To put it bluntly, it is HOT here. I used to joke about things or places being "Africa hot" but I had no idea what I was talking about.
If I had to sum up my arrival in West Africa I would use the word 'intense.'
Everything about being here is intense, the heat, the tones people use when bargaining, the crush of bodies, the crowded markets, the open sewers that run along the streets, the children that sidle along open car windows at stoplights and beg. Nothing could have prepared me for this, not that I am unprepared... It's just that in all my imagination of what this trip would be like, I would never have imagined all of this.
We arrived at 3 in the morning and it was still hot (which should have been a warning) though there was a slight breeze. Once we got through customs there were so many hands reaching for our bags to help us until we got out to the car. Dana, who has done this many times before, was like a mother hen saying No thanks, we're fine, we won't pay you for helping so it's your choice, St. Jude will bless you for your kindness, No thanks, It's ok and Andrew and I were following behind her like little ducks. Outside of the airport we were swarmed by potential taxi drivers. Mieko, our country coordinator picked us up along with Rodney who had flown direct from South Africa.
Our house is a neat little place in the "Baco dji Coro ni" neighborhood. We live on the second floor. The first is a garage and front door. The garage is more like a large foyer as there is no separation. Then after a locked door you can access the staircase to the terrace. After another locked door you can access our place. There are 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, a small kitchen and a big living room area very separate from the kitchen. We have AC and ceiling fans and while they initially offered relief, once I cooled off from hustling my bags up the stairs I realized that it was still hot in my room even with both on and, yet, hotter still in the hallway. I lucked out by being the only girl as I got the biggest room with a bathroom inside.
After a rousing game of Uno, I went to unpack my room. As I put away my one pair of jeans I wondered how anyone could wear them in this heat but I have seen several since. I finally fell asleep at 6 am. In the dark it appeared as if our place was surrounded by abandoned buildings and shacks but as early as 6 the dirt road started coming alive with motorbikes, mothers walking with baskets on their heads and children on their backs, cars, and shopkeepers opening up stores that they had shuttered down for the night. Framed in the purple sky I could see a huge stucco house with high walls and gates down the street from us.
In the morning I rose groggily in a pool of sweat (the Ac is on a timer apparently). The shower is a spigot 3 feet up on the bathroom wall with a handheld spray attached. I never figured out how to use the spray. I was happy enough once I figured out how to get the water on, doing all types of contorted positions to soap up and rinse off under the meager stream. Towels were not on our packing list as they take up a lot of room and can be bought in at the market and apparently I'm the only one who heeded that note. With the heat it doesn't really matter.
Mieko came to pick us up at the agreed upon time and we couldn't find Rodney when we were ready to leave the house. More importantly, he took the only key to the front door when he left and locked us in. I felt like Rapunzel calling down to Mieko over the terrace to tell her this. We finally figured out how to exit using the bolted garage doors and not the front door which was locked from the outside with a key we did not have. We know because we dropped all our keys down to Mieko to test them. We couldn't lock the garage door from the outside so we settled for locking the door to the stairs and the door to our place and our bedroom doors and we left Rodney after waiting 45 minutes.
Mieko's friend Katie, a former Peace Corps volunteer in the country and current teacher, showed us how to take the green buses to the market and what words to use. The buses remind me of the Flatbush dollar vans in Brooklyn. They pack them to the hilt and then off you go down the street sweating and leaning in to each other. But they are cheaper than taxis, about 30 cents a ride, and a good way to learn the lay of the land.
We bought sim cards to make our phones work here although they appear to still need to be decoded. While we were outside with the sim card vendor trying to figure out how to make the phones work we were approached by an aggressive beggar with a cane who had a girl in tow. He was mostly speaking Bambara so I didn't know what he was saying but the gist was he wanted money. Mieko told him "Akine" which is a polite no and then "Non" and then got more aggressive herself. Still he stayed repeating his request over and over. She took to ignoring him. So I turned away too. I felt a tug on my skirt mid-thigh (we were up on an elevated sidewalk and he was below on the street). I turned to say something and before I could open my mouth a group of men who had been sitting and chatting in the shade ten feet away verbally lit into the man for touching me and he hurried away.
We stopped at a grocery store but it was closed from noon to 3 for the midday heat so we stopped back at our house to see if Rodney was there. He wasn't there but he had been there since the door that had been locked from the outside was now open. He didn't leave a note though so we left again for Mieko's place where we met with our potential help.
We decided not to have her cook just to have her come twice a week, once to do laundry and clean and another time to clean and go to the market. She sniffed that the pay was not enough, even though she had originally expressed interest, that she would need more and pay for transportation as well, like Mieko's help. Mieko told her that she worked for the Embassy but we don't so the situations are different. We said we couldn't give her more. She insisted and we said ok we will just do it ourselves. We thought this was something that would help us and you at the same time. It's up to you. Andrew asked if she had a job already and she said yes. I told her that she had a job but we did not. That we were volunteers with a budget for our time here and that we could not afford to go over it. We were getting ready to show her out and just like that she agreed and said it would be "un cadeau" (gift) for us.
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