Toiletpaper for Pillows

Last night I had the pleasure of using 4 rolls of toiletpaper as my pillow.  Only in Africa, right?!?  It was, as you might imagine, not that comfortable, but I've found ways to sleep in almost any conditions here (particularly the weather being hot and muggy).

Right now I am at the Peace Corps hostel in Freetown.  We are very lucky to have a hostel for volunteers to use because not every PC country gets one.  It is fully furnished with beds, running water, electricity, internet (wireless too!!), computers, couches, and at this particular juncture, tons of friends.  I have now been at site (Yele for those who need a small reminder) for 3 weeks and these are my first nights spent away from home.  My mother has expressed to me that there might be some interest in hearing about my current living conditions, now that I'm at my permanent house for my service, so I will do my best to provide ya'll with a picture of my house and my village.

My house in Yele is actually really really nice.  All the floors are tiled, which is very uncommon, especially once you get out towards the villages and the bush.  I have an indoor toilet and washing area, which are also tiled, and very clean.  I do not have running water, so the toilet is a pour flush, but I'm not complaining.  I think I've finally got the hang of the pour flush toilets.  I never realized how much water it takes to flush a toilet until I was physically pumping the water and lugging it back to my house.  In the beginning I thought if I poured a few cups of water into the toilet that would suffice.  But no, it takes a good bucket full of water to flush those puppies.  (Which probably lead to a fair few half-flushed toilets at the beginning of my homestay--sorry host family.)  Never fear though, I now know what I'm doing; some might go so far as to say I'm a toilet flushing master.

Ok, enough about the toilet.  My house is more of an apartment than a freestanding house.  I share a wall with another family, although the wall between us actually goes all the way up to the roof, so the sound proofing is not too bad.  My roof is tin, which provides for some great white noise when it rains at night and I'm trying to go to sleep.  My house consists of 3 rooms: the front parlor area where I keep all my food, my bathroom, and then my bedroom.  It's the perfect size for one person.  I've got about 6 windows that let in tons of light, so my house is very well lit, at least until the sun goes down.  I've only got 1 door to the outside world, and it leads out on to my covered veranda, also tiled, where I spend a majority of my day reading and being oogled by passerbys.  My daily routine consists of waking up in the morning, going for a run, cleaning my house, then sitting and reading.  Occasionally I'll walk around, but mostly people who want to see me come to me.  Every other day or so I walk over to my paramount chief's house, which is right across the road, and say hello.  I thought that when I got to site there was the potential of me getting bored, but I have not yet tired of reading, nor do I feel like I will any time soon.  I also recently got a couple packages with boku reading material, so good work mom, sister, and sister-in-law.

I'd love to write more but it's time to go feed the beast that's living in my stomach.  It's been growling at me since I typed out the first line, and I don't think it's going to stop until it gets fed.

Sending all my love!