Day to Day Life

It occurred to me that I never have told you guys what I do at post now. I can’t really say I’m doing much yet, but there some very productive things that might seem minute to you.
So, here’s a good day for me: I usually wake up somewhere around 7:30am, unless the Lariam (powerful anti-malarial medicine) has kept me awake all night. I wake up, go out to my kitchen and boil some water for my oatmeal and my instant coffee. It’s almost ironic, but the few things at home that aren’t fake or perfected are the only things that are fake here; coffee and milk. Both are powdered here. Anyway, I take that inside and sit on my bed with it, and usually I either read and eat or I turn on something to wake me up, like some Blackalicious. After I get dressed, which is usually after a shower if the water’s on (I’m terribly lucky to have a shower here), I open my door my front door and leave the screen door closed. Usually a few people come by to saluate me, mostly the 2 or 3 little kids who I occasionally give work to (such as sweeping my house and burning my trash, or getting water if it’s not on), and my neighbor Angel. I usually wait a while to see if anyone is wanting to talk to me. Sometimes someone comes by, but I usually get bored, so I put down my book and go out to make my rounds. I usually start with a visit to my favorite person in village, Mama Ynes.
I was introduced to Mama Ynes by a Fulbright Scholor who used to live here in Boukoumbé. She is an older, retired woman who lives fairly close to me. She spends most of her days taking care of her corn that she’s picked, her funion (a local grass that they make into a soup and paste), and usually the fish she might have recently bought. Mama Ynes is a very smart woman, and I get the feeling she is very respected in village because about every 15 to 30 minutes someone will come by just do saluate her. I will usually talk with her and play with her kittens for an hour or two, and then I’ll leave. Mama Ynes never lets me leave without taking something though, so I usually leave with at least a couple of pieces of really good wagashi (cheese) and a bottle of water.
After this I usually go to my favorite buvette (bar) here in town, but I’m really just going to visit with the woman who works there. She is also the owner of the bar, and she is a very ambitious woman. She is in the process of building a boite (night club) behind the current buvette, but the current buvette is made up of roughly cut trees that hold up a roof of pieces of aluminum. There is also more aluminum on the side so that her guests are blocked from the dust of the road and the rain of rainy season. She does have a really good refrigerator though, and the drinks are always really cold. She also has a fairly large tv (huge by Africa standards) where she has paid extra to get 5 channels that actually have good broadcasts (which is saying something). There is news in French from France every night, and that’s how I ended up going there, and we got to be friends in the process. A lot of times it is just her and I sitting there talking over the tv. Her name is Denise and the bar is called The Providence.
After a few hours I leave Denise, and if there’s daylight left I make one more house call to a man named Riggobert. He’s quite the entrepreneur, and he has a bunch of business ideas. He wants to get rich quick and, even though he’s one of the wealthier people in town, he always refers to himself as a poor man who just needs the money for his ideas. This is Riggoberts way of asking me for money, but I’ve always refused with the same roundaboutedness, so he now excepts me as a good person for business advice. I have offered to help him with business plans so that he might get a loan from a bank, but Riggobert is lucking for the fastest possible way of getting money. I’m afraid that he’s so eager to make his ideas work that he will end up giving all of his possible profits away to whoever he finds to be his investor. I have tried to express this fear for hours at a time before. Usually I end up leaving fairly late from his house.
On my way home, if the boutiques and marche (market) mama’s are still open and out, I usually get an orange or two, some cold water, and whatever I might have ran out of lately.
Once at home I usually cook my dinner, which is a mélange of vegetables and wagashi in a cheese (Vache Qui Rit, can find it in the states) sauce, or a tomato sauce, both served with pasta. Sometimes I do something different, but all I have is a stovetop and a dutch oven (An oven made of a large pot on a stovetop), so variety in cooking methods is a little limited.
After dinner I either read some more, watch a movie on my computer (all of which I have seen at least 4 times), or I just fall asleep. Once I pick myself up for bed, I brush my teeth and then crawl under my mosquito net and turn on my fan.
That’s a usual day. Sometimes it’s nothing like that. Sometimes I go on a hike all day, sometimes for 6 or 7 hours. I definitely never miss a marche (market) day, and sometimes I make those take up most of a day. Sometimes I go meet up with my post mates, and we’ll cook dinner together and watch movies and be Americans for a while. Maybe I’ll go visit other people in village instead of visiting one of my routine people, or sometimes I just relax around the house all day, but that’s pretty rare. That’s my life though.
I know it would be easy to mistaken me for lazy after reading this, but I honestly can’t begin work till after I learn the language, and that’s coming. Besides, life is just slower here. People might have to do 5 things all the time to get by, but I assure you they rarely feel rushed or over-worked. It’s a different culture completely, and this is just life.

Soon I will start giving business formations to a women’s group here in town, but I’m not comfortable with my language skills yet. Also, once the language comes, I will start trying to help with the development of tourism in Boukoumbé. If anyone has any books I can read on developing tourism, please send me the name. Boukoumbé has no previous infrastructure for tourism, and I have no idea where to begin.
I hope all of you are having a wonderful life. Don’t catch cold over there!

Sarah