Having new roommate is awkward

I wrote this a week ago and forgot to post. There are still some weird moments and getting better but it is still weird.

This is the first night of Vivian, my new 16 year old roommate, living here. She is absolutely a sweet, pleasant, smart girl but it is totally awkward. She is a new sponsor student this year from a small village about 30 minutes away from here. She did not have a way to transport herself to school, and there was not room in the dorms. Having her live in my second bedroom was suggested about a week ago. I have not had a roommate since sophomore year of college, so platonic co-habitation is not really something I am experienced in. At first I just saw all the negatives and potential problems, lack of privacy, work/life separation, having to feel like the guardian of this girl, and the overall awkwardness of sharing a shower and kitchen with a total stranger, in a different country, who does not speak English that well. But of course then I felt like a total, selfish schmuck. I do not think Vivian has ever had a room to herself. I recently visited some families who had 8 kids and mother or grandmothers in a one room house the size of my living room. I am here to help, and that should not just be a 9-5 thing. The benefits that were discussed included someone to help clean, cook for me, fetch water, etc. While that sounds good on paper, as a long-time single liver, I thought it would be awkward having a student being like a live-in servant. Turns out I was right, it is awkward.

The first few hours she was here with a friend, they swept the whole place, rearranged the kitchen, and when I was heating up some leftovers she wanted to put it in the pot for me and told me to tell her when I was done so she could do dishes. I realize I am being not only selfish but also looking a gift horse in the mouth. Would she rather be living here, doing the same chores she does at home, but be able to go to school? Absolutely. Should I be upset that someone is offering to do my dishes? Nope. Do I really need a huge apartment when all I do is spend all of my time in my room because it is the only one with the fan? Nope.

Then I was thinking of a conversation with Rebeca about gut-reaction feminism. Even when there is a perfectly good and fair reason why traditional gender roles may make sense in a relationship, there is an instinct that women of our generation have to think this may be wring. Gender roles are still pretty stereotypical here, girls are doing housework and boys are doing the manual labor. When I told the man who owns this house and lives most of the year in Canada that I was starting a girls club, he said “to teach them to cook and clean and sew?”  Even more progressive thinkers at the school insist of having a female secretary and teach the younger kids and almost all men teach the upper level subjects. There is just this gut reaction that I want to show these girls that a woman can be totally independent, that we do not have to cook for others if we do not choose to, that we can live in a dirty place if we choose to.

I am sure after a few days of weirdness it will be fine, just like settling into a new place here. I will try not to let her do everything but be gracious and grateful when she does. I will buy the groceries and other things she may need in unofficial payment for her time. I will let her cook for me sometimes, as long as she teaches me to cook the local dishes. And hopefully she can teach me some Ewe and after living here she will get the bonus of lots of English practice. And how many volunteers have the experience of living here and being the host house rather than staying with a host family? So I think this will be a great extra experience in the long run, but now I feel like I have to hide my whiskey so that I do not look like a bad influence on her.