A Day in the Life

I usually wake up at 6:45. 7 if I'm super tired. I make breakfast, which usually consists of a PBJ or oatmeal, cuz they're easy to make.

I have gotten into the habit of making coffee, then keeping it in the fridge. This serves two purposes. One, I don't have to make coffee in the morning, and two, cold is better than hot. We've got enough hot to go around here.

Then I head out to work with Mr. Paul. We meet at 8, get assignments, and head out. This is where the "fly by seat of pants" portion of the show comes, because we really do everything. Everything tends to remain in the categories of construction, plumbing, electrical work, demolition, reconstruction, redemolition, re-reconstruction, and mowing, conveniently.

That snarky bit about re-reconstruction comes from my first job. We had to break a sidewalk open (while people walked around us, apathetic to our swinging sledgehammers) so that we could fix a leaking pipe underneath. PVC piping has no standard of quality here. You can break it by caving it in with your thumbs.

So we smashed up the sidewalk, fixed the pipe, reapplied cement, added a nice little ramp. It was lovely. On Monday the pipe broke again.

So you have to take pride in your work, but not get too bummed out when you are forced to smash it up again.

Then we have an hour for lunch, I make food, it's tasty, we do more work, I come home for dinner, and I play banjo and work on my French.

And for fun I've been experimenting with the various exotic fruits and veggies I have available to me.  Plantains, breadfruit, (haven't made that yet but it's next on the list) coconuts, a spiky pear (which is bigger than my head, waiting for it to ripen up) and papayas. All tasty so far.

That's about it for a normal day.

People have asked me questions.

The ants from the picture are from the village I first went to church at. I probably won't be returning, because I got so many boufoutoe bites that it looked like I had the measles. I mean, I usually look good in polka dots, but I made an obvious mistake in bringing only striped/plaid clothing, and that's just tacky.

The education here is really pretty good, although it's not uncommon for a person to not get out of high school until their early twenties. Other things take priority over an expedient education.

Deaf people are around, but I don't think there's a huge ministry for them. I don't think there's an abundance.  I don't know if they know sign language, American or otherwise. I actually asked about that. Eye problems seem to be pretty common though.

5'8" seems a common height for a man.

That's all I got, folks.