I wake up each morning around 6:30, my host mama gives me some warm water to take my bucket bath. There is a little room next to my bedroom I use as a shower area. After I'm all clean and dressed I sit down to breakfast. It always consists of tea with sugar and some type of bread/roll.
After breakfast I brush my teeth outside (there is no sink in my house). Then I walk to my language class. It is about a 10 minute walk that takes me into the tiny "town" area of my village. It is a small strip of tiny stores and bars. (My class starts at 8 am and there are often men already drinking). I have class with one other volunteer so it is very personalized. At 12:30 we have a lunch break. There is only one restaurant in the town (very few people here ever go out to eat). Our lunches are buffet style with lots of yummy food. The staples are rice, potatoes, beans, a vegetable (green beans, peas, or cassava leaves), and pineapple or avocado.
After lunch we have another hour or two of language (although by this point in the day we are normally super tired, not sure how much learning is really absorbed). In the afternoon I walk around with the volunteers who live near me. There are four within a 10 minute walk from my house. (There are 5 that are 45 min away and then the rest are almost a 2 hour walk). My group is the farthest away from the "hub"
The hub is the Peace Corps office. We go there two or three times a week to do trainings (cultural, technical, medical, etc). On hub days all the volunteers attend. So people (like me) who live far away from the hub get picked up by the Peace Corps land cruiser. It's a good opportunity to see all the volunteers I don't live close to.
In the evenings (I am home by 6 pm every night) I hangout with my host family. My mom is always trying to teach me new words and help me say things correctly. I mostly just repeat everything she says. I watch her cook dinner most nights. It's a long process because she cooks over fires. She has many different pots and pans but normally only two fires, so you have to wait for something to cook before starting the next thing. It typically takes 2 and 1/2 hours to make dinner. So we eat around 8:45 (by then I haven't eaten since 12:30 so I'm definitely ready to eat). Our dinners always have potatoes and a sauce (normally with beans and other veggies in it) and sometimes another starch like rice or uragali. (It's hard to describe- its kinda like thick cornmeal).
After dinner I get ready for bed (by the end of the day I'm exhausted). Sometimes my family does prayer time. They sing, read the bible, and pray. All in kinyarwanda. It's a very nice way to end the day.
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