ORANGES!!!

2011/03/28 ORANGES!!!

On the home front I hear that St Patrick’s day and March Madness are still awesome without me there. Also oranges are in season right now.

However I think I should take this entry to talk about my yard. And how it is insane. If you have taken the time away from facebook while on the internet, you have looked at my photos on picasa. On here, you have seen pictures of the happenings in the yard (puppies playing in rice, milking cows etc). This is the usual day in this yard: First, at around 5 am, the mpanampys (helper in english but really means the household child labor in this situation) are outside at the pump washing last night’s dishes. Then Moonbeam (the cow, who is apparently pregnant now however I have no idea how this happened as she has been in a pen the past few months) is milked. If my landlord is feeling crazy that day she sends a zinga of milk up my way. Then the dirt yard is swept. The little boy also does his duty out in the yard into his plastic bucket (he is still too little to use the outhouse) and then SCREAMS for his dad until he comes to clean him up. Sometimes he is in a better mood and just sits there and makes car noises while he waits for his dad or a random passerby to help him out.

The workday begins (this is anywhere between 6:30-8 depending on weather, how people are feeling etc). The kids who live here scrub their feet and head to school. All the women of Soalandy trickle in and start working. This means not only are there 5-20 more people hanging out, but usually they bring their kids with them that are too young for school, or are skipping school. I like these children. They like me. We get along. Then usually a mpanasa lamba shows up (a washwoman) with LOADS of laundry to do at the pump in the yard. She is usually one of the women who works at Soalandy but also washes clothes to make extra money. Entrepreneurship. This is great for her but it means my window for using the pump just shut down for a while. Hopefully it is a day I teach and I go off to school.

It is so noisy throughout the day. We live right on the road so there is constantly traffic going by and the occasional wedding caravan driving up and down the road so they are just blasting their horns and generally being as loud as possible. In addition, people are constantly yelling to get people’s attention and that sounds travels immediately up to my porch. Other noises include: random domestic disputes in the other yards, women beating lumps of silk cocoons on a log, things being pounded in a giant mortar and pestle, the rooster who crows all day, the cow who just constantly makes noises.

After lunch, the second half of the day is a reflection of the first half. Throughout the whole day there are random vazahas that pop in to tour Soalandy and buy things. So if I am in the yard playing with the kids I get really quiet to see if I can figure out where they are from. Most of the time the tourists are French, but you get the occasional other Western European tourist and I have only ever bumped into Americans there once. The most entertaining tourists are those that are in bike tour groups and so when they stop by they are dressed in the full on spandex outfit complete with sunglasses, helmet, backpack, gloves, and giant camera. Seriously entertaining stuff.

Lastly, growing and or living in the yard are as follows: the cow (and soon the baby cow), a tortoise, a dog (all the puppies died via taxi brousse accidents, we do live on the road), a varying number of chickens and roosters (changes as chicks are born and die, and depending on whether or not they eat chicken that week), cats, tomatoes, corn, a peach tree, a passion fruit bush, beans, and a handful of chameleons.

Needless to say. There is always something happening. When people aren’t here I clearly missed the memo on something happening out in the countryside or in town.

Oh after I wrote this I spent some time down in the epicerie that is at the front of the compound with my landlord who while teaching me her fish recipe explained that they purchased the necessary items from the cow market and artificially inseminated the cow. One of the strangest conversations I have ever had in my life.

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