Letter to Joe & Kerry- Sept 1, Typical Day

NOTE: Letter mailed prior to Laura's realtime posts below. Received only recently!

It's going pretty slow at the moment here in Burkina. I finally got my 1st letter from the states and, boy, that lifted my day way up. I've been writing letters pretty regularly, but the one that arrived was dated Aug 15, so I'm assuming it'll take 2-3 weeks for things to arrive here, which isn't too bad.

I'll tell you of my typical day in Burkina in a village called Mako. Intermitantly throughout the early morning between 0300-0600 the cock crows and the family dog likes to growl in his sleep. I'm getting better at sleeping through this so, I usually crawl out of bed around 0600am. The wives of the family have already been up for a while, sometimes 4:30am grinding away at the millet to make for lunch later that day.

I get up with the flies and crawl out of my mosquito netting. I give my host-mom, Habib, my bucket and she, thankfully, fills it with heated water. By this time she's also finished sweeping my front stoop. Here, there's a belief that if you speak to people before you wash your face in the morning, you give them your bad dreams. So as a result, I'm given some private time before the shower. Which is good considering I'm not much of a morning person.

I take my bucket shower which has been much easier ever since I shaved my head. Now, I can get washed up in about 4 or 5 cupfuls of water. Before, it was quite a challenge to wash both your hair and your body with only one bucket of water.

Next, I have my morning tea which also helped by a steaming bowl of water is usually waiting by my door after my shower. During my tea, I am now however, free game and I juggle having my tea, swatting flies away from my food (tea and bread), and salue'ing all the family. It's very important to greet everyone in the morning and there's a certain ritual and process to it. It usually takes 2-3 minutes for each greeting between 2 people and that's just saying "Hello!" So breakfast at my stoop takes a while. I'm usually finished at 0700 and I go to adjacent courtyards to my family's and salue' all of them. That usually takes another half hour. Then I usually chill until 0750 and then head to class. In village, thare are 2 other trainees living here with other families. Classes with them has mostly consisted of French lessons in vocabulary and improving grammer, which I suck at. Class breads at 10 for a half hour and then at noon for a 2 hour lunch break. The 2 hour lunch seems extreme, but considering there is no AC anywhere and it's Africa, you don't want to try to concentrate at those hours of the day between 12 and 2. Class goes until 330pm and breads for another half hour and goes again until 5 or 530pm. Depending on our mood, the other girls and I will either play cards, go for a walk or kick a soccer ball until about 630pm, each retreating to our own family's courtyard.

Dinner is usually some pasta dish which I get served alone. Initially I was a little uncomfortable having this meal alone, and now it's become a nice break for time alone. Here, they don't understand why someone would want to be alone, ever. So typically, I always have someone watching me or sitting beside me just to keep me company. It's a nice thought, but now I'm desperate for alone time, so eating alone is a solace. After my dinner, the rest of the family has a dinner called "To". It consists of milet and it's all they eat. I'm serious, every meal, everyday. That's their meals, so my meals of pasta are rather extravagant to them. I never finish my meals and so I usually give the rest to them to finish. No food gets wasted here. If you allow bread to mold here, which it does pretty quickly, it's somewhat of a tragedy. Bread is also a little bit of a luxury.

I usually have some "to" with the family. The men and women each separately on the ground of the member's stoops. I eat with the women, but none of them speak French and I don't really speak Moore, so I usually sit quietly and try to glean what I can. Sometimes one or two of the women try to teach me something, but I usually only pick up one or two words a night, if I'm lucky.

After dinner, I'm usually pretty tired and I say good night to everyone and go to bed by 830pm. Between my two dinners, I usually hang with the father and his brother and look at the stars or play cards. The men tend to relax completely after coming home from the fields, whereas the women go to the next phase of work. They come back and begin immediately grinding millet for the To. The women are typically working, cleaning, working from 0430am to 10 at night. The men, from what I see, work from 8am to 5pm and that's it.

The gender roles are fine drawn and distinct. However, the women don't seem unhappy because they don't know any other way of living. Their energy constantly amazes me. The men tend to be more educated and speak French, whereas the women are domestic and servile. The family I live with as a whole is very gregarious and enjoys laughter of all sorts, especially if I'm the source of the joke (or the butt of it!)

For the first month in Burkina, the appreciation for so many conveniences in the States has become astronomical. Food has a different meaning here and the different types of food in the states becomes legendary in my memory. The real desire for luxuries of food becomes hard to describe. I also dream of food, which I've never done before. Those dreams are a nice respite.

So that's a typical day. Doesn't really vary. It does, as you can tell, give me time to write and complain about my day. Which there isn't really much for me to complain about. Take care and see you soon!

Laura