Recently I listened to a
Volunteer Voices podcast called "A Typical Day," in which Kimberly Ross details a typical day in her life as an English-teaching volunteer in Guinea, West Africa. I really enjoyed hearing about her life and routine and comparing it to my own experience here. So I wanted to do my own "typical day," but thought that one day didn't quite paint the picture. A week, however, is too long. So here you have it, three days in the life. Maybe somebody out there will find it interesting.
Tuesday
I wake up sans alarm clock around 6:30am. I get up and put on a pot of water to boil for my oatmeal and coffee. I make my bed and check my email. I prepare my breakfast and bring in the clean dishes from the day before. Over breakfast, I look over my lesson plans for my English class and finish grading last week's quizzes. I finish, get dressed, then head down to the pila to brush my teeth and wash my face. I return and get my school bag together. I take the long way to the school so I can pass by Edgar's shop and pay him 2 quetzales to print off the lyrics I downloaded and translated for my kids. I also pass by the librería where I make copies for each student. At 9am I start my English class with the Sexto Primario kids. They are my favorite class. We review last week's lesson, and then I give them their new vocab words, which they copy into their notebooks from the board. Then I hook up my iPod to the portable speakers I brought with me and play "Hello Goodbye" by The Beatles. I pass out the lyrics in English and Spanish. We listen four times, and the kids still want to hear it a fifth. I play it again, and they sing along in broken English. I wrap up class and leave when Seño Bertha returns from her break. By 10:30am I'm back at home where I do some dishes and wash a few shirts to hang out in the sun. I review my afternoon lesson plans and get in my hammock and read for a while. Around 12:30 I cross the road and buy two tayuyos from Liliana's mother. I bring them home and eat them with an avocado. After lunch I write a few emails then repack my school costal and head back to the Institute where I give a charla to Primero A on "Economía para el éxito". After my class I stop my Nelyda's office and say hi, and also stop by the Intecap cooking class, where they're making chinese-style orange chicken. I finally head home, where I change into my comfy clothes and do a Rodney Yee yoga video that I play on my Macbook. It starts raining so I bring in my laundry and dishes. After yoga I take a cold shower and around 7pm heat up a small pot of the green-bean lentil stew I made on Sunday. I'll be eating this each night for dinner until Sunday, when I'll make another huge pot of something (probably black beans and rice) to last me through the next week. After dinner I get in bed with my book and a mug of decaf chai, and read until I fall asleep.
Wednesday
I wake up around 7am, and it's rainy. I make coffee and change, and make a list of what I need to buy at the market. Around 8:30am I head over to the market and buy a pound of black beans, two pounds of apples, twelve bananas, ten eggs, and three fresh tayuyos. I bring my purchases home, where I wash the apples and eggs in the pila. I pick through my beans as well, and put them aside until the weekend. Dilan, Olga's four-year old son, comes up and wants to color. I give him crayons and his Transformers coloring book (that my mom brought from the States) and help him color a picture of a Transformer. Dilan goes home, I play guitar for a bit, then read in my hammock for a while before I fall asleep for a nice rainy-day nap. I wake up a little after noon, heat up a tayuyo, pack my bag, and head to the school in the rain for my 1pm charla. Three students show up around 1:05. The other twenty or so students don't bother showing up until after 1:30. Because of the rain, they say. Seño Bertha shows up to teach her 1:30 class. I briefly lecture the class for not showing up on time, remind them of class tomorrow, and leave. I mosey over to the kitchen where the Intecap teacher is waiting to start the afternoon cooking class (Intecap is a Guatemalan NGO that provides free educational opportunities for people in rural areas. Following my teacher friends' suggestion, I signed up for the Wednesday afternoon pastry class). I know that the other students won't show until 2:30, so I go in to keep the teacher company until then. We chat about her son who went to live in Pennsylvania for a few years before getting deported. I also translate my black bean brownie recipe for her. The other women students show up around 2:45, and we get to cooking that day's lesson: braided bread filled with cheese and meat. As we're kneading our dough, the women all poke fun at me for forgetting to take off my rings. As our bread is baking, the teacher dictates the recipe so that we can all copy it down in our notebooks. I translate to myself as she dictates and write the recipe down in English. When we're done copying, the women all gather around my notebook, as usual, to scrutinize my English version of the recipe. Much giggling ensues. Our bread is finished and we cut it, put it in plastic bags, then walk around town selling it to make back the money the teacher spent on the ingredients. Around 6pm I walk home with one of the other women from the cooking class. I heat up some lentils, and check my email/facebook/blogger. After doing some dishes, I'm in bed with my tea and an episode of How I Met Your Mother that I have saved on my external hard-drive.
Thursday
I wake up a little before 7am. I boil water for my coffee and Dilan shows up. I give him a banana and his coloring book/crayons and go and take a cold shower. Over coffee I check my email and get my bag ready. A little after 8am Dilan and I leave my house and I hike up to Tzibal for the "8:00" meeting with the women. I arrive in Tzibal, drenched in sweat, around 8:45, and am the first one there. The women saw me coming up the main road, so within ten minutes about twenty women have gathered with me at the school. I have the construction worker explain the bottle-wall process to the women in Q'eqchi', and they get to work putting in the bottle walls. I take photos and help some of the women sort out which bottles still need to be stuffed with trash. Around 10:45 snack arrives and we all stop our work to drink our steaming-hot atol. Estela gifts me a shupito, a tamale filled with whole black beans. I eat it, and she gives me another. I stow this one in my bag and finish my atol. Estela and I chat about my recent family visit. She also proposes an idea she had about buying solar panels for the houses in the village. I tell her that's it a good idea, but that we need to take it one project at a time. I take a few more photos, talk briefly with Seño Susana, say my goodbyes to the women, and head back down the mountain to Campur. I stop briefly at my house around 11:45 to drop off my camera and pick up my schoolbag. I stop at the pila and splash cool water on my face. It's especially hot today. As I leave my house again I'm stopped by Liliana's mother who gifts me two shupitos. It must be shupito day or something. I thank her and stow them in my bag before continuing on my way. I walk through the center, stopping at Edgar's to print off the exam I'll be giving today at Birmania. He's eating lunch so I wait 15 minutes before he gets around to printing it off. I also stop and have copies made. I walk the 20-minute hike to Birmania quickly and get there around 1:15, where the other professor is waiting for me. I give my English/Youth Development exam to the Segundo class first, then the Primero class. I watch them like hawks and catch quite a few students cheating. I mark their exams and tell them that I'm going to deduct points. They look so ashamed. After the last of the Primero students finish their exams I pack up and head out, despediring the other professor on my way. I get home around 3, eat an apple and one of the shupitos from my bag. I take a short nap in my hammock. Around 5:30 I repack my bag, double-check my lesson plan, and head to the local school for my 6pm charla. Upon getting downstairs, however, it begins to downpour. Olga, the store owner, tells me, in more or less words, that I'm not going anywhere in the heavy rain. So instead I sit with her in her store and we eat frozen choco-bananas and sour mandarines while chatting about boys and the weather, throwing our green mandarine peels into the muddy river that is flowing where the road normally is. I'll make up the charla next week. A little after 7 I head upstairs and Olga closes up shop. Too full from our snacks, I get into bed and plan for the next day.
