It’s Like Giving Birth to a Demon

Peace Corps gets this great deal here with the mobile phone company Africell. For just 50 Dalasis (~$2) a month volunteers can have unlimited texting amongst themselves. For just 50 more Dalasis, we can have unlimited calling between the hours of 12 a.m. to 5 p.m. Being that most don’t have electricity to charge cell phones we try to maximize battery life by sending texts. I now present to you a representation of exchanges that take place in a typical day in my following compilation, “A Day in the Texts.”

Be forewarned, among volunteers, bowel movements are popular topic of conversation. If you don’t want to know, don’t continue reading.


A Day in the Texts

“My one eyed 90 year old grandma just grabbed a goat by its leg and started beating it with a stick while all the kids danced around singing.”


“My foot just slipped into the latrine hole! I’m going to vomit!”


“Thought you might like to know that I ate a can of Spaghetti O’s straight out of the can, unheated with no utensils, and it was ten pm at the hospital, so I secretly went outside and did it in the dark, so no one would see… And [I] have been consistently eating Chef Boyardee unheated this last week AND drinking the leftover sauce afterwards. I felt so embarrassed every time… Eating in secret makes it SO much worse for some reason.”


“I’m patiently waiting for my host sister to finish taking a sh*t in the middle of the road.”


“I just put moldy sauce on my pasta. It’s not delicious yet I’m still eating it.”


“It’s like giving birth to a demon.” (In reference to what it feels like to have the runs, on a daily basis)


“My house has smelled like rotting animal carcass with an overdraft of cow sh*t all day. I have searched high and low. Just went outside to look around… Lo and behold, Dead Chicken #5, complete with half a head and maggots, rotting delicately beneath my open window.”


“I had a cockroach crawl on my foot today while I was lost in thought on the latrine. Aka giving birth. I thought it was one of the kittens until a LIZARD ran up and took it right off my foot. I couldn’t finish pooping, I was so disturbed.”


“Some times I get so homesick up here I think I could die… then I think of your texts and I start laughing.”


[Editor’s Note: Ok, truth be told, pretty much all those messages come from one source. Her name is Kasey and she and I like to entertain one another with outrageous texts. None of mine are quoted here but generally we play this game and it’s a tie. I will leave the rest to your imagination.]