so this is life

Now that I’m into my seventh month into Togo, with four months at post under my belt, you’d think I’d have established some kind of schedule or daily routine. Not exactly. Most days I wake up with a general idea of what I’m going to do but for the most part I take each day hour by hour. This lack of consistency has actually worked pretty well so far—it keeps me on my toes and I’m never actually bored. Sometimes lazy but never bored.

My day normally begins between 6:30 and 7. If I sleep past 7 it’s because I put earplugs in or I went to sleep much later than usual or for some reason someone hasn’t come by to say good morning or any combination of the three. Although I (still) don’t consider myself a morning person, I’m usually in a pretty decent mood when the time comes to rise and shine. I sometimes make breakfast (scrambled eggs or pancakes, when flour and eggs are at hand), sometimes I eat leftovers from the night before, sometimes Tanti brings over food, or sometimes I get right to cleaning. On light cleaning days I at least sweep both rooms and wash any dishes that need to be washed and tidy around. Two to three times a week I do laundry and sweep extra meticulously and tidy certain areas I tend to neglect. If it’s Monday or Wednesday, my cleaning is broken up by my going to school for French tutoring (tues, wed) and/or teaching class (mon, wed). I’m normally done with all that by noon or 1 and from then on a variety of possible activities ensue:
reading (I’ve read more books the past tree months than I have then past three years), fetching water with Tanti (although now that the rain has started this doesn’t happen as often), cooking (my favorite dish I’ve made so far: a killer peanut sauce I half followed a recipe for, half made up), going to say hi to people around village (should do this more often), enjoying a nice bucket shower, writing to people, helping the neighbors make gari (ground up manioc that’s made grainy by cooking it over fire… it has absolutely no nutritional value but I love adding it to a lot of different dishes), having a dance party, hanging out with kids, going to the marché if it’s Tuesday, and recently, I’ve started to knit again and try to learn to play the guitar—both thanks to purchases I made at a recent PCV event.

Every other week or so I’ve tried to visit Alicia in Tchifama (about 7K away) on Wednesdays (her marché day) and usually end up staying the night. We have a good time together and her company has probably helped my sanity level more normal than it might have otherwise been at times. Not to mention I absolutely love her family in Tchifama. She lives with the chief and two of his four wives and 19 kids. Love them all. I haven’t spent very many full weekends in M’Poti – I’ll either go to Pagala (25K) or Atakpamé (about 100K) to pick up mail, buy things I can’t get in M’Poti (pretty much anything other than tomatoes, onions, and garlic), check email, and spend some quality time with my much loved clustermates and other fabulous PCVs.

This regularly inconsistent schedule was interrupted a few weeks ago by the ending of the schools’ second trimester, a week of Peace Corps events, a visit by my APCD and National Director, and now a week of voyaging. This break came at a good time has given me a different outlook on village life. Things are looking up!