a day in the life

village laundry

village iron

People used to ask me what a typical day in the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer looks like. I relished the opportunity to scoff, "typical? There's no such thing as typical, ordinary, or average in a PCVs life." But now that I've settled into my last few months of service, I can speak about my daily routines in a hopefully unpretentious way.

My daily wake-up call comes around seven am, a chorus of roosters crowing, donkeys braying, and children chattering. I have a lovely view of the morning sky to contemplate as I use my open-air bathroom and enjoy the morning air before it tops 100 degrees. My family convenes around 7:30 to drink coffee (aka sugar) in my dad's hut, then I meander to my neighbor's house to greet the family and watch the morning's happenings.

village cutting board

In a true small town way, we glean entertainment from observing who's going into town, who's cooking what for lunch, what's going on with the weather, etc. Around nine I go home to eat breakfast, which is a liter of water and, if I'm lucky, bread and peanut butter. Then I get ready for the day: sunscreen, conservative clothing, full water bottle. I "go to work" from ten to noon, painting a mural or visiting a new baby or overseeing latrine construction or vaccinating kids or sewing old mosquito nets or mapping the village or weighing babies. By noon I go home to get out of the sun, refill my water, and hang out with my family until lunch. Lunch comes around two pm: oily rice with little fish and a few vegetables.

village investment (chickens)

It's an exciting event because we sit on the ground and eat with our hands around a communal bowl, which means I'm fighting within the bowl to get good food and fighting around the outside of bowl to keep the chickens from jumping in the rice. The struggle of lunch and the with of the rice in my stomach prime me for nap time from three to five pm, during the heat of the afternoon.

village grill

For two hours I enjoy some alone time and I usually read because sleeping is challenging in a 100 degree concrete box. To recover from the heat I bucket bathe around five and drink my afternoon liter of water. In the evening I sit with women and talk, shell peanuts, and play with the kids until the sun sets and the village gets dark. Dinner's at eight and consists of sandy millet "cous-cous" with leaf sauce. The chickens and littlest kids are asleep by dinner, so it's a much calmer event than lunch. Some nights I stargaze for a while, then read by flashlight until bedtime at ten.

village potty training!

It's a small and slow life, but doesn't make it an easy one. While it may appear that I only have a two hour work day, don't forget I am speaking Wolof and living in accordance with Senegalese cultural rules 24/7. Peace Corps wasn't kidding around when they asked for a commitment to a 168 hour work week. It's a job that's simultaneously incredibly demanding and insanely liberating. It's a life of contradictions.