Hey everyone!
I've successfully completed a month and a half-ish at site! It's been great and luckily i really enjoy my village. PC gave us the go ahead to come in early to restock on supplies so me and a few other volunteers are here in the city stocking up on things.
So much has happened in the weeks i've been at site that i don't know where to start.
My house is great, small but great. It's full of little animals and HUGE spiders. I have rats, lizards and lots of spiders but except for one ruined thing of deodorant nothing bad has come about from having the little roommates. One night the rats knocked my deodorant off the wall and into my pee pot... Needless to say i tossed that deodorant in the trash. The worst problem i'm having with the rats is that they wake me up. They are noisy!! I also get angry that they are running around so in the middle of the night i am beating on my walls half asleep trying to make them leave! I'm sure i'm quite the site.
The women of my village are amazing and are thoroughly enjoying teaching me how to do things they do on a daily basis. I have beat rice, cut rice at grounds, peeled TONS of cassava, made cassava bread, beat seeds to make oil, cooked oil, fished and cleaned fish. They were impressed i already knew how to clean fish. Thanks Uncle Lynn!!!
About two weeks into site, i played Slagball (baseball meets cricket) with the kids of my village. After about an hour of playing one kid went to hit the ball but let go of the bat and it knocked me square in the head! I had a HUGE goose egg on my head for a few days. It was hilarious getting taking care of by the villagers though. They all came to my house with their "medicines" mostly it was viks vapor rub and another unidentified goo they would smear on my head. I smelled really weird for days. But my head got better!
I'm working on my routine at site... So far I wake up at 7am (even though the BLEEPING roosters wake up at 3am!!!) and walk to my Durotank to get water for my morning washing. Sometimes i'll make hot water to bathe with but mostly it's cold. After washing I walk to my neighbors and tell them good morning. Then I make my breakfast of tea with oatmeal. I leave my door and window open so i get to chat with people as they walk by. Once breakfast is finished I read for a bit then walk to the creek or river to wash all my dishes and clothes from the previous day. Washing stuff takes forever... Probably just because i'm slow but I see no reason to rush. ha ha! It's HOT!!! There are always lots of people down at the river so I get to chat while washing my stuff. I've been slowly working washing myself at the river into my routine. Dry season has begun so I need to be cautious of how much of my rain water i'm using. My first time washing myself at the river was pretty hilarious. I wore a sports bra and a koosu (skirt thing). I got water in my ears and up my nose since i looked like i was a flopping around fish in the water. The current was stronger than anticipated so I got knocked over. Probably flashed everyone at the water front too. Whatever! Eventually i was clean and had to the tricky koosu switch-er-roo... There is an art form to this that i haven't figured out yet. You can take one koosu off while putting a new dry one on IN FRONT OF EVERYONE! Well... I am terrible at this and the women had to help me because I got stuck and tried to jump up and down to make my old one fall off... It wasn't working so when they could stop laughing at my they came over and helped me pull my wet koosu off and tie my new one on more securely. The women of my village laugh at the way I do things a lot but i've decided it's good. They think i'm funny and seem to like me. :)
Currently everyone in my village is trying to teach me how to carry my things on my head without using my hands. This is going to end very badly but i'm trying. Ha! They are trying to make me into a real "Saamaka Mujee" Saramaccan Woman.
Everyday in my village people go to their grounds to cut/dig up vegetables, rice, cassava and other food. One woman took me to her grounds so we could cut rice for several hours. The rice they plant out here grows like wheat. You use a knife to cut off the top of the plant. It was kind of fun going to grounds with her. I got to chat the whole time and try to ease drop on her other conversations. I'm really good at understanding what people are saying when they are speaking to me but I'm not so great at being part of a large conversation with several people because I can't understand them when they speak to each other. So i'm working on that.
Speaking of going to grounds!!! One SUPER old man in my village went to his grounds by himself the other day and by nightfall he had not come back. My village was extremely worried so they sent out all the men of my village (about 8 men total) into the jungle at NIGHT to look for him. They came back late that night after not finding him. The next morning men from nearby villages came to help look for the little old man. It was intense seeing so many men decked out in rubber boots, shotguns and machetes walking into the jungle. After about 5 hours everyone in my village that had stayed behind began to yell. The yelling began at the front of the village and like a wave of sound ended at the back of the village where I was sitting. The men had found the little old man!! Everyone in the back of the village ran to the river to see the men bring in the old man. It was really cool. He was okay, dehydrated and hungry but okay. He had missed his path back and gotten lost. After the search party (about 25 men) walked him to his house the women of my village washed him. They carried in a huge bucket of water with leaves in it and washed him from head to toe. He was wearing a loin cloth time thing so luckily he wasn't naked because that would have been massively awkward. My ENTIRE village surrounded his little house to make sure he was okay. When the women were done washing him they washed the faces,heads and necks of all the men that had gone into the jungle to search for the man. It was incredibly interesting to watch.
I can't imagine what sleeping alone without shelter in the jungle must have been like for him. Scary!!! But he survived and he's doing great.
Tomorrow I head back to my little "wosu" house in the jungle. I'll be back in the city in October!
I miss you all and thanks for reading!!!
