Village Life

10/14/08

I want to take a moment to thoroughly describe my living conditions and the daily village life. I’ll begin by saying everything is a process, but I actually have become accustomed to most of it.

I’ve already gone into detail about the transportation system and how much it sucks… to summarize so far: Tro-tros are the main method of transport, affordable, and providing an equal amount of discomfort to all passengers. They are always over capacity with seated passengers packed tighter than stock animals. You can’t move your arms or knees and you try to lose yourself staring out the window instead of being utterly aware of the 19 sweaty bodies pressed together in one van. Yesterday I saw a tro-tro, packed full on the inside, and carrying a load on the roof matching the vehicle’s height and width. A goat was also strapped to the front of the roof-top heap of belongings.

There is constant noise everywhere, even when you try to sleep during the night. There are noises from roosters, goats, sheep, people, and the village band including drums and a trumpet. There are noises I didn’t even know goats made, but they do, all day long. Children and adults alike run past our window, their footsteps noisily crunching the ground as they scream or yell to another person down the way. This begins at 4am, lasting well into the night. Sometimes you can hear someone’s radio or TV, and every other day or so, a van or truck will pull into the village, blaring a loudspeaker to make announcements or encourage some type of action in Ewe. There is always someone outside our bedroom window trying to look in, or speak with us, or they’re just standing out there relieving themselves against the wall.

I’ve never in my life been around so many farm animals. They’ve really just become part of the background here, contributing to the soundtrack of daily life, and wandering past my feet if I sit outside. The baby goats, if they’re not sick, are actually pretty cute, about the size of a 12 week old puppy. Male goats, whether just a baby or a full adult, have testicles bigger than most human men, that swing as the trot through the village. Roosters are usually red or white, chickens are all colors. I especially like the look of black chickens, whose feathers are black like oil—they shine in the sunlight and reveal blues and purples and reds and greens within the black. Goats and chickens will walk into any open door, so you need to shoo them out. Gee, Christine, what animals did you see in Africa? Lions, elephants, giraffes? Oh no, but I did see a lot of goats and chickens and sheep!

The air is hot and humid, even at night, which makes the thought of a handheld fan just divine. The bank in Ho has air conditioning so it’s always a treat to go exchange money there. My skin is always wet, whether from sweat or humidity. The dirt in the air then sticks to me, especially after applying sunscreen which is essentially an adhesive for all things disgusting to attach themselves to my skin. I hardly get a moment where I feel clean except for the 30 seconds after I’ve rinsed myself during my bucket shower, before I put dirty clothes back on to walk back to the room.

You need water from the well to bathe, and also to fill the “flush” barrel in the outhouse. I’ll explain. You may assume getting water from a well is fairly simple, if you’ve never attempted it before. The bucket is plastic, so it floats. If you just drop it in, it will float on the surface and you won’t fill the bucket. You have a few options. You can drop the bucket from above, holding it upside-down so it lands open ended into the water. Then when you pull it up, you’ll have water. Alternatively, you can drop the bucket and jerk the rope sharply from side to side, causing the bucket to swing as well, eventually grabbing enough water to sink the bucket. The most common method, however, is to swing the bucket down so the bottom of the bucket knocks against a metal hook about half way down the well. When the bottom of the bucket hits the hook, it flips upside-down into the water and sinks. You need to do this 3 times to fill the shower bucket. About 8 shower buckets will fill the “flush” barrel in the outhouse.

We despise getting up in the middle of the night to pee. This, like all other things, is a process, and not a pleasant one. When we first go to bed, we brush our teeth and wash our faces, wash off our feet in a bucket, and then we apply insect repellent all over. We’re sticky and sweaty as we sit on the edges of our beds brushing off our feet. I awkwardly bend back, underneath the mosquito net, which I then tuck in by the sides of the foam mattress. A couple hours later, I wake up, realizing I need to pee, and I contemplate the odds of tricking my body into going back to sleep. With no luck, I sit up, un-tuck the mosquito net, awkwardly bend underneath it, carefully placing my feet directly into my dirty flip flops. I re-tuck the net, fumble to find a flashlight, and tear off some toilet paper from our roll. I go outside, shutting the door behind me to discourage any farm animals or rats or bugs from entering. I walk to the outhouse, slide the latch open, push open the door, and shine the flashlight at the light switch. I close the door, and twist a bent nail sideways to catch the door, essentially locking it from the inside. I go into a stall, check for spiders, and squat carefully, to avoid actually touching the seat. Then, outside the stall, but still in the outhouse, I open the large barrel full of water, scoop with the gray bucket that lives on top of the barrel, and pour the water into the toilet bowl, which is the “flush.” I un-twist the nail to open the door, turn off the light, and exit, latching the door behind me. I wash my hands in a bucket in our room, un-tuck my net, brush off my feet, bend under the net, re-tuck the net, and lay, sweaty and gross, staring out the window listening to the goats until I fall back asleep. The other night, I had to get up 3 times. I was irritated with my body’s inability to hold on to water.

The bucket showers are exactly that—I get a bucket of water to bathe with. It’s pretty simple and goes quickly. I stand in an open-air concrete cell with my bucket of water, and a small empty bucket you would use to make a sandcastle. I scoop with the little bucket, pouring water over my head to rinse. Then I lather up with shampoo, soap, and face wash. I rinse again with the little bucket to complete the process. My towel is draped over the cement wall and I set my clothes (that I’ve sweated through the night in) on top of my flip flops in the corner to avoid them getting wet, which does occasionally happen anyway. After I dry off, I put on my dirty clothes, brush off my feet, and step into my flip flops to return to the room.

I’ve become a village-body, similar to a homebody. I really don’t like to leave the village, for any reason. Even if I’m lured by something that might be fun, like a tourist attraction, or visiting Ho with the added bonus of using the internet café, I really dread the process of leaving our village. The people are nice here and transportation proves to be such a pain in the ass every single time, it makes you wonder if it’s really worth all the trouble.

We take walks on most days that we’re hanging around in the village. It breaks up the day and provides a small opportunity for exercise. Walking down the road, in the village people have yelled out, “Sista Christine!” or “Nava kaba,” which means come back before it is late. People from the village we meet along the way will stop and greet us, ask if we’re ok and when are we coming back. The other day we were walking and saw our family returning from the farm. We stopped and chatted for a moment before continuing. A man on a motorbike stopped to ask if we were volunteers and what we were doing in our village. His name is Mike and said he would come visit us in the village and hopefully his wife will make us fu-fu before we leave. The next day he saw us by the roadside in the village and stopped to say hello again, first yelling “Sista Christine!” in recognition, which was really nice. When we’re walking along the empty road we usually start singing old Disney songs or sappy songs from the early 90s. As much as I love the people in the village, it’s nice sometimes to separate ourselves from the politics of every greeting for every person we pass by.

When we’re in the village all day, we usually take naps, and read, work on presentations or computer training for a couple hours (tops) and then go back to reading or playing with the kids. It’s a pretty decent way to spend the day.