Wake up in the morning
feelin' like P Diddy, grab my glasses I'm out the door, I'm 'bout to hit
bush city, before I leave brush my teeth with a litre of salts 'cause the next time I'm in my hut there can't be no halts .
OK thank you Ke$ha but really on to the story. (also that was a reference to diarrhea
PCV memory is like that
of a person with Alzheimer's. There are those of us who manage
without an agenda, and those of us who spend half our days looking
for our keys. I'm somewhere in between. I have an agenda, but I also
have 3 keys in random places to find at any time when I have lost
(usually temporarily) my normal set. I write down everything from
meetings to clean your room, to text Eric.
Generally, I am split
between my village, my Master farmers village (not all PCVs have one,
and some are in their own village), and the regional house. In
village I wake up and greet my family as I get water. Then I go for a
jog. Sometimes if I'm working at the Master Farm I'll just jog there,
it's like 6-7 Km. If I stay in my village I will then either clean
various things in my room, visit my counterparts, work in my garden,
or like now write a blog which I will later post when I get to the
city. I also take the hours of 12-3 for cooking my lunch, napping and
listening to music with my brothers. Sometime I do non-sus ag stuff
like go to the health post, or talk to families about malaria.
If I do go to the Master
Farm I will help make vegetable and tree nurseries, survey for insect
problems, and make future plans with my awesome site mates and Fatou.
We spend a good deal of time there just talking and waiting for her
delicious yet stomach breaking lunches.
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| This is us seeding her farm |
After nap/music time, I
will go back out to the fields. If I don't have field work I spend a
lot of time chillin' with the ladies as they shell peanuts and
gossip. Sometimes they gossip about me until I pick up on what's
going on. I think it's there way of seeing if I am paying attention.
In the evening I enjoy
holding Fatou my little sister or playing with her and Bussa my niece
until one of my moms yells at us for too much giggling. Then I read
until I am sleepy enough to pass out. As of late there has been a
camel spider in my room. It will run up to the light crawl up my arms
or legs and freak me out. They don't bite but they are fast and
creepy looking. I killed one last night very gently so I could take
pictures. I know I am an Entomologist after all right!
The regional house is
where we go to use the internet, have meetings, get supplies in the
surrounding city, and socialize. There is also an office in Kaffrine which is closer to me. I find that some visits to the house
end with me getting a lot of work done while others end with having
only done the socializing aspect. I write it off as necessary for
mental health. It is so nice just to talk to other volunteers about
what they are doing and brainstorm what we can do together. It's also
been the location of some pretty sweet stress relief sessions that
carry on to the wee hours of the morning.
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| This lady is the JAM! She is a bouncer/bartender and protects me from all of Kaffrine ;) |
There are days when as a
volunteer with more time on the clock I go to other volunteers
villages and help them give trainings. I have done this with Lorraine
in January which I wrote about and again just this week. I have a new
site mate named Ann. She asked me to come and help her get a garden
going. We showed her family some techniques and planted a nice
vegetable nursery. As a health/ environmental education volunteer the
garden should be very useful to her.
AND THAT'S HOW WE DO IT!
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