So, I’ve received a request to come up with what a normal day in my life is. Since it’s hard for anyone to say what their normal day is like, I figured I’d just recap what happened last Thursday, which was mostly routine but still a great day.
So, I slept in a little later than normal, waking up about 5:45am. For some reason, all last week I was a little tired. The alarm on my phone is actually set to go off at 6:20am, but since being at site, it has only woke me up once. Anyways, I gathered my Nalgene, Zune, and whatever other person items are under the mosquito net with me, and exited the bed. This is also the time that if Tako hasn’t been kicked out yet, she gets the boot. All day, the bed stays empty and the net tucked in.
After waking up, I put on some shorts and a shirt (it is far too hot to sleep with anything more than my boxers on), open the back door to let Fletcher in, and then we all walk out the front door. We would use the back door, but it’s currently broken. I walk around to the chim, and Fletch and Tako disappear for the next hour. After that, I go back inside leaving the door open for their return, wash my hands, and sit down to my cup of tea. I turn on the shortwave radio and tune into Voice of America (VOA) to keep up to date on the news from the states and around the world. Starting at 4:00 UTC (6:00am Malawi Time), they have Spotlight on Africa, which is good for me to know the news and conflict zones around the continent. I eat my breakfast, brush my teeth, get dressed for school, and head to the school around 7:00am.
At school on Thursday, I didn’t have class until 9:10am, but this gives me time to grade anything, scheme out my lesson plans (scheme is the proper word for it here for lesson planning, and it’s fun to say you’re “scheming”), and chat with the staff. At 9:10am, I went and taught Form 3 (11th grade) Physical Science for 40 minutes (I was covering chemical reactions). After that, I had a break until 12:15pm, so I decided to ride into Uliwa real quick since the guy working at the post office had texted me the day before to let me know the mail was finally coming and I had some (first mail in November due to some sort of complication). I rode to Uliwa, did a little shopping, got my mail, and went to the People’s (grocery store) to drink a Fanta and read some of the mail. Sitting out front of People’s I read a couple letters and I finally got to read the Gainesville Sun article about Amy. After this, I went to buy some paraffin (kerosene), which involves me finding a sketchy guy down a little, empty ally and him getting me some of the black-market paraffin from his shed. Sounds sketchy, but it’s just how things are done here. Sadly, he only had 0.5L, which will only last me a couple weeks.
When I got back to school, I had enough time to drop my stuff in my house and come back to the school. I taught a double period (80 minutes) of Biology to Form 4 (I was covering population). After that, lunch was already ready in the staff room. I sat down talking with the staff and ate sima with usipa and a tomato stew. Overall, it is my normal lunch, and strangely delicious (if you want to know what usipa is, I hope you can find it online, because words wouldn’t do it justice, but it will explain why I say ‘strangely’ delicious). As I often do, I forgot to take my Doxy at the beginning of my meal, which limits the heartburn, so I took it after lunch. No heartburn, so still good.
After lunch, I went home, changed into shorts, and laid in the hammock on my courtyard with a book and a Gatorade sports bottle filled with watermelon bucket wine. I read and sipped on a little wine over the next couple hours. Around 4:00pm, I took my shower using the solar-shower my site-mate, Ilana gave me. Then, I lit my bawula (clay stove filled with charcoal), and got dinner together. Dinner, as it usually is, was Karonga rice cooked with soya pieces, tomato, onion, and garlic in it. I cooked it, put it on the table, filled a pot with about 2L of water and put it on to boil. I then sat down to dinner, ate all I could, gave the rest to ‘The Kids’ (Fletcher and Tako). As always after dinner, I took the vacuum thermoses outside to fill them with the now boiling water. The 1L thermos was filled and a tea bag was inserted, and then sealed for the following morning, while the 0.5L thermos was filled with just water, which would be used for eating the instant grits I got in a care package for breakfast.
Once this is all done, I’m usually pretty exhausted and it’s about 6:30pm or 7:00pm, but I was in the middle of a chapter in the book, so I sat at the table and finished it under candle-light until about 7:30pm. I then put Fletcher out on in the courtyard to avoid any accidents overnight (she likes it best out there when she can’t be inside). Finally, I took my Zune and full Nalgene to bed, used the flashlight on my phone to do my nightly bed scorpion check, and then crawled under the net and tucked it in. I started watching an episode of Outsourced using the monstrous 2.5” screen on my Zune, but about halfway through Tako started meowing to come into the mosquito net, so I let her in and proceeded to have a 3 minute petting/purring session. After she settled down in her favorite spot, between my legs, I finished a couple episodes of Outsourced before I realize I was starting to fall asleep. I turned off the Zune, rolled over, and fell asleep. I woke up a couple of times that night, which is normal, since I’m usually dehydrated from sweating all night (hence the 1L of water in the Nalgene and an extra 0.5L in an emergency bottle under the bed that I actually broke into that night). When I woke up around 1:00am, I notice Tako was a little restless, so I let her out of the net.
So, that’s a day in my life. Hope it was more interesting for you than it was for me, because this whole thing seems kinda mundane, but it was requested.
On another note, I updated my wish list a little for those of you that care. A great Christmas gift I idea (something I won’t say I desperately need, but desperately want) are the collapsible water bottles like the Platypus. Camelbak makes them, too. If someone is feeling really generous, you could send me a 5L Camelbak bladder for my backpack; I got the backpack that’s made for it, and I had one, but the day I was leaving for Malawi, I realized the cap was busted. :’( Another idea, which is only need one of, is one of those super-portable, inflatable sleeping pads for camping. I would be carrying it around long distances in a backpack, so portable is important, but durable and preferable waterproof are also important. Thanks everyone! Have a great couple of weeks!
