The Usual Routine (With Some Variation)

It's morning, and I awaken to a high pitch noise and a notion that I am strangely wet. As I become more aware, I remember that the cat is hungry (and making it known) and once again, I’ve managed to sweat through the sheets.  After groggily getting to my feet, becoming entangled in my mosquito net, struggling bitterly for five minutes, I emerge ready to start the day.

First order of business is to dunk a bucket of water on my head and stand in front of the fan.  This morning step is crucial if I am expected to function.  Gradually I dress in a dirty tee shirt and torn pants to work in the garden, kicking the cat around in the process. It has an unfortunate habit of climbing my leg like a tree trunk. This makes it hard to put on pants. It’s low heat, only about ninety degrees farenheight. 

I grab my bike from the courtyard, evading my host mom as she judges my appearance with a disgusted eye. I think one day I'm going to wear a fancy, embroidered Senegalese outfit to work in the garden and watch her face as I come home covered in mud and manure. Maybe she'll stop heckling me then...of course I'm dirty, I work almost exclusively with dirt, woman. 

I meet my work partner at our garden, where a few beds await digging. This process entails heaving a giant pick at the hard earth until it is broken up enough to be shoveled out. Since I have been here, we’ve created twenty wheelbarrows worth of rocks after sifting through the minimal soil. And we’re nowhere near done! I resign myself to another morning of digging, shoveling, and learning. Today I might learn how a squash plant is pollinated, or why sage cannot be layered upon itself. Odds are it will be another day of realizing just how useless my degree in religious studies is.

Around noon, the sun is burning and even my motivated, vastly-stronger-than-me work partner can’t take the heat. I trudge home, feebly waving to kids who yell my name and ask me for money. 

When I arrive my host mom skips the greetings and waves me enthusiastically into the shower, imploring me to “stop being so dirty.” I go willingly and prepare myself for a lazy afternoon of dozing in the heat, reading, and drinking tea with the numerous ladies who visit my house.

In the evening, I return to the garden to spray for pesticides or transplant perhaps lettuce, fruit trees, or lemongrass. The rest of my day consists of socializing with my family and an early retreat to my room for sleep, armed with six bottles of cold water and the fan placed strategically at the corner of my bed.

--There have been certain variations to this day, but in general, I’ve been grateful for the stability. No more evacuations please - I've had enough excitement! Some deviations include the following:

Biking to the vet with my cat in a basket on the handlebars, exciting pure confusion and contempt on the part of the Senegalese

Arriving at the vet surrounded by old men with their sick goats and cows, trying to be taken seriously with my hot pink cat basket and pleas for vaccinations

Doing laundry with my host mom, only to realize she wasn’t washing her own clothes but merely following me and washing mine twice

Inviting a man and his young daughter to a girls’ leadership conference and dealing with the question “Uh…why?”

Wheelbarrowing a large pile of manure for compost…”What is that for? Why are you wheeling around a giant pile of cow poop? Is that for your cat? Does your cat eat cow poop?”

Attending a Senegalese wedding and being called into the center of a large, intimidating dance circle…I did my best

Hearing my cat’s distress calls and rushing out to find my young host sister force feeding it sand, consequently snatching the cat and saying in an angry huff “No! Bad! You…are bad!”

Realizing I need to study Wolof so I can politely say "Please, don't feed the cat sand, it will die, thank you so much."

Until I write again, you know where to find me!

<3 Phoebe