Second Impressions

Three weeks into the home stay, it’s a little late for first impressions.  They were superficial and unfair anyway, and dealt primarily with the heat and the dirt, which appear to be tantamount to death and taxes.  The heat continues unabated despite the fact that this is supposed to be the rainy season.  This extension of the hot season is very worrisome to the villagers.  What will they eat this coming year if the rains don’t fill the rice fields and allow the maize to grow beyond its present two inches?

There is no lack of water for the people.  Many artesian wells are accessible throughout the village.  Some are self serve – pump your own for free, and others have a mechanical pump that fills a tank on stilts from which water flows from an actual faucet.  At the latter, for a fee, you can leave your cart full of jerry cans in a queue and fetch them later when the faucet guy has had a chance to fill them.  At the former, the pumpers are almost all in the 12 and under league.  They hang out, play around in the water, and toss what I estimate to be 5-gallon jerry cans around as if they were nothing.  The one time I went there alone with a couple of empty cans, a skinny 7 year old girl insisted on pumping the water for me.  I only let her fill them half way, or I would not have been able to lift them.  Most kids leave the pump with eight cans in a two-wheeled push cart or donkey cart.  Some have home-made frames attached to their bikes that let them carry two cans like saddle bags.  Others lift a single can and carry it home on their heads.  I’ve seen them set a can on the bike seat, too, and then walk the bike home.

Steve, 12, pumped water for my laundry.  Steve is also known as “Papi” to his family, because he is named after his grandfather.

They need a lot of water because they wash a lot.  They brush their teeth and wash their bodies from head to toe, with lots of soap, at least twice a day.  They wash dishes and clothes and corn and rice and fruit and vegetables in three or more changes of water.  They wash floors and scrub pots. I drink only the water I get from Peace-Corps-provided water filtration and purification set-ups.  They fill small plastic bags with well water and put them in the fridge for drinking (bite the corner of the bag and suck) or in the freezer for ice.  They do not give water to animals, however.  Pigs, goats, dogs, donkeys, chickens and sheep are expected to fend for themselves and live on the garbage tossed into the streets.  None of the aforementioned scavengers get any respect, and all are as likely as not to get eaten.  Not even the donkeys hauling the water and goods through the village have names.

Not every family has a refrigerator.  Not every family has electricity.  In my neighborhood, many homes have electricity for lights and TV, but few have refrigerators.  My family consists of a young couple, both of whom work (he’s a nurse, and vaccinates kids!, and she works at the bank/credit union), their 2 year old son, and their ‘bonne,’ a girl of about 13 who does all of the washing and water hauling mentioned above, along with the cleaning, cooking and babysitting.  She also fills the plastic bags with water and sells them for about a dime each to people who wander in and out of the courtyard during the afternoon and evening.  It helps pay the electricity bill!  Others who come by frequently are the family of the grandmother a few courtyards down who keeps her insulin in ‘our’ fridge. And then, of course, the kids.  I am a big attraction to many who have never seen a white person.  Most come into the courtyard shyly, curtsy and shake hands and offer me the traditional polite greetings, but some little brats have just climbed up and shouted, “Nasara! Nasara!” (white person) over the courtyard wall.  To many of the sweet ones I am now “Mami Suzanne,” or Grandma Susan, and they run to greet me when I get home in the evening.  My best buddies are Steve and Yanne, who also live in our courtyard with their parents, Farid, my ‘little brother,’ and Yassine.  I berated the brats for their lack of good manners on their second visit, and invited them into the courtyard to “saluer” me properly.  That got rid of them.

 

Yassine, of the Wild Team, is one of my biggest fans and a real doll.  Amos, in the yellow shirt, will hopefully become an engineer.  His tin can pull toy truck was impressive.  Yanne, Steve’s brother, is partially hidden behind Fabio’s bald head.

With TV, a fridge, two scooters, a car and a maid, my family is pretty rich.  There is no paint on the walls, though, and not much to make the four-room house homey in any way.  It’s a gray concrete bunker inside, partially smeared with red mud outside.  Thanks to the Peace Corps, my room has a screen on the window and a lock on the door.  I sleep in the path of a fan (special request) on a comfy but hot foam mattress under a mosquito net, but I have seen very few mosquitos anywhere as yet.  The rain, if and when it comes, will probably bring them out in swarms.

For those who worry, I am riding my bike to and from training sessions every day, eating well, and taking my malaria prophylaxis regularly.   I am following the Peace Corps security regulations, of which there are many, to a T.  No one from my staging group has given up as yet, which is apparently fairly unusual.  The training schedule is packed 6 days a week from 8 a.m. to 5:15 p.m., and we are miles from the nearest air conditioner.  Some in the group have had stomach bugs and other minor complaints.  One, however, suffered a slipped disc, and another, almost my age, lost his mother, who had suffered from Alzheimer’s for many years.  The Peace Corps is very quick and efficient with medical attention and other support.   Shannon Meehan is our Country Director, and she is an inspiring leader.  She’s been working with refugees in conflict and crisis zones for some 30 years, and has further specialized in sexual violence against women, including in conflict. We are honored to work with her for a few weeks yet.  She’ll finish her stint here before we complete training and are sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers on August 23.