I don't think that people were really meant to live by themselves, though to be fair some people love it. And in Cameroon at least, all Peace Corps Volunteers live alone in their own (rented) houses or apartments or compounds. Rumor has it we live alone because otherwise we would kill each other after coming home from high stress days to highly stressed roommates. Whatever the reason, we do live alone and we all deal with it differently. Some PCVs listen to music constantly, others watch seemingly infinite TV shows, others are addicted to podcasts, still others wander around talking to themselves. And me - I read and write. I write in my journal, I write blog posts, I write letters and emails and Facebook message (some of which I never send). As I approach the 8 month mark of this adventure (May 11), I have filled up my second journal and started on my third and the need to get all these thoughts out of my head and onto the page seems infinite.
What I've been thinking about today is the contrast between my daily routine in the U.S. and my daily routine in Cameroon, so that's what I'm writing about! A day in village, with no particular work or meetings or travel.
I wake up without fail between 6:27 and 6:33. I don't know what wakes me up so close to 6:30 am every day; maybe it's the sunrise, or maybe that's when the town DJ has decided is the ideal moment to start blasting party music, or maybe I'm just crazy. Also without fail, I doze until 7 or 8. If I sleep until 8, I have had the grasse matinée (literally fat morning, meaning slept in late) and I feel like a lazy bum. I lie in bed for a few minutes, wondering what the day will bring. Also probably considering the fact that if I was up before 8 in the US, I would be getting up bright and early…
Some mornings, I wake up with a smile. I listen to the birds singing in the banana trees outside my second story window, hidden by the wooden shutters painted a deep burgundy red and by the mesh of my jungle green mosquito net. Other mornings, I wake up with dread, wondering how on earth I am going to fill the hours between breakfast and bedtime. I feel the thumping of the DJ's music through my concrete floors and wooden bed frame while wishing for peace and quiet (even if it's in the form of a power cut). On those mornings, I shrink from the prospect of another long day without meaningful human contact and 19 more months full of days like today - and it hasn't even started yet.
Regardless of my mood, after a couple of minutes of drowsy contemplation, I pull the edge of the mosquito net out from between my bed frame and mattress and roll out of bed, sliding my feet into cardinal and gold barbouches (house flip-flops). I turn the nob on top of the gas canister and then light the stove, sticking the kettle on top - priority #1, coffee. (Even if it's kinda gross instant coffee. Coffee addiction is a nearly universal PCV trait, and many splurge on coffee presses and fancy ground coffee. I'd rather splurge on chocolate.) I eat some breakfast (usually oatmeal with a bit of peanut butter and cinnamon) and sip my coffee while reading the Economist or Times or other news clippings sent from home.
I sweep the floor. Then I wonder what to do next.
So I make a to-do list. This is another nearly universal trait of PCVs - too many lists, especially to do lists full of banal things like "buy bananas" and "wash dishes" and "go outside." (Those are all actual points on my to-do list from today.) And then I'll start going through and checking things off - and it feels great! Go me, I bought bananas! Pat on the back! Dishes and laundry aren't as easy, since they involve going to the faucet connected to a giant rain collecting bin on the roof and carrying buckets of whiter before washing everything by hand and ruining my pink nail polish. But it's easier now, as rainy season gets into its swing, when water is plentiful. Soak for an hour in detergent filled water; rub with bar soap all over; scrub vigorously to wash out dust and mud and sweat; dunk repeatedly in soapy water to rinse; wring out; soak in a second bucket of clean water; wring out; hang to dry for 3 days to kill mango flies and other nasty buggies. It's a process. At least I have the town DJ to make it a party.
Sometimes that "go outside" bullet-point is the hardest part of my day. Not because my day is SO EASY, but because every little action can be challenging here. Going outside is not just walking out the front door - it is exposing yourself to stares, marriage proposals, well-meaning friends commenting on your weight or your acne, curious neighbors demanding why you're not working today, people whose names you should know but don't. Facing the door to the outside world, I am facing down all the upsetting or embarrassing moments that resulted from that very action - like the days that 3 people ask me what the red bumps on my face are before lunch time, or like when someone tells me I'm really getting very fat because look at my puffy cheeks, or like when the little girl who just turned three tells me that the laundry I just washed isn't clean.
But when I do manage to go outside, I usually remember how silly that attitude is. My friends and neighbors and acquaintances aren't out to get me or hurt me; quite the opposite, they seem to have adopted me as their own. Just like my real mom (hey Mom!) worried that I would starve in Africa and sent me equipped with peanut butter and granola bars (which really are wonderful to have here), so my neighbor Carine has become convinced that I am incapable of feeding myself. Embarrassingly, she decided this only after eating my food a handful of times (though in my defense, Cameroonians don't like food they have to chew, and mushy is not my preferred food texture). So she makes sure I have at least 1 plate of food every day, and that plate is usually piled high with enough food to last 3 me-sized meals. And she's not the only one to watch out for me - my landlord worries when I spend the night elsewhere without telling him, and some of my students and village friends gift me peanuts, pineapples, and plantains. I'm surrounded by curious and caring people, though they might not demonstrate that in a way that I'm used to.
After checking off all the things I feel like doing from my list and leaving the rest to procrastination, after eating whatever Carine gave me yesterday for the second (or third) time, I have to figure out how to fill up my afternoon. Sometimes I go sit with a neighbor for an hour or more; I keep women company while they work, or watch Pitch Perfect dubbed in French on TV with their husbands. I might work on one of my longer term projects, like planning lessons for this summer's peer educator girls camp or planning for the next group of volunteers arriving at the end of this month. But my favorite thing to do is bake. I'm learning to make bread, I have my own sourdough starter, I have made delicious English muffins and banana bread. (Banana bread, chocolate cake, and chocolate chip cookies are the only foods I have presented to Cameroonians that they probably didn't throw on the trash heap for burning.) Ideally, this is my time for pursuing hobbies - sketching, writing in my journal, sewing a quilt, reading something from that ever-growing list of books I've always wanted to read but never quite gotten around to… Other days I just don't feel like I have the energy and I wander between my house and my balcony, watching the goings-on of town life: children arriving late to school in their ubiquitous solid-colored uniforms, pointy ridged aluminum roofs, mamas in colorful pagne with babies tied to their back and loads balanced on their heads, the Bocom gas station, maybe the black kitten that eats the mice in my landlord's bar, the eight other bars in sight, the DJ, the ladies all selling the same produce right next to each other… Maybe it all feels normal, maybe it even feels like home.
Around 4 in the afternoon, I convince myself that I should work out. That usually means doing an insanity video in the room where I hang my clothes to dry on a string that criss-crosses the length of the room. (Drying clothes and puddles on the floor are only extra obstacles! Dig deeper!) Or it might mean dragging Carine to the track with me and run-walking it a couple of times before giggling over jumping jacks and pushups. On lazy days, I just count the housework as my workout - laundry is legit hard work dude!
Then I bathe. I fill up a bucket of water, grab my cup to scoop up the water and pour it on myself, and debate whether or not to wash my hair. (The answer is usually no, especially is it gets colder during rainy season and as I care less what I look like.) I scrub my feet so that people don't think I'm a fou (a town crazy person, most recognizable by crusty, grungy feet and dirt-colored clothes). Meanwhile I pray that no one knocks on my door or wanders into my house.
Afterwards, solo date - dinner and a movie (or a TV show, depending on my mood) by candle light. Potential boyfriends, please take note: candles are functional, not romantic! After the sun sets at 6:30 or so, it gets cooler and colder; then, if one of my parents happen to call, I whine about being cold and they remind me that I haven't dealt with winter in 5 years. I stop whining and drink some (hopefully de-caffeinated) steaming hot tea. Eventually (8 or 9pm) I slide back into the safety of bed through the smallest untucked-mosquito-net-hole possible. I retuck. I settle into my bed-nest of striped sheets and cheetah print blanket. Equipped with my cellphone flashlight and my relaxation book (currently Jane Eyre) and read until my eye lids are too heavy… And I fall asleep, knowing I'll probably wake up a few times, to a sudden downpour or loud music or bad dreams. Knowing that tomorrow is another day - a different day - and anything could happen. Except seeing stereotypical African safari wildlife, unless you count chameleons. I've counted two.
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