A Day in the Life

“Let us spend one day as deliberately as nature, and not get thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails.” -Henry David Thoreau

I thought it might be interesting to chronicle the events of a day in our lives here. Obviously some things are excluded, like the times I sat down to write this blog, but the main events of the day are all here. This day may not be ‘typical’, as I am spending more time at home and not really visiting any farmers, but it’s pretty impossible to say how things will go today. Also, keep in mind that Joey is writing this, so there is a heavy bias towards the things that I did throughout the day. And, here it is, June 8th, 2011.

05:23 – I get up out of habit. I’ve been busy lately visiting farmers and collecting data, but today is a break from that. I put on my flannel and knit hat. Our thermometer says 60 inside, but it’s probably in the low-50s outside. The sun isn’t up yet, but the stars are beautiful. The Southern Cross hangs just above ‘Cell-phone Mountain’ and parts of the Big Dipper shine through the trees to the North. I sit on our porch to read, but it’s too cold and dark, so I climb back into bed and keep warm while doing a Sudoku and listen to the chickens call to each other in their tree roosts.

6:24 – It’s bright enough outside, so we get up, but the sun hasn’t fully revealed itself yet. I go to the neighbor’s to ask for some hot coals from their fire to start our brazier. They oblige and I give them some honey that we processed from raw comb the night before. I put water on the coals to heat for breakfast.

6:59 – We enjoy our breakfast of DD coffee (many thanks to Nate, Dana and Pam for the treat) and oatmeal while we stay warm on our veranda. Our neighbor’s dog, Danger, and cat, Leonard come over to say good morning. The village wakes up slowly in cold season, and we enjoy taking our time in the morning when we can afford it.

7:27 – Joy goes to school which starts an hour later during cold season so the kids don’t have to face the worst of the morning cold on their way to school. Normally, classes start at 7:00, but these days, 8:00.

I set to work re-lashing our shower structure which survived rainy season, but barely.

8:38 – Finished with the lashing, I set the solar panel out in the sun. The panel charges a battery in our hut that we use to charge our cellphone, computer, ipods, etc.

8:44 – I start a load of hand-wash laundry and leave it soaking in a plastic basin. While the laundry soaks, I take apart our two water filters and scrub the candles (the parts that filter the water) with an old toothbrush. Then I scrub the insides of our two 20 liter water jerrys with a stick to remove the algae and gunk clinging to the bottom. I make a water and chlorine mixture in each jerry and let them sit for a while.

9:52 – I give the laundry another good scrub and rinse and hang each item out on the line to dry. This process takes a while and we only do it about once every two weeks. Today is windy and sunny, so drying won’t take long. I dump the remaining water on our two compost heaps.

10:33 – I give our hut a good thorough sweep and walk to our spring to collect water. The spring is 350 meters from our hut and the 40 liters that I carry usually lasts us a couple days, but a load of laundry uses about 20L of water, so we ran out quickly last time. The water carrying is the closest thing I get to a workout these days. I don’t mind it.

10:50 – I begin entering the data that I collected in the past week on the computer in a workable format. It’s another tedious process, but I look forward to the analysis and the end result.

11:34 – Joy arrives home from a busy morning at school where she taught 1st grade English, planned her girls’ club, opened the library and met with the Head Teacher about upcoming school events.

11:58 – We begin preparing lunch. Today it’s rice added to an instant soup packet with a side of sweet potato chips. Joy makes the rice and soup while I peel and slice the sweet potatoes. We both wolf down the soup and rice, and wait patiently for each round of the sweet potatoes to fry on the pan. The chips are delicious with a bit of salt, cinnamon and sugar.

12:13 – We relax a bit on our “couch” and cap off our meal with a cup of hot chocolate. By this time of day, it’s hot and sunny outside, but hot chocolate is a great treat in any weather. We enjoy a slow stretch and catch up on the events of the morning and discuss plans for the upcoming days.

13:02 – Joy leaves to teach her adult English class 6 km away. Today’s class is on pronouns and conjugating the verb “to have”.

13:16 – I take off to meet with the Camp Agricultural Officer 22km away. The roads are sandy this time of year, so cycling can be a bit tricky.

13:24 – I run into a one of my farmer friends on the road and arrange to check out his cabbage garden early tomorrow morning. It’s amazing how many of my meetings and field visits come from chance meetings on the road like this one. If I ever need work, I just go for a ride and put myself out in the community and I’m bound to find someone to work with.

14:22 – I arrive at the Ag Officer’s house and he’s not there. Not uncommon and I wasn’t surprised. Fortunately, there is cellphone network at his house, so I call him up. He’s in town, but is planning to attend my meeting tomorrow on Conservation Farming, which was my sole purpose for visiting him.

14:29 – I run into another one of my conservation farmers and arrange for a meeting next week.

14:32 – I begin the long cycle home. It’s a bit uphill, so it takes longer.

15:48:09.31 – I’m no more than 500 meters from home, when two small goats jump out of thick brush and into the road about 0.3 seconds in front of my bicycle.

15:48:09.59 – I avoid the first, but collide with the second. I hit it with my front tire which turns abruptly and I go over the handlebars and onto the hard dirt road.

15:48:12 – I pop up in time to see the goat scamper away unscathed. Seriously, this happened. I’m in disbelief. I have a couple good scrapes from the hard landing, but nothing major. A few of our neighbors heard the fall and rush to the scene. I assure them that I am ok and together we track down the goats to make sure they, too, were ok – which they are.

15:59 – I return home and dust myself off a bit.

16:04 – The ‘Dish-Master’ begins his work, or I start washing our dishes.

16:09 – Joy arrives home from her class and takes a victory lap around our dishwashing station on her bike.

16:32 – 4 school children come over to return books to our home library and Joy helps them select new books.

16:53 – Bath time. Our freshly fortified structure holds.

17:36 – Joy and I finish preparing our bags for the morning and sit on our porch briefly while the sun falls behind the trees. It’s beautiful here.

17:48 – We move into our hut, light candles, and settle down by reading/writing.

19:21 – Nshima is served. I devour my dinner of nshima and cabbage, brought over by our host mother.

19:56 – I read over this blog for the first time and realize how incredibly ironic it is that I ran into a goat and got thrown from my bike after I put the quotation from Henry David about not being “thrown off track by every nutshell or mosquito’s wing”.

20:39 – Lights out. We tuck in our mosquito net, blow out the candles and say good night.

“Spend one day as peculiar as Zambia, and get thrown off your bike by free range goats running through your village.” – Joey Goeb