Another Day in the Life

Post by Lara

3 May 2013

It’s been 7 months since the last “A Day in the Life” post and, partly due to seasonal changes and partly due to settling into life here, our typical day has changed a bit.  Below is a list of our daily activities now.  You can read our previous post on this topic here.

Sometime between 2:00am and 5:00am: Wake up to the neighbors’ dogs barking at what our friend Dennis likes to call “Bark O’Clock” and what I refer to as the Twilight Bark (101 Dalmatians anyone?).  The Twilight Bark is much louder and longer on clear nights when the stars and moon light up the road and the dogs can see people walking. Because the Freetown vehicle leaves at 3am, we almost always have pedestrians passing our house in the middle of the night.

6:15am: Wake up, sometimes assisted by alarm and sometimes on my own. I usually get up before Kevin, go start up the kerosene stove to warm breakfast and sometimes even brew a cup of coffee before Kevin joins me.  One purchase we’re very glad we made was a stainless steel travel coffee press (made by Bodum). Paired with the coffee my family sent from the states, it’s a great way to start the day.

6:30-7:00am: Eat breakfast and greet the neighbor girls, Fatu and Hawa, as they pass by carrying water and sweeping all the fallen leaves out of the yard.

7:30am: Kevin leaves for school on his bicycle.  It’s 1.3 miles from our door to his staff room, and almost all of the children he passes along the way call out, “Mista Flaute!” and wave as he rides by.

7:40am: I leave for school, which means about a 2 minute walk down to the staff room to sign in. About 10 teachers live on the school compound, but invariably no more than one of them is at school before I am. 

7:45am: Morning assembly is supposed to start at both schools. Lately my school’s assembly has been starting after 8 though. I’ve gotten used to not having a full period of any classes I teach first thing in the morning.

8:15am: Start classes. Kevin is currently teaching math and physics and I’m teaching math, physics, and chemistry. 

10am-1pm: Between classes we take advantage of quiet staff rooms to plan lessons, grade tests, and record grades.    

10:30am: Eat a sandwich packed for ourselves, or much more frequently buy lunch from the “lunch ladies”—women who come to school every day with food or snacks to sell. Most days I can choose from cassava root and beans, foo foo and soup, and stewed beans on bread.  All of those combos can also include a chicken foot or a dried fish if I want. Kevin gets the choice of cassava and soup…or cassava and soup. Two women show up selling it every day. He’s not sure why one of them doesn’t go ahead and try a new recipe.

12:00-2:00pm: School lets out (earlier during exams and when “Sports” is going on). I head home and put out our solar chargers, do laundry and other chores. Kevin often swings into town on his way home and picks up bread or any food items we need.  Bread is cooked fresh between 1 and 2, so if he times it right he comes home with soft, fresh-from-the-oven bread. 

2:00-4:00pm: At some point we start the coal pot for dinner. It takes about 2 hours to go from no fire to dinner on the table.  When we don’t feel like cooking we have to decide before noon and call one of our friends (Aunt Milly or S.P.Y.) and ask them to include us when they cook their daily meals. We pay Le 5000 (a little over $1) for both of us to eat.  If we’re at home we do chores such as hand-washing our dishes and carrying water from the tap stand about 150 feet from our house.  We also work on projects such as painting, building things, etc. (see our post “What to Do When There’s Nothing to Do”)

5:00-7:30pm: Eat dinner. If it’s dark already, we eat by candlelight.  Depending on how buggy it is, we stay outside for a while. After the sun goes down the temperature is lovely.  We also tend to feed the 3 dogs and 1 cat around this time.  I’ve gotten pretty good at making yummy (by their standards) food using some dry fish, rice, and a splash of palm oil. When we’re done cooking we put a pot of water on the still hot coal pot to heat for washing later.

7:00-8:00pm: Some days we walk 5 minutes to the NGO run by our friend Dennis and hang out—playing cards, listening to American music, and teaching their volunteers how to make pizza and donuts, among other things.

8:00pm: Pour heated water into our wash bucket and carry it to the wash room where we cool it down with water from the big trash can we store there.  Depending on the temperature outside our wash water ranges from just warmer than frigid to hot. 

9:30pm: Brush teeth and go to bed. Sometimes watch a TV episode or movie on our computer (we’ve gone through 3 seasons of Castle, 2 seasons of New Girl, and 1 season of Modern Family so far).  Occasionally read or write in a journal before going to sleep.  Nimbus, our cat, likes to sleep between/on top of us, or on top of our mosquito net.