Living Conditions

Happy belated Thanksgiving! Thanks for all the feedback on the recent blog entry! It has only recently come to my attention that the majority of you don’t really know what my living conditions are like. I’ve been here n village for 2 months now and am starting to get a feel for what’s around and feel better equipped to post a blog about them.

I’m living in a village called Kaidiaradougou. It’s in the Sikasso region (shown below) and about 75 km south of Sikasso ville on the main road. I’m 25-30 km from the Cote D’Ivoire border. There was an unofficial census taken in April that puts the population of Kadiaradougou at 254. I like that it's tiny, and I’m getting a feel for who’s who. Although it’s on the main road, it has a “bush” feeling because I’m not replacing anyone, and most people haven’t seen a white person before.

Since I’m not replacing a volunteer, my house was built new for me this past spring. It’s a 2 room house, with walls made of mud but creped with mortar on the outside to prevent melting in the rain. The ceiling is pretty high, and the roof is corrugated tin. The floor is made of cement, and is relatively flat. I have a screen door, and two windows, all placed logically on the same side to prevent cross circulation.

I have an outdoor bathing/relieving area made of mud walls creped with mortar. It’s divided into two separate areas, one for bathing and the other with a hole in the ground. I have a separate cooking and storage hut with mud walls and floor and a roof of tin.

I have a front yard with a wooden gate.

When harvesting is over, and the cold season is underway I plan on having a hangar built so I can sit in the shade and invite people over for tea. Just outside my concession, I’m in the process of creating a compost pit and would like to plant a garden.

Every day I pull water from the well in the middle of town for drinking and bathing. The well is by no means clean, and in fact clogged my water filter within a month due to a petroleum problem. I can tell this because of the smell, and sheen that is apparent on the surface. I now prefilter my water through a piece of fabric before use, to extend the life of the filter. Currently I take bucket baths, although I found a solar shower left over from another volunteer’s service, and will hang it when I can build up the walls of my nyegen to support it. I cook my own breakfast and lunch, using a gas stove. I usually eat oatmeal with whatever dried fruit and nuts gets sent from the states, and sometimes I smoosh a banana in there. Sometimes I eat Bashi, which is dried, pounded peanuts, millet and corn that you soak in water with milk to create a sort of porridge. I also am a huge fan of oatmeal pancakes, which I make frequently. If it’s the day after market, I’ll make myself an omlette with some veggies. I just recently bought a “Hot Pot” which is a cooking pot that comes with a reflective surface surrounding it, enabling one to cook food using the sun’s rays. It apparently can get up to 200º F but I haven’t tried it yet. I believe I can bake cakes in it, and it will be useful for cooking things like beans and rice. I can put it in the sun at 9 or so, and have food by noon. Quite convienient.

My village has no electricity or running water, although some people have rigged lightbulbs to batteries to create lights at night. Everything at night is done by lanterns, flashlights, or moonlight. It’s remarkable how much night life depends on the moon. When the moon is full, the village is awake late into the night, yet when the new moon arrives, people go to sleep much earlier. Most villagers are unaware of what month it is on the Tubabu calendar, relying on the moon to tell them when soccer season starts, when to plant their crops etc. It’s a beautiful thing.

My closest market town is walking distance, but has a very small selection. I am able to buy eggs, rice, and sometimes a limited amount of vegetables in my village. The next closest market town is an hour or so by bike, and has a much wider selection of fruits and veggies, including bananas, guavas, rice, beans, avocado, watermelon, plastic and cooking utensils, as well as a clothing section and full cell phone reception. I can also buy radios, some school supplies and pretty much anything else one might need. As you might imagine, transportation of goods on an hour bike ride in the sweltering heat is a small problem. If I buy tomatos in the morning, and put them in my plastic bucket to be strapped on the back of my bike, by the time I get home, they’re oozing. With no refrigerator, veggies don’t last more than a day or so, and with market once a week, I rarely have fresh veggies to cook. There is another market town that I go to once in awhile that is an hour and a half by bike. It’s a border town and is quite bustling. There is a much wider selection of goods there, as Cote D’Ivoire imports can be found there.

My last meal of the day is eaten at my host family. They are absolutely amazing. My family consists of a father, Bakary, 3 mothers, Jatah, Korotum and Sitan, and 4 children – 2 boys aged approximately 24 and 13 (Madou and Seydou), and 2 girls ages 16 and 4 or so (Fatumata and Afu). The 16 year old girl also has the most lovely, happy, loud and beautiful daughter, not quite walking yet named Worokia. These are only the family members living in the village. There is also a young boy, who lives elsewhere and goes to school, 2 older married girls and an older boy who drives cars from Bamako to Abidjan. I could go on and on about my family, as I spend a fair amount of time at their house, eating dinner after sunset, and oftentimes drinking tea and chatting at their house (in Bambara of course) until late into the night. I'll spare you and show pictures instead.

L to R: Worokia, Sitan, Fatumata, Daramine, Afu and Korotum

Bakary, harvesting cassava with Madou in the background

Me, Seydou, and Madou after a day of picking oranges

Fatoumata and little Worokia

For dinner we usually eat to, which is a thicker-than-jello mixture of corn powder and water. It is eaten with the hand and dipped into a sauce, usually burning hot with peppers. My personal opinion is that it’s quite good. It seriously lacks nutritional value, however, which is why I cook my other two meals at home.

Me cooking millet to

Jatah cooking to

Finally, I come into Sikasso about once every few weeks to use internet, charge things like AA and AAA batteries, camera batteries and IPod. I take care of any business I might need to do including mailing letters and going to the bank, and posting blogs. I plan on getting a solar panel in the near future to help with this in my village so I don’t need to ration flashlight and IPod time. I can also buy a much wider variety of fruit and vegetables, and can enjoy cold water from a tap and cold beer at the bar. My tailor is also here, so I can have pants, bags and anything else made here for relatively cheap. It’s quite the amazing setup!

That’s all for now, sorry for the dryness in this post, but I figured you might like to know what living conditions are like here!! Next post will be more flavorful I promise!