I’ve been at my site for about two months now and life on the whole is rather good. Don’t have a ton of time to write right now, but I’ll try to fill all you fam and friends on my daily life here.
First my house: It’s 2, sometimes 3 rooms. One of the rooms is sometimes an office for health-related meetings, which is great because 1) I’m a health volunteer and I can be involved in everything they do, and 2) I can use the furniture when there isn’t a meeting. Regardless, the 2 rooms that are always mine have plenty of space. I had electricity installed my second week at site, so I have light and can charge my electronics. During the first week, I would cook and eat my dinner by headlamp and flashlight. There’s no running water or heat/AC in my house or in basically any house outside of the cities. I have a gated fence around the front of my house, which makes it set up pretty much like a zoo exhibit. All my doors and windows face the main road, and my fence/yard provides a natural “habitat” for viewing. There are often kids crowded around my fence trying to talk to me or just watch me do stuff. It can be a nice break from whatever I’m doing, but more often I just want to chop carrots in peace. I swear kids, there’s nothing interesting going on here! (This situation has dwindled now that people are used to seeing me every day). But maybe it is interesting by comparison to the norm…
My town has 4 small movie theaters, and there’s a soccer field a short walk away, but aside from that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of leisure activity around; not a lot of toys or games for kids. My mom sent me a bunch of Frisbees, so I take one out pretty often. I keep a knit one in my back pocket pretty much all the time. See, the beauty of the knit frisbee is, I can be walking down the street, buying rice, whatever, and then just RIP that thing at a group of kids, maybe they catch it, maybe it hits them in the head, or I miss and hit their Mom or something, but it doesn’t hurt and everyone laughs! Good times.
Household routines take up a lot of my time. Shopping for food several times a day (time consuming, because half the people on the street will stop me for conversation), cooking 3 meals a day, hand-washing everything (in buckets, mind you); pretty mundane stuff, but it all just takes longer. No fridge, no restaurants (in my town anyway). You can’t just make a sandwich or pick something up.
My computer is out of order again. The cable I bought in-country is fried. BUT this has been a blessing in disguise. Without the option of TV in my house, I get out a lot more, I work and study more, I read more, I’ve been exercising pretty much every day. I’m really active and engaged most of the time, and I love that. There’s so much that I WANT to be doing with my free time, so it’s always full, and not just sitting watching TV or puttering around the internet like in the U.S. The flip side of THAT is I NEVER have the option of vegging out, so my brain seldom shuts off. I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night with plans for projects, or ideas for vocab I want to look up, or whatever. Last night I watched “Get Him To The Greek” at the Peace Corps house, and afterward was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in weeks. So, I’ll need to work on striking a balance, brain wise.
Ahh, there’s loads more I’d like to right, and more interesting than this stuff, but I need to catch a taxi-brousse back to my house. Oh man, I need to tell you about taxi-brousses once I’m back. Bye guys!
