The day I exposed my inner reflections of a week's events in an African Bush Village...

Random thoughts I had during a week’s time frame. 

Peace Corps is a time for self-reflection and self-discovery. 

I noticed that I have a lot of “strange” things happen to me at site and although the events are strange, I find my thought processes are even stranger. Peace Corps changes you. You will never be the same person after 27 months of dealing with African Bush Living. 

Below are events that all happened in one week’s time and how I reflected on them.. 

That time... 

That time when you are peeing in the dark and you think you peed on yourself, but to realize, it was just a cockroach crawling over your foot, and you cannot decide which nuisance you prefer because both are pretty standard. 👀

That time when your village "social pressured" you to get your hair braided and you bought 4 packets of fake hair. Once it was finished, 10 hours divided over 2 days later, your head was so heavy your neck was in constant pain, but you, the Peace Corps Volunteer you are, saw the silver lining: Tie it up just right and you have a built in pillow! Score. 😂

That time when your sister is braiding your hair and she has a head cold and is wiping her runny nose with the same fingers she is braiding your hair and you think, “at least it will press down the fly always.” 💆🏼💁🏼🖐🏿

That time when your sister is (still) braiding your hair and she sneezes right on you to the point your neck is wet from her bodily fluids, and you think to yourself, "it's OK, it's mango season so I've been increasing my vitamin C intake and boosting my immune system, I'll just make sure to eat 2-3 more mangos than usual tomorrow.." No worries, just finish braiding my hair already! 😷💁🏼

That time when a camel spider larger than your hand fell literally in your lap, you jumped up off the ground and screamed uncontrollably as it "ran" away, but you still slept outside anyway. (Just made sure the mosquito net (aka camel spider barrier) was tucked extra tight that night. 😓😬

That time when you were laying on your hut's floor on a mat having your little sister crack your back, you look up because it was painful, only to notice (in the dark) a scorpion with its tail curled and ready for attack three inches from your face. You killed it and left it there for a warning for other scorpions... Beware, I will murder you all!! 😨😳

That time when you've changed the name of your fake husband so many times that people start to catch on and actually confront you about it. My husband just has a realllllllly long name, and a lot of nick names. (And now, a year later, I feel like he is a real person with a huge backstory and continuous fake day-to-day conversations of what he is mad at me about now.)💍 😬😳💍

That time when your Pulaar has reached the fluency level that you understand dirty jokes and who is running around on whom with whom inside the community (and whose children have different fathers than what their birth certificates say) AND you respond, 100% naturally, with the equivalent of "oh my god" in Pulaar and continue to gossip about every person in the village...and a few in the surrounding villages until 1:30am when you have to be up at 6am. 😇💁🏼🙌🗣🙈🙉🙊

That time when the women and young girls gather to teach you how to dance to drums (aka the lunch bowls), and they realize you can't dance, but you can (kinda) twerk, and that impresses them enough to tell everyone you can dannnnnnce! Thank you, Miley. 💃🏻💁🏼

That time when it was once again Tuesday and you, once again, don't have any tacos to eat and you vow to figure out how to grow everything (at least the essentials/basics) in your backyard to make tacos on Tuesdays. Here is to hopefully God Agreeing with my ambition. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

That time when for the first time in a year, you are dreading going to Kolda (and into civilization) because you are just so dang happy in village. 😳😍😩

That time when you went to shower at the regional house and knew there was a bar of soap in the bathroom, you get in there, get undressed, ready to commence your shower and realize the soap had dried mouse poop on it. What do you do? You scape it off with your thumbnail, and loofa up the soap and continue with your much needed shower.

🐭 (insert soap emoji here)💩🚿