Productivity

Today was productive. I got up around 7am and it wasn’t very hot for most of the day because there was cloud cover (praise Allah for rainy season!).

My friends Ousmane, Lamarana and Mamadou D came over to help me change the position of my bed so that I can open and close my screen/window, which is necessary during the rainy season because if it’s a really heavy, windy rain, the rain comes through my bedroom window which doesn’t matter so much now that my bed isn’t against it, but I am much happier this way. They also fixed my bed, which was sort of broken and had been the whole time I was here, and I finally got a full sweep of my room so the floor is much cleaner and less scary (I was afraid to look under my bed before because I was sure there was a whole family of huge nasty spiders living underneath). They also fixed my screen so that it fully stays in the window by hammering nails through it into the wall. Rockin!

Also they got me a ton of water, though I had to lend them my bike to do it. The pump is broken, which sucks. I think Ousmane said there was blood coming out in the water, but he might have just said dirt, but the point is, my village is now sans-pump. That’s not that bad, though, because there is that spring thing that the villagers drink straight out of and that water is pretty clean (much cleaner than well water) so I am just double-bleaching (capful of Sur-Eau in the bidon and then the ten drops in the top of the filter when I fill it). I think it will be fine for me, but the villagers really need that pump since they don’t bleach or filter, so I might have to investigate why it is broken and make it a project to have it fixed. Then again, maybe World Bank will fix it as water security is also on their agenda here.

We also chopped up my yard again for my garden, throwing a bunch of stones out, removing organic material to the compost pile and putting handfuls upon handfuls of plastic, wrappers, old shoes, tin cans, broken glass, bits of cloth, batteries and every other kind of trash you can make in Africa into a big rice sack (it is full and that doesn’t count the larger items that did not fit). This is only from one part of my yard. The whole country is like this. Let alone the other side of my front yard. Le sigh. I still have to chop the whole thing up again, throw out more stones, clear more organic material, collect more trash, make the beds and put in fertilizer (I’m going to use gliricidia leaves and urine) before I actually sow any seeds, but hey, petite a petite as they say here. EVERYONE who walks by asks me what I am going to plant there and seem satisifed when I say, “piment” (hot peppers). Really I am going to plant corn, bell peppers, piment, tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini, cucumbers, sunflowers, moringa, beans and hopefully soybeans (mom said she found some seeds!). I think the idea of planting so many different things in what they consider a small space (in the space I am using they would cover the whole thing with either just manioc or just corn) is very strange to them. But the size of what I’m using is about twice the size of my mom’s community garden and she plants all of that and more and has a yield too large for us to finish on our own each year, so I think Although I think it’s just that no one has planted there in a very long time so there are SO MANY rocks and years of trash iter all the work I am doing this year.

We also went to the carpenter and he made me a new gate (although already it is sort of broken so he has to come fix it) and I found another hole in my fence and blocked it up. Since doing these two things the only animal I have seen in my yard is one small chicken. I also asked the carpenter to make me a big table, which I am desperately in need of and he said it will be ready on Saturday. It is costing about the equivalent of $12, which is still kind of expensive here.

Ousmane also killed one of the big wasps always hanging out on my porch! I was so excited!! I FREAKING HATED THAT WASP! He’s gone now though so I am happy.

Also Ousmane brought the keke lady over to my house! YAY I FOUND THE KEKE LADY! Keke is pounded manioc that is then steamed and then topped with a plethora of things (depends on your keke lady). My lady tops it with magi cube (basically, MSG), peanut oil, tomato, onion and piment. You can also get fish balls on it but I opted out of that one as I have only ever had good fish balls once and it was on the epic 12-hour bush taxi ride when we stopped for rice and sauce at Schwegel’s site. Ousmane put mayonnaise on his in addition and I will have to try that next time. At any rate, it was good, and REALLY cheap (equivalent of about 20 cents or a loaf of French bread here).

So for their troubles I gave my friends bread and mayo (standard breakfast, in fact the mayo is a luxury item) and Quaker Chewy granola bars. I’m not sure if I should be giving them more than this or not. Next time they help me out I will augment their bread and mayo with a can of sardines (they think this is delicious).

I also finished the first Harry Potter book today and I gotta say I think they did a great job with the movie, perhaps an even better job. I could see what they changed and why and thought pretty much all of the choices were an improvement so thumbs up. Now we’ll see if that holds true for the rest of the books, though the only movies I really remember are Sorcerer’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban. Also I am missing Book 3 so I have to do a mad search for it ASAP as I am sure I will finish book 2 in no time flat and then be all sad that I have to read something else before continuing.

Well, that’s all really. It’s funny how much you can get done in one day without even really leaving your house.