At about 5:00 a.m the friendly family rooster starts doing its thing. Stupid rooster. I stay in bed. I realize I could get out of bed, but the night owl in me thinks 5 a.m should only exist for sleeping. At about 6:30 a.m I get up and spend some time in prayer. Some mornings I go for a run or I do some exercises that some of the EWBers are doing. Morning is my favourite time of the day here – it’s relatively quiet and the temperature isn’t ridiculuous. At about 7 am the husband leaves the compound on his moto, this is my cue to roll off my sleeping mat and out of my mosquito net, grab my cup and greet the family. I greet my family with a hearty “Blika!” and get shy smiles and gigles from Shaman, Amelia, and Godfred and warm smiles and questions regarding my health and sleep from the adults. For some reason, the children are shy around me in the morning and it is all they can do to respond “nambah”. Evelyn (the mum) starts to heat water on the charcoal, I go get some bread or “bowl fruit”. Bowl fruit is as delicious as it sounds, but it’s not fruit at all. It’s fried bread dough and Tim Horton’s has got nothing on it. I exchange morning greetings with my neighbors as I walk the dirt path to the bowl fruit ladies house, her name is also Clara! I love my morning walk because I pass people who know my name and greet me with “Sister Clara!” or “Blika!” and a smile. I also get to go past my favourite little boys house, his name is Michael – most often seen sporting snow suit pants, hot pink sunglasses and a mischievous grin.
I help prepare our morning “tea”, which is actually Richoco (Cadbury instant hot chocolate looks like instant coffee), dried milk, and a bit of sugar. I put the ingredients into the cups and stir while Evelyn adds hot water. After a round of “Sister Clara, you’re invited.” and “Npusia, you are also invited”. We silently drink and eat, the girls using spoons to scoop it into their mouths. I love this. It’s me 20 years ago…or last week when nobody was watching! Haha. Often Evelyn will also prepare a more typicial breakfast, ground millet, pepe (chili pepper) and water. I prefer the kids breakfast as the later tastes like taking a bite of wet spicy flour -it sits in your mouth and is hard to swallow. Every morning the woman go get water from the borehole but they don’t let me come because it’s the rainy season and the path is “not fine”. I have stopped asking to come because the answer is always a smile and no. I have gone to get water twice when I was first here and am definitely not as graceful as they are – in fact, I don’t need a bucket shower after I help get water ;)
I take a bucket bath and stand in front of the fan until I’m relatively dry. I have no mirror and two pairs of pants.
I hop on my bike and head to the office, it’s about a 10 minute bike ride made longer by the frequent greetings and maneuvering around pot holes full of red/brown water, goats, chickens, and the odd biker, moto or taxi. When I arrive at the Office, the watchman takes my bike and parks it for me, locks it, and gives me the key. We talk and I climb one flight of stairs to a big empty room. I come here to work because there is nobody here, there is a ceiling fan, and I keep hoping that someone else will come to work. Most of the Agricultural Extension Agents (AEAs) spend their time in the field or goodness knows where. Occassionally someone will poke their head in and greet me. I get picked up here by Extension Agents and we go to the field together. This usually involves a lot of waiting…waiting for the AEA to show up and waiting for the farmer groups to be gathered together. Each farmer that shows up will bow and greet you and take a seat on a bench or a root or the ground. The AEA and I are given plastic seats or a bench for ourselves. Refusing this is futile, although it feels incredibly strange to be sitting on a bench when an 80 year old is sitting on the ground. Meetings start with an opening prayer in Fra-fra, I’m not sure what is prayed and to whom it is prayed as the groups are composed of Christians and Muslims – I guess since both faiths believe there is only one God so they are ok with this. I have a hard time picturing this happening in Canada. After working through the Curriculum card and different issues that the group is having, the meeting is ended with a closing prayer and some dancing. The woman are so lively and sing and dance with so much Soul. This dancing usually involves me trying to copy them and everyone laughing. I look and feel pretty ridiculous, but when in Rome…
Some days I ride my bike into Bolga (downhill on the way there!) to meet farmer groups. The bike ride in is a bit scary, you’re sharing the road with a lot of things and I often find myself distract by something happening on the street and hit a pothole. I have taken to wearing my sunglasses on the way to town for eye safety – the cars and trucks and tros pass at such speeds that eye protection is definitely necessary. After meeting with farmer groups, I take this opportunity to go on the internet (the only building that I’ve been in with AC!), buy some fruit, stock-up on things, etc. Bolga is busy and full of people and I am always happy when I’m leaving the city heading back to my host family in the country. It’s uphill for most of the way home and I am always sweating like a maniac by the time I reach home. Despite being hot, I head into my room and put long pants and a long sleeve shirt on – no mosquitoes please!
By the time I arrive home, it is normally time to eat dinner “together”. You find somewhere to sit on the ground or a bench. Nine times out of ten, we eat TZ, which is hot fermented millet. It sounds a lot better than it tastes…In the words of Crocodile Dundee, “You can eat it…” TZ comes with a soup or a stew (one contains oil the other doesn’t). You take off chunks of TZ and dip it into the sauce. You aren’t supposed to chew it, but I haven’t figured out how to swallow the lump whole yet. They always give me a lot more than I could ever possibly eat. I stopped asking for less when I was told , “We can’t give you less or you’d look like a beggar.” I eat until the third gag reflex and am silently thankful that we eat in the dark. If I bring home plantains, we occasionally have these for dinner and tonight I had a rice ball with ground nut (peanut) soup. This is my first interaction with a rice ball and I ate half of one. Evelyn tells me that she eats three –I have a hard time picturing that and laugh. I think I would literally EXPLODE if I ate three rice balls. I told her that my pants won’t fit when I get home and that I can’t possibly eat any more. She laughs. I enjoy eating with Evelyn. We have slow discussions, each of us picking our words carefully and laughing when we’re unsure how to explain to one another. I have learned that she met her husband during secondary school. He was at Polytechnique and it was an arranged marriage. She got to know him for three years before they married – basically she met him in what we would call 10th grade and married him after 12th grade. I try to picture myself married at the end of high school – yikes.
After dinner I go into Evelyn’s room – this is where the TV is and this is where everyone goes after dark. It’s a small room and it is seriously 10 degrees hotter in her room than outside. I stay here playing with the kids, talking and trying to catch some of the news before retreating to a bucket shower and sitting in my room in front of the fan and read, write, type or listen to some music.
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