A Typical Day in Bundu

2 a.m.: The roosters start crowing and bombastically celebrate the sunrise at every location around the world. We have discovered that all roosters in town face our bedroom when crowing in the same manner that Muslims face Mecca.

4:00 a.m.: The bread truck approaches our house at high speeds down our uneven dirt road. When the driver has positioned the truck directly in front of our window, it blows its horn until our sister wakes up, unlocks 2 doors, and reaches the truck. At this point the roosters begin to feel inferior to the large visiting vehicle and redouble their efforts. The power of the crowing then surpasses the breaking point of the village dogs. The dogs then spend the remainder of the morning telling the roosters to shut up.

5:00 a.m.: The alarm rings, although it is usually hard to hear over the roosters, dogs, and the goats that have joined the racket by this point. We have been good about getting up early everyday to run. When we run it feels like we are traveling through space. The sky is endless and the natural brightness of the moon, stars, and planets travels undisturbed to our eyes. We enjoy running under the cover of a brand new night sky. From the Southern hemisphere we can only find a few of our familiar constellations. We think we have located the Southern Cross and each time we spot it Joe’s mind is flooded with CSN+Y songs. Songs stay in your head much longer when you are not exposed to radio, TV, or other music on a daily basis. Towards the end of our run, the gigantic sun begins to sneak up the small hills on the horizon announcing the arrival of another beautiful day.

6:10 a.m.: We finish our run and begin the morning routine. Lunch preparations begin in the kitchen where we make 6 peanut butter sandwiches, even though the family has asked us to pack meat (picture a hot pink cross between baloney and spam) because it is embarrassing that we just bring bread. Mom will often prepare our lunch for to assure that we bring meat and some potatoes fried in LOTs of oil – yummy. We also grab whatever fruit we can get our hands on, mostly apples, pears, and oranges. We then eat breakfast which consists of corn flakes, bran flakes, or oatmeal and on good days a banana. On our way back to our room we grab two bags of stale multicolored popcorn (a snack the family sells at the school during breaks – we have grown to love it) and fill up our bath bucket with warm water from the stove. This is where the fun really begins…We have two plastic tubs about 3ft. x 2ft.x 1.5ft. These are the collection basins for our bucket bath. We also have a very small bucket we use for our soapy water. We start our baths by rinsing with the soapy water – being very careful to make sure all the water lands in the collection basins and not on the rug. This is definitely an art that we have had to learn quickly, as it is very difficult to clean up spilled water on carpet. Then we use our hands to splash fresh water over our body. Some days we even have enough water to wash our hair. The bath water gets emptied in a waste area on the side of our house while the chamber pot gets dumped into the pit toilet. Yes, we said chamber pot. We use the pot at night so that we don’t have to unlock all the doors and brave the night and the witches to use the out house. One of the many superstitions is that there are witches that do all sorts of terrible things at night and therefore basically everyone stays inside once the sun goes down.

7 a.m.: We walk to training at one of two places. Most days we walk about 5 minutes up a dirt road to a garage behind a small shop. This is where we have most of our language and culture classes with our language group of 8 volunteers. For large group sessions, we walk the 40 minutes to the youth center where we first lived in the roundavals. We love the reflective opportunities the walk offers. Today we had a session at the youth center where we all found out where we will be living and working over the next 2 years. It was very exciting. We put our pictures on a big map and all tried to visualize what our future homes would hold for us. We are in a cluster of 12 volunteers about an hour from Pretoria. We have most of our close friends near by (within an hour distance by taxi) and have other friends near some of the tourist attractions we want to visit.

5:00 p.m.: We arrive back at the house, change out of our dress clothes, and greet all of the members of our family. We work on language and PC homework while one of the daughters begins cooking dinner (some things they start cooking the day before) on the wood stove. Chores are divided up by weeks, so each daughter cooks for one week each month.

5:30 p.m.: We help mom by bagging snacks to sell at school the following day. We usually bag for 1-2 hours. It has become a time to unwind, talk to the family, and practice language.

6:00 p.m.: The electricity is usually turned on at this time and we take the opportunity to boil some water for the following day. In order not to get sick, we have to boil all of our drinking water for 3 minutes and then run it through a Britta filter provided by the Peace Corps. It gets a little tedious, but much better than ‘runny tummy’!

7:00 p.m.: Dinner is usually served at this time and we all gather around the wood stove to eat. Whoever has cooked takes the responsibility of dishing up the food and distributing the plates (everyone knows each others likes and dislikes and prepares their plate accordingly). Before digging in, someone is asked to pray for the meal while we all kneel on the floor. We have both been asked to pray numerous times and have managed pretty well. Of course, only a few family members understand what we are saying! Most of the meals involve pap (a corn product that looks like mashed potatoes, but much thicker). The pap is used as the means of eating the other dishes (usually vegetables and meat boiled on the stove) – there are no utensils.

8:00 p.m.: The younger generation gathers around the TV to watch Generations (a soap opera that is VERY popular in SA). At this point we are exhausted. We say good night to the family and if there is water (the water has been out for a week and may be off for over 2 months) we wash, journal, occasionally read, and finally attempt to sleep.

9:00 p.m.: By this time we have both found a semi-comfortable part of the bed to sleep on. The bed reminds Kelli of a whack-a-mole game with the springs popping up and down at random intervals. What can you expect from a bed held up by paint cans and most likely stuffed with them as well? We’ve learned to fit our bodies between the springs and pretend that pillows aren’t really supposed to be comfortable. At least we are so tried at the end of the day that all of that really doesn’t matter!

pictures: Our alarm clock; Walking to training; Kelli bagging scopes.