6am: My alarm rings, I grunt and role out of bed (I’ve never been one for mornings!)
I change into a tafi (piece of material women wear to take a shower, or as a skirt) and go and fill up a bucket from the water reserve. I carry the bucket to a small room without a ceiling (basically 3 concrete walls, a concrete floor, a drain and a metal door). I wake up rapidly with a shock from the cold water from my bucket shower, but am happy as I get to use locally made shea butter soap that makes your skin so soft. Awake and refreshed I get ready for work. Enjoy a baguette with mango, orange or banana jam or dark brown honey ( all locally produced by small cooperatives). YUM!
7am: I greet all the family on my way out the door, then head off by bike on my daily route. The first stretch is unpaved, bumpy, and up hill. I greet almost all the people I see. Upon reaching the section that is paved I know it is all down hill from there! The paved road is the same that heads out to La Guinguette, but I am heading in the other direction. I join the other bikes that follow the roads shoulder while the motor bikes whiz by and the occasional car or truck. This part of the road follows the outside wall of the airport, though I haven’t seen any planes take off yet, but I am sure there are some. Between the road and the wall people have taken the otherwise empty space and have converted it into small gardens. It is hard to know where one person’s garden ends and the other starts. There is mainly gumbo (okra) and maize planted there. Right now the Okra is in flower with its beautiful cream yellow petals and deep purple center. At the stop sign I turn right, but here you have to make sure you place one foot on the ground while stopped or you could get a 2000Franc CFA fine if a cop see you (4 dollars CND, but here more than I spend in a days to eat 3 meals!).
Often while biking I end up in these “races” that I don’t intend. Mainly it is that the young guys don’t like to see me pass them so they start to peddle as fast as they can to pass me. However, their bursts of energy do not always last and as I approach them we start all over again.
7:30 am: I arrive at work greet the woman selling potatoes (who is also the wife of the guard) and her two kids. I greet the guard who likes to throw new sentences in Dioula at me to see if I understand. They live in the courtyard and have planted rice, peanuts, beans and corn. They have two kids that think I’m just plain funny. Then the day at work starts. I spend most of my day either working at the office or going around different points of sale or units of mango transformation to talk with the people involved.
I work in an office that is pretty small. Basically my boss and I and occasionally the 2 field officers when they come to write their reports, but mainly it is jus the 2 of us. I have no air conditioning, but I have a fan that could probably propel a plane, so we never use it. There is a metal ceiling with little holes in it and sometimes you can hear the mice running around. The windows have metal slats that you tilt open, here there are rarely windows with glass as Burkina doesn’t have a factory for making glass so all has to be imported.
12pm: Lunch! I peddle home, this time uphill and in the hot sun! I make lunch and take a siesta. Now this is how is meant to be!
3pm: I return to work. Yes I do have a 3 hour lunch!
6pm: Home time and dusk it is starting. I ride back with everyone else who is returning from work. Sometimes I stop to pick up vegetables or fruit from the women selling them from stalls on the street. I arrive to the area where I turn to the part of the road that is not paved, just as the cows and goats are also heading home. They cross the road on their march home after a day grazing in the fields just beyond where I live. Just as I get home the sun is setting and night is falling. But the day does not end there! The house is buzzing with activity. The daughters though only 10 and 14 years old are busy cooking. They make most of the food over either a gas stove and / or a charcoal burner. While they cook dinner the mother is often making juice or yogurt to sell. And the little baby, who is desperate to start walking, is getting himself into everything. The other day he was so curious that he bit right into a hot pepper (foronto) and got the shock of his life! I think he learnt that when mom says no maybe there is a good reason.
This is also the time where I try to get some laundry done so that it doesn’t pile up all for the weekend. I find that by the end of the day our shirts are ready for washing! It’s all the biking to and from work in the heat! We make dinner, though we have yet to convince the family to try our food. It looks too weird and we mix too many vegetables together. Also where is our meat? I’ll keep trying!
After dinner I sometimes help Salmata with her English homework, shower for the 2nd time (this time the water is a little warmer as the reserve had the whole day in the sun) or chase what ever weird creature that is in our house out (cockroach, mouse, lizard..)
I have to admit by 9 or 10 I’m exhausted and ready for bed!
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