Washing Machines

Last night I dreamed of a washing machine. Do you people over there in the US realize how freaking AWESOME washing machines are? You can stuff it full, pour some soap in it, if it’s not yours put a dollar in it and YOUR CLOTHES ARE CLEAN 30 MINUTES LATER! And THEN you can put them in a DRYER and 45 minutes later they are DRY and CRISP and WARM and ready to wear! I am fairly sure the vast majority of you reading this have always taken your washing machine for granted. DO NOT. It is a mistake. The washing machine is one of the greatest inventions known to man. And to think that at one time in my life having to “wash my clothes” was an event worthy of foregoing a night on the town or other event. BULLSHIT! With a washing machine, and a dryer…THAT IS NOT A USE FOR AN ENTIRE SUNDAY MORNING FOLKS! NO MORE EXCUSES! GO TO CHURCH OR SOMETHING (or at least Sunday brunch…with mimosas made with fresh squeezed orange juice…and eggs…with cheese, fresh mushrooms, bell peppers, tomatoes…and MorningStar farms veggie sausages…). Is my recent train of thought that has been snaking back to life in the US showing? Like a neon sign? Let’s cut the power (we don’t have any here, anyway…)

This morning I went to get rice and sauce, like I do every morning at precisely 8am. If I go after 8am, she could be sold out. And even if she’s not sold out it won’t be super hot after 8am and Allah knows I love my rice and sauce toasty. So it’s sweet potato leaf sauce. Not my favorite, but I was expecting it as yesterday was peanut sauce, the day before manioc leaf sauce and I believe the day before that was peanut sauce. My sauce preferences as of the moment are as such: manioc leaf sauce (mafe hakko bantara), peanut sauce (mafe tiga), a tie between maganye (eggplant sauce) and sweet potato leaf sauce (mafe hakko pute), and wallowing at the very bottom, soup sauce (mafe soup). I would say my rice lady (who is now my rice lady’s sister since my rice lady is off giving birth in Conakry) has peanut sauce 40% of the time. Manioc leaf sauce 20% of the time and the other 40% is split between the others. I wish it was 60% manioc leaf sauce and 40% peanut but hey man that’s life.

ANYWAY. My homologue Mr. Diallo had said yesterday that he has malaria. Don’t freak out. They say EVERYTHING is malaria here. If you don’t feel good, want to sleep all day and maybe have a fever, it’s malaria. So today I see him on my way to get my rice and I say, “ca va la sante?” (how’s the health) and he says “ca va en peu” (it goes a little). On my way BACK from rice, he waves me down and walks up and asks if I would like to come work at the pepiniere today. Now, I am halfway through Harry Potter 6 and itching to finish the series but I realize that, you know, planting trees is my JOB, so I say yeah what time? He says now. I look at my rice and say, “Well, I’ve gotta eat NOW…” So he says afterwards come to his house and we’ll take the moto down to the pepiniere (3k or so) and plant a bunch of Gmelina. I say ok. I get home and look longingly at Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I eat as much sweet potato leaf sauce as I have piment (hot pepper) for (bless my rice lady’s sister, she always gives me a full piment! Piment makes rice and sauce 10x better!) and give Yogi his breakfast (sweet potato leaf sauce and rice) and almost grudgingly put everything inside, shove Yogi in the house (he fights), grab my motorcycle helmet and trudge over to Mr. Diallo’s house.

It’s not exactly his house. He has a room in this house. Rama has one of the other rooms. There are 2-4 more rooms occupied by other people but I don’t know. The building is pretty much next door to my house.

Have I mentioned that when I go by my house after coming from somewhere else and I look at it as a villager I would think the following: my garden is pathetic, what a HUGE house for one person, why hasn’t she cut back her yard (no lawn mower, dude!!), why is her back window open when she isn’t there (because if I did that Yogi would be in complete darkness when I am away and there’s not much to steal through the grate on that window, anyway), and her porch is messy. I am a poor excuse for a Guinean.

At any rate, we go down to the pepiniere and on the short moto ride I am once again reminded that when I get back to the States I’ll probably want a motorcycle. And the moto trip through West Africa we’ve been talking about as a Close-of-Service trip seems more awesome every day.

Anyway. We’re working at the pepiniere. Mr. Diallo says that the groupement planted their gmelina direct seeds too close together so they are not getting big enough and fusing (I think that’s what he said). He says we are going to make our own little field near the entrance and show people how it’s done (“they’ll know it was people of the forest who did this!!”). So we start working. He’s doing all the hard work and looking at his gaunt frame I think, “that dude does not need to be burning any more calories than he already is”, but I know he won’t let me do it mostly because when I try to do it it’s laughable so I don’t try except for a brief five minutes where I take up the coup-coup and try to start cutting 2 foot tall weeds and he calls over, “I’m going to do that!” So I content myself by sowing all the seeds. This is done by squatting and nearly breaking your ankles after a few hours, putting 2 seeds side by side about 2 inches from the last pair. Through six troughs per bed. For six beds (we still have 4 more to do). I am almost hoping we’ll content ourselves after 2 beds. No way. After 3 beds he asks if we should stop or do one more. I’m like what the hell, let’s do one more! So we do and he asks if we should do one MORE and I’m like what the hell! All I’ve got on my planner today is Harry Potter so let’s plant these seeds! I am saying this wearily cause my tummy’s growling. He decides to make 2 more beds instead of one to round it out at 6 and I faithfully seed them, squatting on my haunches.

After we finally finish the sixth bed, he seems really happy. Exceptionally happy for thinking he has malaria. So I think it’s worth it because he is really happy, though I have no idea what we’re going to do with these trees once they grow. I mean I assume we are going to plant them somewhere but he has not enlightened me as to where.

So when we finish he looks at his watch and says “we’ve worked until 11:09!” And in my head I’m like “WHAT? That’s it? We got here at 8:30!” So I get home and I do a bunch of chores, clean up after my chicken, wash dishes, rinse buckets, finally take a bath in which I wash my hair (long time coming!) and when I get back to the living room, finally ready to crack back open my HP thinking it can’t be later than 12:30ish, I look at the watch and it says it’s 4pm. I think my watch must have been crushed by my water bottle in my bag and has reset itself so I turn on my village-unusable cell phone as the only other clock I have and it says the same thing and I’m like, “No wonder my stomach is screaming at me!!” Either I misunderstood Mr. Diallo or his watch is way off.

So feeling thoroughly productive I crack open Harry Potter and don’t get too far until Hoodia comes over. Hoodia strictly speaks only Pular, I actually don’t know if she has ever been to school a day in her life, but we actually manage to communicate many things, including what’s in my garden, that there’s a mango tree growing out of my compost pile, that Yogi is way too excitable, the reactions to Yogi of all the kids at the Sous Prefet’s house (she is his cousin), that she has not yet found a husband (who’s rushing her? I think she’s 16) and that I like her shirt. Universal sign language, my friends. It works. As do my 25 words in Pular (I have no idea how many words I know but it is woeful considering I was installed almost 6 months ago.

Anyway it was a long and productive day. And Yogi didn’t even pee in the house even though I was gone for 6 hours. MIRACLES HAPPEN!

…but I still want a washing machine.