeys making their awful being-tortured-to-death sound), which means that I wake up. I lie in bed until about 6:00, when there is a little more daylight, and then I get up and bring my mosquito net and mattress inside my hut. After I get dressed (always a skirt unless I am biking somewhere that day) I make tea on my little gas stove and listen to the BBC on the wonderful little shortwave radio my parents sent me. A little after 7:00 I walk over to my family's compound for breakfast. We sit outside on little stools and eat porridge (cornmeal balls in sugar water) out of big communal bowls.

After breakfast I go to the well to get water. Usually one of the other women will pull the water up for me because they think that I am incompetent, but I carry the bucket of water back to my hut on my head by myself. I have gotten a lot better at it, so people don't laugh at me anymore, but I still spill a lot more than the village women do.

Back in my hut I pour some of the water into my giant water filter to make drinking water (the rest of the water I use for bathing), and I sweep out my hut - there is always a lot of dust falling down from the thatch roof. Then if I am lucky I get 30 minutes or an hour to read and write letters, but soon I always get visitors - my counterpart, one of my family members, the kids looking for a place to play, or one of my other villagers. So the reest of my morning will be spent talking to people and trying to learn Jaxanke/Mandinka from them.

Around 1:00 I go over to my host family's compound for lunch - rice with peanut sauce, sometimes with a little fish in it. We eat inside one of the huts in order to be out of the sun. After lunch it is rest time. If I am really tired I will go back to my hut to take a nap, but usually I stay and hang out with my family members and help shell peanuts, the one chore I am not considered completely incompetent at (although I am still a lot slower than the other women).

Later in the afternoon my counterpart will come over to my hut to help me study Jaxanke and Mandinka, and also to explain things about the culture and community that I have questions about.

About 6:00 pm is bucket bath time, which I always try to make last as long as possible, but I still never feel like I get completely clean. After bath time I have some time to myself again to read (wish I had a newspaper!) until about 7:30, when I go over to my host family's compound to hang out and play with the kids until dinner (corn meal with peanut or bean sauce, or for the first time last night with a leaf sauce that tasted like spinach - yum!) After dinner I stay with the family for a while and look at the stars, and then I go back to my hut and read a bit until I fall asleep.

So that's my life. Of course not every day is like that. If I am lucky, I will get to go on a bike ride somewhere - to town for a health meeting, to the weekly market, or to a wedding in a neighboring village. And after my "integration period" is over in a few months, I will start doing some real work.