An Average Day

Mornings are spent either exercising (biking, running, or walking) or starting a fire and cooking breakfast and coffee. (On mornings of exercise, usually only cold uncooked oats are eaten.) Then comes daily chores such as refilling the water filter, boiling water, taking out the compost, taking out the trash, watering the garden and tree nursery, putting water out for the animals, refilling the candle holders, and managing the chickens’ egg laying. The rest of the morning is spent doing larger chores such as sweeping the house, gathering firewood, drawing water at the school, or refilling the handwasher (done every few days) or even larger chores such as sweeping the house really well, cleaning my bike, buying sugar or oil at the road, managing broody chickens, pounding peanuts, changing the catbox, bathing, or buying charcoal (done every few weeks) or washing clothes, cleaning the water filter, or writing reports for Peace Corps (done every few months.) Then comes whatever is on hand – some project of building or repairing house or animal structures, sewing, visiting neighbors, working in the garden, doing some seasonal thing like gathering mushrooms, bushfruit, or mangos, going to the school for a meting, or doing some work thing like classifying library books or preparing my lesson plans. Then comes lunch, which is leftovers from last night’s dinner. After lunch, water is drawn and dishes are washed. The remainder of the day usually consists of reading, writing letters, writing in my journal, laying in my hammock, making lists, resting, and organizing things around the house. (And if there’s no big chores to be done, sometimes this is all my day consists of.) Work related things such as teacher trainings, Life Skills classes, school monitoring, meetings, and so on also happen on a weekly/monthly basis. In the evening, the dinner fire is started and dinner and tea are prepared. The neighbor’s rooster must also be chased off at this time and the goat gathered from the neighbors’. After dinner, it’s usually more reading and letter writing, listening to music, playing games, sitting and contemplating, or petting the cat. Go to bed early.