A Week in the Life of a PCV: Day Three

Not much going on today, so I'll keep it short and sweet!

9:00AM  --  Wednesday is market day!  Dressed and ready to go, I put on some sunscreen, grabbed my wallet and my market bag, and headed out to buy some groceries.

Akono’s main market day is Wednesday (a couple years ago, they introduced a Saturday petite marché, but it’s not as popular and has less variety).  Whereas evenings were the best time for market shopping in Sanguéré-Paul (anytime before 4PM and vendors would be dozing at their stands!), Akono is a perfect example of “the early bird gets the worm.”  After 10AM, you’ll stand no chance at finding precious items: all the fruit and the best veggies will have already been picked over.

Just as you might imagine, the produce is seasonal.  The types of produce available as well as the price of these goods varies depending on the time of the year.  Currently, we just finished up the season for mangoes and avocados (my favorite season) and are heading into prune and caterpillar season (much less exciting, in my opinion).

The market has a much larger variety of goods besides produce – dried fish, live chickens, secondhand clothing, shoes, jewelry, household supplies, medicines, garden tools, etc.  That said, I rarely buy anything other than fruits and veggies.

Today I spent about an hour wandering around.  I had bought all of my goods in a matter of minutes, but lingered to chitchat with various friends who were also shopping.

4 peppers, 2 onions, 5 tomatoes, 3 carrots, 8 limes, and a bunch of green beans.  Total cost = 1050CFA (just under $2.00).

On my way home, I bought a hearty bean sandwich from Mama Melanie.

11:30AM --  After enjoying my sandwich and copious amounts of tea, I strolled on over to Dzamtewutug to check out the progress of the greenhouse.

The frame had been fully constructed and a local tailor was busy stitching up the screen covering (technically it's a shadehouse, not a greenhouse).  He didn’t seem interested in conversing with me, so I snapped a few pictures and headed home again.

(Tomorrow is a big day for the shadehouse project, so more background information on this project coming soon!)

12:30PM – Mama Sofie, a fish farmer, called to inform me that she had fallen ill and was stuck in Yaounde.  Consequently, she wouldn’t make it to our afternoon pond consultation.  This came as a bit of a relief, as I was beginning to feel a bit under the weather myself.  I decided to just go straight home.

I spent the afternoon hand-washing some laundry, creating a lesson plan for JEMA's waste management project, and studying for the GRE.  As I type this, it’s only 5PM, yet I feel overcome by sleepiness.  Plan for the rest of the night?  I’ll make some tomato soup, put on a movie, and hope that I can stay awake until a reasonable bedtime hour.  (Why isn’t it dark out yet?!)