nafadji livin.

{ July 6, 2010 @ 11:17 pm } · { Uncategorized }

So I have been an official resident of Nafadji for about six weeks now.  And I’ll tell you, excitement all around.  In my every day life I have become very good at sitting, opening peanuts with my hands and pumping water.  I have also mastered the art of smack talking in Malinke which makes many people think that I am therefore fluent.  This is both an ego booster and potential problem when people speak to me at 150 words per second and they think I understand what they are saying.  Anyways, typical day in the life of Mbamoussa (yes I have been spelling it wrong up until now):

6:45am: wake up. Because it is either A.too hot B. there are animals and or babies making loud noises or C. I have to pee real bad because I am convinced I have diabetes because of my high sugar consumption (see tea drinking below).  Then shower number one.  Then I sit and make coffee and or oatmeal in my hut and write down what I did the day before in my planner.  One volunteer suggested we do this so it makes you feel more productive, especially in the beginning.  So sitting on my butt for three hours at someone’s house can be interpreted as « language practice, » or « gaining the trust of the community. »  Or just so you can have a goal to be able to write down one thing each day that makes you feel like you accomplished something.  This could be anything from doing actual work like teaching people about mosquito nets, or as small as do my laundry (it can be difficult sometimes!)

8:00am: Face the day- go out, greet every single person in my family (I.e. people who live in my compound) which right now as of today consists of twelve children aged 7months to 15 years old (different sets of parents), and 6 adults, not including me.  I sit for a while, they offer me mono, which is this porridge-like food with little tapioca like balls in it with tons of sugar which is not my cup of tea so I go for the oatmeal sent from the U.S.A. via mom and dad.

9:00am: Go to the health post.  This may or may not consist of actual work, but it often does.  I am also working on letting people know why exactly I am here.  Since the first three months are so focused on language and getting to know the village, many people do not know exactly why I am here.  Many people think to study Malinke, some think to farm peanuts, some think to just hang out.  But hey, expectations are low? Who knows.  But I do want people to associate me with health, without having them think I am a doctor which is another tricky feat and probably unavoidable.  But my activities at the health post have ranged from vaccinating children against Polio (liquid vaccine, don’t worry nobody is trusting me with needles), to making neem lotion to fight against mosquitoes, to studying language and health and just hanging out.  My counterpart, Sarr, who is the nurse who runs the health post, and his wife come from the city where I had training, Mbour; so I feel like I connect with them because they are from the big city in the small village and that is like me too (kind of).

I also cleaned and organized the entire pharmacy with our wonderful health relais, Maxa.  Which I might guess had not been cleaned in years.  And a place to treat people that is crawling with spiders, no way was I settling for that! So I am working on keeping that clean and coming up with a system of keeping track of all the medications that come in and out.  I love me some printed out excel spreadsheets.

1:00pm: Lunchtime.  Sometimes I eat at the health post, because again, they come from Mbour and Sarr’s wife, Aida cooks delicious food.  So at times I creep around there until lunch time.  There was also that time I had food poisoning and threw up in front of the health post after drinking red Gatorade and my counterpart wouldn’t let me eat at home for four days after.  Oftentimes, I go home.  Lunch and dinner are usually things like rice or corn/millet much with either maffe (peanut sauce, yum), or just plain with maggi cubes and onions.  This is not the season of vegetables.  I dream of them at night.

2:00:pm: Naptime.  Its hot.  Thinking is hard at this time of day.  So I either nap, read, or lay in my hut. I started a no child in my hut policy after the first week when it was becoming clear that children would be around me at all times.

3:00pm:  Various activities/creepily following various people around.   Sometimes my sister Mansa, takes me with her to hang out with her friends.  It makes me feel like I am being taken on play dates.  Which is sort of is.   I will usually try to go visit someone to get to know people in the village, sit and drink tea, go for a walk, watch the world cup at the health post which has power and a TV and I have been watching World Cup games with 20 Senegalese men who I had rooting for the U.S. until they played Ghana.  And then the U.S. lost so I am rooting for Ghana with them.

5:30pm: Mbe esporo ke la! Every day (well most days) I put on my green sports shorts, sneakers and sunglasses and either run or ride my bike.  My family still thinks it is the funniest thing, even though it happens every day.  Oh that Mbamoussa and her fait du sports! I have also been known to hold a few family yoga sessions.  My sister, Sunkaro has been really into the yoga.  I think that when I am done with her she is going to be quite the yogi.  Most women here have amazing bodies from all that pounding, pumping, carrying things, and farming that they would likely beat any average American at many sports.  I am talking jacked.  We are trying to get over the obstacle of the skirt and the yoga.  As of now, it is doing the yoga facing a wall.

7:00pm: Shower number 2. (Still after showering feel clean for mmm about ten minutes).

8:00pm: Dinnertime, family time- tickle fests with children, going over school work, drinking more tea, going to random meetings about farming or soccer teams.

Between 9:30-10:00pm- Reading and bedtime.  Yes I am like an old woman, but really, not much to do after this time, you can only sit and chat in a language you don’t know very well for so long.  But sometimes there are fetes, and those will last until all hours of the night, and I have been known to attend these fetes and dance.  So yes, occasionally I do stay out late.  And again by « out: » I mean the fetes are usually either at the school or around the one working solar street lamp across the street from my compound.

So there we have it.  Sometimes it feels like the movie Groundhog’s day, sometimes exciting and dramatic things happen that make me feel like I should be writing a soap opera Nafadji style.  All in all, when I malinke kango mee (when I hear Malinke lit.) the work will be more substantial Nshallah, but the pace and the sitting will always be here.  Thank goodness for faiting du sports.