It’s summer again. Don’t get me wrong – any of you who know me well will believe me when I say that I’ll take this any day over being cold. However, there are a few things I don’t like so much about summertime here:
1. Bugs. Flies everywhere. Only a few manage to breach my house on any given day (although that’s enough to drive me nuts), but most everyone else doesn’t cover their windows or even close their doors. In spite of the livestock (and livestock leftovers) right outside! And it is considered dirty to kill them, so a little lackadaisical shooing away from the food is the best one can hope for. Then, even in my house, all those little things that eat you alive have no problem infiltrating my faux curtains (shredded mosquito net). So I go to bed feeling all creepy-crawly. Itch itch itch. And then there are the larger ones that just somehow manage to go wherever they please… And there are also these little armored brown things that seem like flies but are actually some sort of evil alien creature that bite the crap out of you and then REFUSE to die even after being pounded and squished multiple times. Unfortunately, they seem to really enjoy the odor of human sweat.
2. Scorpions. Technically could be categorized as “Bugs”, but I believe they merit a special mention.
3. Mushy body. Who can possibly exercise for long in this? Plus, just sitting all day can put me in a really wicked mood. (Upshot: who feels like eating?! Also, less sweat means fewer alien flies attacking me.)
4. No more sun tan. (Upshot: a 3-month detour from my road to basal cell carcinoma). I pretty much bake on my roof all winter in an effort to stay warm. Now, the sun is my enemy, even if it means sacrificing fresh air too.
5. Transportation. It’s crowded, and people here refuse to let you open the windows. Because the wind will make you sick (that damn fresh air again). Why this rule doesn’t apply to houses and flies I do not know…
6. Napping. I’ve just never been good at it unless I am violently ill, so I can’t quite manage to join in on the fun. But it’s hard to feel like a productive volunteer when everyone else is asleep all afternoon (even the few women who still go to our co-op can often be found passed out on the floor there!).
7. Stinky garbage (see also, Bugs). The dumpsters in Rich have disappeared one by one (and it goes without saying that we have no garbage collection in my village, in spite of some noble efforts on the part of my first sitemate – I’m on my third one of those now, by the way, and that’s not counting the 2 who’ve also passed through the village right down the road!), so now I have to get rid of everything but glass (often of the hashuma variety that I don’t want anyone in my village to know that I possess) a little closer to home. But there are days I just can’t cart it out into the desert fast enough! (Not to worry – everything I dispose of here is biodegradable, and there are occasional rooftop fires to speed that along as well!). My kitchen is permanently foul. (The clogged sink doesn’t help either).
8. Stomach crud. I’ve been luckier than a lot of volunteers on this front, but still… I don’t have a refrigerator. After no electricity last summer, I didn’t feel like investing in one now for such a short time (and a cheap used one recently slipped through my fingers). I’m having to readjust my produce storage habits – eat more beans and fewer veggies, etc. etc... And I got a good reminder this week that I need to stop buying more than 2 eggs at a time, and use nothing but powdered milk till September (besides, that European boxed stuff is weird anyhow). It’s just that it’s so hard to throw out GRANOLA, even if it is covered in lumps, so you just do your best to pick off the “milk”… (I’d do it again in a heartbeat)!
9. Local diagnosis of stomach crud: “Najia, have you been drinking warm water again?”
For a few weeks there, our village fields were incredibly lush – much more so than last year, as our water situation has improved a little bit. I periodically accompany some women into the fields around dusk, after things have cooled off – sometimes to harvest, and sometimes just to hang out. And the sights and sounds really are lovely right now, which is good since every time I have ever followed a woman here somewhere, especially through the fields, we seem to take the least direct route possible. I can forgive these detours though, because the fields (each of which is about the size of my smallest New York studio apartment) all kind of look alike to me, and I have come to realize that sometimes the woman I am following is just as lost as I am! How they know whose is whose remains a mystery to me, although I am getting better at recognizing one or two patches.
After all this time here though, I still am simultaneously amazed and disgusted by the loads I see women carrying back from the fields… These are the same loads that the donkeys carry, and donkeys – as cute as I still find them to be – are pretty much considered lowest of the low among beasts here. I’ve even had to stop and help women on the side of the road who’ve sat down for a rest and can’t stand back up again. It is utterly demeaning. When I am out for a stroll (the running has pretty much stopped for now, see #3 above) the women applaud my attempts at exercising in the hot sun, but then invite me to get some real exercise by carrying packs like theirs. I smile but refuse. I told one woman heading back into town that it was horrible for one’s back, pointing out how stooped over she was. Not missing a beat, she promptly explained that if she stood up straight, she’d fall over (that silly American girl just doesn’t understand the laws of physics!), and began to demonstrate. That’s one of those moments here where you think you’re having the same conversation with someone, but then not really… I’ve tried to find an opportunity to photograph this for you (and honestly, I think I know a few women who wouldn’t mind if they knew it was to show people in America how hard they worked), but I just feel uncomfortable whipping out my camera and overtly focusing on someone who, in my mind, is in such a humiliating posture. I may still find a willing model…
