Three liters of water is no small drink. Granted it wasn’t all at once but today I consumed about three liters of water.
It was that hot. That dry. I walked that far under that much sun.
After all, Saturday’s are my French lessons. And for the second week I went into Gbarnga to sit with my friend and teacher, Cameroon. He is a mostly patient always helpful man who is particular about my pronunciation and my understanding that “ça va” as a greeting is not to be taken literally…that many things are not to be taken literally.
And so we proceeded, me asking a million questions, him stopping me and making me repeat “quelle heure est-il?” until it sounded less butchered on my tongue and sunk in slightly what it meant.
At that point I was a little past a liter. But we had lunch and Cameroon decided to join me for another portion of my day. And so I walked to the market, up a long and dusty road under the blazing afternoon sun. I stopped a boy for mineral water and then bought pineapples for the evening.
Sitting and waiting for Cameroon to join me, I bought another water…so went the second liter before I ever left town.
Dropped off at Cuttington junction, Cameroon spotted one of his students and so we wandered over to chat and I, being nosy, tasted a Liberian almond (some kind of fruit with a seed that is bashed in to reveal a little sliver of “almond”) and worked on my third bag of water.
I introduced Cameroon to Wine and we sat around discussing football (the African Cup final is tomorrow- Ghana vs Egypt, with Egypt anticipated to win it all) and politics and even education. Marcus, a friend of Cameroon’s fluent in french, wandered over and French was mixed in with ideas about how to make Liberia stronger and healthier.
By the time Cameroon headed home I was close to three liters and after dinner at the Patron Saint of Peace Corps Volunteers, with the Gbarnga volunteers and company, I was squarely over that mark I believe.
All jokes aside, and way too much information, I’m amazed at how infrequently I’ve been to the bathroom under the circumstances…three liters is a lot of liquid no matter how hot it is!
I drank huge amounts of water daily while in Thailand (summer time) and rarely had to find a toilet. I sweated it all out, which was good since public toilets were another rarity!