ages and ages ago, i was asked to post about what my life is like on a typical day. apparently, it's so busy that i have yet to find time to post about it. or maybe it's just not that exciting. or maybe i'm a procrastinator. but either way, i'm finally getting around to that request.
these pictures are from way back in march/april, but my life is pretty much the same now as it was then, so you'll never know the difference. except now that i've told you, i guess...
no day is the same but they all somehow blend together. these are the constants, for the most part:
everyday, i wake up under my beautiful, malaria hatin' mosquito net. sometimes in my bed, sometimes outside on the ground, when it's too hot to contemplate a night in a tin roofed mud oven. 
i sometimes go running in the morning, before the full heat of the day arrives. the road that passes my village is straight and smooth, so i'll run down to the next village on the road, then back cutting through the bush/desert on a horse cart track. other days, this part is cut out in favor of sleeping in. well, let's say most days...
i get my water for bathing and to water my garden from the river that flows past our village. it's really close to my family's compound and i'm too lazy to pull water from the well for anything but drinking. but don't tell my peace corps doctors. they would say i'm tempting the schistosomiasis gods... 
i've also decided that carrying heavy things on your head is genious and i'm sad this is not a more acceptable part of american culture. although i still can't manage to carry massive piles of firewood or towering stacks of dishes. if there was a carrying-things-on-your-head event in the olympics, my sisters would be champions.
When I get the water back to my hut, I take a "shower." this involves pouring water over my head with a cup. not usually while wearing a wrap skirt, but this is a family website... i really like showering outside, but i took a hot shower at a hotel recently, and showering outside has got nothing on indoor plumbing and water heaters. oh well.
once a week, i teach health classes at the primary school in my village. there are six classes, although it's rare that all six teachers will be there on the same day. school gets cancelled constantly, for all kinds of reasons- strikes (both teachers and students- very French of them), pay day, holidays (the senegalese government celebrates a ridiculous number of holidays, including all the minor catholic saints days and whatnot. "why aren't you in school?" "it's asscention." "oh yes, of course.."), random closings. but i usually get to teach at least three or four lessons a week, on basic health topics. the kids really like theater and role plays, especially those where they get to act out "diarrhea." yes, kids are the same everywhere...
At least once a day, i sweep my room. the dust accumulates with amazing speed. it's like the whole sahara wants to be in my room. i even have to sweep the walls every once in awhile.
doing laundry happens about once a week. i do my wash with the rest of the women from my neighborhood, at our spot down by the river. after almost two years, i am still incapable of making the proper "squish, squish" noise with the clothes and the suds, so all the women (and 4-year old girls) are constantly trying to school me in proper technique. they insist that my clothes simply cannot be clean without that noise. in many ways, i am a failure as a woman. :)
One thing i am pretty good at, though, is pulling water from the well. i go every two days or so and fill up my jerry can, that i pour into my peace corps filter for drinking. our well is about 30 feet deep or so and we don't have a pulley, so it's all vertical pulling. good for the arms, hard on the ropes and buckets. occasionally things fall/jump/get thrown in and we have to wait a few days before drinking again. i've been meaning to start cheerleding my community members to work on covering it, but they have been busy or otherwise occupied.
lunchtime! everyone sits around the bowl and we eat with our hands. it's the same dish pretty much every day- rice and fish, sometimes accompanied by vegetables, always with a good dose of palm oil. it's good but gets monotonous. and you have to eat fast or it's gone- most often we're at least 10 people around the bowl, although i've counted 17 before. my sisters get aggitated cause i don't eat fast enough and i do too much talking. there's actually a verb in pulaar that means "to remember something while eating" and i do this way too much for their liking.
This is the view out my front door. for the first six months i was here, there were constantly kids standing outside it, observing me, waiting for me to come out, or give them bottles, or yell at them to go play. it was like living in a fishbowl. they've chilled out since (and so have i) but this still happens a lot more than i'd like it to. i guess i'm just too darn interesting. and there's absolutely nothing else to do...
post-lunch nap time. 
for reinactment purposes only, of course. but it is true that after lunch, for about 2 hours, absolutely nothing happens in the village, especially in the hot season. too hot to move, so we all just collaspe and breathe slowly. i almost never actually sleep- this is my best reading time. and i sleep more than anyone else at night, anyhow.
i spend an inordinate amount of time looking at my clock and calendar, checking out the temperature (53 degrees here, that's celcius, btw. ugh.), wondering what time it is, planning my future in my head. especially these days, in the middle of the afternoon, as the end is in sight and i'm feeling ready to go.
dinnertime. these are three of my sisters and we're eating gosi, which is a kind of rice porridge with milk and sugar. doens't taste bad, but the texture is killing me. the redeeming factor is the crazy huge spoons we get to use to eat it- theyre plastic models of the hollowed-out gourd spoons they used to use before plastic age. really hard to eat with and really fun to try.
after dinner, i like to spend some time texting my peace corps pals in other villages, keeping up with their lives and the current pc gossip. i was never a fan of texting before, but here, it's pretty much my whole social life. sad but true. alhamduliah for good cell phone reception days.
and earlier than you might think, considering how late i get up, it's time for bed again. i usually get in a good chunk of reading and then it's off to malaria-medicine dreamland.
just another day in the desert.
is it what you thought it would be?
