January 17, 2009
Well I think out of any day I’ve been here, today has to have been the most humbling. Saturdays around here are a day of relaxing and catching up with the chores around the house. We all got up for mass in the morning for 7:30am and afterwards everyone came back for breakfast.
I knew that today I was going to attempt at washing my clothes but like I said…I didn’t realize it would be such a humbling experience. In the late morning all the girls from the hostel were washing their clothes and I knew before coming to Africa that they don’t wash in a washing machine like we do at home. But I still didn’t realize what I was about to witness. I sat down by the girls and as we were talking I was watching them wash their clothes. They take three buckets – one for washing the clothes, another for washing the clothes and rinsing and another for just rinsing. They have this really neat technique where instead of rubbing the clothes together they just swish the water through when rubbing. I know some of you are saying, we used to do that not that long ago but I have not yet and as interesting as it was, it was embarrassing not knowing how to do it. While I was watching them they all said to me, “are you going to come and wash your clothes?” and all I’m trying to think is how am I going to do this without looking like a foolish little spoiled girl whose had her clothes washed by a machine for 24 years. I just said, “yes, when you’re finished.” And of course, since all of them share everything and do everything together, Edwina says to me, “no, you go and bring your clothes and we’ll wash together.” So after getting my clothes and walking the road of shame – realizing that the spot light is going to be on me, I sat down beside them and one asked me, “have you ever washed your clothes like this?” of course I hadn’t! I said, “no”, and they all began to laugh saying, “who washed your clothes? Your mother?” As if it wasn’t embarrassing enough, they all thought my mom still washed my clothes. They must think I’m some little rich girl. After I explained that we use washing machines in Canada and that no…I do wash my own clothes, I felt a little bit at ease realizing for myself that it was ok, since thats just how we do things at home. And, I thought, “well, may as well make the most of this experience and learn from them.” So Edwina helped me wash my clothes. One cool thing I learnt was that when the wash white clothes they use what they call “Blue” and it almost stains the colors a blue tint and when you hang them to dry, they dry this bright white color. It’s amazing.
You know…it’s not the fact of learning something new, because I’m all for that. I realize that we have it easy in Canada and I would like to learn how to do the things that we have been convenienced with. I think I was just coming to terms with the idea that these 14, 15 and 15 year old girls had it worse than me and they knew how to do all of these house hold chores by doing it the hard way and I don’t. I can assure you that these young girls all know how to do the every day chores that we do BUT trust me, they don’t have the conveniences that we do at home. After we washed clothes, I thought it would get better but trust me it didn’t. I want you to get a picture in your mind about this. An African kitchen. If anyone of you have seen this, you’ll understand where I’m coming from. The African kitchen is something like an outside kitchen where food is prepared and cooked. They don’t have a stove, it’s like a counter with a hole in the side to make a fire and you put a big pot in the top ) which there is a big circle cut out that just fits a pot. It has a tiny little sink – and if they’re lucky there’s running water in it. Another thing I’m amazed at is how they prepared their food. It’s not like if we want to eat fish where we go to the store and buy a filleted fish that is packaged and wrapped, and go to the vegetable isle and get fresh veggies and take them home and cook them. They go to the garden and pick and clean their food, if they want fish they either have go to the market and buy fish or possibly their family has to go and catch it, fillet it themselves and cook it after making the fire and heating the pot. I know I know, people did this a while ago and its not new news but it’s so behind the times. And I’m amazed at how this is normal life for these people. Especially these young girls. I cleaned rice with Sr. Catherine today and as we were doing that we were talking to Sr. Odile about planting potatoes. I guess they wouldn’t eat much potatoes if it wasn’t for Sr. Cecile because they prefer rice instead. But Sr. Odile was wondering if I knew how to plant potatoes and I said “yes, my family plants lots of potatoes”. So she asked me how we do it and after explaining it to her she thought that she might attempt at trying to grow potatoes in the garden. I think it would be great. They have a wonderful garden here. Since it’s always warm here they get the opportunity to have a growing season all the time. They plant cucumbers, peas, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, and quite a few other things that I have no idea what they are. It’s really nice. And that’s not even including all the fruit trees they have. Sr. Cecile loves fruit trees so she plants them everywhere. I mean everywhere. It’s great! I wish we could do that at home.
Today was a really windy day and when it’s really windy usually we get a lot of dust (either from a storm from the North or from the Sahara Desert). About an hour after all the cleaning was done there was a layer of dust on everything again. I forgot to close the windows in my room and I noticed on all my books and things by the windows had a layer of dust on all of them. I have curtains so that shielded my room from most of the dust, but I imagine it would get frustrating after a while. The sisters said that it doesn’t happen very often but it happens more than anyone would like.
As I’m sitting here writing this, it’s Saturday night and I can hear a lot of music playing. I asked Sr. Bernadette what people do here on a Saturday night and she said that they just walk around the streets and visit with people. It’s actually quite noisy compared to regular weekday evenings where it’s really quite. I hear drums and African music. I sure hope I can sleep tonight….I’ve got to get up early to go out to the villages with Sr. Cecile and Sr. Sue then off to mass and we’ll be visiting with the Billington’s (the couple from England) again.
I hope everyone has a great weekend. Talk to you soon
In Jesus and Mary,
Jen
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