I have been trying to think about what and how to
write about my typical everyday life here.
It’s kind of strange how quickly things have become “normal” for me and
it got me thinking about what do I
actually do every day? It’s almost like
I should have more stories to share, I mean I am living in Africa! How
many people can say that?! But, alas, my
life has gotten pretty routine and uneventful for the most part, at least to
me. Maybe you will find things more
exciting. Often times, it does require removing
one’s self from the situation to really realize the importance.
So, though my class schedule is somewhat different
every day, for the most part, I have one class in the morning and another in
the late afternoon. So typically I wake
up around 6am. (If you knew me at home,
this is a major change. Never have I
been a morning person.) If I am feeling
motivated, I will do an exercise video, either P90X or yoga. For breakfast, if I have made a recent trip
to the store in Nampula, I typically have oatmeal or even cereal with powdered
milk mixed with water. (The Nampula
store has this cereal called Quadz which is very similar to Golden
Grahams.) Hopefully I will get my
refrigerator delivered soon (as it is currently sitting in the PC office), and
then can have cold milk with my cereal.
Then I usually have my TICs class in the morning,
after which I typically pass through the market, hoping for something new to
inspire what I will make for lunch.
Typically, it is the standard items: tomatoes, onions, sometimes
bananas, sometimes peppers, cucumber, okra, now guavas have replaced pineapples,
and always rice, beans, and bread.
Lunch typically is either a peanut butter and
banana or jelly sandwich or one of my favorite lunches is a cucumber sandwhich:
cucumber mixed with diced onion and garlic, salt, pepper, on bread with
laughing cow cheese you can sometimes find in Nampula city. I’ll either occupy the afternoon preparing
for my next lesson or upcoming lessons, cleaning up the house a bit, reading,
or watching something on my computer.
Sometimes, if it’s not ridiculously hot that day, I’ll walk around a
bit, greeting people or exploring more of the city.
Then, I head off to the other school for my
afternoon Biology class. After class, some
days, my neighbor Ogénio or two girls Loila and Lucrezia come visit and we’ll
take a walk or chat under my gazebo.
Around 5 or 6, I’ll start making dinner, usually some rice or pasta
variation. Then, I usually take my
bucket bath to try to wash off some of the sweat from the day. My family sent me a solar shower bag which I
have tried a couple times, but still need to work out the best way to hang it
so that I don’t have to squat down in order to rinse out my hair. So I usually just use a bucket and a
cup. Then, it’s continued lesson
planning, reading or watching a show until about 9pm when I brush my teeth and
get in to bed, reading before falling asleep around 10 or11pm.
Now that I have gotten used to this routine and to
living on my own, I am looking for more new things to do to occupy my time and
get more involved in the community. Though
some days it’s nice to have a lot of chill out, alone time and escape from life
in Africa for a bit, I do sometimes feel like I should be doing more.
Talking with others, it seems everyone goes
through this type of thought and I have gotten good advice to help through
these moments. For instance, some days
it’s okay to just make it through another day, because life here is hard, and simply showing up to class is a lot and helps and does a lot more
than some other professors do. Also, it’s
about keeping things in perspective. I
remember my reasons for coming here and know that change will more likely occur
more in myself than physical tangible change I will see in my community. If anything, the changes I already see in
myself now will help me deal with challenges and experiences in my future. I also remember that I have only really been
here on my own in this community for a month or two, and relationships take
time to develop and grow, and I have already come a pretty long way from those
first days at site.
Nonetheless, I like to keep busy and am looking
forward to some new projects in the close future I hope. Many students have expressed interest in
wanting to practice their English, so I am working on the logistics to form a
group of students to meet after school a few times a week to just chat in English
for a bit. Peace Corps also has several
nation-wide secondary projects including a girl’s group called REDES, a science
fair, and an English Theater group. I am
seeking out Mozambican counterparts who might be interested in helping me run
such groups here, so I think soon I will be a little busier. J
Here are a few descriptions of the things that
aren’t quite so normal:
How I get
water: there are two different wells near my house. I have never actually gone myself to get
water, and have come to rely on my neighbor Ogenio to get it for me. Sometimes he’ll get it and other times he’ll
recruit this younger boy to get it. The
wells or pumps are about 100 yards away.
In order to fill the bucket, they have to pump the water out. Like I said, I have never tried it, but it
looks like it takes a lot of strength to pump the machine up and down. Typically two people do it, but I’ll have to
let you know when I try it one of these days.
How I cook:
with power: electricity is a great
thing and makes my life a lot easier sometimes.
I bought an electric stove with two burners which makes it pretty easy
to cook. The pans here kind of suck and
make you really appreciate the invention of Teflon, and the cooking utensils
aren’t the most durable and sometimes seem to be made of tin foil, spoons
bending when stirring your pasta, or plastic that melts in boiling water, but
you figure it out and get clever sometimes.
Since my frying pan is pretty much on its last days and soon seems like
it will burn through, I have taken to sautéing the onions and garlic in my
pots. Pasta magically cooks in like 5
minutes, I have become a rice cooking master, and it’s kind of amazing how I
can make the same five ingredients taste different sometimes.
Now without power is a little more difficult. I think I may have already described cooking
with carvão in a previous post, but to refresh your memory, its basically
charcoal and you cook over it. There is
no heat regulation, just hot and super hot or dying out embers, so cooking
becomes a little more simple and one-pot wonder type meals. I have been fortunate enough to not have too
many nights recently where I had to use carvão, and my electric stove is one of
my favorite purchases.
How I wash
dishes: I splurged and bought some actual dish soap and have some sponges
that do an okay job. I fill two basins,
one with soapy water and the other for rinsing.
Then scrub scrub scrub, dishes in the tub, rinse, and dry. Not too complicated.
How I wash
clothes: No machines here! I wash
everything by hand. How clean anything actually gets, I’m not really sure, but
at least things don’t smell too funny, I don’t think. I fill a small basin with water then mix in
some soap (universal soap you can also use to wash dishes). I put in some dirty clothes, about four or
five items at a time, scrub the fabric together, concentrating in the arm pit
locations and collars of shirts, then wring them out and put them in another
bucket of clean water. I rinse out the soapy
clothes in this bucket, giving them a good swish in the clean water, then wringing
them out over the soapy water bucket so as to try to keep this second bucket
not soapy. Then, sometimes, I’ll have a
third bucket to do a second rinse so the clothes don’t get quite as stiff after
they dry. I then hang them on the rope I
have strung between my papaya trees and the bathroom house, clipping them to
the line with clothespins to dry. Many
times, my clothes have gotten extra clean when suddenly it will decide to start
raining. If the clothes don’t dry by the
night, I drape them around the chairs in my living room and rehang the still
wet ones out in the morning.
Without
power: Several volunteers live without power or electricity in their
houses, and I have come to appreciate mine, but it can be frustrating when
sometimes it decides to not work for whatever reason. Typically when it is windy or rainy, the
power might go out for a few minutes to a few hours. The longest it’s gone out so far was for
about 15 hours, but that was an unusual occurrence, I hope. Not knowing when or if power is going to
return can be pretty annoying and almost makes you wish either you have it
always, or never, but the worst is definitely trying to sleep without power. Sure I can deal with cooking using carvão or
reading by headlamp and candlelight, but the houses here seem to have been
constructed to function as saunas, retaining the afternoon heat like an
oven! I close all my doors and windows
at night for safety and to sleep a little easier, but it provides for an
uncomfortable evening when the power is out and you can’t use that fan. It’s amazing how much nicer and cooler it is
with some air circulation blowing on you, and it makes for a long night when
you have to sleep in your own sweat. I
have developed a new tactic to combat the heat on those nights without power:
soaking a t-shirt in some water and draping it over your skin can actually cool
you down pretty well. Better than
nothing at times!