Homestay

From letter dated 10/04/05 – 10/06/05

I feel like so much has happened since my last letter, but of course I’ve been super busy so it’s hard to write. So far everything has been amazing and not even really surreal (because you know how I’m one to adapt easily to new environments.) We left N’Djamena last Saturday and now we’ve been in Darda at the training site for a week and a half. We are almost done with homestay which means that instead of sleeping in our dorm rooms at Darda, we (most of the group-some people are at a closer village) walk 30 minutes to Majiri. I live with a very large family, but I have no idea who is married to who and which kids belong to which mom. The biggest reason that I have no idea what is going on is because my family only speaks Chadian Arabic. I have learned a few important words (koko – frog / akul – eat / doot – insect) and to form a couple of basic sentences (koko akul doot). Mostly, I just sit around and say “afe” a lot which is the generic response to everything. I have taught the kids in my family to play “Miss Mary Mack” and to sing “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands”. I already feel like I’m making a difference in Chad. Though one of the women tried to have a conversation with me about America hating Muslims and I was able to semi-explain that there are Arabs in America by showing them pictures of Haja and Filza.
But my house/the village is what you would imagine Africa to be like, everything is built out of mud bricks and I have a house, outdoor hangar, and pit latrine within the compound. It’s really hot in my house, but for some reason whenever I try to sleep outside in the hangar, the sky decides to threaten rain so I’ve been sleeping inside. It’s not that bad though because I take a bucket bath before bed every night.
The craziest thing though is the giant difference between the lives of men and women here. All I ever see women doing is work (in the fields, chopping up okra, cooking, cleaning, etc, etc.) and all the men do is it around on mats all day. It’s weird as an American woman here because I have more liberty to be friendly with the men, but at the same time I don’t. I mean that I need to be careful and aware like I wouldn’t be in the US. Just things like walking down a street and not making eye contact are hard for me. And I have a tendency to yell nassara (white person) back at the people who yell at me which is funny but at the same time won’t be as appropriate when I’m at my site and actually have to maintain a professional demeanor. Right now though, in the protected training bubble I can act at least a little like an obnoxious American.
As for my health, I’ve been eating moderately well. At homestay, they made vegetarian food every night for me (usually rice w/hibiscus leaf sauce or pasta with some sort of unidentifiable sauce). Protein is mostly limited to peanuts and beans. I also eat the occasional egg, but they kind of gross me out. I haven’t been eating much unvegan food, but it is weird for me even to eat the little bit that I do. One day, around when we first got here I felt pretty sick and slept basically all day. Otherwise, I’ve been fine. I feel like that is in some ways a small miracle considering every night at homestay I am surrounded by dirty babies (the PCMO said we should always remember that everything/everyone is covered by a thin layer of fecal matter.)
The PCVs who just finished their service returned their bikes so now we have bikes here so finally I can bike which makes me so happy (I’m not so much into the things other people do for exercise – volleyball, running, etc.) We’ve just been riding the main road and back (10 km.) Me and one of the other trainees are talking about riding to N’Djamena one weekend if they’ll let us – it’d be about a 3 hour ride but everything is flat here. If we went early in the morning, it wouldn’t be too hot either. It’s weird because I am so used to getting up at 6am and going to bed at 9 or 10pm that I’m never tired getting up in the morning, and we are all on that schedule (moins l’electricite’ who wants to be up at midnight anyway.)
Speaking of French (sort of), I’m getting better. Literally, my French ability is in the middle of the group. Everyone who is better than me was a French major and/or has lived in France. I’m the best of the people still in French class (some people started Arabic this week) and one of the formateurs told me he thinks I’ll start Arabic next week. Our other training sessions focus on TEFL (which a lot of people find boring but I don’t mind), cross cultural stuff (we learned about Chadian agriculture yesterday), and medical stuff (so we can be healthy).
The way this whole experience is set up, I don’t think I’ll really start missing people until I’m at my site. We get our site assignments October 24th, then we have site visit (so we get to see our sites and meet our counterparts/the school staff right after that. Swear in is December 2nd, then we move out to our sites. I still have no idea where I want to be – I think I prefer the south because it’s greener and I’d be close to other volunteers/more people speak French. Still, I don’t know – I’d like to be near water, in a medium sized town, and be able to ride my bike everywhere. I guess I’ll know soon enough though, and right now I’m just trying to enjoy the time I have here.