The typical day

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!