House Painting

I made it to Basse yesterday specifically to participate in helping paint the Transit House today. The Transit House is a house owned by Peace Corps, with a bunch of bunk beds in it and its essentially a big communal space where people can go when they need to do something in town or just want to get out of their village for a few days. I am pretty far up the country away from Kombo (there is a really nice transit house there) but I feel lucky because I am so close to the second biggest city, Basse, and the transit house here. I generally try to avoid any extra work, but since the house is such a luxury for me I wanted to contribute to its upkeep. In the village work is done not so much according to a clock, but according to the time of day and length of the job. People get up around six and are usually back from their chores around ten before it gets too hot. Alot of times the work is just going to the bush to collect firewood, poles for building, or grass for weaving together for a fence or roof. Every so often there is a bigger task, like for example making huts for the school teachers or mending the Womens Garden's fence. For both of these projects all the men in the village agreed on a day to meet. They woke up, hd breakfast and then all met either at the school or the garden. Then, maybe because they've worked together so much, everyone will just start working and going and they know what to do until in about three hours the job is done. At home we would probably take on a fence or house project solo, and devote evenings and weekends to it until in a few months it was finished. But here, everyone just gives up a morning, works together and gets it done. With that kind of work schedule, I was dreading the commitment of house painting for two days. Once we started though, it felt great to be working, listening to music, and enjoying peoples company that you dont get to see that much. Sometimes I get so used to trying to be a part of the community that I dont want to do anything out of the ordinary, like extra work. But today was a good reminder that even though I have to be a part of the community, its okay to do things that are different every once in a while. And tomorrow morning we'll be painting the floors red.