Officially in Village...Yikes!

Sunday August 8, 2010

I have officially survived two nights at my post and man… I think they may have easily been the roughest two days of my life. I quickly realized that I am no longer in the comfortable bubble of luxury that I was in during training. The Peace Corps van dropped my off and unloaded my suitcases and a few home wares and drove off leaving me in a cloud of dust and sand. I had about 20 wide-eyed kids starting at me like I had just been dropped off by a spaceship but eager to help me move everything into the house.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into my new home was a number of lizards and baseball sized spiders hanging around awaiting my arrival. After I gave them my respects, I sent them off to spider and lizard heaven then continued to get my house in order. The place was completely barren except for a kitchen table and a couch.

With 6 hours of daylight remaining, I had to get moving.

Task 1: Get some water. I recruited some of my neighborhood children to help me transport water back and forth from the cistern to my house. I carried all of the water on my head and was able to get a weeks worth of water back to my place without looking like I entered a wet t-shirt contest. Task accomplished.

Task 2: Make the water drinkable. This requires boiling the water, filtering it, then adding a few drops of bleach. So I start to connect my gas stove, which took me about 30 minutes as I had no instructions. Then I started boiling and filtering. By the end of the night I had about 6 liters of water ready to go. Task accomplished.

Task 3: Eat something. Luckily I had purchased some fresh fruits and vegetables before leaving Lomé and was all set to make a salad. This is much easier said than done. I first had to wash all of my dishes as they were covered with dirt and sand. I filled two basins with water, and got to washing. If anyone has ever washed dishes without running water you understand that this is not an easy task. Then I washed all of the fruit and left it in bleach water for about 15 minutes (this is how our Medical Officer suggest we wash fruit in to ensure we don’t get sick.) Long story short, by the time I ate it was about an hour and a half later and I had lost my appetite. However, I was thankful that I had a salad as my village no vegetables to make a salad except for tomatoes. Task accomplished.

Finally the sun went down and I was left with a single flashlight and a huge spider and lizard infested house. So I decided to just go to bed. One problem, church service started at the Baptist church across from my house and that night was the first time that I wish the megaphone was never invented.

The next morning I woke up and realized that it wasn’t that bad and that I made it through the first night. Day 2 was much easier and after the initial shock of the first two nights I think I have it down. One thing I have learned through all of this is the power of adaptability. This is the most foreign lifestyle that I have ever lived in but it isn’t impossible and if millions of people live like this all throughout the world (and many and much worse conditions) than I can do it too.

I have a lot of work to do at my new home but I am looking forward to making it a comfortable refuge for myself after a long day of work. I’ll get some before and after pictures on the blog when the decorating is finished.