What’s in a day?

I usually get up between 7 or 8am, have a glass of fruit juice, have some breakfast (usually some small local rolls), heat up some water for a bucket bath, get dressed, fill up a flask with tea (there’s no kettle or fridge at the office) and get ready for work. Somewhere in between there’s usually a fight against the crappy internet signal to try and check Facebook, Twitter, and tennis scores, with varying degrees of success and/or swearing!

It takes less than five minutes to walk to the office, down a dirt road (when it’s dry, down a mud road when it’s wet), up another one, and then I’m more or less there.

There’s a biometric (finger-print reading) system at work, so most people are in the office at 8 and leave at 5 (although start/finish times are flexible) but disappear for long periods in between, take a nap, chat, play games, Facebook, etc. The office next to us has a TV and it’s always on and extremely loud. My colleagues try and drown it out with American or Filipino love songs. I’m one of those people that prefer to work in silence, so I find it almost impossible to concentrate on anything.

Around 11:30 we have lunch. Rice, and whatever else people cook / bring in, or buy from the café across the street. Usually it’s fish or pork and vegetables. We have a small office with no spare space, so people eat at their desks. I find this hard. I’d like to take a break at lunch time and go for a walk, but don’t want to offend people. I also find it challenging because the fish is usually tuna, which I dislike (both for itself and the fact that it is so overfished), or shark / stingray… I won’t, and don’t! It’s hard to explain my reasoning to people for whom it’s the norm.

Last week, I finally asked my supervisor if I can start working from home or a café sometimes, and I’ve done that a couple of times this week. I can get more done and it’s less draining than trying to have to block everything else out, and it means I can choose what and when I eat too. Food has always been one of my coping mechanisms, and having some control over what I eat is important to my mental well-being. I recently introduced my colleagues to the Victoria Sandwich (cake) which has been a very popular move!

On Tuesdays and Thursdays there is a free aerobics class at work in the late afternoon. Sometimes I join in, although it’s a bit uncomfortable in the lobby with everyone gawking at you while you sweat away in over 30°C. I have also recently started playing badminton after work on Fridays with a colleague and some people from another government department. It’s about 20 minutes away by motorbike / 30 minutes by trike. It’s fun, and the people who play are quite competitive but not too serious, and everyone laughs a lot. Mainly at how much the tall white girl sweats (in 30°C and 80% humidity)… but that’s okay. I get laughed at all the time for just walking down the street, so I don’t mind being laughed at when I’m spectacularly missing a shot on the badminton court!

On most days I finish work around 5-5:30pm. Sometimes I walk down to the market for potatoes, chicken, eggs, or bread rolls, etc. If I need much more then it’s a trip to one of the grocery stores. I walk the 2-3km to the one on my side of town, to everyone’s horror. Filipinos don’t like walking (I’ve been made to get in a pedicab to travel less than 100m to a meeting before)! Otherwise, I get a pedicab to the one on the other side of town. I’m usually home by around 6:30pm.

On non-shopping days, and when it’s not raining, I stop and sit with my landlady on the steps outside the house, and play with her young nephew and their dog, Wendy, and watch the older kids playing in the street. The boys play basketball or some kind of marbles game, and the girls watch, skip, or sometimes join in. This is my favourite part of the day / week, in fact, the thing I most enjoy about being here. Despite all the things people don’t have, and the challenges facing the region, kids are still having fun playing in the street.

All the dogs here probably have rabies, but Wendy is a sweetie. She doesn’t bite, and I always wash my hands thoroughly after playing with her. After that tongue full of chilli extract the other week, she’s been less inclined to try and lick me!

I have dinner around 7-8pm and watch a TV series or movie on my laptop, maybe read a book, or try and get on Twitter or Facebook (basically the only way I can keep in touch with anyone, assuming there’s internet access) and then go to bed. There’s no nightlife here, and no-one to meet or anything much to do in the evenings, so that’s about it.

On Saturdays we often have brownouts, so it’s a good day to go out and run errands or go to the beach. I’ve only actually done this twice, because it tends to rain a lot on weekends. I do all my laundry by hand (except sheets and towels which I’ve started taking to the laundry) on Saturday or Sunday morning. It takes 2-3 hours and involves a lot more sweating and the loss of about 1/2kg. Why pay to go to the gym? After doing laundry I refill the water tank from the pump (which takes about 20 minutes). We don’t have mains water, it comes from a bore, so we have to refill the tank a couple of times a week. It’s an electric pump, so only works when there’s power, so it’s always good to remember to fill it on a Friday!

And that’s about it, really. My housemate tends to study on weekends, my colleagues have their families, I don’t have any other friends here, and it’s hard to go anywhere here without a car or motorbike, so I just kind of hang out on my own or perhaps go into town to one of the two decent cafés / restaurants with generators and WiFi, and catch up with news on the internet. Which is where I am now, it being Saturday afternoon, there being a brownout, and having done my laundry this morning!