Why "What's your typical day like?" is an impossible question to answer

Written on: 8/3/2014

The concept of explaining what I do on a daily basis is so varied that to get into the details of what I do everyday has already proved to be confusing and I'm not even at site yet.

Overall, its not much different than a typical day in the states: I wake up. I eat breakfast. I get ready for the day. I do some things until its lunch time. I eat lunch. I do things until dinner. I eat dinner. I chill for a bit and get some things done. I go to bed and then do it all over again.

Its the details of my day where explaining what a "typical day" is like to my friends in the states gets sticky. To explain the encounters with my host family, friends, PC staff and community, you would have to know the people I'm talking about or I would spend so much time explaining the particularities of personas and relationships. Its seems so impossible to explain a typical activity like walking to class because I would have to explain what the roads are like and listening for bikes, motos, and brousses or saying "manahoana/salama" in different ways to every person you see. To explain daily activities like cleaning my PO or coco-brushing my floor gets sticky just because they are concepts that seem so foreign to many people from the states but have a come a part of every day's routine.

Think of explaining a typical winter routine - starting your car a few moments before you leave, putting all that clothing on, shoveling snow and putting salt down - to someone who has never experienced cold weather or snow and can't really conceptualize what that would be like. Its not easy!

Try just explaining what you do everyday, most of the time I ask for updates and get "nothing much is going on." Because when you are living your life its hard to explain how you get from day to day, you just do it. That's what I'm doing, just on the other side of the world!

Basically, though, I know what my friends and family are really asking is - how are things? Are they feeling normal yet? Are you happy?

Things are going well. Normal is a beyond relative term and every day can have its own surprises - making a day without something new and unfamiliar irregular. And yes, I am happy.

That's really all most people want to know? Right?