A Day in the Life

I've spent just about seven months here and I still don't have a many “standard” days. Nevertheless, as requested by one of my readers, I thought I'd describe some my day-to-day life for you.

SUNDAY

Sunday is day three of my weekend, so I'm usually pretty rested and ready to face market day. However, since I don't have to be up before dawn, I'll stay in bed until 8 or 9 before braving the world. The minute I open my door, it's a whirlwind of Susu greetings. “I xi. Tana mu xi? Heri xi?...” Once my door is opened, my neighbors bring over a crockpot of ye frais. Ye frais is a sickenly sweet, liquid breakfast food made with balls of flour, water, sugar, and tea, and no matter what I do, they continue to bring it to me on a daily basis. I appreciate the gesture, but I hate that I end up wasting it. After disposing of the ye frais, I'll go into the kitchen with a post-it and write out my shopping list. It usually looks a little something like this.

-onions

-garlic

-tomato paste

-potatoes

-laundry soap

-mustard

-…

You get the idea. Finally, I head to the market, dreading the chaos. On market day, the population of my village seems to triple and the space seems to shrink. Vans, trucks, and taxis come from all over and converge on little Coliah resulting in packed streets, cars everywhere, and the overwhelming sound of hundreds of people shouting the name and the price of what they are selling. I wade through the throng of people, running into students and friends, and weaving around the piles of onions, fabric, housewares, etc. Eventually, I end up at my favorite market lady's boutique where I can knock out about 50% of my list. As I continue to look for the rest, people scream fote at me, and ask where I need a taxi to...not believing me when I say I live here.

Due to the shear amount of people and traffic. I've adopted the the Getgo motto “Get in. Get out. Get going” and I'm usually back to my house before 10 am. So what do I do for the next 6-8 hours? I read, I write, I lesson plan for the week, and I usually take an hour to make a “decent” meal. After chowing down, I'll head to the well and fill up my buckets, and if I'm lucky they'll actually let me haul up the water. This always provides entertainment for the neighbors. While I do it just as well as they do, the fact that I'm white makes it hysterical.

Sundays really are my laziest day. As I mentioned, I'll read, lesson plan, and I'll often hammock in front of my house. This isn't as relaxing as you'd think. My neighbors will either sit around me and talk to me, or just wander over, greet me, and stare at my for five minutes before going back to what they were doing before. If I fall asleep, I'm always awoken by people yelling in Susu, KADIATOU HOW ARE YOU? YOU ARE SLEEPING? HAHAHA! They then turn to anyone around and say “look, the white person is sleeping in a hammock” in their mocking and sarcastic tone. When the sun starts to set, I'll head in, take my bucket bath, and eat dinner before barricading myself in for the night. And finally, before hitting the sack, I'll call the fam and talk for a solid one to two hours.

MONDAY

Mondays are a special day. By special, I mean really busy. I wake up at 6:30, get ready for school, and get the bugs, who had free run of my house all night, under control. I open up my door, the greetings start, and I wait for the crock pot to arrive. Once that has arrived, I head to school. On the way, I walk past the old ladies sweeping the road, and the sleepy market looking like a house the morning after a party. I greet the people who are up and about, and people scream fote at me. I continue walking to school where I'll see the sun rising over the mountains. I'm usually one of the first people at school, so I sit and wait for everyone else to arrive. At 7:45 the raise the flag. The students gather around the flag pole and sing as it's going up. At 8 I head to the classroom. Most of the students aren’t' there yet, and the chalkboard hasn't been erased. By 8:10 I can usually start class, where I spend the next hour and fifty minutes trying to do a lesson while continuously telling the kids to stop talking. Once my first class is over, I spend the 15 minute break eating a bean sandwich and taking my malaria meds. By 10:25 I'm able to start my next class which goes about as well as the first and before I know it, it's over. I then head to my final class of the day. English. At this point, the kids are antsy and won't shut up, so we get a small amount covered, and then I let them go. By now, it's 2 pm and I head home, stopping to buy hardboiled eggs, or bananas on the way. I quickly eat, and then collapse on the floor for a quick nap. At 3:30, I'm up and head back to school for “revisions.” Revision sessions are basically after-school tutoring. About half of my class will show up, and we spend the next two hours going over problems. At 6, the session is over, and I walk back with my students answering all of their English questions. Along the way, I am greeted by the villagers and my students cackle each time I use the local language. They proceed to ask “Madame. You speak a little Susu?” Upon arriving at the house, I take my buckets to the well and return the crock pot. After that, it's time to throw dinner together. By the time I'm done with dinner, night has fallen, so I shut my door and call it a day.

TUESDAY

Tuesdays are a little different in that I don't have school until noon! I can sleep in, do my laundry, and clean the house. I will also sometimes do “spa” days, be it painting my nails, shaving, or doing a face mask. After killing time all morning, I head to school for 10^th grade English. They laugh at lot at their pronunciation and sit there and talk the whole time while I tell them to SHUT UP. After class, I head home, grab my laptop, and immediately leave again. I walk to the taxi gare, where I sit in a plastic chair for the next two hours waiting for my computer to charge. During those two hours, I do an English lesson with the owner of a boutique, who is quite a character. He has a very fiery personality, and is quick to anger. I've had lessons abruptly end because he gets into fist fights or screaming matches with people. I'm also forced to eat rice and sauce which I force down and then gag on because it's so spicy. They then give me a bag of water and sit there howling because the fote can't handle her peppers. After English, I usually get held up by students who ask me to go over problems with them. Imagine teaching on a rickety chalkboard, in an alley, under the shade of a mango tree and having every passerby stare at the math as if it's sorcery. After two hours of this, I head home for the standard evening routine; water, dinner, reading, and writing.