How to Live in a 50 Hut Village in Africa

Did you ever wonder about the pioneer spirit? Could we today do what the pioneers did then and get to California alive? What if you, a big city kid all your life, joined the Peace Corps and were sent to a 50-hut village in the heart of West Africa five miles away from the closest road? Would you be able to let go and live without indoor plumbing and electricity for several years? If you're considering chucking everything and packing off to Africa, here are some pointers for living with the bare minimum and coming out of it alive, and with that plucky pioneer spirit.

Instructions

1. Know your snakes. You should be able to identify a green mamba from across a field.

2. Learn how to work a pressure lamp and bring plenty of mantles. If you run out, you can find the nearest Lebanese store (maybe miles away) and stock up on supplies (including mantles, flour, kerosene, cooking oil and canned goods). The people pretty much go to bed with the nighttime, staying up later when there is a moon, going to sleep early when there is none. You might want to read or write or something when there is no moonlight and village activity.

3. Get a little kerosene oven in which you can bake bread (a real delicacy) after days of rice with monkey soup on top. The local staple might be rice, or it might be cassava, or anything else that is grown locally and can fill you up greatly at no cost. Let your village hunters know that you will buy meat from them if they can tell you what it is. Let them know that you are more interested in deer than bush cow.

4. Get to know the people as well as you can. Learn as much of the local language as possible. Buy rice and local vegetables from villagers in their own language no matter how much they laugh at you. Learn to be the brunt of many jokes. Laughter is connection.

5. Respect the people. They know it when you don’t. You can’t fake it. They have been fooled too many times by fakes.