How a Peace Corps Volunteer Lives: In Mad Style

I love seeing other Peace Corps houses, usually with a combination of pure curiousity and the selfish need to know whether they have better or worse digs than myself. So, a few months ago, I decided to set out on making a video of my house, knowing that other PCVs (as well as other friends, family, and beatnomad readers elsewhere) might have the same curiosity. Unfortunately, my smart phone kept shutting off mid-way through the project so I became frustrated and gave up on using different media on beatnomad.

But now — finally! — I took the time to clean up a bit and take some photos of my house. I didn’t bother with my “shower” (a small, tiled closet with a bucket in it) or outhouse, as they are respectively drab and disgusting. As you can observe from the photos, I cook using a gas stove, usually have electricity all day, but don’t have running water. For water, I have to walk across the school compound to a pump or put buckets out under the roof when it rains. The outhouse situation is also a little obnoxious, especially when it’s raining or there are tons of children waiting for class to start, as I also have to cross the makeshift soccer field to get there.

What you can’t observe are the bats that live in my roof; an accepted nusance since they eat the mosquitoes. Generally my mosquitoe net serves more purpose as a physcological barrier against my debilitating fear of rodents — a fear that I used to lose more sleep over before my school’s guard (the genius that he is) put a brick in front of the hole that serves as a drain in my shower, declaring it the “lalana volavo”; literally, rat-road. Admittedly, I felt a little stupid at the obviousness that rats would be getting into my house through a 5-inch hole in my wall.

So anyways, enjoy the photos of what I call my “dollhouse” because of it’s low ceilings and pink paint job.