My village is in an ideal location (or
at least I think so). I am 1km off of a major, well paved road that
has a large 'road town' called Dialacoto 2 km from my village. In
Dialacoto I can charge my phone, buy a cold coke, eggs, bread and
(heaven forbid) go to a hospital if need be.While internet is not accessible, it is nice to have a place with these luxuries and it provides me with a larger community to work with if I felt so inclined.
Almost everyone in my village is a
peanut farmer but interestingly most have some sort of supplementary
income coming in from family members working in the US, Spain or
France.The rainy season is currently beginning (so it should cool down! yah!). This means that everyone is going to the peanut fields during the day and burning the ground to prepare for planting.
My name here is Fanta Mamayo Tanjan.
The Tanjans are 50% of my 700 person village. Essentially my family
dominates the village in terms of size and power. The chief (my
dad) and the Imham (the muslim leader) are both Tanjans. The hard
part of this is that I don't have an enclosed compound per-se but
live in an area of the Tanjan Kunda. Therefore, whenever I go anywhere, I pass by 70+ people who are members of my
family and who get offended if I dont greet them, tell them what I
am doing, where I am going and why. As you can imagine this gets
annoying but on the bright side, for now, it is great language
practice!
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| Group of women who were overly eager to get their pic taken inside of a hut. Half these women I really like, the other half I really dont. |
The village chief, my father, is over
70 (aka ancient and looks like he will die any minute) is half crazy,
cant hear, chain smokes cigs and eats kola nuts like candy. I live
directly next to his son, Babanding, who is the acting chief. He has 3
wonderful wives who look after me and are more of my 'mothers' in
village. The first wife is the woman who I have been instructed to
give my food contribution to and who is kind of expected to make sure
I am fed and doing well. Her and the 3rd wife do NOT get
along, so much so that one night while I was in village they had a
screaming, fighting match that continued for over 3 hours. Other than
that I have never seen them acknowledge each other.
The rest of my village is very
friendly and understanding. I can walk into any compound and feel
welcomed to sit down and show off my peanut cracking skills or my
pounding skills. While they dont really understand why I am living there for two years, everyone is happy to have a weird 'toubab' sit and chat with them.
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| Naye is Babanding's second wife. Aminata is the baby and Naye's youngest daughter. |
I also want to emphasize the fact that
every village here is so extremely different. The dialectics of Jaxanke vary in my village and the road town 2 km from me. Additionally, Anna's village speaks an entirely different language and her family
experience, food and living situation is completely opposite to mine.
The family that I stayed with during training is so different from my current family that
it seems they are from another country. From fashion to gender roles to employment opportunities to cultural faux-pas, every village and every compound is unique.
In order to give you a better
picture of my day to day life in village, here is a pretty accurate
schedule of what every day is like for me in village, especially for
these first few months here when I am really not doing too much.
06:00- I am awake at 6 every morning
(quite the opposite of my college life schedule) and I go for a run.
Any later than this and the heat would be so unbearable there is no
way I could run.
07:30- After getting water from the
well, taking a bucket shower (these are surprisingly enjoyable) and
watering my plants, I make a nice hot cup of Nescafe and a big bowl
of oatmeal (accompanied with several spoons of peanut butter). I
enjoy my 'American breakfast' in my hut and read for about an hour
before I venture outside
09:00- Walk around the 'Tanjan kunda',
greeting my family members and asking how everyone slept and their
plans for the day. Depending on who is doing what (aka if they are
people I like or not), I will sit and help cook or crack peanuts for
30 minutes.
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| This is my fav little boy, Lamini. On the last day in village he accompanied me for my morning greeting around the village. It was adorable. |
10:30- Go to other homes in the
village, venturing out into random compounds to meet other people in
the community and practice my language
12:00- Return to my hut for a snack and
reading time. Yah, I get to read a lot.
14:00- Go out onto my stick bed in the
front of my hut to read, play with kids and wait until lunch
15:00- Am called for lunch which I eat
with 8 other women. By this time yes I am starving and praying that
there is extra peanut sauce on my plain rice
15:30- Head back to my hut to take a
'nap' aka eat another mango and read for another hour
16:30- Make my way back out to my
family area to see who is cooking dinner and where. If one of my two
sisters who are of age to be in charge of a meal are cooking dinner
then I will help them. If not I usually help some of the older women
with cracking peanuts. I find that I like women between the ages of
0-22 or 50+ but the women in between are unsympathetic, uninterested
and I find some to be jealous of my freedom and lack of responsibilities.
18:30- Go back to my hut area and take
another shower.
19:00- Hang out with some of the school
age girls and help them with their homework. Or I teach kids how to
do a puzzle, play Connect 4, or bring out the crayons and play with
the young ones.
20:30/21:00- Eat dinner with my group
of women. Afterwards I sit under the stars and listen to the women
gossip for a bite before heading off to my hut to read for a few
minutes.
22:00- Sweating but sound asleep!
The main exception to this schedule is
Wednesdays where I make my way to Wassadou, buy fruits and veggies at
the big market there and then make my way to the river where Anna
(the new volunteer in Wassadou) and I sit and eat bean sandwiches and
enjoy not having to tell someone what I am doing every other minute. I have also been able to take some trips to neighboring villages and festivals with my family making some days more interesting than others but as of now, I love my relaxed, reading and chatting schedule. Hell, this is not a bad 'job'!
