Packing (re-post with comments)
Post by Kevin (Diva Cup review by Lara)
8 May 2013
Note—this is a REALLY long post and probably going to be
pretty boring to anyone who’s not packing a bag in the near future. You have
been warned!
For the benefit of anyone who may be joining Peace Corps,
moving to a developing country for an extended time, or is just curious, here
is the exhaustive list of what we packed to bring with us here, and our
comments on what was useful and what wasn’t.
We organized it into 3 categories: things we use a lot, thing we use
infrequently or stopped using for some reason, and things we never use.
Things We Use a Lot:
(1) Netbook (an Acer Aspire One with Windows Starter)
- When it comes to computers, we were back and forth. Now that we’re here, it was totally worth every penny. We bought the cheapest computer we could find with the longest battery life. Because the Peace Corps requires you to do something called a Volunteer Reporting File (VRF), it has made it completely worth it to have our own personal computer. Beyond our periodic reports, having a computer also allows us internet access at our whim (we have a modem that connects to the local cell tower—you can buy them here). We rely pretty heavily on the internet access to update this blog, email family and friends, and stay in touch with project partners such as Engineers Without Borders. On another note, we volunteers tend to exchange music and movies like crazy when we meet up, and now we have something like 120GB of movies on an external hard-drive. Trust me, on nights when you just want to chill in your house by yourself, it’s really nice being able to watch a movie or a TV show.
(2) Battery Solar Chargers
- Totally awesome and we use them nearly every day. Once the sun goes down, the flash lights come out and it’s so nice not having to buy the super low quality, Chinese batteries that they sell here.
(3) USB Solar Chargers
- Most are on loan to other PCVs in country. I’ve asked to get them back before I leave and I think they are all working well and charging things up for us Americans that have to be connected. We currently are using one called “Soladec” and it’s one of the best purchases we made prior to coming (see our review of electronics)
(9) LED Flashlights
- Any flashlight that was made in China for America is better than the flashlights that were made in China for Africa, so we highly recommend coming with at least one.
(3) Headlamps
- Use them daily. Being able to cook or work outside with both your hands has been wonderful. Our headlamps have been the envy of most all our Salone friends and family. This is one thing that we’ve decided to bring back as presents for them, so perhaps keep that in mind if you want to bring a present for your host family.
- Being able to listen to the BBC all the way out in our town has been wonderful and I suggest either bring a high quality radio with you, or buying a super low quality one when you get here and get a super long antenna with it. Radios are definitely available in-country, if you’re looking to save packing space.
(1) Digital Camera
- You have to be able to document what you see here and digital is so nice. I suggest a camera that takes AA batteries or if it’s a special type of battery, bringing two or three extra batteries. In some places in this country it is really difficult to get things charged, so keep that in mind if your camera takes a special battery.
(1) iPod
- We spent a lot of time during training discussing with our fellow trainees how music is both a cure and a cause for home sickness. It’s so great to have familiar tunes, but it can also make you really miss home, so be aware. It’s been wonderful to share our American music with the neighbors and being completely surprised by some of the music we have that they already know.
(1) Surge protector
- Hadn’t started to use this one until recently when we got a car battery and an inverter to start charging at home. It’s really nice to be able to turn my one outlet inverter into a 4 outlet power strip so I can charge most of my electronics. This being said though, you can buy really cheap surge protectors here in country for the 220V circuit, but I’ve heard rumors that they don’t work as well and some electronics still get fried. I’d say this could be a worthwhile thing to pack if you’re bringing several electronics and you’re worried about burning them out.
(3) Kindle, in a zipper case
- Here’s the deal with Kindle: we love them and actually had a couple more sent to us. The Salone PCVs have over a thousand book files that we’ve collectively passed around, so just about anything you’re interested in reading might be available here. The problem is this country is humid and wet 75% of the year, so it is constantly trying to kill anything that makes us happy. A quick survey of other volunteers found that numerous others had Kindles that stopped working, but the convenience of having a ton of books to read paired with the relatively low price of a Kindle means that many of them have replaced their Kindles and continue to use them. So try to be preventative and bring good, high quality zip-lock bags with some silicone gel packs, or some other way to keep the water out, but be aware that one Kindle may not make it through 2 years of service.
(Many) AA and AAA Rechargeable batteries
- As I said, made in China for Africa is awful and you’re going to want a way to run your electronics. If we had it to do over again, we would have brought more AA batteries because more of our electronics run on them.
(4-5) “Professional” outfits
- Absolutely need nice business clothes for training and then for teaching. You are able to buy some second hand clothes here or some nice Africana clothes, but the first 10 days we were not allowed to leave the hostel we were training and sleeping at. This being said, you are able to buy a few things that were brought into the compound which included laundry detergent, so you will be able to wash your clothes. One recommendation: don’t bring any favorite outfits that you want to be able to wear upon your return to the states. Hand-washing clothes stretches and wears them quite a lot, and just about anything you bring will see more wear and tear here than it would see in years back home.
- Absolutely wish I had brought more than one pair of jeans. During the rainy season, jeans can take up to 3 or 4 days to dry. It is never fun being forced to wear dress pants because your jeans are still wet. Lara has a different attitude—she’s happy she brought jeans, but she did fine with one pair until she was able to find a second pair at a resale booth in December.
- You’re going to want more than this in my opinion. Sometimes these get stolen off of the clothes line or you miss a weekend opportunity to wash your clothes, so you need some back-ups. Also as I said with the jeans, sometimes clothes take several days to dry in the rainy season. Lara brought 20 pairs and that seems like a better number. Lara also brought like 6 bras and is very happy with that choice.
- This is a good amount of socks for us (Lara and I wear the same socks—we’re so cute, right?). If you wear sneakers or dress shoes a lot of the time, you may want more socks, but since we wear our Tevas and flip flops a lot we don’t need too many.
- The beaches here are wonderful, but be aware that your weight will likely fluctuate here. You will have to think about how your body will react to loads of rice 2 or 3 times a day. I’ve heard that with women it’s a coin flip of gaining or losing, but most men seem to lose weight here. We have one volunteer that has lost over 70 lbs. In summary: it’s not a bad idea to bring swimwear, but you can also buy thrift store swimsuits in-country so don’t sweat it too much.
- Wonderful to have here when it comes to keeping the dust off things (like your hair) and out of things (like you’re lungs).
(3-4) Casual outfits
- One of my favorite things is a pair of athletic shorts with pockets that are great to wear around the house on a daily basis. We basically wear t-shirts and shorts at home, and put skirts/pants/nicer things on to go out into the community.
(4-5) Pairs of Shoes
- My favorite “shoes” are my Tevas—I wear them almost daily. It is completely professional to wear sandals that enclose your foot (so not slip on) for work. I do also wear sneakers, leather dress shoes, and flip-flops. Flip-flops are incredibly cheap here, but we recommend bringing one pair to start because you’ll want them right away for showering.
- Leather belts apparently get moldy in rainy season, so it was recommended to us to bring cloth. Another note on these, your weight fluctuates and with the sliding cloth belts you don’t have to poke new holes.
- Turns out you will get chilly during the end of the rainy season. I really wish I had brought a hoodie. Lara brought a cardigan sweater as her only long-sleeved thing other than her raincoat and one of the first clothing purchases she made was a long-sleeved shirt. It’s a little embarrassing that 74 degrees is chilly here, but having long sleeves is definitely nice.
(1) Rain Jacket
- There’s only one Krio word for any form of wet and it’s “soaked.” I now understand why.
(2) Razors with lots of replacement blades
- You can buy some disposable ones here, but they are Made for Africa. We’re really happy that we brought our own razors.
(4) Deodorant sticks
- Expensive/really hard to get here. So either you can do what everyone else does and just go without or pack enough for two years. I brought 6 and it’s almost lasted one year, and now I don’t mind splurging a little on the expensive deodorant that’s available here.
- For the Diva Cup commentary, I defer to Lara: This is one of those things you can live without in Sierra Leone (pads and tampons can be bought locally or provided by our medical unit), but I love the Diva Cup and plan to use it after my Peace Corps service as well. It’s a great way to reduce waste (one of our volunteers has a great story about kids getting into her trash pile and discovering some things she was hoping would remain buried. I don’t have that problem!), and I can pack my one Diva Cup when I travel rather than packing a handful of sanitary products. All I can say is that for me this was a great choice, but some other volunteers beg to differ.
- Can be bought here, but we were happy to have them. Fun fact: whether it’s the palm oil or the warm weather, I’m not sure, but our nails grow way faster here than they did before we came.
- Always bring backups for everything. We lost our pair of hair cutting scissors and we had no way of getting around that until the Engineers Without Borders brought us two new pairs (have to have a back up!).
- Basically most of what we brought is provided to us by the medical unit, and anything we specifically need beyond that (like Dramamine) we can request individually. For those that are prone to migraines, this county has some crazy humidity and therefore pressure changes that will cause some killer headaches. Excedrin is one medicine that our medical unit has not been able to provide for me thus far (though they do provide a lot of the component medicines), so I’m glad I brought my own. Medicine is not as much of an issue here as I suspected it might be.
- You can buy them here, but you don’t realize how vain you are until you are without a mirror for a week or two. We’re glad we brought the travel one to use while we were in transit.
- Toothbrushes here are terrible. You are going to want to bring your own 2 year supply, or have your family send them to you occasionally.
- You can buy cheap brands almost everywhere here, so unless you are brand specific, I wouldn’t worry about this.
- Pens here are pretty rough, but you can buy them. Pencils here are fine so don't use up too much space trying to bring them. We’re glad we brought some permanent markers and calculators, though you can buy them here too. The Sharpie is wonderful to label everything that is your own to prevent people from stealing from you. Protractors, compasses, and rulers are great for loaning to students or giving to them as prizes, but we don’t personally use them a lot.
- Started using this in our house to keep track of short term, in progress, and long term projects. It’s super nice to keep things organized. We didn’t go buy this though—my mom happened to have them and gave them to us.
(1) Can opener
- Sierra Leoneans are baffled at our safety can opener that removes the top cleanly and safely. The alternative is using a knife. We’re glad we brought this, because we cook a lot and re-use our cans for all sorts of things.
- There is so much fruit and different things here that you’re going to want to peel, we think its worth it to bring one.
- I suggest you buy knives for yourself in America and knives here in Sierra Leone so you can lend them to neighbors and such. The alternative is that you get your good knife back with a giant chunk taken out of the edge because your neighbor cut through chicken bones with it and you spend the better part of an afternoon trying to smooth it out.
- If you are a coffee lover, they do sell ground coffee here (grown in Sierra Leone!) and it’s pretty tasty. We’ve also had some good coffee sent to us in a package and that has been so wonderful to remind us of home. If you are into coffee I highly suggest you look into getting this (Bodum Stainless Steel Travel French Press).
- Should use it more, but still use it often. This is also another great present for host families because the alternative is sending it to a blacksmith or using the closest rock.
- Yet another thing you will find yourself using often and another thing your host family and friends will envy. If you can find a cheap version of this, they would love it!
- They sell clear tape here, but there’s nothing that compares to real duct tape. Trust me, you’ll want this.
- Peace Corps provided one for each volunteer and you can buy locks in country so there’s no need to bring, but that being said we are using every one that be brought with us to this country. It’s advisable to lock everything here.
- The only cheese that Sierra Leoneans know about is laughing cow (it doesn’t have to be refrigerated!). If you’re a fan of dairy and you can get some powdered cheese or some easy cheese you will be so thankful that you brought it.
- It broke before we even got to this country, but since one of our radios has a thermometer on it, it’s always cool to see what the temperature is doing. Plus your family is always going to ask you how the weather is here and with this you can give an accurate answer! (Highest we saw: 118F; Lowest: 62F; Temp where you start to feel “cold” after 3 months of being here: 74F)
- Did not bring enough of these. You find yourself with a lot of down time here so you’ll want something to do. You may also befriend some people in town that are way better at these games than you and it makes you super competitive and gets you out of the house. For those of you who are familiar with strategy games like Settlers of Catan or Agricola, we are really disappointed we didn’t bring ours.
- If there is one thing I can tell you, it’s that you are going to want your own American pillow. I’m serious on this one. Bring your own. The pillows here are beyond crappy and there is nothing that is better for your own mental health than a good night’s sleep. We have seen nice pillows for sale in supermarkets, but they are incredibly expensive.
- Always fun to look at reminders of your life in America.
- We use them a lot, but I don’t think you’d have to bring it. You can buy utensils for very cheap here.
- This is one thing that you don’t think you use a lot until you’ve found a use for them all and you are suddenly out of them. You are able to buy them here, but sometimes it’s not the easiest thing to find.
- You can buy knock offs here (like my awesome pair of Rey Bails) but if you want anything with moderate quality, you need to bring it from the states.
- Currently still hanging in our living room and we use them daily to light it at night. We had some friends that had some solar powered Christmas lights sent and I have envied them ever since.
- You can buy bath towels here but it’s nice to have new quality ones.
(2) "Got Science?" stickers [gifts from our dear
friend and fellow mega-nerd Diane]
- Nobody here understands it or reads it except for Americans. Fun for us though!
- Sometimes you don’t want just water and you need to stay hydrated. You can buy some flavors here, but they're not always that good. This is one thing we request from anyone sending us a care package—we drink a lot of flavored water.
- Love this thing. Not a “need” but super fun to have with me.
- You need them. Sierra Leoneans have two levels of volume: off and loud. Peace Corps can provide you with some but you have to ask for them. I suggest you get a cheap pair that will get you through the first week or two before you get more from the Medical Officer.
- The only ones I’ve seen were either thrift store sheets or these flannel sheets. It’s nice having some clean sheets of our own.
- Great place to write things that you don’t want to publish on a blog, but don’t ever want to forget.
Things We Don’t Use a
Lot, or We Stopped Using:
Many of our toiletries:
- We don’t use much beyond shampoo, soap, chapstick, and occasionally lotion. That being said, it’s pretty tough to predict what will be really nice to have and what you won’t use.
- The humidity here kinda killed these but they were pretty cool to have for a few weeks.
- We used this often but learned that if you paint with indoor paint, sticky tack will pull paint right off the wall. Paint is not high quality here.
(1) Engineering Statics book
- Haven’t opened it yet, but I will. You find that being in this place makes you forget a lot of your college training.
- Was helpful in the beginning when I had no idea what I was going to teach, but now that I’m in the groove of things, I find that I can make up example problems on the spot just as well as using this book.
(80) Honey Sticks for the kids
- Flavored honey in a straw! These things are awesome. These became less for the kids, but rather for us. The kids just don’t appreciate them like we do.
- Great to hand out to little kids when they do something for you.
(1) Camp shower
- Used it until it seemed like it was going to break and have stopped using it. It’s pretty nice though to have a warm shower as opposed to a bucket bath.
(2) Water Bladders
- Use them when we go on long bike trips. We don’t go on many long bike trips, though.
Kristin Kimball]
- Read them during training and passed onto other PCVs. Not sure where they are now but we’re hoping to get them back before we leave just to see where they’ve been.
- Surprisingly useful sometimes, surprisingly unreliable other times. I’ve heard they’ve come out with or are coming out with a newer edition though.
- Unfortunately this book is for all of Africa and therefore when you want to find the breed of specific bird or lizard that’s in country, it’s pretty difficult and sometimes isn’t there. But it has pointed us in the right direct a number of times and we were able to find the exact breed online later.
- Super fun to have here because the nights here are so dark. This is one hobby I surprisingly really got into while being here. Also, we’re pretty far from Ohio so the whole sky shifted when we showed up and it’s been nice being able to pull out the atlas and identify constellations.
- If you really want to freak out a Sierra Leonean, bring a laser pointer that they can see into the night sky. It’s pretty freaking cool.
- Still working on it. I’m so close that I don’t want to mess up my current progress, therefore I haven’t touched it in months.
- Nice to have so you don’t have to buy them here. Shipping out of this country is super crazy expensive though. The best thing we’ve found is that you send your mail with the next American that is shipping out for America and have them stuff it in their luggage and mail it once they get back.
- Great to have around the house for cleaning.
- I highly suggest you bring more than just pictures of you and your family. Pictures of your house, car, pets, job, winter, and other random things that Sierra Leoneans want to know about you in your daily life in America.
- Its nice to have. Super sunny here and you don’t always want to wear sunglasses. They sell these here, though.
- Anytime we travel to Bo or Freetown, we bring this bag with another smaller backpack put inside it. We then fill them to the brim with grocery store items to bring back to our site or things that we got in a package.
- Lara decided to put her pack in a rolling suitcase, so we thought about leaving one of these at home. We did end up brining both and good thing we did because mine got eaten in the Philedelphia baggage claim. The Airporter LZ was a huge disappointment from Osprey and I would suggest you find an alternative option to protect your baggage.
- Use it less than mine because it’s smaller, but still nice to have. If we know it’s going to be a heavy load that we need to pick up, we bring both Lara’s and my own.
- Worked wonderfully for traveling here and from our host family to site; haven’t used it since though. It’s going to be useful when we travel back to the states.
(1) Mesh laundry bag
- Pretty nice to have something that lets the air in and keeps the bugs out.
- Has become our market bag and is wonderfully theft-proof.
- Ripped on the way to the country. I will probably give it to somebody here.
- Great for making those pillows that you ABSOLUTELY NEED TO BRING small enough to fit into your package.
Things We’ve Never
Used:
(1) iPod
- Lara left hers on the plane in Freetown, so some lucky plane passenger presumably owns it now.
(1) Computer lock
- We use a lot of locks, but not this one-- very few people are allowed inside our house and when we take the laptop out of the house we don't leave it unattended.
(1) One-piece swimsuit
- Lara just prefers her two-piece.
(1) Half-slip
- Lara was told to bring this to wear with an outfit provided for us for our meeting with the president, but it wasn’t necessary.
- Rope is very cheap here and every house has a clothesline so there’s no need to bring this.
- No reason not to use digital.
- We just don’t send a lot of letters, and those who have carried letters home for us were kind enough to pay the postage for us.
- Lara has always wanted to learn to play, but it’s just not been a priority here.
- Lara has done exactly one sketch since she arrived in this country. She's glad she brought the sketch book, though-- it didn't take up a whole lot of space.
