January 20, 2011
The dryer broke today.  I went down to the Habitat for Humanity Restore to find another one used.  I think I found one that will work but they can't deliver it until tomorrow so no dry laundry unless I put in on hangers.  That will work but annoying.  It is so easy to take things for granted like electricity, dryers, water, a roof over my head.  When I was in the Peace Corps, the women and girls would wash all of the laundry by hand by the well.  It was a lot of work for them.  They would scrub the clothes with hard soap and then rinse them out.  They had to haul all of the water out of the well.  The women did a lot of physical labor with pounding millet, carrying water, washing clothes, cooking over a fire and taking care of the children.  The men didn't have to do as much.  They generally tended to the animals and built mud huts and fences.  I lived in a village of 300 people.  The name of the village is Dialacouna which is located in Senegal, West Africa.  I lived with the chief and his four wives.  I was called an animation volunteer.  I worked with the women in the village which was interesting because they didn't know how to read or how to tell time so when I organized a meeting the women would arrive within an hour time frame.  Time takes on a whole new dimension in Senegal.  I often waited 2-3 hours for people to show up.  I had to learn how to let go or I was going to go nuts.  The people were so welcoming and hospitable even though life was hard and a lot of babies died from diaharrea or other diseases that we don't think twice about.   This all happened so long ago - from 1984-1986.  My eyes were opened up a lot in the Peace Corps.  In retrospect, I was kind of naive to many things.  Perhaps that is the advantage of being 22 - you do things you may not do when you are older.