Three Sinnis of Buna: A Day in the Life

My life as a Peace Corps Volunteer is never as predictable or as locked into a schedule as most people’s lives are in America, but it’s finally settled into enough of a routine for me to try to recreate a day in the life of Kristen Rosen, PCV:

6:30 AM: Wake up to the sound of cows mooing and roosters crowing. Read my Kindle in bed.

7:30 AM: Get up, go out to the latrine to use the bathroom, and greet Howi and Moti, the kids on the compound. Wash last night’s dishes, using a big bucket for a sink and a bucket with a pour spout for a faucet. Put on water to boil using my electric hot plate and a kettle, and start assembling a delicious breakfast of oatmeal: oats, mashed banana, powdered milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, dates, and chopped pecans. (The last five ingredients are courtesy of trips to the capitol city and care packages). Other breakfasts include pancakes (weekends only), scrambled eggs with toast and jam, or just bread with jam/pb/banana.

8:30 AM: Check my email and facebook using my USB internet stick.

9:00 AM: Do my daily religious study

9:30 AM: take my big bucket out to the front of the compound to fill it with water from the spigot (most volunteers have this version of “running water” available to them, but if the water goes out, we hire people to haul water for us from a river). Put half of the water into my water filter because it’s getting low. Sweep out my house and porch because they’re both getting pretty dirty. (none of this occurs every day)

10:oo AM: Get dressed and get ready to go out. Brush my teeth into my little bucket and dump it and the dishwater out on the dirt in front of my house.

10:30 AM: Meet up with my site mate and walk down to the high school. As the first step in our selection process for which 9^th grade girls to take with us for the one-week female leadership camp we’re putting on this summer, we gave out applications to about 60 girls and waited for them to complete it. Later we’ll interview the top 20 and choose the top 8 as campers (on other days with nothing special happening I'll go down to school to make teachers practice speaking English with me).

12 Noon: Using my umbrella as a parasol, walk home, stopping to greet people we know in the local language, shaking the hands of kids who come running up to us, walk hand-in-hand with some other adorable kids, and ignore the verbal pokes from duriyes (young men with nothing better to do than bother the foreigners). Detour to buy roll-shaped bread from a café and mini bananas from a roadside stand for my lunch. Once home, change into a tank top to cool off, and make a peanut butter & banana sandwich for lunch (lunch is almost always either a pb&j or a pb&banana sandwich). Watch an episode of TV while eating – I’m watching Bones right now.

1 PM: Do some exercising inside my house – a short, intense burst of cardio, some abs, and some yoga is my new routine (okay, okay, exercising at all is new for me, but I’m hoping to make it stick).

2 PM: Get called out into the central outside area of the compound to sit and drink coffee with my landlord’s family. Try my best to follow the conversation in the local language, but largely fail, as always. (Though I’m getting really good at knowing when they’re talking about me, to their surprise and delight when I chime in.) I’m urged to “play!” at least 10 times, and handed a plateful of boiled corn that’s way too big for me to finish, but it’s always a good day on the days they include me in their coffee ceremonies.

3 PM: Do some miscellaneous tasks – today I sent some camp planning-related emails, prepared a package to send home to a friend, uploaded photos to facebook, spent some time working on a design for a future sewing project, and did some prep-work for visual aids for my classroom.

5:30 PM: Settle into my upholstered chair to read for a while – heavenly. My Kindle and my chair are two of my most prized possessions here.

7 PM: Cook pasta and make tomato sauce from scratch for dinner, using my propane-powered stove. (My dinners can be made from bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, lentils, tomatoes during the dry season, carrots and cabbage sporadically, and various seasonings and sauces sent from home)

8 PM: Crawl into bed for the night – watch a movie or a couple episodes of TV or read more of my book.

10-10:30 PM: lights out.