Ever Been in Benin?

C'est Fini

2010-01-13T07:39:00.000-08:00

It’s ironic: A month ago already I was on my way to Cotonou for a PC conference when I saw 4 dead bodies on the side of the road during the 3 hour trip from Dogbo; 3 were in a car accident, and the 4th in a moto accident. I was really shaken up and was going to write a post about all the traffic accidents I’d been seeing lately and the reality of traveling around Benin. Ultimately I decided against that because I knew that my parents would be coming to visit in a month and I was nervous enough for them that I did not want to make them more nervous than they already were in traveling to Benin.

Have you ever seen a dead body? After accidents like that, they lay unnaturally on the ground, bent and broken. I remember talking to random volunteers in Tanzania, and reading testimonials about service in Africa that all said after some time spent here, one comes to see and really understand that death is everywhere and just a part of existence. But after a year and a half of serving here, I don’t really see that at all. The way I see death here is unnatural; unexpected, and so often unnecessary.

In Kandi in early November, I saw a small child’s body covered with a pagne, just his small feet sticking out from underneath. His broken bike was a few feet ahead of him and a crowd had already formed. Nearly every time I traveled in the past 3 months I saw a large camion or car completely overturned on the side of the road. Roads here only fit 2 cars across, and wind circuitously so that if the brush is high, one can’t see around the bend in advance. Drivers cut into the opposing lane to pass slow cars and camions and sometimes it is the last thing that they will ever do. People here seem to think that what happens while driving is a less in their own power than it is willed by the grace of god, thereby relieving themselves of much of the responsibility of safety and of power over their own lives.

I was coming back to Dogbo with Michelle in late November and saw an awful accident on the side of the road; a man’s skull bashed open upon the road, blood pooling out beside him. I never knew before that blood could be so vividly bright and red, even when against blacktop pavement: It almost looked fake to me. His skin was scraped away on his leg to reveal raw pink flesh—I remember thinking that it was such a striking contrast to the brown of his skin. My eyes lingered on it. His moto was fallen over on the side of the road and people had begun to gather palm reeds to cover his body. I cried when I got home, but again, I didn’t tell my parents about it that night when they called.

There was a quote by Ernest Hemingway that I read during college: “To live in Africa, you must know what it is to die in Africa.” I remember thinking then that there was something so exotic, maybe even romantically so, about that idea. But I can not say that I truly understood it until now. I will never forget the first body that I saw cast off on the side of the road after an accident in Porto Novo when I was still a trainee two summers ago. It caught my breath and I squeezed myself over the person sitting next to me, pushing off of my toes in the trou trou bus trying to see out the window. I think it was the first dead body I had ever seen outside of wakes and funerals. And I understand what Hemingway means now. I know what it is to live here in Benin: And in order to do that for the past year and a half, I’d tucked away that dead body and all the others to the back corners of my mind and didn’t think of them anymore.

In July, for the first time in a long while, I was put face to face again with Hemingway’s idea when a car drove into my from behind while I was riding on a moto. Knowing what it meant to be here and the reality of traveling around, I had to decide whether or not I wanted to continue doing it. I struggled for weeks to push it to the back of my mind, to get on a moto again and feel comfortable being here. But in the end I did it and I have no regrets about it. The time I’ve spent in Benin from July until now has held some of my hardest struggles and personal challenges, and it has also held some of my happiest and most rewarding moments during all of my Peace Corps service. I am amazed to see how far I have come in the past 6 months and what I have accomplished here.

Unfortunately, the day after I came down to Cotonou last month, again I was in an accident where this time, a moto drove directly into me from behind as I was getting onto another moto. I was knocked off of my feet and my helmet, shoe, and glasses flew into the road. I braced myself against whatever might be behind me (I was on a main street), but fortunately no other cars or motos came since I’d fallen at the side of the road. After a few seconds of shock that this actually could have happened again, I got up and hopped over to the sidewalk to call Peace Corps to come and get me. I was very bruised and cut up, and needed stitches, but I am okay. For the third time in the last 10 months, I was extremely lucky to walk away with so few injuries compared to what could have happened. I’m not going to play ‘what if’ with the thousands of minute ways that instant could have played out differently. The fact is that I am lucky. I know that.

My trip to Mali planned for a week later--Christmas and New Years--was cancelled since it was a trek in Dogon country and my injuries were prohibitive in terms of hiking. But like I wrote before, I was given the opportunity to realize how excellent and supportive my friends here are of me by their coming to keep me company in the med unit here (and hold down the fort with air conditioning, our own fridge, and a pretty shnazzy tv in sick room 1) for the holidays.

I waited for about a month to make my decision to leave. I wanted to heal and spend the holiday season here with my friends. I didn’t want my pain or the prospect of spending Christmas in NY to impact my decision, and besides, Christmas at home probably wouldn’t have felt happy at all given everything that happened anyway. But after a lot of reflection and consideration, I have made the very difficult decision to end my Peace Corps service in Benin. It is hard to think that I have so much little time left here anyway, but I can’t stay just to prove the point that I can either. I think had I left in July I would have regretted it. But now I know that I can stay here. I know that I can get back on a moto and readjust to my life here and all that that entails, and I know that I can succeed. I’ve done it already. I know that I can be happy here. Having realized all that, I choose not to do it again. I’ve had a marvelous experience in Benin but for me it just feels like my time here is over.

Packing up the life that I built for myself here was very difficult. Saying goodbye to Scout, to my volunteer friends, and to the friends and colleagues I have made in Dogbo is painful. And I think that saying goodbye to my host-family, who have supported me and really been my family throughout my time here, and not knowing if or when I will see them again, will be agonizing. Coming home to a place where I don’t have a job and to a place that hasn’t really been my home in 18 months is terrifying, but it does not diminish that I think I am making the decision that is best for me at this time.

I might update in the weeks that I get home with photos, etc. but this will be my last blog entry written in Benin. I want to thank everyone that has supported me so much throughout my service in Benin. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to share my experiences in this remarkable country with you, and I know that I have been blessed to have your support. Certainly it would have been difficult if not impossible, for me to make it here without your phone calls, letters, packages, and blog comments. I hope that I was able to keep you entertained from time to time. So a thousand times, thank you!

Still Looking for that Last Minute Christmas Gift?

2009-12-24T09:11:00.000-08:00

Look no further.

Click on the following link to donate to Peace Corps Benin's 2010 Camp GLOW. GLOW stands for Girls Leading Our World (Les filles guident notre monde) and is held annually in Porto Novo by Southern volunteers. About 50 girls from across Southern Benin are invited to participate in a week-long escape from their daily lives at home. Camp GLOW emphasizes the importance of staying in school for young girls and gives them an opportunity to learn about their bodies, finances, be introduced to computers for the first time etc.

I went straight to camp Glow after coming back to Benin last June and it was a pretty amazing week spent with these girls. Probably the most awesome thing to me was seeing these girls finally just get an opportunity to act their age and goof off with each other. Their brothers might get a opportunity to go out and play soccer with an old messed up ball. But at home, girls are cleaning, cooking, carrying their little siblings around on their backs all day, and often don't even have the time to study for school, never mind play. At first it was clear that they weren't even really sure how to and they were shy with each other. But by the end of the week they had all become friends and free time was no longer filled with awkward standing.

Last years camp was funded by PLAN, an international ONG. This year PLAN is unnable to fund the Camp and so we're asking for donations from home to help make this incredible event possible through the PCPP--peace corps partnership program. Please consider donating to this amazing cause. Really, even $5 helps, and if all of our families donate a little, it will go a long way to making this project a success. I'm including a link and instructions in case the link doesn't work. If you were going to send me anything, please consider doing this instead...i really don't need anything anyway. I appreciate your generosity especially given that it is the holiday season and we aren't in the best of financial times. Merry Christmas everyone.

Link
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=680-182

Directions in case links don't work
1. go to www.peacecorps.gov and click on "Donations"
2. at this point, you can search by my last name, "Hurst", OR click on "view all volunteer projects" on the right side of the page
3. you can then search under "Benin" or "Michigan" (my home state)
4. click on the Camp GLOW PCPP. They can then read a short description of the project, see how much of the total has been raised, and make a donation.

Remember, all donations are tax deductible! Thank you everyone, and happy holidays!

Infanticide...Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T09:04:00.000-08:00

Look at Scout...isn't she cute. I took these pictures to emphasize her pudgy belly pleine pleine with kittens. 2 Weekends ago I was in Lokossa working on my world map with Michelle. I had to go to Cotonou on Sunday...I'd just like to say that i didn't want to come to cotonou. Not at all, actually. Peace Corps asked me to come down for training review and to begin planning next year. I didn't feel comfortable traveling in Benin with all of the fetes coming which implicitly means lots of alcohol added into the mix of already terrible drivers. I even said that to michelle before leaving her house.

I went back to Dogbo (entirely opposite direction) first to check on Scout who was so so pregnant I thought she'd pop any day. SHe was still pregnant on Sunday and I left, planning to be back on Tuesday. For reasons that I'm not going to get into now, I didn't make it back Tuesday, but i found out from Kristin that Scout gave birth to 3 mouse-like cute little kittens under my bed. I had confirmation that they were all doing well on Thursday when someone checked in on them. I left cotonou Saturday for the sole purpose of making sure they were all okay and giving them to Basil to look after. But when I walked into my house, it swiftly became apparent that something was wrong. Scout ran right up to me, while Kristin told me she didn't leave her kittens at first when she walked in. Scout was clamoring for attention and pretty obviously distressed. As it turns out, there wasn't a single kitten in my house. Scout was so stressed out being in the house that she ate them all. There wasn't a trace of them...and there is no way in or out of my house for them. So feline infanticide. Have a holly jolly christmas. I am at least grateful that scout herself is okay because I would have been terribly upset if something had happened to her. She didn't let me out of a 6 inch range from her the entire 3 days that I was home. I guess in a way, it is also good that I never got to see the kittens...it probably would have been more upsetting had I seen them before she ate them. Anyways, who knew cats do that? you learn something new every day.

It's Beginning to Feel a Lot like Christmas

2009-12-24T08:51:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! It is hard for me to believe that it is already December 24th...the date has certainly snuck up on me. Experiencing Christmas this second time around has been a very different experience than last year. I remember last year being asked by a fellow volunteer what I was doing to remember the Christmas season and I had told her nothing because I wanted to forget it was the Holidays altogether. Being away from home last year for the first time ever was fairly difficult for me and I found any reminders of what I was missing to be miserable. I didn't really enjoy Christmas day meme at all. THis year though I found myself getting really excited for Christmas. I started playing music about a month ago and took out all the decorations and cards i received last year to decorate my house. Plus i had a holiday crafts session--benin edition, to see how i could use the things in my marches to "spruce" up (haha) my holiday season in hot hot benin. Pictures included for your viewing pleasure.

painted winter scene on a calabash half

Calabash snowman! Hammered nails into the 3 halves to make holes and tied them together with string. Made the hat out of tissu scraps and a cotton ball, and the scarf was a tissu piece

My christmas wreath made out of tissu scraps tied around a manipulated coat hanger (idea courtesy of Mrs. Walsh's 4th grade activities). Topped off with ribbon and an ornament that Aunt Nancy wrapped my present with last year

cards that i got last year

advent wreath constructed entirely of computer paper that i colored laboriously. Every sunday i taped on a new paper flame.

lamp decorated with some of the ornaments that Aunt Annie sent me last year

I forgot to take pictures of the nativity that aunt Mary sent last year and the mini tree that my neighbor sent me, but oh well...there are some of the highlights.
I have to say I am really grateful to be spending the holiday season here with some of my closest friends. Being in Benin really has altered my understanding of family and what it means to be there for people. I might be an ocean away from home of birth, but I still get to spend Christmas with the family that I've found here and for that I am extremely lucky.

Just last evening my mom and dad’s 2 christmas boxes came in and so did my 2 thanksgiving packages so it is looking like we are going to have a pretty spectacular meal by Beninese standards. I have to say that I will miss that. Opening a box of gingerbread cookie mix probably would never phase me at home to any degree but I opened it here and everyone in the bureau with me now is RIDICULOUSLY excited to make gingerbread cookies tomorrow. Plus I received lots of ziplock bags that you can snip the ends off to make icing bags to decorate.

So like I said, December has been crazy. For my birthday Angelina and Michelle came over on the friday before to make dinner with me and just hang out. We had mexican and listened to Christmas music and watched the Muppet Christmas Carol and the Nightmare before Christmas. The next day we got up early and went to Hoedogli to do Kantos's annual talk about girls staying in school and gender issues in Benin as compared to the US. The taxi ride to Azove was chock full of harassement and then we were SWARMED when we got to Azove by the zems wanting to take us to Hoedogli. That might have been the scariest zem ride of all of my time in BEnin--barring the zem ride that landed me on the hood of a car in JUly. My driver took off first down the narrow dirt (but for all intents and purposes sand) road to Hoedogli. It was covered with people walking to and from Azove's marche and the sand kept making the zem wobble, which always makes me nervous. I thought my zem was going exceptionally fast so i told him to slow down again and again and he didn't listen. Then all of a sudden angelina and Michelle both passed me on their motos and my driver became indignant saying "tu vois?" (you see?) and sped up to beat them. THen it became a contest of idiots to see who could pass the other and Michelle Angelina and I were all screaming at our zems to slow down because they were being dangerous and we were nervous. When we finally got to Houedogli we were all shaken up and it kind of tainted our mood for the talk and the rest of the day.

Girls talk in Houedogli

Then on my birthday meme, Kristin came over, bearing mozzarella that she had brought up from Cotonou the day before and kept in my "cool bag" to keep it slightly cooler than normal temps in Benin. We made delicious calzones and watched Pearl Harbor in the spirit of the day.

Calzones!

With the World Map a week later, and being in Cotonou since then, December is practically over and soon we'll be ringing in 2010! Unbelievable. Well, Anyways, i hope that everyone has a very merry christmas tomorrow with their families--I know I will. Hope you all get what you want. Me? I have eggnog in a can sent from the USA...what more could one ask for?

World Map 2

2009-12-24T08:22:00.000-08:00

The weekend after my birthday I went back to Lokossa to follow up on the world map with Michelle. Once again it went amazingly and was so much fun to hang out with the kids. It went much quicker than we thought it would with the painting and was much more rewarding this time to see it get filled in little by little. We thought the black background would really make it pop. IT still isn't finished--we have to outline countries and write all of their names and oceans and stuff in French, etc. That will probably take awhile, plus we're on the search for teeny tiny sharpies to do it. But I'm posting up additional pictures for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Charlie doing his compass

Almost done!

Me painting

Dieu donnait painting

Africa

Willie, emion, georgie, and 2 other kids

Michelle and all of the little camera monsters

Painting

Kids goofing off

Janvier 2 and Marcellin painting

Frederick being silly

Janvier, marcellin, and michelle

Mali Update

2009-12-03T05:16:00.000-08:00

Michelle, Angelina, Heidi, Sarah, Claire, and I are slated to leave the day after Christmas for Ougadougou in Burkina Faso for a night, before heading onward to Mali. We're planning on going to Djenne to see the mud mosque there before heading to Mopti to begin a trek of Dogon Country through new years. Due to recent kidnappings and growing threat to tourists in Northern Mali, especially the timbuktu area, Peace Corps is urging caution for travel there. Timbuktu is now off limits and Mopti was discouraged as well, though now that has been changed. So far we are still planning on going on our trip as are 2 other groups of Benin PCVs--the guide we have has worked with Benin PCVs in the past--took Kate and a group of TEFL volunteers through Dogon Country last year and got really good reviews. There is Peace COrps in Mali and they are not on standfast or consolidated or anything like that, so I'm hoping it remains okay. I'm attaching articles regarding the issues for anyone who is interested and will keep you updated.

French Kidnapping of November 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8381200.stm

Large Group Kidnapping Jan 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7846134.stm

Update re: January Kidnapping--Murder of British National

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8080447.stm

US Arming Mali to Fight North Africa Al-Qaeda Branch

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8316269.stm

2009-11-30T15:45:00.000-08:00

My thoughts and prayers go out to the So-Youn family and to the Peace Corps Morocco community as they mourn the death of one of their volunteers.

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.press.view&news_id=1507

Fete-ing in DoGbO!!!

2009-11-27T15:41:00.000-08:00

This past week has seen a lot of good food and fete-ing in Dogbo! Wednesday was Kristin's birthday so we went to eat at the local buvette and then people came back to my house for cake. I found balloons in Cotonou, which added a little bit of flare as well.

Thanksgiving au Benin, round deux was excellent. I was freaking out that none of the Thanksgiving boxes my family had sent me made it here but we managed to scrounge up a delicious meal in Dogbo with all Beninese found items anyway (with the exception of 2 cans of cranberry sauce, lovingly donated by Michelle and Kristin).

I never really thought that the first thanksgiving I hosted would be in West Africa but it was pretty awesome. There were 11 people at my house on Thursday for dinner. Angelina and Andrew were over all day cooking with me and then Kristin came over after class to help, and Michelle as well. Everyone else just came to eat, which worked out fine—too many cooks in the kitchen and all. We made cornbread stuffing (made the cornbread the day before and attempted to let it dry out—let me take a moment to expound how successful THAT was in a tropical climate…all I succeeded in doing was getting it covered in ants and having to brush them all off the next day before people got too grossed out), Turkey legs that Meredith brought down from Azove, glazed carrots, green bean “casserole” sort of, cranberry sauce, corn, gravy (Angelina made it from bouillion cubes and it was wonderful…don’t know how she did it. We didn’t have drippings because we fried the turkey and even though we boiled it first because meat here is too tough to eat if you don’t boil, the water got thrown out by accident). We also had garlic mashed potatoes, glazed “sweet potatoes” (not what you r thinking of—Beninese sweet potatoes). And I got up at 7 to make fresh onion herb bread which was a HUGE hit….so delicious…and it made a ton. We brought down the extra to Cotonou yesterday and bought meat to make sandwiches…AMAZING! Dessert was apple crumble pie and Michelle whipped up a “Green Papaya tastes just like Pumpkin Pie” that really did taste pretty much like a pumpkin pie. We had an amazing time hanging out together and cooking. We even splurged and bought 3 things of real butter!!! The smell of ACTUAL REAL butter melting on my stove to make the crisp topping was unbelievable. Never in my life have I appreciated that smell before like that. Angelina and I actually stopped dead in our tracks at the same time just realizing that the kitchen smelled like actual butter and we sort of basked in its glow for a few moments. Same thing with the smell and taste of turkey. All in all a great day. And Kristin’s mom had sent down thanksgiving napkins, plates, and tablecloth which set a nice ambience! No refrigerators here are inherently a problem for leftovers so my neighbors made out like bandits (as did scout…she is eating for several, after all), and we gave them the oil we fried with, which I think probably made them happier than any of the food we gave them. Friday morning we cleaned up the house and migrated down to Thanksgiving Round 2 in Cotonou for ALL of the Southern volunteers. I am bien full and can’t even think of food right now!

The cake!

My house decorated

Make a wish!

Bread in the middle of rising...there was so much dough

MY kitchen in the middle of cooking

Apple crumble pie...even made little leaves!

Andrew standing guard over the turkey

Angelina and Michelle, who always gives me the peace sign in photos

Our Thanksgiving spread

my plate!

Scout in a post turkey-scrap coma...or maybe in just a "I am so knocked up and tired" coma

Some Randomness...Aaaargh

2009-11-27T15:34:00.000-08:00

Here's a little holiday randomness. I just realized some more things that have come to be normal to me that wouldn't be to anyone who had never been here before. Wood branch scaffolding to build buildings. It is interesting to me to see that since they used bamboo in China.

Then this is a fairly typical type of sign for coiffures in Benin...but I enjoyed the incorporation of the word seduction in this one and the picture was pretty jazzy.

So i was listening to BBCnews when i was cooking dinner the other night and almost fell down with shock at hearing "Cotonou" on BBC. So i turned up the volume more to hear what ever could have put Benin in international news. Naturally...piracy. I thought piracy was really just a problem around Somalia but apparently not. THe pirates, or rogues, are believed to be Nigerian (There's a shocker...Nigerians get blamed for EVERYThing bad that happens in Benin)and they even killed a man on board. Personally, I blame Johnny Depp for making piracy seem such an appealing career move. Looks like someone needs to send the Kraken out on these guys.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8376715.stm

Stay tuned. Thanksgiving and World Map pictures to come soon!! Happy Tabaski

Where in the WORLD has the Time Gone?

2009-11-23T13:35:00.000-08:00

Vraiment? It’s already after Thanksgiving!! What happened to November? I have been really busy since the start of the month and so I can’t even believe that it is over. In little over a month from now I’ll be ringing in 2010 on an escarpment in Mali and then fete-ing my SECOND (and last) voodoo day in Benin and getting ready for my parents’ visit!! I’m overwhelmed at how fast the time is going.

When I got out of the med unit and back to Dogbo this summer, I started to freak out that I didn’t have any work happening and hadn’t accomplished anything since coming back from the states. I spent a week at post, 3 weeks in the med unit in cotonou, 2 weeks at post, then 2 weeks in Porto Novo during training, and since my real work partner was in Porto Novo for all 9 weeks of training and I had been in the States for nearly a month, I really have ANYthing going on. I sat sitting in my house pondering why I was even here and what I could possibly do and thought of the world map. I went to an orphanage in Lokossa last year to learn how to make soy cheese and remembered they had a really great wall for one so I asked Michelle if she’d want to do one.

Several months later, the project is finally underway! It took awhile to talk to the matron of the orphanage, coordinate a time to go, and get together what we needed but last weekend we showed up Friday morning ready to start. Most of the children were at school when we started, which was good because it gave us some time to get our bearings and figure out how to get started. The World Map manual of Peace Corps plans it out along a grid method so we had to mark off the walls and then, possibly the hardest part of all, do math. As anyone who knows me might imagine, we had some technical difficulty with that and ended up erasing the entire grid.

Admittedly, I had been nervous that, given my motivation of my suggestion to do a world map and the way in which we started going about it, that there would be no sort of ownership of this project by the orphanage itself—that we would be just these two foreigners coming in and designing and doing a project all by ourselves that didn’t really make any difference there. I could not have been happier or more pleasantly surprised when the kids got involved. AS they trickled in from school they were all so curious and wanted to help put up tape, draw, and paint. I was really unsure about the kids (especially the little ones) helping to draw and paint the smaller detailed areas of the map—More so than Michelle, who is a teacher here and works with kids all the time. But I forgot to take into account how precise and neat Beninese people are in general in things like measurements and line drawing. It kind of in a way goes back to just the way they are taught…it HAS to be precise…everything. Works out perfectly for things like this—they are great!

When I came to the orphanage last year, the children were gathered around to greet us in rehearsed unison. It was cute and I’ve seen it a lot in Benin and Tanzania. But there is just something so artificial or at least superficial about it that it becomes frustrating. Working with the children for even just a few hours served to tear down all of the walls of formality between us. Michelle and I are now called by our first names instead of “Madame” or “Tata” and the children hang on us, play with us, tickle us and run away, clamor to help, correct our French, and act just as their impish selves. They are AMAZING and I think that this might be my favorite thing that I’ve done so far in Benin. I like that I can walk into the orphanage and not feel like an outsider and that the kids are actually happy to see me. On our second day a group of Beninese men came in to talk to the Patron there and the children came out and did their little rehearsed welcome and I smiled to myself, knowing that that morning when we had walked up, they came running toward us to take our stuff inside and play and work with us.

We didn’t get to finish the map in a weekend—and even if we hadn’t lost time with our miscalculations, we wouldn’t have finished. So we are going back the second week in December to finish. On the agenda before then is finding accurate information since the manual we are using still has Zaire and Yugoslavia on it, and we can’t find slovenia. Plus we need a list of country names in French to make it more useful for the kids. I am excited to go back to the orphanage with them and do geography stuff with the kids because they haven’t a clue about how to read maps or the world in which they live. We might even write another small grant to go back and do a mural of just Benin and its Departments. My Porto Novian host brothers came to visit me and couldn’t find Dogbo on a map of Benin so I think that would be a good project as well. Anyway, I’m putting up pictures for your viewing pleasure…enjoy! I’ll update again when it is finished.

Me spinning the kids at the end of the first day of world map painting--as soon as one went up they all wanted to spin

Frederick, Georgie, and I

Michelle with blue paint and gas for cleaning burning through her skin...beause in every picture I take of her she has to give me the peace sign. :)

Michelle with the plumb line before we even started drawing our first line

Mariane--she used to be highly anemic and has gotten so much healthier. I remember seeing her last year and she was so timid...seeing her warm up to us has been really great

Me taping up the border so we don't paint outside of the box

Me with Eduad, my little helper; and Florence, there for moral support

Michelle with Eduad, Janvier 1 and Janvier 2

Kids assessing the measurements

Michelle mixing up the "pate" and "sauce" as the kids were calling the paint and tints. Bon Cuisine!

Me with Eduad--he looks cute but don't be fooled...i have never met such a whiney and cry baby child in my life...every 2 seconds it's something. Eh...he is still cute though

All the kids...they were surounding a picture of a plane they just drew for us in the dirt but i don't think you can see it. They were the head bands for gym at school

Georgie being held by his friend who's name I forget...God, they love the camera

Me with all the kids

Janvier 1 and 2 heading up the grid efforts

drawing the grid...round 2

Georgie and Frederick...my 2 favs

Charlie painting our compass...he was SO excited to help and can't wait to paint it

Ironically enough this boy's name is Dieu Donnait. I always feel badly for albinos here because they look like they are physically in pain with their blisters and their squinting from the sun. But Michelle and I thought it ironic that he is albino and that she had christened my halloween "yovo baby" Dieu Donnait as well.

Michelle drawing Europe with some help from the kids

Thumbs up, seven up everyone!

Sylvie and I painting "yellow" countries. Russia is ridiculously large. And the peace corps map for frame of reference still has Yugoslavia and Zaire up so we're going to have to do some editing/research!

Janvier 1 and Bienvenue painting...with a baby on her back--that is pretty amazing.

Seriously?

2009-11-02T06:56:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard the cries of a petrified mouse in the agonizing throes of death? When I said to my host family that I wanted a kitten to rid me of the burden of personally dealing with all manner of creepy crawlies in my house, i never took into account the pitiful frightened shrieks of mice that that would entail. Cockroaches crunch, lizards are noiseless--When Scout catches them, I can handle it...but mice, that is a different case entirely. Maybe it's the fur (or that i had hamsters and worked in a vet's office for 2.5 years), I don't know why it bothers me more--I mean, i think lizards are pretty cute here, but i don't mind if scout kills them so long as she eats them all and doesn't leave half a corpse for me to clean up later. But as I blogged a few weeks ago, when for the first time Scout caught herself a mouse at night, I found it really disturbing to listen to her killing it.

And that is why I am in the med unit right now--because I'm the only freak volunteer in Benin that tries to save a mouse in her house, instead of trying to hit it with a shoe.

So last Saturday morning (the 24th) i woke up and it was pouring. It is the end of the short rainy season now in Southern Benin--the last hoorah before my life will grow decreasingly pleasant in direct correlation with the increasing temperatures until about May of 2010. I didn't want to get out of bed at all since it was so delightfully cool with Scout curled up next to me, and I love listening to the rain patter on my tin roof. But i did drag myself up because I was supposed to go to Come by 1 for a meeting to plan the English competition across CEGs in the MOno Kouffo this spring.

So I walked into my kitchen to open up my back door and when I turned around, I jumped back. There in my basin that I use as a sort of pseudo-sink, was a mouse, swimming and struggling for dear life, trying not to drown. It couldn't climb the plastic and kept trying to jump out but couldn't make it--it must have just fallen in because it didn't look like this itty bitty thing could keep up this effort for long. Scout hadn't noticed yet so I took a step toward it to lift the basin out and throw the whole thing outside. But then the mouse jumped again and i freaked out. So I got a second basine to cover it and took the basin outside in the rain, closing the door to keep scout in the house. I tossed all the contents out and this stupid little mouse that apparently can't take a hint, bee-lines it straight for me. I squealed and jumped backwards, kicking my foot against my wooden door by accident. It stung quite a bit, and i got a small cut on the back of my ankle that started to bleed, but I didn't really think anything of it. I rinsed it and put a bandaid on, and that was that. I certainly have dealt with much worse in Benin.

When I was up in Badjoude for the whipping fete my bandaid fell off. I didn't really care because the cut looked pretty much healed. i didn't even think it was open anymore. But toward the afternoon I noticed flies kept landing on it so I figured it had to be open after all, and asked Heidi for a bandaid. Too late, I guess. I came back to Dogbo, and everything seemed totally fine all week.

Friday evening i got back from my walk and the back of my heal was hurting me. I looked and there was a little lump that i took to be a blister--no big deal, I get blisters a lot here and I thought it was probably just because I chose socks that weren't thick enough. As the evening went on I started to think maybe it wasn't a blister since it didn't appear to be filled with liquid at all and was just red and inflammed, and hot. Well, maybe the rubbing of my sneaker just irritated the cut on my ankle...whatever. i went to bed.

Halloween I woke up sweating first thing in the morning and had a slight headache. I stepped out of my bed and immediately felt pain in my foot from a cramped muscle and my ankle. I went outside to look at it in the sunlight and it appeared that the lump had grown slightly bigger. It was really sore and tender when I touched it. But I didn't cover it up because it didn't even look like there was any sort of open cut at all TO cover. I took 3 advil and went to the orphanage. As the day progressed, so did the lumpage. It kept getting bigger, redder, and hotter, and i verified with Dennis, our infection expert, that I probably indeed had something. I knew I was supposed to be down in Cotonou this friday so figured I would just see the doctor then. The whole day though i felt rather hot, dizzy, and feverish and had a headache. I left the Halloween fete early with Michelle and found when I went home that I had a 102 temperature. I took some tylenol and figured i would just see if that helped at all. It didn't.

My fever went down a bit, but when i woke up in the morning i saw that the infection was circling my ankle--it was red, warm, and swollen, and it kept growing. By the time everyone made it over for breakfast, general consensus was that I had a rather disgusting looking club foot and considering the rate at which it was puffing out, I would be stupid to wait until friday to see the doctor.

So i was that volunteer that called the PCMO on a Sunday morning, and interrupted her day off. She told me i should come in immediately and I kind of had to kick everyone out of my house, close up, feed scout, and peace out. But I'm glad I came in. It had encircled my ankle even more by the time i got to Cotonou and was very hot and red. I still had a fever and the teeniest tiniest opening of the teeniest tiniest stupid mouse-induced cut had started to dribble nasty smelling ooze down the back of my ankle by the time i saw her. At least she wasn't annoyed that I came in, and seemed to be worried about it.

When she asked me if i had any allergies to medications and I told her Keflex, she looked at me like I was playing some sort of sick joke on her. Never in my life has that been a problem, but naturally, that was exactly the medication she wanted to use to treat the infection. So she put me on a different type and is making me stay 2 nights to make sure it works, otherwise I have to do some I.V. therapy...yippee. Fortunately though..it appears to be working. I woke up this morning and after my first dose of the antibiotics last night the swelling had gone down and the redness had dissipated a bit. It is actually kind of incredible to see how quickly it turned around. At any rate, once again I am in the medical unit, but thankfully the crisis seems to have passed. By Sunday noon i was actually starting to freak out with flashbacks to osteomylitis, and Dennis teasing me about amputation, etc. so i am glad that I seem to be bien on the mend with no fever and back to post tomorrow.

But really, November wouldn't have felt complete if it didn't start out with some sort of medical crisis...I mean I am, after all, averaging about one a month at least since returning to Benin in late June, n'est pas? So, lesson learned. next mouse I find. no mercy. Scout can have at it. Bon freaking appetit.

Happy Halloween

2009-11-02T06:47:00.000-08:00

Kristin as a zem and me as a maman!

So Saturday was my second and last Halloween in Benin! I woke up in the morning and headed to one of the orphanages in Dogbo to start 'Lifeskills' activities with the boys there. Since they are in school we can only do it on weekends and there is always so much stuff and travel going on on weekends that it has been hard to coordinate. But anyways, I thought it started out great, and then halfway through working with them I was sure that they were bored to tears. But then when we were figuring out when I would come again they were all really excited and asked that I come back in 2 weeks.

After work in the morning, the fete-ing began! No one in Benin knows or has heard of Halloween so for the second year in a row, most neighbors thought we were pretty insane. But we still had a lot of fun anyway. Dennis came to Dogbo early to cook chili and we had our quarterly VAC meeting for volunteers in the Mono Kouffo regions. Afterwards we all ate and hung out for the night with a lot of fun costumes. I was a marche maman with my tacky gold earrings and necklace and fake baby--he didn't make a peep the whooooole night...just the way I like 'em. He was named Dieu Donnait (God Gives, more or less) by Michelle.

The next morning everyone came over to my place where angelina, michelle and I had been whipping up yummy cinnamon rolls! Kristin and DEnnis swooped in to make yummy pancakes and we all gorged ourselves before calling it a day.

I don't think I've ever sweat so much on Halloween before in my life--even last year...though granted, this might have been cause i had a fever--but I just kept telling myself that I will be enjoying the fall foliage and a warm cup of tea next year on Halloween. Whoo hoo! Enjoy the pics!

Miranna, the gym rat...scandalous outfit for benin, which is funny, when I consider what the girls at Holy Cross usually wore, or didn't wear on Halloween...oh, america

Dennis as...I don't think we ever really figured out what he was...a billboard for "seeing the world? sure, why not.

80's gal Angelina and moi, the maman

Nathaniel as a mechanic fixing charlie the zem driver's bike

Whip it....Whip it good

2009-10-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was the Whipping fete or...fete de chicotte in Badjoude. Turns out it isn't a coming of age ceremony for Muslim boys but it is just a tradition of the Lokpa people who live in this area of Benin. Gong up to the Donga was probably one of the crazier or more impulsive things I've done since coming to Benin since it was a really long trip for 2 nights and quite a bit of traveling...but it was completely worth it. How many times in ones' life do they get to see grown men whipping each other?

Monday morning i got up early and took a taxi to azove, then an hour long zem ride up to bohicon where I caught the bus at 10 to go to Djougou. Once i got to Djougou I got on another zem for over an hour out to Heidi's village, Komde. I get annoyed with the dust here in the Kouffo during dry season, but my lord...I hadn't known dust until then. The rains are still falling a bit up north and even so I was literally covered in red earth when i got off the zem in Komde. It is a totally different world up north--far more arid and not at all tropical. And much more Muslim as well. Hearing the call to prayer was really beautiful...and Heidi's village is teeny tiny. I loved it. I got there around 3ish and then all the other volunteers (i was the only one that came up from the south) arrived after nightfall. The stars up in northern Benin are absolutely gorgeous. I think they are beautiful where i am, but there is even less light pollution up north--Heidi's village really doesn't have electricity--so you can just see everything. I love being able to walk around outside at night with just the light of the moon--I know I'll miss that. And now that the rains are finishing up it is once again beautiful to take a bucket shower under the stars. But anyways...

So there were 13 of us, and on Tuesday morning we woke up at 4:45 to get into Badjoude for Chicotte, which starts at daybreak. We were sitting in their marche when the first group of men came up dancing and stomping their feet to create a rattling noise (they had these reeds tied up with beans or somehting around their ankles to make a baby-rattle effect that created music) As the sun rose the fete got underway and many of the men and boys of the village came out marching toward the marche.

A lot of the men were dressed up as women with bras and skirts, etc., though I have no idea why. Women were marching with them, but when it comes down to the whipping, it is men only. They reached a small clearing and had at it. All the women, PCVs, kids, and some men were circled around the field and they just kept blowing their whistles and whipping it out. You kind of march around, get an opponent and brace yourself as they try to whip you before you whip them back. The whips are made of trees and reed-like things so they broke sometimes when someone met their touch with a raised stick in defense. There were men circling around carrying extra whips with them for just such an instance. You can't cry if you get whipped because the ceremony is supposed to show your manhood and that you are ready to fight. By the end, there were plenty of bloodied backs and arms but that is just a badge of honor. I myself, got smeared with blood by a passerby, and hit by a rogue whip--i guess it just means i am bien integre! Every few minutes there was a little “dance break” for lack of a better term. All whipping stopped and the women hopped in with the men, circling around making music and blowing whistles. After a few moments, everyone but the whippers ran back out of the circle nearly crushing the people on the periphery as the whipping would recommence. And on this cycle went for a good long while. Watching the younger boys whip each other or go up against an older man was really interesting, and I do not really understand how “opponents” chose one another. At one point, all the PCVs got into the circle in a dance break and moved around with everyone, and we got baby powder thrown on us just like the whippers. I don’t really understand that tradition either (I got doused at the voodoo day fete as well) but I think we were told it was just to keep people dry when they were perspiring.

ANyway, the fete was awesome to see and really interesting and I hope you enjoy the pictures I am putting up. I have a lot more and videos too but I think I put up a good sampling. We had a lunch planned with the second to the Maire of Ouke and before that, the King of Badjoude invited us to his house for Tchouk--a local alcohol that I really do not enjoy. But when we got to the Kings house he said he couldn't have us and not feed us so they whipped up igame pile with a delicious sauce and mouton for us, followed by a plate of rice. It was sooo much food and it was only lunch number one for the day. Really, it was a fantastic gesture for them to feed that many of us, and to give us meat besides. In general the people of Badjoude were thrilled that we were there—this is Kate’s village and given the past year, they did not think that we were going to come. I think that having such a large PCV presence was really great for their community morale and for Peace Corps as well. I had been apprehensive about going—I wasn’t sure if it would be sad or difficult being there, but it felt good getting to see where Kate lived and the friendly community members. Everyone there was just so welcoming, and the King took one of us aside to tell him how thrilled he was that volunteers came and how sorry he was about everything that happened with Kate. For awhile after it all happened in March, it was very difficult for me to not put a wall up against Benin and the people here, and so it was nice, I guess in a way, to come to understand first hand that her community grieves with us—that we aren’t the only ones here who are horrified and hurt by her death.

Afterwards we headed out for lunch number 2…more igame pile but with a different kind of sauce. Fortunately for me, igame pile is still a novelty because you really can’t get it down south, but most of the northern volunteers are pretty jaded by the pile deliciousness so I don’t think they were at all excited to be eating it in such quantity. By the time our bellies were stuffed to bursting, it was already almost 3 and we had been up since before 5am and walking around in the sun all day (note to self…buy a wide brimmed straw hat before trekking around Mali at Christmas time…the sun up in that arid climate kills) so we were exhausted. We hopped in our rented van and drove back to Komde where everyone took off toward Natitingou. I stayed in Komde 4 the night and got the grand tour of Heidi’s village before leaving her house at 6am to catch the bus in Djougou heading back down to Bohicon. I can’t believe whipping fete is already over—I remember talking about going to it with Heidi and Rut since last December, and now it has come and gone. There is no way I will be here for it next year. Im about to celebrate my second Halloween here, and it is almost November. I say it in nearly every blog entry now because it hits me nearly every day, but the time here is flying by so fast! I’m going up north to Kandi next week to do post visits for the Peer Support Network, in Benin (like a peer counseling thing—I go to visit new volunteers and see how they are doing while bringing them delicious baked goods since they technically aren’t allowed to leave their posts 4 the first 3 months) and with Halloween on Saturday, more pictures are definitely forthcoming. Happy Halloween! Enjoy your cold weather.

Man dressed to the nines in the march to the marche in Badjoude

A view from Badjoude

Making Igame Pile (usually it is women making it, so i really like this shot)...my favorite meal in Benin. Get psyched, mom and dad...we'll be entering igame pile land when you come! The 3 people work themselves in a rhythm, pounding the cooked igame with water until it is a delicious blob.

Little girl walking by a baobob tree...I just like how small she looked here. Baobobs are HUGE. There aren't too many in this area compared to up north.

lunch #1 with king of Badjoude

obama-rama at its finest in Benin. When you make it onto a sweetened condensed milk can in a random little village in West Africa...that's how you know you've hit the big time

This and the next few pics are just of some of the men dressed up for the whipping

Sacred tam-tam (drum) of Badjoude used to announce warfare, etc.

Action shot of the whipping

boy bracing himself for the whip

Me, Heidi, and Christopher

more whipping

chaos...absolute chaos. This was what it looked like...hundreds and hundreds of people crammed in a tiny field, where all the men and boys were whipping each other all willy nilly.

group shot!

Kittens are Imminent...and other things

2009-10-22T12:47:00.000-07:00

Picture: Scout shenanigans...making herself at home in my window slats at night.

So Scout has officially gone rogue. Within the past week she has run out of my house like a bat out of hell when I take my bucket shower at night EVERY night. She climbs my cement wall because, apparently, she is a spider-monkey now; jumps, and stays out all night until she saunters back in a walk of shame like the scandalous little harlot that she is at around 6AM, at which time she jumps onto the window screen of my bedroom and howls at me mercilessly until I get up and let her in. Honestly, it is kind of lonely at night without her in my house. She used to always cuddle up on my lap and I felt better sleeping, knowing that I had my own little cockroach destroyer in the house with me. I can kill scorpions like nobody’s business but cockroaches still seem to paralyze me with disgust. Then during the day she just creeps under my bed and sleeps until it’s time for her dinner. I feel so used and abused. In fact, last night when I was making her dinner, her little “friend” had the gall to sashay up to my front door for a cat call, if you don’t mind the pun, and she flat out left me to go see him. So, as I’ve indicated, kittens seem pretty imminent.

Her disreputable behavior would bother me more though if it didn’t seem to be a scourge of lasciviousness on felines across Benin. Simultaneously so many volunteers’ cats have been doing the same exact thing. It’s like some coordinated feline mating ritual. And speaking of rituals…

I’m heading up north to Badjoude on Monday to see the annual “Whipping fete” that acts as a rite of passage for Muslim boys. It is going to be kind of crazy (not to mention expensive)…going all the way up to Badjoude and back in 2 days (we only get 2 days away from post at a time without taking vacation), but how many times does one get to see a whipping fete, really? Plus there are whipping fetes all over the north but Badjoude’s is supposed to be especially large and interesting. So fun stories and pictures to come.

Picture: Marianne with a famous Beninese TV star that came to swear-in...yes, the head gear is normal formal attire in Benin.

Picture: Michelle and Angelina at my house for our initial Mali planification!!!

Life is getting pretty hectic here now, and my work is really picking up. I got my first issue of Bisou Bisou out to the schools this week, and announced the girls club I’m starting with a woman at my NGO. We are picking up their application essays at the schools tomorrow and then will choose 8 to work with us over the year. We’re going to discuss sexual health stuff, female empowerment, strategies for academic success, etc., as well as train them on computers so that hopefully they can continue with the newsletter themselves next year. Yesterday I went back out to Koutime to weigh babies with Kantos and the new health volunteer that just moved nearby—a LOT more women came than the last time. We weighed 79 babies, and talked to each mom about her child’s eating habits, reinforcing exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months, and weaning strategies, etc. so we were there for about 6 hours. And there was a fete going on so a lot of women couldn’t come, which means next time will probably be longer. But I really enjoy it—it is satisfying work.

Several women prepared us food as a thank you since we had been there all morning and well through the afternoon—pate with moringa sauce. It’s tends to be a little uncomfortable to me when I’m in that kind of situation because inevitably, all eyes are on my while I’m eating. The women just sat around the periphery of the room while Charlie, Kantos, and I dug in…literally…because traditionally in Benin, one eats with his or her hands. I myself still struggle to cross some kind of mental barrier I seem to have put up against eating with my hands so that in situations were it wouldn’t seem overly rude—like a restaurant—I ask for a fork. This however, would have been pretty rude in this situation so I ate with my hands. It’s just that everyone in Benin always makes fun of me because I eat with my thumb, index, and middle fingers as opposed to eating with all 5 fingers. They think it is dainty and ridiculous, and, because I can’t shovel the sauce in at warp speed, it takes me awhile to finish. I don’t know why I don’t like to use my last 2 fingers. After all, my hand is getting gross anyway and I’ll still have to wash it. But I think if I tried to eat with all 5 fingers I would just end up dribbling sauce down my face and if I get laughed at that much for eating daintily, I can’t imagine the teasing—even if it is friendly teasing—that would accompany thoooose shenanigans. But anyways…

I often talk about how much I can’t stand men in this country. It’s true…I find constant sexual harassment and cat calls, leering looks, marriage proposals, and lewd comments utterly exhausting and degrading and it has given me really negative feelings toward the general male population here. But now I’m trying to work with that, or at least take a first step. I was reading Helen Epstein’s book, The Invisible Cure, about HIV/AIDS in Africa and stumbled across something that stuck out as a very important point to me. She writes “Empowering individual women without addressing the attitudes of men and society in general risks creating empowered women who antagonize men.” I’ve noticed this before in my work since I tend to so much focus on women, but generally never felt moved enough to start to engage men here more than I already did. Men will hover around the periphery of my womens’ groups meetings to hear what we talk about. And when we announced the girls club at the schools the boys took umbrage that I wasn’t having a club for boys too. And I have noticed that including men in my work with womens’ groups usually goes over really well, and they enjoy learning the information too. You can tell they feel important because they sort of puff up a little and seem really happy to be there. Actually, the secretary of the Koutime group is a guy (since he can read and write) and he is AMAZING at baby-weighings. He helps translate into Aja or Fon and is really involved in organizing the moms and the babies for actual weighing.

Still, I do think it is important to work with girls in an all girls environment sometimes for their development because they do have hard lives and not as many opportunities as the boys in Benin. When they are together without boys, they talk more openly. But I can’t expect that what these girls will learn will help them at all if the men in their lives aren’t equally informed and receptive to new ideas. New-found independence and any efforts women take to assert themselves WILL antagonize the men in their lives. We always have Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) in Porto Novo for the girls in Southern Benin and there are smaller versions across the country. This year 2 of my friends up north are organizing a Camp BLOW in addition to the girls camp, which seems like a pretty awesome idea, when I think about it. I’m not starting a boys club at the CEG but I am starting to work at one of the orphanages in Dogbo where there are only teenage boys living, and I am really looking forward to hanging out with them. My first “official” time to work with them is the morning of Halloween (if you have any costume ideas for me since we’re having a party that night with mono-kouffo PCVs, let me know). We’re going to do a bunch of different “Lifeskills activities” about their development, where they see themselves in a few years, academic planning, HIV/AIDS info, etc. It should be good!

I can’t believe it is almost the end of October and that Halloween is coming! It is so strange that I am experiencing things in Benin for the second time, and knowing that it is also the last time. The time here is really going by SO quickly and keeping busy is making it fly even faster. I have something every weekend planned through December, and then I’ll be going to Mali (can’t WAIT!!!) for Christmas and New Years. I am starting to hash out fun plans for when my parents visit in January and THAT will be here before I know it. I don’t know what it is but the time in Benin since I have come back from the States has absolutely just gone with the snap of a finger. I realize there is so much I want do here and I have only about 9 and a half months left!!! How did that happen? It is pretty amazing to think about because I remember getting ready to move to Dogbo last year and freaking out about living there for 2 years. Even now looking at the people who have just arrived at their posts it feels like they have SO much time left. There is just such a difference in perspective between that first and second year as a volunteer for me. I feel like I am finally back in a good place being in Benin as well, emotionally speaking. Life was admittedly a little dark for me between March and August (which I especially realized after re-reading my blog and journal entries), with a succession of bad events happening one after another in what seemed like the universe having a twisted sense of humor about my life here. But I feel really great right now and have for the past few weeks. I’ve been having a lot more “wow, I’m actually living in Africa” moments like when I was weighing babies, or ran into the president of the kpodaha groupement who told everyone to call me Catherine instead of yovo last week, or even during my bucket shower when I looked up and saw how beautiful the stars are (during rainy season you couldn’t see them…it was always cloudy…and I forgot how lovely they are). Maybe it’s just because I feel like I am actually accomplishing things right now and feel good about my work, but I’m really happy and really happy to report it! Donc, pour le moment, a bientot!

Picture: Angelina, Charlie, Dennis, Michelle, and Weihow at the Lokossa B-day celebration last week. Get excited, mom and dad, we are going to eat at that maquis for lunch one day...delicious igame pilee and sauce d'arachide with wagasi!!!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2009-10-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

Pictures!: (I know it has been awhile since i posted any) The first 2 are of the brand new CEG that they built near my house, and the third is Maman, their trainee from this summer, me and all the kids at this years swearing in ceremony for new volunteers.

So the 2009-2010 academic year is FINALLY really getting underway here in Benin. Every year the Beninese government sets a date for school to start and then inevitably continues pushing it back so that school actually started on October 5th. But classes don’t actually start right away. First the kids have to come to school and work for a day or two to cut down the brush and tall grass that has grown up over the course of the summer on the school grounds. Then they clean out the classrooms. The 2 main CEGs (College d’Enseignants Générale—General teaching school of the middle school and high school levels) in Dogbo are still not entirely organized for the year. There is a lack of many teachers so that kids just don’t go to class because no one is there to teach it. Also, the classrooms where classes are to be taking place still aren’t set for many classes so that it is always moving around. Sometimes, teachers just won’t go to class and the kids will just sit around. And a lot of the kids haven’t started yet just because they lack the money for supplies.

In an effort to encourage attendance at schools President Boni YAYI (Family names in Benin are always spelled in all Caps) made primary school entirely free nation-wide. A lot of parents still gripe about how it is expensive to send their children because they need to buy notebooks, pens, pencils, etc., and khaki fabric to make the outfits that serve as a national school uniform for the children (simple dress for girls and shorts and button shirt for boys). To put it in perspective for you, a cahier (notebook—they make them really simple here, about 100 pages with a paper cover and half the size of marble notebooks in the states) costs between 85-100CFA and the exchange rate right now is about 450CFA per dollar. So a notebook is less than 25 cents. But when you have a lot of kids, it adds up to be getting supplies for all of them to start school. Still, the president’s plan worked and attendance in recent years has jumped considerably. The problem with that was the lack of foresight as to how that would impact the secondary schools (the CEGs). Attending a CEG is not free. There is an enrollment fee for new sixieme students (The French system works backwards so that they start in ‘6th grade’ and move up through premiere and terminale) and then a yearly “contribution” in addition to having to buy supplies, khaki for uniform (but you don’t need new khaki every year…just as you outgrow it), and pay for photocopying the books necessary for your coursework since there is no program to distribute any sort of textbooks to kids here. But even though CEGs are not free, the number of students coming up from primary schools has gretly increased and there aren’t enough CEGs to handle it. There is a lack of teachers, supplies, classrooms…everything. Last year, my postmate had to teach one of her classes outside because there was no building for her to teach in.

There are 4 CEGs in Dogbo, 2 of which are in Dogbo-meme, which is to say in Dogbo proper as opposed to outlying villages. CEG-1 has been around the longest and is completed. There are a lot of buildings, all finished in cement, and an administrative building for the censor ( a main administrative officer who oversees all the teachers and classes, etc), director, and surveillant (disciplinarian—sounds ominous, doesn’t it? Discipline here sometimes includes beatings but generally for more mild offenses consists of hard physical labor dolled out in “hours.” You talk in class, your teacher might give you 2 hours so you’ll have to stay after school and cut down the brush or something to that effect.) But CEG 2 is much newer and far from completed. When my post mate first got there her administration kept telling her “we need buildings” because many classrooms were just wooden frames covered in reed walls with a tin roof (which makes it virtually impossible to hear if it rains, so fortunately school ends right around the start of rainy season) and dirt floors. AT least they had “chalkboards” though (pieces of wood or concrete walls, depending on the class, that are painted over in black paint). At any rate, they have some finished cement building classrooms and need more, and still don’t have enough classrooms for all of the kids that go there.

I recently found out though, that they were building a 5th CEG in Dogbo—on the route that I go walking on every night. They just constructed it a few weeks back and I had been wondering what would be there—I thought maybe a church. SO I walked by the other night to check it out. It is one building that is split into 2 classrooms. It is just a simple wooden frame with reed walls and dirt floors. There are no chalk boards, and the roof is tin. 20 months ago I might have thought “what a cruddy little building, I can’t believe this is a school where kids actually go” but now it is interesting to me to realize how differently I see this school. Currently there is no administrative building, and the classes could use some chalkboards, I think. But other than that the place is fine to me. I remember being in Tanzania and being taken to a newly built cement school that even had toilet seats for the teachers (no running water…you just pour water down the seat when you’re done). It was supposed to be a huge novelty but the woman showing us the school admitted that it was really so hot in the building that it was uncomfortable—they preferred teaching in a in a simply constructed classroom. I didn’t get it then, but after 15 months living in the little oven that is my cement house with a tin roof seemingly designed to trap in heat, I get it…and Benin is hot enough just being outside. During the chaleur (hot season around February through April) you can actually see the kids in class getting more lethargic because of the heat. When it’s hot for a Beninese person, I know I’m not just being whiney. So not only do these simply built wood and reed classrooms stay cooler because of the dirt floors and open breeze passing through, but they are also just more economically savvy in a place where there is a huge lack of classrooms.

One could build a ton of these classrooms for the price it would cost to make one cement building—and it would serve so many more students. Granted, I think it would be better if they at least put up chalk boards at CEG-5 but I am sure that they are going to shortly (they really only just built it and are getting underway. In all likelihood, they ordered boards a few weeks ago from a menusier who still hasn’t finished them).

So that is the situation in Dogbo in terms of school—not enough classrooms, not enough buildings, not enough teachers, and a ton of students. Supplies are a non-issue…there is no classroom decoration here and no supplies. The school issues a box of chalk per semester to their teachers and that is all. Anything that PCVs want to use in their classrooms to make their lessons more dynamic they have to provide themselves. But dynamic lessons don’t really get very far here because the education system is based on rote learning. Kids don’t know in ANY capacity how to think critically (they just memorize and spit back facts), and they have no toys or any other kinds of activity to intellectually stimulate them. My friend gave her neighbor kids a coloring book with crayons and realized a week later that they didn’t know what to do with them so she had to explain it. My postmate gave her kids markers to make nametags at the beginning of the school year (which is itself an anomaly because Beninese teachers don’t bother learning names—there are upwards of 70 kids in a class and they don’t care) and the kids didn’t even realize they had a choice in what marker color they could use. You do that in the U.S. and children will be arguing for the pink or blue marker. It’s surprising to me how much you get used to things like that, but sometimes, I still take a step back from the situation here in Benin and try to see the bigger picture, and it is really sad to me that this is the reality for the kids here. I don’t think they are ever taught to think that they can have a future and accomplish things if they want to. I know that this will take time to change…this is the first generation of kids going to school for many families, which is in and of itself a great feat. But still…sometimes it is sad.

I’ve decided to pay for Filomene to go to school this year. Normally I hate doing anything like that that would come off as me just giving away money because then everyone clamors for the yovo to buy this or that for them. But she is a sweet kid who always helps me out by getting me water, etc. and I want her to go to school. Plus, people at home randomly gave me money to do something good with it here, and I think this meets that criteria. Her “contribution” plus all of her supplies and photocopies is going to cost me around forty US dollars, and she’s promised not to tell anyone that I am the one paying for her. What she will do to continue her education after I leave boggles my mind. Her father died recently and he paid for her to go to school in the past. Her father had 10 wives and over 50 kids so now it falls to Filo’s mother to find her money for school, and she won’t do it. Her mom just doesn’t think school is important since she herself didn’t go. Actually I was really angry with Filo because the volunteer before me gave her $80 to pay for her school and told her explicitly to safely hide it and tell no one about it, but Filo gave it to her mother, who spent it. I know that family loyalty and umbuntu (to borrow a South African term for lack of a better idea) is very important here but I just don’t understand the lack of looking out for oneself also. People won’t pay for education because they don’t see that it is important. It is one of the most frustrating things EVER to me. It is like people who won’t pay $3 for a mosquito net but will pay HUNDREDS of dollars for meme tissue and a huge funeral party for someone who dies from malaria. I’ve come to learn that people will find money for what is important to them, and education has clearly yet to become a priority in Benin for most people outside of Cotonou and Porto Novo. I guess since I am such a nerd and am myself clamoring to get back into the world of academia when Peace Corps is over, I can’t really understand it. But at the same time, I know there are kids in the US who could care less about school too.

At the end of the day, I don’t think that Filo is the brightest child I’ve ever met, and I don’t think she will do much after school but settle down and sell things in the marche like her mother does, but I still want her to go to school. Filo is starting the “5th grade” cinquieme but should probably already by in the 3rd because she is older. She started late as kids in village often do, and had to re-do 6th grade because she failed a subject. From what she told me, a teacher made a pass at her and she turned him down so he failed her. If you’re shocked, don’t be, because that happens ALL the time here.

Most teachers are male, and most of them are sleeping with their students—plural. It is a 2-way street: Many professors use their positions to get laid by giving out passing of failing grades, presents, etc. Also though, many girls will play the same game because they are lazy and still want to get good grades, and they are raised in a culture where it is ok. Sometimes parents even encourage them sleeping with their teachers because if they get pregnant they hope that the teacher will marry them, even if she would be a second wife. Unlike in the US, where teachers don’t really make a lot of money, being a teacher is one of the highest-earning jobs you can find in Benin. That means that a lot of teachers are in their profession for the wrong reasons—ie: money, prestige, and easy access to lots of young females. I can only hope that over time, this starts to change, and that more and more women become teachers as well. Only time will tell.

"We Have Got to Work on our Communication"

2009-10-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

Granted, this is an obscure reference that maybe only my dad will get, but if you add to that phrase some lively hand gesticulating, you’ll have what is my favorite moment delivered by Will Smith in the movie ‘Independence Day.’

When I was growing up and my mom worked the night shift at the hospital, my dad and I would always have these movie nights when we would watch all the movies that my dad absolutely loves and my mom can’t stand—ie, lots and lots of repetitive viewings of ‘Independence Day’, ‘Waterworld’, and ‘Star Wars.’ I’m pretty sure that the moment after the marital vows were spoken, the rings exchanged, and the honeymoon over, when my dad found out that my mom didn’t actually enjoy the Star Wars series like she had fronted during their courtship was a pretty devastating blow to him, and so at least I enjoy watching them with him. But anyways, I digress…

I was walking on the outskirts of Dogbo by one of the schools here and stopped at a ‘cafeteria’ (where they sell things like Nescafe, omelets on spaghetti—you get really used to that delicious combination—or oatmeal, etc.) to buy a water sachet. They had a T.V. and, ironically enough, a French dubbed ‘Independence Day’ was playing on exactly this scene between Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. I found it doubly ironic that Smith’s line was stated in barely understandable French because I’ve been thinking lately how hard communication actually is here.

Sometimes I stop and wonder how different my Peace Corps experience would be had I been placed in an English speaking country. I don’t think it would be easier per se—at least I know there would be other types of difficulties to make up for the language barrier—but sometimes, communication issues so get in the way of accomplishing things here. I can have an hour-long discussion with someone and realize afterward that they weren’t taking in anything that I said. I can confirm a meeting time 10 times and still have people come 2 hours late. I can lay out expectations with a work partner when we are starting out on a project and have them completely disregard everything that we agreed to because they didn’t “really understand” no matter how explicitly I speak.

This very morning, I woke up at 5:20 to go to my health center and work on the national polio vaccination campaign with them. Cases of polio have cropped up across West Africa last year so the Southern Departments of Benin and several other West African countries were coordinating a 5 day door to door vaccination campaign. It was supposed to start October 1st and run through the 5th but when I went to the health center on Wednesday to confirm our going out yesterday morning I was informed that the campaign was being pushed back: We would start the today, the 2nd, instead because if we went out on the weekends it would be more likely people would not be out in the fields etc. Arriving at the health center at around 6AM as I was told, I found that I was utterly alone, which, this being Benin, wasn’t entirely surprising. So I sat around for a bit until a nurse from the maternity ward came out to tell me they changed it again and are going to start on the 7th. Fabulous…thanks for the call to let me know.

Then I went to my ONG to tell my homologue I was going to Cotonou. I had walked over in the midday sun (always a mistake in this country) and so was sweating massively when I arrived (as per usual). My homologue looks at me and warns me that I should not be walking around in the sun so much because I will catch the “pallu” aka, malaria. Back in April we had an IST—additional weeklong training period that volunteers attend WITH their homologue. The topic of our additional training was Malaria…cause, myths, treatment, symptoms, state sponsored efforts at combating it, etc. Anything and everything regarding malaria was discussed. The fact that my homologue, who had been at this week-long conference with me, still managed to come away thinking—like many Beninese people—that the sun causes malaria blows my mind. I mean, at least I know from that situation that it isn’t just me. I wasn’t running the workshop: An American who is fluent in French and 2 Beninese people were. So clearly not all the fault in the communication issues that exist in this culture lead back to my dismal French skills.

And also, at least sometimes miscommunication can be equally amusing so it offsets the frustrations. For example

When I came back from America, I brought the director of my ONG a reed diffuser for his house because, his words, he likes “pretty things.” When I gave it to him I explained—I thought pretty clearly—what it was and how to use it. Yet the other day he thanked me again for the gift that he is apparently using as a body perfume. When he said this I just kind of gaped for a moment before being able to compose my facial expression. I’m hoping he didn’t notice. We were at my ONG with a lot of other people and in my head I was trying to very quickly calculate whether or not it was worth it to explain to him that he was not using it correctly. After a fraction of a second I decided I did not want to say anything and have it end up being embarrassing so I just smiled and said I was glad that he liked it. But walking away from him I couldn’t help but wonder, “Where did I go wrong in my explanation?”

So as much as “we have got to work on our communication” seems ironically fitting for how I have been feeling lately, I am pretty certain that even if I lived here a decade, communication would still get the better of me in Benin.

On an unrelated note, I think that this time of year might just be scorpion season. I hadn’t seen any in my house in a long time but have recently started finding them again. And for the first time ever, I had a mouse in my house. My doors were closed so I have no idea where it even came from. I know my neighbors have mice sometimes but I always thought that Scout acted as a deterrent to them even dropping down from my ceiling or what not. But I guess not. I was reading last night and all of a sudden heard this horrible squealing sound. Scout trotted happily into the room with this poor little mouse squirming in her mouth and proceeded to play with it for about 10 minutes, batting its rigamortis-y body around my living room before eating it. Bon appetite!

Some Randomness

2009-09-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

When I got back to post after my elongated stint in the medical unit, I had to finish giving out souvenirs and stuff to people around Dogbo that I hadn’t gotten to see yet since coming back from the states (I had only been back at post for 5 days). On the way to the marche here, there is a cabine (where people sell phone credit or where you can use their phone to make calls and pay for the credit that you use—they are just a little one person stall) that I always stop at to buy my BBCom credit. I started going there because the woman sold credit in larger denominations. I could buy a recharge card for 2.500CFA as opposed to a lot of other places around town that sell increments of 500CFA. Every time I want to add credit to one of my phones I have to go and buy a recharge card for whatever amount, scratch off the code, enter it in the phone, and send it. It sometimes can get really annoying to have to buy several 500CFA cards and constantly enter in different codes so I always liked bigger amounts. Now however, I realize having credit is an enabling factor and I buy smaller amounts at a time so that I don’t call someone and spend a ton of credit really quickly. Anyway…that is all somewhat beside the point.

So I used to walk to the marche every day and the woman at this cabine would say hi to me and run through the course of typical Beninese salutations before convincing me to buy credit at her place. She was always extremely friendly and struck me as genuine. I still struggle with this but it was even harder when I first got here to discern who was being nice to you to genuinely be nice and who was in it to see what they can squeeze out of you. In Burkina Faso the PCVs call it “faux types.” Anyways, the maman would always ask me whether or not I go to church and why don’t I go to church and people here don’t really understand the concept of not being overly religious so she never really seemed to grasp my logic (that’s okay…they told us that was coming during training). I used to think she’d given me up for a certain future of fire and brimstone but aside from teasing me about not going to mass she was still nothing but friendly to me. After awhile, whenever I would stop by to buy credit, she would cadeau me (give me as a present) a little sachet of soy cookies that she sells next to the cabine.

I had taken her picture to show my family when I was home and while in the States got a copy of it printed. She was so excited when I took her picture and told her why, that she gave me 3 pieces of gum. She’s really hoping my parents come to visit…wink wink. So when I got back to Dogbo I passed by the cabine to leave the picture with her along with a rosary I had brought back for her, she was so happy that she invited me inside her house. I didn’t even know she lived right in the area until she walked me back behind the cabine. It was a simple mud brick house with cement veneer that was crumbling off. After a year living here I wasn’t entirely surprised to enter the mud house and still see a large tv, dvd player, and stereo. That afternoon turned out to be probably one of my favorite times in Benin. I learned the maman’s name was Michelle Diane for the first time in about 10 months. It doesn’t entirely matter because people don’t really get called by name here—more like “menusier” or “maman Kevin” (furniture maker or Kevin’s mom)—and I still call her ‘maman,’ but it was nice to find out. I met all of her adorable kids—she has 3 and thinks that I should start reproducing myself soon since I’m getting up there in age and I had earlier in the year lied to her about being married with a husband la bas. I met her husband and she and I talked for about 2 hours about anything and everything. It was hands down the best conversation I had had with a Beninese person since coming to Benin.

I hadn’t seen Michelle around the past few weeks because she started a new job at a health center a half an hour away and she stays in that village for the week, coming back to Dogbo only on weekends. So Friday afternoon I decided to stop in to say hi, but what was intended as a 10 minute visit ended up being a 5 hour affair in which I ended up staying to cook a meal with her. One of the little kids around kept trying to touch my arm and Michelle was clearly speaking about it in Aja with one of her friends who had stopped by (she cooks outside so everyone passes by). When I asked her what she had just been talking about she told me that they were pointing out that the kid wanted to touch my skin because it was white. This prompted a discussion between the three of us about the “beauty” of white skin and how Africans LOVE white skin. All over the marches here you can find skin whitening creams that don’t really work and are, I am convinced, actually dangerous to use, and they were just going on and on about how much prettier white skin is than black. I told them that didn’t make sense to me and that I disagreed, and that it was impossible to change your skin color so why waste money on those ridiculous products (leaving MJ out of this). It was interesting to hear them argue their side because it struck me that they really didn’t make any good points as to why white skin is better. Besides…people in Africa aren’t meant to have white skin. The sun here is too strong…there is pigmented skin for a reason. They only laughed when I said that. I asked, since they were so in love with white skin, how they felt about Albinos in Benin. Albinos here don’t seem to have it AS bad as in a place like Tanzania where they were being killed for parts recently under the urging of witch doctors there. But sometimes, life really isn’t too easy for Albinos here either and there are certainly plenty of them. That—I was told—is a different story altogether. Albinos don’t count, apparently, for Michelle and her friend, because their skin is not lovely at all like a white person’s. And that is when I grew exasperated—but in a good way—with that conversation. Another conversational highlight was when I was talking about my family in the US and Michelle asked me if that was anywhere near Angola because she has a brother who lives there. Michelle grew up in Porto Novo and is educated and works in a health center just below the level of a nurse. She only came to Dogbo to get married, and so I found it interesting that even she didn’t have any kind of geographic sense of the world. As a health center worker, it was also interesting to me that she didn’t wash her hands before cooking or eating—and people eat with their hands in Benin. I asked for soap and water so that I could do so and was hoping to lead by example but she told me flat out when I offered her the soap afterwards that it wasn’t necessary for her to wash her hands.

Anyways, I suppose that story was a bit random, but what can you do. I’m putting up a picture of Michelle in her cabine for your viewing pleasure. Please note the spongebob square pants t-shirt the little boy is wearing in the background. Today is my 1 year anniversary of moving to Dogbo! It is pretty unbelievable. Hope all is well at home.

How Many Men does it take to cut a Pineapple?

2009-08-23T06:34:00.000-07:00

So I made it traveling through Cotonou for the first time again alive (though not entirely uneventful) and worked stage (training) in Porto Novo for 2 weeks. Peace Corps puts volunteer trainers up in a pretty swanky house (ie-electricity and running water) and gives us lovely per diem so it was a not-too –shabby stint

Last Sunday I was out looking for pineapple for breakfast with Heidi (because constant fried food and palm oil and street-food that I eat since I can’t cook in Porto Novo was wreaking havoc on my digestive system) but we were unable to find any. We saw two girls selling bread on the side of the road and asked them where we could find some. When they told us that the women only came out to sell that at night we just replied jokingly that we wanted some right now and the girl got up and decided to walk us to the woman’s house who sells them. So we walked off the main road into an area of mud-brick houses and came across 2 men milling about who looked quite surprised to see two yovos in their midst.

The girl told them of our pineapple needs and they brought some out and proceeded to hand them to me after discuter-ing the price. Seeing as how we don’t have any knives in our house we asked them to cut them for us (normally when you buy a pineapple they cut it up and put it in a little black plastic sachet manufactured en masse in Nigeria to go for you without even asking) and this was the response that we got.

The man looked at us and replied “There aren’t any women here right now.” That was followed by a brief pause in which I believe Heidi and I were contemplating how to proceed while focusing on not dropping our jaws in utter disbelief. The men handed us the pineapple again, indicating that WE were women and should just take it. We explained to them that we didn’t have any knives at our house and that really threw them for a loop and they started talking in local language about what to do. Heidi jokingly but also seriously asked “Quoi, tu n’est pas capable?” (What, you aren’t capable?) to which they repeated the fairly obvious observation that they were in fact men, not women. Finally the seemingly more competent of the 2 walked away, in what I assumed, would be an effort to go find a knife. Then we stood around in fairly typical awkward Beninese silence waiting for him to return and what had he found? Not a knife….nope, he went and found a woman to cut up our pineapples for us.

The woman had the less competent of the 2 hold a plate with a black sachet wrapped around it so that she could cut the pineapple onto it and pick up the sachet to hand us after she had finished. But it was really amusing to watch her scold the man for putting the sachet on it the wrong way and she finally just took it from him to do it herself completely. Oh, Benin.

I actually had a really interesting conversation with one of the facilitators (Host country national contract workers hired to train trainees during stage) who was my first language teacher last summer. I was running a session for the trainees about how to make soy cheese in village and we were waiting for the water to boil when I recounted to him the pineapple story and he laughed. He admitted that he, himself could not cut pineapples because he always cut his hand and his wife had to do it for him (she is a midwife). But then we got into a more serious discussion about the role of women here and it was really powerful to hear him concede that the women of this country walk around with “Benin’s economy held in a basket on their heads.”

Working stage was a really good experience for me, I think. Seeing all of the new arrivals made me realize how far I have come here in my French, my coping with daily trials, interrelations with other people both Beninese and American, and in just knowing Benin in general. I had started to take for granted how much I already knew here and how comfortable I was in my daily life and I think it was good to be reminded of when I first arrived here and hadn’t a clue what was going on. I am kind of hoping this group will breathe new life into PC Benin because we could use it, I think. They officially swear in as volunteers on September 25th.

It was really nice also seeing my host family while I was down in Porto Novo. They are hosting another stagiere this year and had a little shrine to America up in their house when I came in. Maman and I spent the afternoon cooking together and it was really nice just talking with her and hanging out with the kids.

So far only one of the new group has decided to ET (early terminate) and leave Benin, which is pretty impressive compared to my group at the same time. Unfortunately, another health volunteer that came in with me has decided to leave country and so it’s sad to see her go, and hard to lose another one of our own.

It is however, incredible to realize that I have been here now for almost 14 months and pretty soon am officially more than halfway done, no matter how I slice it with departure dates. Talking to the new trainees made me see that too. They are talking about how 2 years is so long and it is…I remember freaking out about that prospect when I got here last year. And it is crazy to think that after I have been home for almost a year they will still be in Benin. It is so exciting to think of how far we’ve come—that I only have one more chaleur and harmattan left in Benin (thank god), one more Christmas and Voodoo Day, that within 8-9 months I will be attending my COS conference (Close of Service Conference) together with the rest of my training group—the first time we will all be together since having sworn in as volunteers nearly a year ago.

Only 12 more months or so until I can meet my new cousin, Ella--I am so excited. Congratulations Aunt Annie and Uncle Tom!!! I’m glad we took the picture with all the girl cousins and A. Annie!

Until next time!

Vive L'Independence! Vive Le Benin!

2009-08-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

August 1^st 2009 means it is officially my second Independence Day in

Benin

. It is strange to realize that I am hitting “round 2” of my life here. Strange to think that I already blogged about Independence Day in Benin one time before: granted I was knocked out with a 102 degree fever last Independence Day so it wasn’t overly memorable, but it did happen. I’m coming up on my second and last Holiday season in

Benin

, Voodoo Day, long dry season…etc. It is exciting and still a little sad at the same time.

Still slightly bitter about my experience last year, I decided to fete it up this time around for Le Premier Aout to make up for it. Benin gained its Independence in 1960, making this its 49^th anniversary. Every year the government puts on one big national celebration or fete and the location changes on a yearly basis. This year they chose to have it in Lokossa, the regional capitol conveniently located approximately 30 minutes away from Dogbo via bush taxi.

Several friends of mine were heading down here yesterday for the celebration and I decided to meet up with them so I taxied over this morning. Being a Beninese occasion, the fete involved much standing around waiting for things to happen. But when they did, it was interesting to see. The government had been putting in a lot of work to get ready for the past year so it was really cool to see the final culmination of their efforts, especially since I pass through Lokossa each time I go to Cotonou. They really “beautified” a park in the city, constructing cement benches, walkways with lights, and even a fountain of tiles in the Beninese flag colors. There is this thing in the center of the “park” in Lokossa that I am pretty sure is supposed to be the base for an as of yet unfinished monument. Pretty drab since my being here, the government had it retiled in red, green, and yellow for the occasion.

Today tons of flags were flying all over Lokossa and there was an extreme military presence (unfortunately the uniform doesn’t deter some tenacious gents and I had to walk in front of a line of soldiers and listen to “tu es jolie, non?” to which I now flatly reply, “oui, je sais.” –“you are pretty, eh?/ yes, I know”). It was pretty amazing to me to see such a sense of national pride, actually. Everyone that I came across in Dogbo and Lokossa were really excited that the fete was here. My maman in Porto Novo called me to wish me a bonne fete (She is excited because next year for the country’s 50^th anniversary the national fete will be in Porto Novo meme) and was telling me that this was the 49^th anniversary. She asked me what year we had just celebrated in the states and I had to pause and admit that I didn’t even know off the top of my head. I’d be willing to wager that most Americans don’t. So I guess I was really pleasantly surprised. It was fun to feel the charged excitement of all the Beninese in the air.

Pictures: The car with President Boni Yayi (he's the one all the way to the right, waving; battalion of women

There was a parade that included all branches of the Beninese military (very impressive to see them all in their uniforms and I was surprised to see several large battalions of women as well). The highlight of the parade was definitely when a truck came by containing a standing President Dr. Boni Yayi waving to the clapping crowds (he looked a lot younger that I thought he would from pictures—granted—mostly pictures printed on Tissu here that people wear for political events). I guess coming from an experience where I have seen the measures used to protect our President it was surprising and interesting to see the Beninese President just sashay out in public like that. I mean, I suppose he was technically surrounded by the military, but still. The women across from me were holding wooden guns…doesn’t exactly inspire fear.

After he passed, our little yovo contingent turned back toward the park where there were 2 helicopters making a show of turning on and off. It seemed like most Beninese people were pretty enthralled with the display. Personally I was just happy to see that they existed because I had thought that I saw them a few days back and thought maybe I was losing it It’s not like you see planes and helicopters ever here unlike at home where my house is under a flight path. That was actually something to get used to again. When I got back to Benin I kept thinking a plane was flying overhead when I had to remind myself that it was thunder because no planes ever fly overhead here. This past week when I heard them, I was really thrown.

Picture: The helicopters

There was a lot of music and dancing, and a voodoo day like display of national themed zangbetto dancing. Once again a lifting of the zangbetto revealed nothing underneath and we are still speculating how they pull it off each time to do that. It is maddening! Afterwards we went out for delicious igame pilee with sauce d’arachide and “fromage”—that is pounded igame with peanut sauce and wagasi (igame is kind of like a potato—this bland root that is the staple of Northern cuisine in Benin. Igame pile is actually a northern thing, and thus northern volunteers tend to whine about how much it costs to eat it down south, along with the wagasi since cows are much more plentiful with the Fulani people in Northern Benin. Wagasi costs about 100CFA down by me for one piece and up north can cost about 25CFA). All in all, I’d say I had a pretty swanky Independence Day the second time around and am very happy about it. Tomorrow Michele and Angelina are coming over to spend the night so we can start planning out our Christmas trip to Mali—trekking in Dogon Country and mayyyyyyybe visiting Timbuktu if Al Qaeda stops kidnapping westerners in the general vicinity by that time.

Oh, I almost forgot. Today marks the first time since July 5^th that I rode on a moto. I wouldn’t really call it a great first ride since the streets in lokossa were crazy during the fete but I live to tell the tale for today. I decided to ride the high (huh, pun not intended) and took a zem back from my marche as well just to see how it felt zemming around Dogbo again. I was sure to wear my helmet. It was interesting to see the meat in my marche for the fete. Normally I can find meat only on marche days (except for like Christmas and stuff, apparently like Independence Day) at one place—the meat section where whole cows are hung off large butcher hooks and they honk off pieces for you when you order. Today though there was chicken already killed and plucked sitting out partout with flies in the marche. I probably should have bought some but I wasn’t in the mood to cook it.

Wound status. Apparently wicked moto burns and post accidental cuts all over my feet are nothing. It is apparently a blister and a mosquito bite that are currently threatening to take me out. Frankly, I’m getting tired of having to walk like a putz. I had this bite on my lower leg that I scratched and it is now quite infected. I woke up this morning and it was throbbing, oozing pus, and flies kept landing on it at the fete—that can’t be good. Then I had these monster blisters…and when I say monster I mean HUGE…like take a ping pong ball, cut it in half, and stick each on the back of my ankles (it was from going out for a walk in my sneakers for the first time since being back here). Unfortunately, one of them popped and was looking red and oozing quite a bit. And then there is my toenail, a continued malodorous and oozing source of pain that also attracts flies like meat in my marche. Fortunately, my own wound care skills have really improved since coming to Benin and with a little conseil from my mom, I think it’s going to be juuuust fine. On va voir. A bientot!

By the Way...

2009-07-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

I am putting up a picture of the girls with their diplomas. I meant to write this in the other post and then just got distracted with my marriage proposal story. Thank you to everyone for being so supportive of me--from prayers, to thoughts and well-wishes-- after my accident...from family to friends, colleagues, and the cherries...I really appreciate it.

From Mildew to "I do"

2009-07-26T16:21:00.000-07:00

So I am officially out of the medical unit., which is good considering that it was driving me crazy. I am used to being alone most of the time here and I spent over 2 weeks constantly surrounded by a flurry of volunteers passing through Cotonou on their way to vacations or ending their service. I love seeing other volunteers but that was just too much. I couldn’t really walk for the majority of my stay there because my feet were so cut up and I wasn’t ready to get back on a zem so my movement for those two weeks was confined to hobbling around (because I swear, being a yovo in Benin doesn't draw enough attention to me...i need to add bandages and a limp) in about a 2 block radius away from headquarters. The only thing to do during the day was read, watch movies, or sit on the computer…all a novelty when you visit Cotonou maybe once a month but not after day 4 nevermind 14.

After a few days the intensity of what happened seemed to diminish. I stopped replaying it every few minutes in my head. But then every time that I thought I was doing just fine something would remind me about the accident. The following Sunday, for example, I put on the dress I wore that day for the first time since the accident and realized the whole skirt section of it was entirely shredded from dragging along the road. I had a cut on my thumb also that wasn’t healing and was surprisingly irritating considering its small size. A few days after that (about a week and a half after my accident) I finally was able to pull out a small shard of glass that had been jammed in there. I’m still shaken up enough that I haven’t zemmed yet still. It is inevitable if I am going to stay here so I should probably just bite the bullet and try it out in Dogbo before I’ll have to in Cotonou or Porto Novo. But anyways...

I’m fairly certain that the nail on my left big toe is destined to fall off. I think it was just too damaged after the impact. It keeps oozing blood and well….ooze… from underneath and is an opaque white color. Every time there is pressure on it, it hurts and yet it feels oddly detached. So I am sure it is only a matter of time before my feet look like my grandpa’s, which for those of you who haven't seen them...well...just be grateful. :)

At any rate, coming back to Dogbo for some reason seems to have snapped me out of the funk I was in when I got back to Benin. All of a sudden I was really happy to be in my house in my town. It was great to see everyone, especially my neighbor, Rosine. I was surprised at how many people in my neighborhood had heard that I was in an accident. They were all pretty glad to hear that I was okay and that I was back. Most of my marche mamans just thought that I had been traveling though and when I told them what happened they all dropped their jaws and made this little sound of exclamation and tongue clucking that only exists in Benin…well, maybe in West Africa.

Rainy season is in full swing here (a fact that I was lamenting since I spent most of rainy season in the states and the medical unit and it happens to be the coolest time of year in Southern Benin...it seems like a missed opportunity) and I am starting to realize that the grass really IS always greener on the other side. Of course trite punning aside, it’s actually amazingly green here right now. Southern Benin never gets too brown because it is a tropical climate and perpetually humid as opposed to up north, which is far more arid. But by the end of dry season all greenery flanking roadsides was covered in a thick layer of reddish brown dust and plants were much smaller. As soon as the first rains fell here everything started growing back in full force. But anyways, when I was in the height of dry season here I really was hating the heat and the constant layers of dust that covered everything in my house. All I wanted was one cool rainy day. I’m not sick of the rain. I think it could rain almost every day and I would never get tired of it. But with constant extreme humidity and persistent rainfall come several annoying issues.

1. Mud…oh, the mud is partout.

2. My laundry takes about 3 days to dry and at that point smells kind of funky.

3. Mildew. The mildew is aussi partout. My whole bedroom reeks of mildew. I stripped my bed and washed my sheets only to realize that it is actually my mattress that still smells. My wall hanging in my room gets wet when it rains since there is a leak in my roof above that wall, so it too is starting to smell fairly awful. But the worst is my clothes. All the clothes in my drawers are starting to smell and it isn’t as if washing clothes here is a piece of cake. And they smell all mildewy by the time they dry now anyway.

But apart from the mildew's acerbic attack on my nose every day, I’ve been having a pretty good time since being back in Dogbo. I took a lot of pictures of people in Dogbo before I left for vacation. While I was home, I had them printed and brought them back to give to people, a job hadn't finished before my little sejour in Cotonou. So i went out the other day to give the girls that I worked with at the cyber their pictures. They started shrieking with excitement when they saw them and were SO happy to have copies (there was a group shot for each of them and then each of them struck a pose as well in an individual shot). They invited me to a ceremony Saturday to celebrate their finishing up their "apprenticeship" with computers at the cyber, which had me really excited--not the ceremony...honestly after a year here I can officially say that beninese ceremonies tend to be boring and extremely awkward, especially as the lone yovo...but to be invited to participate with them and included in their celebration made me really happy.

I arrived Saturday morning at 9am like the invitation said, though only God knows why. I mean, really...i've lived here long enough that I should have known that the ceremony wouldn't start until well after 11AM. I got there and the girls were all in meme tissu outfits, looking very shnazzy. They were going to a buvette to get chairs to set up and I went with them to help, lifting some chairs against their protests that "madame" shouldn't be doing that. It's like doing all my own handy work around my house...i think it sends a positive message. But anyways, i was sitting in the cyber lamenting the fact that after over a year of living here i was foolish enough to leave my house for a Beninese function without a book when my bored fiddling with my phone was interrupted by one of the men who works at the cyber. I know him and said hi and then I noticed that he was standing with another man, considerably older than him who I did not know. The older man didn't speak at all except to say bonjour. I guess I don't always...or ever...exude any sort of friendliness that would encourage conversation when a man comes up to me in this country though. The guy that I did know held out an envelope and said that the second man had wanted to talk to me when I had some time. I looked at the envelope and he was pointing at the man's name which was written on it. I was a little confused and thought maybe he was just showing me that so I'd know his name. I thought maybe he didn't speak French and wanted this guy to translate for us...and I figured that it had something to do with money because in Benin...it usually does. I looked around the room that still had no guests in it and told him I had time then to talk if he wanted and the second man looked a little flustered. The first man said no, I should take the letter, and I looked at the older guy and told him if he wanted i could take it, read it later, and get back to him, and he nodded. The girls were sitting next to me and he didn't seem to want to talk in front of them. Again, I thought, prooooooooobably money. So i took the envelope and went back to playing a game on my phone.

Curiosity ever being a weakness of mine that was at the time encouraged by being bored waiting for the ceremony, I opened up the envelope a few minutes later just to see what it was about. My eyes stopped over the "objet" section which is the french equivalent of "Re:" What was his object you ask?

Proposition de Marriage.

Andddd the envelope got re-shut. As most of my friends and mom know...any sort of unwanted male attention tends to send me into hyperactive irrational panic mode. I felt my heartbeat skip a beat and this sick feeling settled into my stomach. When I first came to Benin, I did not do very well with the sexual harassement. Every time a man made a lewd comment, or I got "ma cheried" I would kind of squirm up inside and feel really uncomfortable and vulnerable. Over time I got over it. I learned how to come up with quick quips to shut men up and put them in their place, and stand up for myself here. I also learned when it wasn't worth it to even bother and to instead just ignore them. For the most part now, if a man starts hitting on me I walk away and maybe tell them to shut up and respect themselves. I don't however feel physically ill when it happens.

This situation however, brought that feeling back because while I've gotten marriage proposals before from men and their mothers I've never gotten such an official one. I mean, this man wrote out his qualifications to be my husband and was telling me how much he loved me....a girl whose name he doesn't even know. For me, coming from my culture in the States, it was beyond absurd. I felt a lot better when I left the cyber and felt in control again. I reminded myself that it doesn't mean anything because it takes two to tango, and if i have my way I will never see him again, nor will I respond to his request--I will merely tuck it into my journal for safekeeping in case I end up a spinster so that i can remind myself that at one time someone did want to marry me...even if he was at least twice my age and didn't know me at all.

Anyways, other than that, the ceremony was very nice and I was still happy to celebrate with the girls! A la prochaine!

Blink...

2009-07-08T03:26:00.000-07:00

...and everything can change. In an instant; The blink of an eye; the second it takes to make a decision--the decision to sleep outside for a night, to go to a beach with your host family, to go out in Cotonou alone, to get on a zem, whether or not to put on your helmet; to take your eyes off a road. That's all it takes. If one single thing has really hit me in the past few months it has been the realization of how very true this fact is.

I feel as though when that reality hits you, when you begin to understand how serendipitous life really is--a mingling of singular instances, choices, and decisions--nothing becomes easier than playing the game of "what if"? It's just so tempting. How could I rewrite the past few months with only a few crucial moments of change. It's like those books I read as a kid with the "pick you own ending" theme. EVery few pages you arrived at a choice and whatever choice you made would change the ending of the story. I was never really good at reading those books because when I didn't like if they were turning out badly I would get annoyed, go back, and pick again. I just wouldn't accept the ending. I am a little bit anal retentive like that. I need to be in control. And how I wish I could have that same kind of power in life...but life just doesn't work like that, I've learned. So maybe I should stop playing what if for this past weekend.

Kristin, my postmate, had her mother with her in Benin this past week and she told me her Mom had brought a 4th of July "surprise" so I should maybe hang around Dogbo to celebrate. What's not to celebrate. It was my one year anniversary in Benin! I made it...I was jumping up and down congratulating myself and my friends on what we had accomplished. I wanted to be with my friends so I decided to come down to Cotonou instead for a soiree at the US Ambassador's house--a potluck where we were all bringing something (For the record...i blew everyone away with my supreme culinary prowess in managing to whip up pigs in blankets with a honey mustard dipping sauce--used vienna sausage from a can and made the dough from scratch. They didn't even last on the table 5 minutes...it was awesome). So Saturday was fun. Sunday I could have just packed up and gone home. But i didn't. I hung out with my friends for the morning and went to the new supermarche that just opened with them to check out all of the bonnes choses that we can never in a million years afford. Then I decided to extend my afternoon in Cotonou and stay for lunch. Some people decided to spend the night in Cotonou since it was 4 and I almost made the call to get permission to stay a third night away from post as well, when i decided to forget it and just get back to Dogbo. ANd that's what did it...but no point in thinking about it I guess. So i got my bags, and my full gas tank, and I went out to catch a zem. I hadn't been away from the bureau for more than 2 minutes when I felt it. This huge slam out of nowhere.

I have come so close to getting creamed when I have been on motos so many times here that I have lost count. I have seen a lot of accidents, several bodies on the side of the road as well, during my time here. But every time it almost happend I thought that it could never ACTUALLY happen to me. I mean really...what are the odds, right? But it did...and as opposed to THINKING that this could never happen, here is what I know now.

I know that it can happen. I know that when a car hits you at full speed straight on from behind and makes contact with your body, it hurts. I fell back onto the hood of the car and felt my head slam down as it rolled over to my right side and i realized that I was riding the hood of the car. Then I knew that i was in the air...perfectly aware of it happening as fast as it was. I could feel my skirt flutter up and was vaguely mortified. But that went away because then i hit face first, palms down, legs splayed on the ground and could feel my skin tearing at my feet and my palms and my arms and my legs as i slid forward across the road. It burned. I waited for it to be over. When i finally slowed to a stop I had to will myself to look over my left shoulder; to see if the car had stopped. Because if it didn't, i knew that was it...i had landed several feet in front of it, right in its trajectory. But it did stop. When the car hit, in that very first instant, i remember this split second of confusion as to what it was, and then anger at how anyone could be so stupid as to ram into me directly from behind when we were going straight, not cutting people off, and being completely cautious. But that passed. When I realized I was on the hood of the car and we were still moving, all i wanted was to stay on the hood of the car because I was alive, and i was safer up there. If i fell to the ground, I thought, all bets were off. As i hit the ground and was sliding, every second i just kept thinking this hurts so much, but I am alive in this second, for now. I am alive, I am alive, I am alive, please let the car stop. I was actually disconcerted to see how much clarity someone can have in such a distressing situation. It made me think of Kate.

I pulled my helmet off and pulled my skirt down over my legs and then i got up but my whole body was shaking. I saw the zem driver splayed out face down and felt relieved when i saw him lift his head. And then I was surrounded by people taking my things, taking me, to the divide in the road, telling me to sit, yelling about as they do here. I lost sight of the zem and couldn't recognize him. I took my bag to find my phone, shocked, but singularly obsessed with doing the one thing I remember Peace Corps telling us to in this situation. Call the medical duty officer. My hands were shaking and it was hard to find the phone and press the buttons. And then my thumb was sticky on the number pad with blood as I scrolled through to find his number. I remember calling people ridiculously. I couldn't breathe well...I shouldn't have called. I wasn't in a mind to talk. I needed to make sure someone would feed scout. I knew I wouldn't go back to dogbo tonight and was annoyed. THen I remembered the gas tank because someone put it down next to me. So it didn't explode. That's lucky. I had lost sight of that while the accident happened. Then my bookbag. How did that even come off of my back? And Shit...my computer is inside. Then my bag that Carie gave me for my birthday. The strap was ripped. How can someone ever remember French in a situation like this. I look down at my feet and they are covered with blood and dirt, and stinging. Where are my shoes? What/Quoi? Mes chaussures. Ou sont mes chaussures? They ran back to look for them...they were several feet behind the car. Flip flops don't stay on well and they were hell to slide back on over the cuts. I looked at the car. THere was a dent on the hood where I landed and no one was inside. Who was the driver? I didn't want to be surrounded by people so I took the ambulance back to Peace Corps headquarters and was met by my AO and Security officer and we waited for the doctor to come. Shock started to wear off a little and pain started to settle in more.

And that is where I am now. In Cotonou in the med unit. You can not imagine the bruise on my butt where the car hit me. It is perfectly violet...ther is no variation in color. Large and painful, and one of my right ribs hurts, but it isn't broken. The pain in my neck is diminishing and the sting of the cuts isn't as bad as it was the first day or two even though it still hurts. I don't cry every 5 minutes or so like i did for the first 2 days. But the reality of what happened is still there. I haven't left my American bubble of headquarters surrounded by volunteers who make me smile and feel a little better, except for getting xrays and ultrasound appts. When i have left it has been in a PC SUV, a little tank that makes me feel safe. But even pulling out of the bureau and driving in the streets of Cotonou, all i think is "Ugh."

I've gotten into car accidents before...ironically the day i got accepted into Peace Corps I remember a car ramming into my passenger side door at Holy Cross. I have fallen off a horse before as i was getting on, but i got back on that horse. And i got back into a car again. So what is the difference here is what I have been asking myself. Can I get on a zem again? A very large part of me thinks "no." But not "can't"...just "don't want to." And it is all about control. When i got back on that horse I had other people there to take the reigns and ensure he stayed put. When i get in a car at home I am driving and in control or I trust the driver I am getting into a car with because I know them. In Benin, getting on a zem is tantamount to surrendering any and all control I have over my life. THe only choice I have is whether or not to put on my helmet, and if I were to be entirely honest, I would have to admit that there have been times at post, when I have chosen to not be bothered with even that. But when I get on zem, that is ALL the control I have, because he is driving, and I can't control the people around me. Nor can I control the roads--whether it is mud in the rainy season, or sand patches in the dry season, or just gravel strewn across a paved road in Cotonou that a moto can catch an edge on and spill over. I can only pick the zem, and THAT will lead me to my ending...good or bad, who knows? All i know now is that I can no longer be cavalier about zemming here in Benin. Subconsciously I always knew on some level that every time i got on a zem or into a taxi that it would possibly be my last ride. It sounds melodramatic but it is true...but like i said...it was so deep in the back of my mind...a kind of "what are the odds?" thought. I just don't know if that is something that I want to keep doing to myself every day here. I had already done the 'moto accident thing.' In february, before life in Benin seemingly went to seed, maybe ominously so, my moto spun out of control in mud with my homologue and i burned my leg and the moto came down on top of me. It freaked me out enough so that every time i got on a moto again i felt nervous especially on nonpaved roads. Now I don't know if i can imagine getting back on and i can't be a PCV in Benin without zemming. that is just a simple fact. I got in a car again, I got on the horse again, but I just have to wait and see how this will play out.

Like lack of control, I don't do regret well either. I think that everything that happens in life brings you to the next starting point and that there is no point regretting that. If I choose to finish my time here in Benin, I do not want to have regrets about it. So I am taking my life one day at a time and seeing where that takes me. I have lots of reasons to stay. I made lists; stay lists and go lists. I have a lot more sitting on the "Why to stay in Benin" side. The day before this happened I was talking to Duffy about plans maybe to meet up in Senegal. Life just gets so derailed sometimes. The fact that my stay list is longer might not matter at all if I can't feel comfortable getting back on a zem again. Because if there is something i know now...it's that I CAN get creamed again. There is nothing to stop it from happening again, and who is to say it wouldn't be worse next time if it did happen?

I don't like quitting...i don't think I've ever gone back on a big committment. ANd there is a part of me that thought for a long time that calling it now would be cowardly--I don't want to leave here on a sour note, that would just confirm peoples' worst predispositions towards life in Africa, because at the end of the day I still like Benin. EVeryone from work has called to see how I am, and both the man who hit me and the zem have stopped by here several times and called to see me and how I am doing. EVeryone around headquarters is asking how I am, and Basil in an instant without question, came to take scout and while he has absolutely no money and always "Beeps" Kristin or me (call, let ring once, and hang up so that you don't use credit and we call him back) actually called and texted me to see if i was okay. But I guess there is merit to knowing when you've had enough, and setting a level of risk that you are willing to accept. I just haven't figured out what that is yet for me. So day at a time for now...and I guess I will see where I end up.

Back to Africa...Troisième Fois

2009-06-29T06:48:00.000-07:00

Despite the difficulty in saying goodbye to people (especially knowing I'll miss my new cousin and Jen being the most gorgeous bride ever) leaving home was surprisingly easier the second time around. Because of that, I have to admit I am surprised at what a hard time I am having now being back in Benin and adjusting to life here again.

Things that I miss from home:
1. The ability to just go out at night, whether with my friends or just for a walk around the block with my dog and have streetlights and not feel unsafe. The fact that there IS a nightlife in the States
2. The ability to just run out to a store to buy a quick but delicious cup of coffee for a pick me up.
3. Hot showers and feeling remarkably clean ALL of the time
4. temperate climate
5. Not being a minority or hearing the yovo song, not being sexually harassed and touched, and not being asked for things every five minutes
6. The feeling of cool crisp sheets and my really comfortable bed with so many pillows that i can just recline into
7. Lighting that is not flourescent
8. Not breathing in massive amounts of smog constantly and the remarkable ease of transportation and close proximity of stores and things.

Those are just the highlights of an extremely long list in my journal here and does not include the obvious like my family and friends. I think I just have to give myself some time to get used to Benin again and start repressing the things I love from home like I must have done last year but in the meantime it is very hard being back for me. Really, it fluctuates...one instant I am fine and the next I'll have this sick feeling in my stomach willing every part of me to put in the call to COtonou that says I've decided to call it in and ET.

I went straight from COtonou to Porto Novo to work at Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World, ou bien, LEs filles guident notre monde) for the week. It was a good experience but was hard for me because camp started on sunday and i got there on tuesday and was on guard duty all day so I never really got to know a lot of the girls there (it is volunteers who picked girls who show promise and potential in 6ième or 5ième--young teens). The week is geared to share information with the girls on women's empowerment and rights, health information, studying tips, career panel with beninese women, etc. IT is also just a time for the girls to hang out with other girls their age and be kids and do fun activities like necklace making, art stuff, etc. Seeing the girls progress over the week and make friends with each other was really nice, even though I know thye'll never be able to maintain the friendship...no real affordable communication for them so it isn't possible. I don't think they've ever had the opportunity to just cut loose and have fun playing with sports balls, and each other, etc....just being girls. Certainly, their brothers do...but they'll naturally be occupied with housework at home. In fact it took some effort to get them to stop trying to do the dishes after meals and let volunteers do them (the man who was working on the grounds of where we were staying was shocked to see white people doing dishes 'Why don't you just hvae the girls do it?' he asked us and we had to tell him that we were perfectly capable and that the girls could go play 'And yesterday,' he continued 'I saw a man doing dishes,' referring to another volunteer, Christopher. Well now, astute observation, Holmes...in OUR country...men tend to make themselves more useful with stuff like that.

I saw my host family while in POrto Novo and that was fun...Especially giving them souvenirs from the states! They are getting ready to host a new stagiere (trainee) for PEace Corps who will be coming at the end of July, and it made me realize how much work they put into getting the house ready for me. They popped a bottle of really sweet and not so great tasting champagne and made a toast to my return which was a very sweet gesture.

I thought I would be really happy to get back to Dogbo and just get settled but it has been an up and down affair actually. I was in a bad mood on the trip back because I had 2 difficult moments along the way.
1. During campl glow we had explained to the girls why it is important to not throw garbage on the ground like they are accustomed to doing and so for the week they threw stuff in garbage cans we provided. If a girl was found picking up trash she earned points for her team. Saturday afternoon after all the other groups left and it was just Kristin and I with our girls we looked out and saw the ground was COVERED in garbage. As soon as the camp ended it was like everything they learned didn't matter anymore because you took away their incentive. That sounds so small but I was SO SO very frustrated and discouraged and just plain angry as i went around picking up their trash. 'What's the point; why do we bother, who cares, what difference are we making, why am i here?' was the littany of questions running through my head. Kristin reminded me that we can't expect to change the world but if even one girl doesn't throw her trash like that anymore than we have succeeded. I used to think like that too but now I guess I have to work to get that perspective back.

2. WHen stopped at a light in Cotonou a man selling phone credit took my hand in his as it rested on the window. I pushed him off and took my hand inside the car and he reached in and touched me again so I yelled at him and Kristin hit him. he did it again and then I had to hit him and he still wouldn't leave me alone so finally the light turned green and we left. I was at least glad our camp glow girls from dogbo were with us so that they could see they can stand up for themselves and not have to deal with that kind of behavior here.

When I got home, outside of my house was a mess because the rain had knocked over a tree and I was really stressed about that on top of everything else. THen within minutes, Basil came over to say hi and welcome me back. He saw the tree and ran off to grab a machete, came back, and cleaned up everything for me before getting me water. THat really made a difference in my mood and I was really grateful to him. It was really nice getting Scout back too. My return has been pretty awesome in terms of people welcoming me back and noting i had been gone for so long.

BUt in general, being here is just hard right now. Our country director has been forced to resign and we are currently with only an interim acting country director. Our training staff is severely impacted by resignations amongst other things. One of my closer friends ETed (early terminated) her service while I Was home so she is not here anymore as did another volunteer. MOst of the training group ahead of us is leaving and some are suggesting that the new training group not be brought in at the end of july. WHile I understand where they are coming from I believe that to not bring them would be extremely demoralizing to us and that that will never happen.

I guess I never stopped and thought about how Kate's murder was affecting my work here, but it is. I don't do anything no without stopping to think, 'Well what does this mean for me...could doing this somehow put me in danger or make my community angry?' I've especially had to think of this regarding some articles i wanted to write for Bisou BIsou that i now think might be too controversial, and it proved extremely salient my last night of camp glow when a girl came to me and 2 other volunteers to solicit our help in dealing with her lousy home situation with her dad. Her dad never wanted her because he was divorcing her mother and wanted her to have an abortion so he hates this girl and doesn't support her like the 13 other kids he has with 7 different women. When we suggested living with her mother (or about 7 other suggestions that she found not workable) she told us she couldn't because her belief in Voodoo. HEr father sold her soul to one of the 3 voudons of the water. THe fetishers will use gris gris to kill her if she should go live with her mother, she believes and there is no convincing her otherwise. IT would be extremely inappropriate to suggest that those beliefs are not true to her. As much as i was moved to REALLY REALLY want to help her I can't possibly because I don't want to get involved with something like that and maybe put myself at risk with her family. The other PCVs feel the same way. We decided to contact the PC facilitator I often work with in Lokossa to have him help and speak to the girl since he is more culturally aware, but I do not want anything to happen to him either, and he IS connected to PC so that comes back to us anyway since we are the volunteers who live nearby.

I worry about all of the facilitators we have training new volunteers not because I think they are out to hurt us but because I think that they are friends with each other and giving events of the last several months, I think it casts a shadow on this coming stage. All in all, it just feels very constricted in terms of work here so I have to see how that progresses and if it gets better.

So at this point it is really one day at a time while I readjust here. Going to Cotonou on Friday for the weekend because there is a dinner at the ambassadors home that I will be going to, so I am looking forward to that. Will write again soon! Miss everyone from home!

There's No Place Like Home...

2009-06-29T05:59:00.000-07:00

Home was amazing...Really no words to adequately describe just how amazing actually. I loved packing up my house here for the trip, and going down to Cotonou was one of the more comfortable taxi rides I"ve ever had in Benin. Naturally all of the zems at etoile rouge were being fairly evil and refused to give me the right price, or first addressed me as 'ma cherie.' So I was really happy to be getting the heck out of Benin when one zem finally drove up next to me and agreed to take me to the bureau for 150 CFA, as it should have been...NOT 200CFA. Naturally the other zems that i rejected were all following me to tell whatever zem i DID find not to take me for less than 200 but this guy was nice. WHen he dropped me off he told me all the others were angry at him for taking me for 150CFA. I told him I knew but that that was the right price and so they were being unfair and dishonest just because i was white, and he agreed saying that he knew we came to this country to help them and that we shouldn't be treated like that by people. 'Oh,' I thought, 'a bright shining light in Benin that makes me think it will be okay coming back here afterwards.'

Going to the Cotonou airport to check in felt so surreal...seeing where it all started. The airport, while small, was bigger than I remembered...and there was an actual western advertising poster with Hilary Swank on it, which was so bizarre to see. I have to say that after a year in Benin plane food was pretty fantastic and I was thrilled that I could speak with the flight attendents in French! Paris left me just enough time to be completely overwhelmed by the smells and the stores of the airport and the intense security, and of course, le plus importante, to find myself a deliciously warm and flaky pain au chocolat the likes of which have never existed in Benin. SInce the croissant itself cost me more than I spend on food over the course of several days here, i decided to abandon the original plan of buying an accompanying coffee. In flight entertainment...FANNNNNNtastic. I LOVED watching music videos and some movies i missed while here the past year. I was so excited and wired for the trip that I didn't sleep for more than 2 hours, and I started to tear up as we descended over New York. Stepping off the plane and touching American soil felt great, but not nearly as good as when i saw my dad and then my Aunts and brother right after customs. Then my mom...walked into her office and she screamed a little and came running over to hug me while we both started to cry. She even wore her sunflower scrubs for me!

Seeing everyone from home...family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, was all so great and exciting and I ate amazing food (and bien grossied as everyone here has informed me...thanks a bundle, Bénin...American women just love being told how fat they got) and drank WONDERFUL margaritas. I forgot how much I love being home and in my house. Walking in for the first time was incredible...Everything looked SO beautiful and smelled fantastic. By the end of my stay home walking into the house felt just normal and regular so I am grateful to have the opportunity to see my home this way again. My room was redone by my dad and was a spectacular surprise and welcome. My dog was a putz who didn't recognize me at first but wasted no time making himself comfortable in our new digs once he realized who I was. And the giz aussi was taken by surprise and had to warm up to me before relaxing.

Going to a supermarket didn't overwhelm me like I thought it would. Some volunteers said they cried first time they were back in a supermarket but I was just excited to pick out bonnes choses to bring for myself and other volunteers. WHat really got me was walking into Lord and Taylors in NYC: THe shoe department first, and then seeing the clothes. THat was when i felt overwhelmed. Certainly not to the point of tears, mind you...but definitely stressed out and just overwhelmed by the sheer number and variety of really obnoxiously expensive things available for purchase there. I have clothes made here and see little shoe stands in the marche and that is it, so I was taken by surprise by that feeling.

A lot of people told me I appearred to have readjusted super quick and well to being back in the US but I don't really know how to respond to that. I mean...what was I supposed to do...dig a hole in my backyard for the bathroom? I fell back into my life there because that is my life and that is what i do in the U.S. It is not possible or practical to live how i do in Benin at home. BUt I don't think I looked at ANYthing the same way as I had before, ESPECIALLY the ease with which I could turn on a faucet and have hot and cold water that didn't have to be treated...I could just brush my teeth with it or drink it without boiling and filtering it first. Ice on hand and ready to go...a HUGE refrigerator...Scratch that...2 HUGE refrigerators and 3 freezers stocked with food to eat and no worry that the power is going to cut out every 10 minutes and maybe spoil your food. OH, and the glory of the washing machine. I like doing my clothes here most of the time but they just feel so much cleaner when they come out of a wash and dry cycle. I have to admit I was not equally enamored with the dishwasher. I couldn't help but not really see the point aside from when we all ate together and had a lot of dishes. But when it was just me putting in my breakfast dishes I couldn't help but think "this is so stupid...letting this barely dirty dish sit in here for afew days before washing it when I could just do it now." and so i did wash those by hand most of the time. THe feel of a good quality sponge in my hand that i knew was so easily replaceable by going to a store down the block (as opposed to a 3 hour trip to Cotonou to find a worser version) and washing a dish with soap and hot running water was a great feeling though i felt often at home that i was really wasting water. ALso using dishwear that was not plastic was pretty cool as well.

Toilets...my verdict??? ça va un peu. Loved using my toilet at home...When it came to using a public restroom at the restaurant near the mall or in the Penn station, well, to be entirely honest...I'd take me latrine any day as opposed to dealing with nastyness and urine on the seats, etc. But in short, home was incredible, and I have to thank my friends, family, and especiall my parents for making my 3 weeks there so memorable and enjoyable. I love and miss you!

2 More Weeks!!!

2009-05-18T13:12:00.000-07:00

So a lot has gone on I suppose since the last time i wrote. But to start off, here is a picture of one of the bonne choses that I inherited...my bench/couch thing! Like I said last time, i re-varnished it, had a cushion made for it (and only I could find tissu THAT pink in Benin...a few PCVs have already asked me if I got that fabric sent from America...no my friends, i just keep my eyes peeled on dogbo marche days with a natural gravity toward obnoxiously bright colored things and anything pink, especially), and now my little salon is looking very shnazzy and I can actually have people over and offer them a place to sit. Ironically, I still spend quite a bit of time on the floor because I got so used to sitting on the floor my first several months at post. oh well.

So Benin has been going well lately with the exception of a few minor snafoos. Par example...electricity. I have gotten ripped off on my electric bill since i moved in in September. The best thing if you don't have your own counter is to have a subcounter in your house so that you know exactly how much electricity YOU are using yourself but there wasn't one in my house when I moved in and I decided to not put one in because they are kind of expensive (for volunteers...especially with the small amt of Money you had to buy everything you needed when you first move in) and I thought I would just see how it goes for a few months...most volunteers, depending on where they live though, spend between 1,500CFA to 3,000CFA per month for a few light bulbs, computers, fan, etc. A brief word about electricity in Benin. Since there aren't addresses on the dirt roads or anything, factures (bills) are kind of done by family compounds and the chefs of the households (aka...the main man). Factures are delivered by SB--the electric company--to the heads of households by hand and several months (usually 3-4) after the fact.

SO...when in started out, my proprietors son (not the proprietor himself because he doesn't really speak french and i don't really speak aja beyond greetings and random words like egbo--that means goat and won't help me discuss electricity bills) would come to my house with the facture that was for 3 households including mine. He told me I owed him 2,000 and it seemed reasonable so I paid it. Next month he came and told me it was 3,000 and I started to question it just because i wasn't using any MORE electricity than the previous month ( i have a few lights and a fan). But I let it go because the price fluctuates. Then...at the end of December, he comes over with the facture for november/December (unusually timely, it was for the last 2 weeks in November and first 3 in December--that's another thing...the periods in the factures are annoyingly random) and as usual i asked him how much I was responsible for and he told me 6,000CFA. Well, frankly...i flipped out. Mani and Carie were there and I made quite the stink about how he was ripping me off seeing as how for the first 3 weeks of december I was in porto novo and hadn't used a single bit of electricity, and shouldn't owe 6,000CFA for 2 weeks. That, apparently, required way too much critical thinking for his peanut sized brain, and we butted heads, leaving me with no choice but to pay because i didn't have any way of proving how little electricity I used. Next month, he ripped me off again and I became so incensed that i handed him my money, walked down to the marche, bought the dumb subcounter, and used HIS electrician to install it that day. Problem solved right? haha, no, silly...this is Benin.

So...for MONTHS i heard nothing about electricity until 2 sundays ago when he came to my door with his brother and 2 factures that SB had just done. They handed me the facture and started to make as if to enter my house when i firmly told them that they would not be entering (inappropriate to have a man in my house, never mind 2). I had been marking down how many KWh i used at the first of each month and went to grab the paper with my notes so we could calculate my contribution. I told them i wanted to take the factures to SB to figure out how much one KWh costs and they were just like "No...it's 150CFA." So i said that's fine and calculated that i used about 14 KWh in February so I owed 2100CFA. Since the other facture was during a time when i didn't have the subcounter in my house i couldn't calculate it but told them i refused to pay more since i use approximately the same amount of electricity per month unless i am traveling and i use less. Well he was outraged and told me I couldn't possibly be right (and im sure he was genuinely surprised at how little i had to actually pay since he'd been jacking up MY share every month). Well, I have a temper....and i got a little out of control with him so that we were reduced to a shouting match. This was probably extremely exacerbated by how I've been feeling in Benin lately in light of several recent events and my overall exhaustion with being treated as inferior and with disrespect because I am a woman. He didn't believe the numbers I wrote down at the end of every month and told me he wanted to come into my house to look at the counter himself. 1.-this is an ABSOLUTE no since the counter is in my bedroom and this is beyond inappropriate. 2.-he couldn't seem to wrap his mind around the fact that if he saw it himself it would make absolutely NO difference since the facture was for FEbruary and we are now in May and THEREFORE...the number on the counter had changed. His second line of attack was to ask me how i calculated that i used 14KWh and i explained it to him and he just blatantly refused to believe me. He laughed at me like i was a stupid moron when i told him that every 10 turns of the last number in the red decimal point zone of the counter equals 1KWh and tried to tell me that every turn was actually one KWh itself. All i could think of was that i graduated at the top of my class from one of the most competetive liberal arts schools in america and here i was trying to explain myself to this man who thinks that I am an idiot and who doesn't even have a highschool education. I know that some of the most valuable education isn't ever even from the classroom, and I know that it's pompous and arrogant of me to have been thinking like that--I KNOW--but at the time, in the moment, I couldn't help it because I was just so angry. I tried to explain to him that if he stopped for one minute to think about this and do the math for what he just said, that i would owe more than the entire facture is worth and that doesn't even include the other 2 houses on the bill. So anyways, he refused to accept the number i told him and i refused to pay more and i just kind of shoved the money in his arms which is one step away from throwing it on the floor...a beninese insult...and i told him he could take it or he could have nothing and take it up with the director of my ong. At this point he told me he was just going to cut my power and he gave me back my money as I dialled my director and had him speak to the propietors son directly--who, as it happens, wore this snivelling little grin the entire time that i felt quite compelled to just slap right off violently. I mean, i could literally feel my face flushing and my blood pressure rising because i was just so stressed and incensed.

Very very continued long story short, the comptable for my ONG came over to sit down with me and the proprietor's son to work it out and the comptable knows entirely that he was trying to cheat me because he was pulling some shenanigans during our mtg for the month when i didn't have a counter. My comptable called him out on it as being dishonest but we just kind of settled and have arrived at a new system. I will mark down how many KWh i use per month at the first of every month like i was already doing and pay 150CFA per KWh every month regardless of the facture, and now my ong will help me regulate it. You'd think that would make me feel better, and it does...a little. But in general i still feel really angry and bitter about it because the proprietor's son accepted as true exactly what i said when it came from the mouth of another beninese man. Just not the white woman. On top of everything else that has happened here recently...i just really am discovering an awesome respect and appreciation for women's rights and the ability to walk down the street and NOT be sexually harassed or 'ma cheried'.

Like today for exampe. I am in Cotonou working on my session plans for when I have to do training for new trainees this summer. I stepped out of the office to find some streetfood and was talking to a maman. I heard this hissing noise behind me from a man sitting in a car trying to get my attention (they doing hissing like trying to get a cat's attention and then they do the kissing noise too normally). I ignored him and walked on to the next maman with some beignets and a young girl came up next to me and tapped my arm to tell me that the man in the car wanted to talk to me. I turned around to look at him and told her 'i don't know him, he can leave.' The maman in front of me told me "Il vous aime--he likes you" and i told her i didn't care. SO he drove away kind of embarassed (at least I think so since all of the mamans were kind of having a loud chuckle at his expense). And honestly, i think that is where female volunteers in Benin make a huge difference. Every time we tell off a man here acting like a pig, it sets an amazing example for girls here. It says that maybe after all they don't have to put up with cat calls, subordination, or sleep with their teachers to get good grades, or respond no matter what whenever a guy gives them some sort of positive attention. They aren't used to seeing women stand up for themselves and shut men down. It's why every time i hear "ma cherie" i whip around to berate them, telling them i am not their cherie, and to shut their mouths and respect themselves if they continue. Public humiliation goes a long way, i find, in getting men here to shut up and leave you alone.

But anyways, other than all that, work has been going well and really picking up lately. Like I said, I've been in Cotonou since monday working on my session plans with another volunteer for this summer. It's been a lot of work but is coming along really well, and I think that this year's stage (training) will be great.

I also started baby-weighing in the nearby village of Koutime (koo-chee-may)...it took us long enough to find a scale but we finally did and it went pretty well for our first time. I think that the three of us (kantos, the other pcv nearby and i) will get better with more and more practice. I didn't get peed on even one time, though i did make several babies cry at the mere sight of my white skin. Some of them have never seen white people before. It's heartbreaking to see, but their mom's think that it is hysterical. I was really excited that the women were so into it because they practically weighed the babies themselves often enough. That's great because it means that when volunteers leave they can carry it on themselves if they have a scale (and we're trying to figure out a way for women's groups to get UNICEF baby-weighing scales and harnesses). Baby-weighing can get complicated in Benin because mothers are supposed to have their carnet de sante for their child (health book) but often don't or have lost it, etc. Even if they do have the book a lot of times it is filled out incorrectly or birth date and weight information, or name or parental information is missing. The carnets also have a section for vaccinations so it is useful to see if the mom is taking her child to national vaccination days. The center of the carnet is the growth chart where you plot the age and weight of babies up until 3 years of age in order to make sure they are healthy. The growth chart is really a great indicator of child development and can help you see trends that might be going on in the child's life (ie--during june and july their weight drops, maybe because of diarhea or other illness brought on by rainy season; 6 months in, the weight drops, maybe because weaning has started and with water consumption the baby has got diarhea; or maybe 11 months into the babies life his weight drops because his mother has had another child and is not continuing breastfeeding of her first child, etc.) It is all really interesting to see. It is also interesting to note that most mothers in village haven't a clue as to when their children are born. You have to ask them if it was hot or raining when they were born, etc. because if they don't know AND don't have the carnet de sante with that info then you are at a loss. SOmetimes we plot a baby and freak out because we think it must be really malnourished and then look up at the baby to see it's a little chubster--the problem is just that the mom probably gave us the wrong date of birth so on the chart it looks as though it is very underweight for its age.

Pictures: Baby-weighing in Koutime. Not the most flattering shots of me, but how much of a cutie patootie is that baby!?

In addition, i am almost done with my first issue of Bisou Bisou!!! When the french is finalized (it could use some more correcting) I'll see if there is any way I can link it to the blog because I am really excited about it and think it came out really well! I met with a student the other day so she can help me out with some of the nuances in my french and she really liked it a lot...have an article on healthy relationships, contraception, a condom true or false quiz with explained answers, and a word search and riddle...all in all, it's looking good.

Other than that there isn't too much big news going on. Spent Saturday afternoon at Grand Popo to celebrate the French and Dutch womens' birthdays and that was a fun little yovo shindig--well, with the exception of the trip TO grand popo but I'm not going to get into it because i spent the first half of this entry being rather negative and really the day was quite fun in general. I'm heading back to Dogbo tomorrow and am SO excited that 2 weeks from now i will be sitting in my house with my family and my dog, and my gizmo. This weekend we are having the next installment of the Dogbo cooking sessions--breakfast for dinner...everyone is coming up and it should be fun. Anyways, until next time!

Pictures: The port in Cotonou (doesn't look very promising, does it, what with sunken ships and all), flowers outside of my door, blowing out the cake at the b-day soiree (chocolate cake, peanut butter frosting courtesy of the peanut butter grandma sent me. It was a HUGE hit), picture in the marche at Lokossa (that one's for you, mom and dad--I'm working on it little by little)

ugh

2009-05-04T02:15:00.000-07:00

I know it's been awhile since I wrote, so, apologies. Plus I don't have any pictures today, so...apologies again.

I spent Easter here with my host family in Porto Novo and it was really nice to see them all, but 48 hours was definitely all I could take. It is interesting to see how far I've come in Benin since in September I didn't want to even leave Porto Novo at all and after one weekend with them now I was very ready to get back to Dogbo. Maman had matching dresses made in meme tissu for us and Papa a shirt in the same tissu too so we looked really cute.

Recent happenings in Dogbo...a new expat arrived. She is french and a nurse at the hospital but I still haven't met her since I have been traveling to and from post so much since the beginning of March. The French family (Doctor and Teacher in Dogbo) is heading back to France at the end of June since their 2 years are up. I met a Japanese volunteer when I was at Easter in Porto Novo and she has two other Japanese friends in Dogbo as well. It was one of those small world in Benin moments because she lives across the street from my host family and knows Carie who also lives in Porto Novo so we were thinking maybe sometime they could arrange a trip up to Dogbo together.

I'm also inheriting a bunch of bonnes choses recently, which is nice since I'm of a rather foul disposition as of late and getting new things seems to make it feel ever so slightly less depressing. Chalk up that mindset to growing up in a culture of rampant American materialism. Everyone is leaving. Pretty much all of the training group ahead of me is leaving early. They were all due to leave at the end of the summer but most of them will all be out of country by June or early July now since no one wants to stick around after Kate. My closest friend in country made the really hard decision to go home as well. It just got to a point where she needed to go home, and as much as I support her in her decision, it is really upsetting. I am getting the fridge that doesn't really actually work too well from a PCV that was posted in Azove nearby and is flying out tonight. Also the dutch couple in Dogbo gave me this old couch that they didn't want anymore (and when I say couch I mean an old wooden bench with a back on it that reminds me sort of like something that would be sitting outside a ski lodge...god, i miss skiing). Since it was a little beaten up and dirty I decided to refinish it and have a cushion made for it. This required a trip to my hardware boutique again where everyone thought i was crazy once again for buying sandpaper, varnish, and paintbrushes to do the work myself instead of hiring a menusier to do it. Well it looks pretty good, menusier be damned, and I will take a picture of it for next time. And Carie gave me her coffee press and spices before she left, which which was very nice of her ;).

I just finished up a 2 week stint in Cotonou and Porto Novo for more training, world malaria day, and programming session for the upcoming summer training (i have to help out 2 weeks in August training new stagieres). I also just got my grant application approved for GAD (remember that post about the GAD dinner and how it raises money for small projects like this)so I am starting a newsletter for the schools in DOgbo about relationships and sexual health. Wish me luck. Anyway, realize this was sort of anticlimatic but I'll be in Dogbo for most of may and make a sincere effort to be better about posting. Home in less than a month...can't wait.

Shades of Grey

2009-04-08T01:14:00.001-07:00

So Saturday night we had the next installment of the Dogbo cooking sessions. On the menu?? Freshly decapitated lizard.

Haha...just kidding. That was on Scout's menu. After eating an entire lizard, she caught a second one and was apparently just too full to eat more than the head. Slightly reminiscent of biting off the head of the chocolate easter bunny, if i do say so myself. Anyway. She left this for me as a little cadeau to clean up.

For OUR menu...we went with an American BBQ theme. A lot of people from our region came up and after sickness and lack of cell phone reseau kept her away from the last 2 dinners, Carie finally made it up to dogbo in one piece for our delicious feast. All because of Dennis's amazing meat-grinding efforts, we had hamburgers, potato salad, and cole slaw. Courtesy of the Dutch couple's refrigerator in Dogbo, we also managed to have jello and Angelina whipped us up a delicious chocolate cake with amazing betty crocker frosting someone sent her from home. Oh, boy...it was amazing. There was even Heinz ketchup.

Pictures: Burgers!!! Angelina with her yummy cake!!

WORKING HARD...

...and hardly working (just kidding...Dennis was pretty clutch to making the burgers...ie..he is the only reason we were able to make the burgers and happens to be our head chef)
Afterwards we went out to a buvette to have some drinks and hang out. The buvette nearby is pretty swanky and even has a really old school disco ball hanging up from the ceiling, and a black light as well. It is set up in a way that reminds me of a dance studio because one wall is floor to ceiling mirrors. We were the only people there until two women finally came and danced point blank in front of the mirrors just watching themselves. It was actually, really funny/interesting. We got out of there though since it is much to hot to stay indoors. We ended up sitting outside and missing most of the show as a result. C'est la vie.

So the next day Carie and I had been in the marche and when we were walking back to my house, maybe about 100 feet away from my door, we all of a sudden heard this scraping noise from them moto that just passed us by. I instinctively turned around and saw the moto flounder a little. the driver had taken his feet of the rests and I was wondering if it was going to tip over when I then noticed a child was hooked onto the side and being dragged--that was the noise. The driver finally stopped and the woman got off the back and stood off to the side. The driver unhooked the child and picked him up by one arm and kind of dragged him to the side of the road, placing him flat on his back on the dirt. Carie and I doubled back to see if the kid was alright, and when i saw that the jackass of a driver was smiling I reproached him vehemently. Upon first looking at the boy, I thought something had exploded inside his body...his stomach was so terribly swollen. When I realized that that was either because he had worms or was suffering from Kwashiokor (severe malnutrition due to lack of protein), I actually felt a little bit better about it. The boy (Anthony was his name as I learned later) didn't speak any French. He lay there, not crying or screaming but rocking back and forth slightly clucking his tongue furiously in obvious extreme pain. When the zem driver touched him he was moaning. Within a minute a circle of at least 30 people and kids had surrounded him to stare and gawk and be entirely useless. The one good thign I heard in the shuffle of it all was one man who said the boy should go to the health center because we didn't know if there was itnernal bleeding. He said we shouldn't wait for the parents because he could die. While I agreed, I didn't think he was going to die, and I can't begin to imagine the fear a mother would feel if this random white person ran off with her kid, so I demanded to know where his parents were. The kids in the circle were pressing in so close and really overwhelming so Carie and I started to yell at them to leave. His mom came, and I thought that she didn't understand french at all because she wasn't saying anything. She looked at her soon and walked over to him, grabbed his left wrist and dragged him to his feet until he cried out in pain. I told her to leave him and she dropped him back down and walked away to drop off the child that was strapped to her back at home. At that point about 5 minutes had lapsed by and Carie and I made the decision to take him out of the circle of a useless audience. I handed her my bag, picked him up, and hopped on a zem to take us immediately to the health center, and the mom came back just in time to hop on a second zem with Carie and follow us.

I know that no matter what i say, my words will not be able to express the frustration that we felt at the health center, but I guess I will try anyway. We got there and the doctor wasn't in, just an arrogant, egotistical, thinks he is 'God'-type nurse, who I've dealt with before. Anthoney's mom took him from me and brought him into the room and the nurse gave him a shot for pain...because God knows if you are sick in this country, it is ALWAYS malaria, and if you get into an accident you ALWAYS get unnecessary shots for pain that are supposed to magically cure everything. And how is this for encouraging. When Carie asked the nurse if anything was broken, his response was "not for the moment." And we know that the man thought we were a bunch of high-strung, crazy overreacting yovos. He left anthony on the table and handed his mother a bill for the shot and service. Anthony's mom looked at me and made as if to hand me the bill until i shook my head no and said I didn't have money for it...which, is technically true. At the time I did not have the cash on me to pay it. The nurse spoke in local language but i heard him laugh obnoxiously and say yovo so I asked him what he had said. And when he came over and put his hand on my shoulder i told him never ever to touch me in a tone which, as Carie pointed out, was probably unwisely vindictive. But here is where it gets fuzzy.

Should we have paid? Why? Just because we were there, we found him? we're white? at the end of the day we do have the money? What are the implications of that if we did? Would we have to pay for every medical issue for every kid that we come across? Is that our responsibility or why we came here? Anthony's mother seemed so furious and she wasn't speaking to us so we were under the impression that she was angry with us, which confused the issue further. SHould we have brought him to the health center at all? What would have happened if we left him there. Something could be seriously wrong, but if there wasn't anything really wrong with him at all, would he just be taken home and beaten later for causing his family a bill? Because that DOES happen here. Had we done more harm than good? Would his family begrudge us for what we did? And if she really absolutely couldn't pay for him at the end of the day, which seemed likely judging from the state of his belly, do we pay?

The thing is, people here find the money for what they see as truly important. They might "not have" the 15.000CFA it takes to send their child to school for the year, but if their parent dies, all of a suddent they'll be able to scrounge over 100.000CFA for the funeral parties and ceremonies--to buy sodas, and a DJ, and meme tissue, and death photographs...because THAT is what is important in the culture here. Give a kid some money and he'll use internet time to visit love chat rooms or solicit money from people abroad. It's just that their priorities for the most part are so askew. So I waited, and didn't pay the hospital bill, because I figured they'd be able to get the money...and they did. Eventually the dad brought the money, and it turned out the mother had been furious at the zem driver who hit him for not paying the bill. But in the meantime, the mother was squabbling with the zem and he was claiming that he hadn't hit the child and it wasn't his fault. I flipped out again, and told him he was lying, which, as Carie pointed out again, was probably a little unwise as well. I just have a problem controling my temper in situations that are that frustrating...just as I seem to lose all french speaking capability when I am that angry. Probably for the better...i don't even think I could express what I really wanted to say in French anyway.

While Anthony's mom was out working out how to get the money, several women (maybe family?) from my street had finally made it (walking) to the health center and when they saw Carie and I, came up to us and said thank you over an over again. It felt really odd because we really hadn't done anything that made the decision to stop lallygagging comme les beninoise and take him. And like I said, we weren't even sure at the time if his mom was angry at us. We called our APCD lauren, to ask her advice on the situation since anthony told his brother he was having trouble breathing. Lauren told us basically that she didn't have clinical experience so didn't know what to tell us and that in terms of paying, it was surely "a moral dilemma, but ultimately not our responsibility." That did nothing to make the issue any less grey for us as we sat there though.

Anthony's brother, Marius, looks so much like him, and was really good about answering our questions. We wanted to know about the belly...so we asked him what kinds of things Anthony ate (because Marius looked relatively healthy...his belly was not at all swollen like anthony's). They eat, like most Beninese people i guess a lot of pate (cooked corn flour and water), akassa (fermented cooked corn flour and water), rice, sauce, etc. Never meat or fish...too expensive. So Kwashiokor was looking like a distinct possibility. But then Marius told us that Anthony eats dirt a lot, especially after it rains. And there you had it...he's anaemic. Severely. And in eating dirt to get iron, he probably developed worms. Then Marius told us that he himself had been sent to Cotonou when he was younger by Klaus because he had Marasmus. Klaus is the German man who runs the orphanage in Dogbo and visits there occasionally, and Marasmus is another form of malnutrition that means a general lack of caloric intake and can lead to stunting. So clearly proper nutrition is a significant problem in their family, but how to deal with it. We talked to Marius about foods his brother should be eating because his mother just seemed so angry still at that point. But eventually when she came back she seemed much more calm and thanked us for taking. Since she seemed receptive, Carie and I pulled her over to the side away from all of her neighbors and talked to her about adding more iron and protein to Anthony's diet. She took in the information and was engaged, asking us about different types of food etc. It wasn't like she didn't care or what we said was flying over her head so that was encouraging and I hope that he gets well. And, as Carie pointed out...hopefully I didn't annoy anyone too much with my flying temper that day to regret it later on.

Later that night, walking down my street, Anthony's sister stopped Carie and I and thanked us again. All seemed ok, until approximately 3am or so when the throwing up commenced and didn't stop for all of the next morning. I threw up 8 times, ever sip of water, everything, until finally i emptied out everything and the dry heaving began, amongst other things. When I finally had it under more control, I got in a taxi with Carie to Cotonou and have been in the med unit since then. Apparently it is not amoebas have some bacterial infection and am on Cipro. I still don't feel great and am not really eating much because every time i do I feel sick, but at least I am not throwing up anymore and feel like I can funtion. Plus I don't have a fever anymore so that's an improvement. Well anyways, a la prochaine, I suppose. 55 days and counting...

Happy Easter!!!

It's Millet Time

2009-03-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

So after Kate's official memorial Wednesday, I headed off to my friend's village about an hour or so north of Cotonou to spend few days painting an HIV/AIDS (VIH/SIDA, in French) mural. Her post was really nice, and the people there were awesome. We started working late on Wednesday, going to the health center where she works to put on a prime coat of paint on the wall for the mural. The next day we went back and painted all day Thursday and Friday. I'm pretty sure I either had sun poisoning or just got really dehydrated on Friday because Friday night through Saturday morning I felt absolutely terrible. My whole body ached, my head was pounding, and i was in severe gastrointestinal distress (that might have been unrelated to dehydratin though...I'll get to that later). I woke up Saturday morning with a fever (only 100.1...not too bad, I guess) but drank some very disgusting ORS and water (Oral rehydration salt...possibly the most disgusting thing ever invented but really gets the job done when you are dehydrated) and felt better a few hours later. It's pretty annoying because I Actually put SPF 70 sunscreen on that morning but i sweat and wiped it off i guess, within about 5 minutes of applying it. You can't win.

Pictures: Painting the mural, the little boy who we think might have skipped school to help us paint a little (he was so cute and was so excited to help us...he didn't speak french, and was on crutches because his legs were so severely burned. Actually, one of his legs was resting in a fake mold of a leg because I guess it was so badly damaged though I ahve no idea how)

Saturday morning we did finishing touches on the mural (kids kept smudging the paint after we would leave each night) and went to the school where we were hostig a HUGE sensibilisation on HIV/AIDS, including a discussion on the myths and realities and condom demonstrations. A guest speaker from PSI (Population Services International) came and did a whole talk in local language (Fon) which was amazing and there was a DJ, a little marching band to parade around town and announce the event, etc. Afterwards we marched over all together to the health center to unveil the mural and offer free depistage (HIV/AIDS testing). I just found out today that 108 people got tested yesterday, which is pretty awesome. So it was a successful event.

Pictures: Kaili showing the men who think they are "too large" for condoms that the condom can stretch down her hand and arm, the children who were watching the sensibilisation (if you look closely to the little girl sitting on the right hand side, you can see her hair is blondish, which means she is pretty damn malnourised with Kwashiokor--severe lack of protein in her diet), the marching band who announced the event throughout the village, all of us doing condom demonstrations, march to the health center to see the mural, and the audience at the health center.

My friend lives in a concession with a family that is practically her family. She never cooks for herself...just buys food and gives it to the family so that they prepare it and she eats with them every night. Sometimes to say thank you she cooks one big meal for them and we decided since they had been cooking for us since we got there that Friday night we would cook for them. Apparently word traveled that i make good lentils (i do, actually) so she asked me if we could make them since it is pretty easy. I have never bough lentils in a marche here...I have only ever gotten them in a supermarche in Cotonou. So i was surprised when she said she had them in her marche. So we went out Friday to the marche to get ingredients and passed her usual bean lady. Nothing there looked remotely lentil-like so we moved on to anotehr bean lady. There was this big bin of stuff that i thought didn't look exactly like lentils because they were round. But they were the same size and color as the regular lentils that I buy. THe difference is that the ones from the supermarche are split. Anyway, everyone was a little iffy on whether or not these were really lentils, myself included, but none of us said anything, and admittedly, i was the one in the end who said "let's get them, they're lentils."

Pictures: Nat and me in the Marche, Zul being adorable, Zul Cami and Me

So we take them back to her house and her maman asks her "did you mean to buy these?" and we said yes thinking that preparing lentils would be such a treat for them if they weren't used to it. So we crushed up piment, sauteed garlic and onions, added the lentils, covered it with water and bouillion and let it simmer...normally when i make them they are done in about 20 minutes. 2 hours of boiling at high heat later, the lentils were still hard and chewy, the rice was long done, and the family was hungry. The maman came in to see our progress and asked us "Do you usually prepare that like that? Really?" THe entire time they were cooking we told ourselves "give it another 20 minutes...they're getting softer." As good as the sauce they were in tasted, they weren't really getting any softer. Eventually we asked the maman to come back in and taste them to see if they would eat it like that (Beninese are SUCH picky eaters when it comes to us trying to make them our style food). She took one bite, looked at us and said "jut give me rice," which was actually less offensive than we thought it would be...her expression of disgust was just to priceless. Long story short, we found out that we bought not lentils, but millet. Millet can not be digested easily and is usually just ground into flour and used for making porridge in the morning here. The whole family thought we were some crazy yovos. We all admitted to kind of having our doubts about whether or not they were actually lentils when we bought them, and as it turns out, you can't get lentils in the marche here. So THAT (not over-sun exposure) might have been what contributed to my 2:41am latrine run, during which time, there were approximately 14 mutant cockroaches running around the walls and floor making me want to cry.

I'd have felt a lot worse about my millet faux pas if this hadn't happened the following morning: We made pancakes...it's really hard to screw up pancakes, and gave it to her family, and their faces were so disgusted when they tasted it. They actually spit it out or didn't finish the piece and gave it all to the one kid that would eat it. So there...tough crowd to please. When my post mate made her host family a cake, they were grossed out by that too because they thought it was too sweet. They really liked unsweetened cornbread though...corn flour is such a staple of their diet anyway so i imagine that is partly why. 'Tis all for now...i am in Cotonou and have to be getting back to Dogbo. Not looking forward to a hot taxi ride. 'Till next time.

2009-03-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

Probably most of you reading this by now know that one of our volunteers in Benin, Kate Puzey, was murdered last week. Even after the short amount of time that I spent with her, I can say with complete confidence that Kate was one of the friendliest people I have ever met. I will never forget her smile. This world is a sadder place for having lost her. It's been really hard for all of the volunteers here, and especially those in her training group who have been with her in-country all along.

I very much understand and even appreciate everyone's concern at home. But as far as we know, this was a tragic but isolated incident. I do not feel any more unsafe now than I ever have since coming to Benin. I knew when I left home that Peace Corps could not launch me into my post with a protective bubble around me for 2 years. I signed onto living in a West African country as a single white woman alone. I know the risks that that brings, and so do my parents. And I understand better than most from home what that actually entails. That is why I always do what I can do to be safe. As much as I understand peoples' concerns for my safety, I just wanted to say that suggesting I come home, or emphasizing the danger of being here isn't what I necessarily need to hear right now. I am staying in Benin. If I left now, I would only ever look back at it with regret. That is a decision that might not be right for everyone right now, but it is what is right for me. This has been really hard for everyone here. What I need right now is support, like I've always been fortunate enough to receive, from my friends and family at home. If or when I ever feel as though enough is enough here in terms of incidents against volunteers, I will know. And I will make the decision to go for myself.

Please keep Kate, her family and friends, and the Peace Corps Benin community in your prayers.

GAD Dinner and Auction

2009-03-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

So GAD-- "Gender and Development"-- is this fund that is here in PC Benin to offer $$ for volunteer projects. GAD Small projects are the easiest grant to apply for because it is all internally done within Benin and doesn't involve processing from DC or any of that bureaucratic stuff. The most you can get for a GAD project is 50.000CFA, and applications for GAD grants are reviewed every month so there is a quick turn-around on getting money to work on a project. Every project using GAD funds has to in some way impact the gender development and equality, etc.

Pic: Weihow, Carie, and Christopher at GAD Dinner

Normally every year there is an All Volunteer Conference in Cotonou, where the Peace Corps picks up the tab to spoil PCVs in one of the nicer hotels here and host a bunch of different activities, etc. This year, unfortunately for us, with our stellar economy at home, All-Vol was cancelled. The real snaffoo about that though is that All-Vol was the event where funds were replenished every year for GAD small Projects Fund, because we always hosted a dinner for volunteers and expats who would pay for a ticket and take part in a silent auction to benefit GAD. Since that wasn't happening, we hosted our own Volunteer weekend up in Parakou with a more low key dinner, silent auction, and the tab picked up by...ourselves.

I got to Parakou Friday and checked into my room with Carie and Kaili and hung out until the talent show and date auction that night. The whole night was a ton of fun, and the dates were outrageously funny to watch being pitched and bid on. I was really impressed how people ponied up for GAD and the price that some dates went for. I won a date with 3 other people with our friend Tim, so he better show us a good time. When this blessed date will occur, I haven't the foggiest because we are scattered all across Benin.

Pictures: Friday Night at the date auction and dinner. First there is me and Heidi, then a pic with Jeremey, and my 'meillieur ami' in-country...Weihow. We were trying to make a BFF sign with our fingers but it was backwards and entirely unsuccessful. Since we had a bidding war at the auction saturday night (which he won) maybe this was just a foreshadowing...haha.

Pictures encore: First you have a group shot of all of the RCH (Rurual community Health) volunteers that came to GAD Weekend with Chadsey...honorary RCH volunteer, right up front (he really is an environment volunteer but clocked far more hours with us all through training and In service training, because RCH is clearly awesome, and really...who wouldn't want to come hang out with us?). Next you have, Nathaniel, Mani, Carie, et moi.

Saturday...to be entirely honest, Saturday we did absolutely nothing but lounge in bed in our air conditioned room and attempt to watch a movie before giving up on the sound from the computer without speakers. It was a fantastically lazy day, but it was just nice being with other volunteers...especially my RCHers, some of whom I hadn't seen since IST in December.

Saturday night was the GAD Dinner and auction. It is kind of like Peace Corps prom, for lack of a better comparison. Volunteers go all out and get nice dresses made, or even have them sent from home. You almost feel like a human being and not a bucket of grunge for a few hours. The auction was really nice. There were a lot of things sent from home and donated (all my extra toiletries, etc. are going to GAD next year for their auction). Also, a lot of artisans and little restaurants donated thigns to the auction for volunteers and I ended up bidding on these wine bottles some artist doctors up with paint and paper machee. They look much nicer than I just described them. Anyway...comme j'ai dit deja, i was in a bidding war with Weihow and he beat me out, paying 11.000CFA for the ones i really wanted (I got my second choice for 4.000). I would have kept going but i know the artist lives in Bohicon across from the marche there and I just couldn't do it. The dinner was at a hotel run by a french couple in Parakou and so the food was decent and the ambience was nice. There was also a pool, and quite a number or people were jumping in in full fancy attire. It was really nice just being with everyone. I think it was good that the dinner went on and we were all there with our friends and for each other. We did a dance for Kate and took a moment in her memory the night before too. It would have been a lot more fun with her there in person but I'm pretty sure she was there in spirit and would have wanted us to party on.

Pictures: Carie and I being ridiculous, dennis and the severed arm touching mariana inappropriately, Rut and Heidi suiting up to head off to GAD on the moto (there really is NO way to have good hair in Benin, ever, when you add in the moto helmet), our table, meg and carie being ridiculous, Rut and Heidi; a shot of Rut, Kaili, Meg and Jeremy; Me and Carie.

This morning it was up and out at an obnoxious hour and now i am in cotonou until wednesday. After I am going to a friend's village to work on and HIV/AIDS mural painting and sensibilisation project until Saturday. Kate's more official open to the greater public memorial service is on Wednesday morning.

Burkina Faso

2009-03-22T07:09:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe that Burkina Faso was only 2 weeks ago because it feels like life has completely flipped upside down since then. But the trip was a ton of fun, quand-meme. I left Friday morning the 27th for Natitingou in Northern Benin because I was going to spend a few days with my friend Mariana doing some work stuff. It was nice to finally get to see the North a little. It is far drier up there and was strange to see. I guess i took for granted the lush jungle all around my post where I go walking every night because our climate is so much more tropical in the south. It was way more brown and dusty once you got away from the South. People wash their clothes much more in the rivers up there and lay them out to dry on the dirt, grass, and bushes whereas, i don't really see that too much by my post except for by the Mono river near Athieme. In Dogbo, meme, people just use pump water. There are also cows in LARGE quantity up North because, i Believe, the Fulani people raise them (and make yummy wagasi--cheese, but not like what you're thinking when you hear 'cheese'). Everyone in Benin has serious regional pride and so if you are in the collines you'll say the collines are the best if you are in the Couffo (comme moi) you'll say no place is better than the Couffo, etc, etc. So I was expecting this sort of paradise when i arrived in Nati because I had heard from SOOOO many Northern volunteers that it is the most amazing laid back place where you don't get hasseled, etc. I definitely did NOT expect to get called yovo there, or to have to discuter prices like i do in Dogbo. And actually, I was asked by my zemi driver if I had a husband because he wanted to marry me and I can honestly say i have NEVER gotten that from any zem in Dogbo (not that I zem a lot at post anyway). But Nati was definitely a nice place in general, and a fairly large regional hub. It is pretty much where you stay on your way to do safari, if you are coming here as a tourist...or to see the Tata Samba, or visit the waterfalls at Tanagou.

There are three workstations in Benin for volunteers to stay at in transit, etc--in Nati, kandi, and Parakou. So I stayed in the workstation for a few nights and it was so fun and cozy and there were a lot of volunteers there hanging out. Having a TV and DVDs was such a novelty while i was there. We watched so many episodes of friends and greys...eesh. It is also way hotter up North. I can't figure out which is worse...my humidity or the sheer harshness of Northern heat. It wasn't bad during the day under a fan but i sweat all through the night...gross. It is also much higher concentrations of Muslims up North as opposed to Voodoo by me. Over the wknd, more and more people started arriving and there were about 15 of us who rented a 'bus' to get to Burkina. The trip was a long hot hassle and our driver on the Benin side of the trip screwed us out of money, but border crossing went smoothly. We got in that night and got to our hotel quickly. It was a pain that we aren't allowed to take zems outside of Benin (Benin is one of the only PC countries.[..maybe the only?] where volunteers are allowed to ride motos because we have training for it during stage and are issued helmets. But other volunteers who visit Benin aren't allowed to zem here since they haven't been trained and we can not zem outside of Benin...not even in Togo). Instead you take taxis to get around Ouagadougou (Wa-ga-doo-goo, the capitol of Burkina Faso and an hour behind Benin...who knew?) It turned out to be more expensive this way especially since we weren't familiar with Ouaga and prices there, but whatever. Actually, not being able to zem really wasn't the end of the world because all in all Ouaga was a much more pedestrian friendly city than Cotonou.

We were in Burkina for the FESPACO film festival...a pan african affair held every other year there. I didn't see TOOOO many movies but I saw a fair number or Moroccan, Algerian, Egyptian, and South African films, both long and short. My favorite was this South African film called "When we Were Black" about the events leading up to the Soweto uprising there. I hope it caught someone's attention enough to eventually be distributed.

Everyone was ridiculously excited because Ouaga is relatively well known for having FABULOUS strawberries. Good Lord, did we gorge ourselves on fresh sweet strawberries. They were amazing. I miss them. They also had a vrai supermarche that felt like one from home...it was amazing. Burkina was even more Muslim than Northern Benin (which is why i was surprised at what some Burkinan volunteers were wearing when we saw them). The Grand Mosque was really quite beautiful and it was interesting to see that there were stations all over the city on the streets with mats and water where Muslims could go to pray and do their ablutions beforehand at the specified times during the day. The marches had a lot more Qu'rans and prayer beads, etc. as well.

Picture: FESPACO sign, Me, Grand Mosque in Ouaga

We stopped in this great artisan's market where we were able to see the artists in the middle of their work, and I really appreciated getting to talk to them and see how they did their projects,etc. Also, we ate in this restaurant that according to the Lonely Planet guidebook has the "BEST" lasagna in all of Africa. I didn't get the lasagna though, i only tasted a bite of a friend's. It was good, but i'm still partial to our own dogbo-style italian night fare.

Pictures: Carie and Nathaniel outside of one of the movie theatres, artisan in the middle of making blankets (I bought the little one on the left side when he was done, and calabash art and paintings (I bought the finished elephant calabash for my house)
I have to say, if you're going to hop around West Africa for traveling...do it as a peace corps volunteer because you are covered in every peace corps country should any problems arise. My friend got really sick in Ouaga and I had a very bad burn on my leg because my homologue knocked over our moto after it rained when we were in the mud on the Thursday before leaving. So we just hopped on over to the Burkina headquarters to let them know a group of Beninese volunteers were in Burkina for a few days and to see their doctor. It was far more convenient than visiting the doctor in cotonou--that would have been entirely out of the way. I thought the Burkina office was pretty sweet until I saw our own brand spanking new office newly constructed in the ritzy non-red light district of Cotonou. Pas Grave.

Pictures: My burn. It looks great now. brand new pink skin and no chance of infection. I'm thinking i won't even get a conversation starter of a scar.
What interested me about Burkina was that it seemed like there was practically nothing until you hit Ouagadougou. I mean, driving through Benin i pass through very obvious regional cities that are bigger and have more to offer than dogbo or smaller villages (Dogbo itself though, is considered Urban) Through the Burkina countryside though we only ever passed small groups of mud huts connected in circles by walls so that each unit consisted of about 5 huts. There would be several units together. But we never saw any big towns or anything. The countryside was so dry and there were several dried up river beds...I can't imagine how it must be during rainy season, but it hasn't rained in months.

Anyway, the trip home was uneventful...just very long. Since my mom has asked me for a picture of a bush taxi forever now, i finally snapped what I think is a good about average bush taxi below. Just imagine 10 or so people jammed in there. I don't think I'll ever complain about traveling or long car trips in the states EVER again...hell, i'll have a WHOLE seat to myself. What's to complain about?

Picture: Rut and Carie with the first municipal garbage can I have noticed during my time in West Africa. I have NO idea who comes and clears out the garbage periodically. Then you have the bush taxi. a la prochaine.

2009-03-07T12:20:00.000-08:00

Pictures: the 'Lion Bar' Rasta bar hostel at Grand popo; the beach on Valentine's Day; Yovo b-day party with the French family and Dutch couple in Dogbo

Valentine's Day

2009-02-19T06:35:00.000-08:00

So while I never really hated valentines day--I mean, who would complain about getting boxes of chocolate, even if they are from your dad and grandpa?-- I can't say anything too spectacular has ever made me just LOVEEEEE the holiday either, until I decided to be proactive about it and treat myself to an amazing Valentine's here in Benin.

SO Saturday I headed down to Grand Popo, our beautiful beach conveniently located only about an hour and a half away from Dogbo, with some friends, and it was an amazing time. We stayed overnight in this little Rasta themed hostel type place called Lion Bar, where the rooms were clean, simple, and only the equivalant of five bucks per person, US$. I was in the 'Peter Tosh' room. Unfortunately my camera battery is dead so I'll have to come back to upload pictures. There's one communal shower and toilet there for all the rooms and its funny to think that that would have probably horrified me this time last year, while now i was just excited that there was actual running water. THe Lion Bar is right on the beach, just walk down a bit to sit under their little palm paillot things for shade. It was an absolutely magnificent day and definitely the first time I'd been to a beach in February in my life. SOme other volunteers came down for the day and some stayed over and so we had a really great time just hanging out. A group of fun German tourists were staying there on their way to Ghana the next day and actually, we ran into an RPCV who served in Cameroon about 10 years ago and hung out with us so that was pretty fun. Plus she treated us to breakfast the next day, which was equally amazing and much appreciated.

One volunteer was down with a family friend visiting from the U.S. too so we walked along the beach to the Auberge where they were staying to visit for a bit. Plus, the woman brought chocolates from the US, which the other PCV was nice enough to offer us so i did get a piece of v-day russell stover after all, even in benin. It was so much fun seeing a tourist here and it made me realize just how badly I want someone to come visit me, and not just to get spoiled. I really want to see Benin again through the eyes of someone who's never been here before and who doesn't just take women walking around with baskets on their heads and babies strapped to their backs with a pagne as normal. THis lady, bless her, wanted to take a picture of every goat she saw. While I admittedly have a strange affinity for the the goats here and think that they are rather adorable, if I took a pic of every one that I saw, my camera would be dead in 5 minutes.

Lion Bar was hopping at night with Reggae music and extremely cheap cocktails served in coconuts. Power cutting out? no problem. Snag a bottle of smuggled nigerian gas and power up that generator for some more good times. Fortunately because of my larium induced insomnia the night before I was able to actually sleep through the music sans probleme.

WHile we are in the dry season still, we are hitting that strange interim btw the weather patterns and it rains very occasionally and very briefly. Saturday night, a BEAUTIFUL lightning storm rolled in over the ocean and it was amazing to see (I'll post pics next time). Plus the rain was so refreshing and it actually felt 'cool' for the evening. We slept without a fan and didn't even break a sweat.

Sunday the PCV i was sharing a room with left early but I hung around Gpopo for the day to enjoy the beach. I was walking down the road and saw this little artisan shack to the side and stopped over to see what they were working on. The workshop belongs to these two guys from Burkina Faso, actually, David and Frederick. THey did a lot of calabash carving--like a huge gourd type thing used in a million different artistic ways here. I actually ended up getting a hand carved calabash lamp (I bargained the price down to a PCV friendly fare pretty well, if i do say so myself. Though I'm worried i'm going to go home, walk into a retail store and try to start bargaining, declaring that something is obscenely overpriced and walk away with a huff waiting for the vendor to lower the price for me. I'm pretty sure I'll be sorely disappointed when that doesn't happen at home and people will instead just think that i am crazy.) These guys kept the calabash natural (as opposed to the more touristy place down the street that charged way more and painted the calabash with different pictures and use machines for the work) and I watched the two of them carving meticulously with a leatherman. I honestly almost felt bad for paying so little for the lamp since to do that all by hand must take forever. And while I was waiting for them to finish polishing it off the other who had me in conversation, asked me off-handedly my name. In retrospect I'm glad I told the truth because he carved it into a calabash without my noticing while we were talking and cadeaued me with it before i left. It was pretty awesome. Plus they said that Fespaco is a great time and so I am even more excited to go.

Fespaco is this French and African film festical in BUrkina Faso they have every 2 years and I got my vacation request approved to go, so I'm heading up there next week and spending a week of the festival with a group of volunteers. I'm so excited for that and to just see Northern Benin in general. Don't know if I'll post again before the trip but I'll take lots of pictures!

Kind of random: People often ask me if there is any way they can support my service here by donating or what have you. Unfortunately the answer for right now is no since any monetary donations from home have to be done through a PCPP-Peace COrps Partnership Program--where I submit a project proposal to headquarters in DC, get it approved, and have a site put up with my project so that I can begin fundraising for it. Since that is mostly second year volunteers, I don't have a PCPP going yet. However, the school that I did some work and started an on-campus organization for during my time at holy cross, The Beverly School of Kenya (www.beverlyschoolofkenya.com) , is in need of funding right now to continue with construction work. It is a boarding school that will be largely consistent of orphan children, and is located an hour or so outside of Nairobi. The school will be free for the children, provide them with homes and healthcare, and be largely self sustaining with a farm, etc. Especially after the post-election violence that rocked Kenya in January 2008, the need for such opportunities for Kenya's youth is evident, and I very much believe in the potential for this project. The school is aiming to open in July, but is struggling with donations and budget in light of the global financial crisis. Right now there are opportunities for buying windows for $140, doors for $100, sinks for $110 ea, toilets $110 ea (which I am slightly bitter about since even I don't have a toilet...haha...just kidding), a bag of cement $20 ea. and padlock $25ea. But actually, any amount is appreciated and if you are interested, checks can be made out to the Beverly School

Beverly school of Kenya
206 Boston Road
Sutton Ma. 01590

It is 501 c 3 non-profit organization so donations are tax deductable. If you're interested at all and you want more information about the school, to see pictures of construction and students, or to talk to its founder, Abdi Lidonde, who is currently working at Holy Cross for more details, etc. Please don' hesitate to email me and I can get you more info or a contact for Abdi.

I'll be back soon!!

Just some pictures

2009-02-10T06:32:00.000-08:00

Pictures: First we have a hippo...if you zoom in like 8 times you can actually see it but it missed when its mouth was open for pictures; next is us getting ready to go out to see the hippos; Italian night--feteing with Kristin's neighbors and fostering cross cultural exchange by making him a birthday cake...well...a birthday cornbread since the Beninese don't really seem to enjoy cakes and sweets; preparing the italian feast; my friend the black widow

Italian "Ciao" In Benin

2009-02-04T04:00:00.000-08:00

Oh, what clever culinary punning. So all of the volunteers from my PSL group (Pre Service Learning/training, aka--all first year volunteers) in the Mono Couffo regions and a few from Atlantique/Littoral and Oueme/Plateau (also in the South) came up to Dogbo on Friday for an "Italian Night." Friday was our marché day so people started getting here around noon and hit up the marché for ingredients, most important being MEAT!! I love cooking sessions because it means we eat meat which is rare (not the meat, the amount of times you eat meat here) and I personally, to be entirely honest, don't have to do too much for it. Dennis, our resident chef, always takes care of the meat. Tender meat does not exist in benin so you either have to boil it for 3 hours (that gets hot in Benin), or pound it with a hammer to tenderize it (that also gets hot). In this case, Dennis brought up his little meat grinder and ground up all the beef to put in homemade lasagna. I was actually stuck chez moi for the morning because I was on fresh bread making duty, and there are only 2 burners on our stoves so it would have been too much to do at my post mate's house, which is where we were having our little soirée. So i made a loaf of fresh onion bread and another with fresh roasted whole garlic cloves...they were delicious and evvvvvvvveryone loved it. Meanwhile, Chez Kristen, everyone else was busy working on making homemade lasagna noodles and rolling out the dough with nalgene bottles, making tomato sauce, and bruschetta, and salad. Vache Qui Rit is all we have here in terms of cheese so we put some of that on the first one but decided to leave it off the other pans of lasagna because it wasn't looking too good. We made about 5 trays of lasagna (one was vegetarian. THey are all small because you have to stick it in a dutch oven to bake, which is just a large pot with tomato paste cans inside) and gave one to Kristin's neighbors since it was his birthday and we were fête-ing with them to celebrate. The buvette was fuuuully stocked with COLD drinks and all in all, we had an amazing time just cooking together and hanging out.

When I first got to post I NEVER bought meat in the marche because, frankly, seeing a dead cow hanging from a hook in the Beninese heat for an entire day, uncovered, with flies all over it and a pile of its tail, skin, and skull sitting right next to it really grossed me out. Plus i was pretty sure it violated about 1,000 FDA regulations for food consumption that I was programmed into revering since forever. But it's interesting how I've kind of gotten over it. I actually have bought meat twice recently just because I wanted protein. And i have to say...sitting on my cement floor hammering it for 40 minutes in a plastic bag was totally worth it when it was all said and done. There are a lot of things in the U.S. that just seem laughable to me now after living here for awhile. Meat for one, traffic and seatbelt laws for another. I mean...you should SEE the clown cars i get shoved into with other people. Shattered windshields, non existent side and rearview mirrors...have to give it a push to get a rolling start. ANd seatbelts?? what's that? Who knew eggs, and mayonnaise don't REALLY need to be refrigerated at all...that's just a neurotic habit we've picked up at home. I just finished a jar of mayo i bought in september and it was fine until the end...i don't have a fridge in my house. Eggs i keep for 2 weeks and they're always fine. Had I not known that Bonnemaman never refrigerated butter that probably would have really disusted me when i got here. NOt that I find butter in dogbo...haha. that's only in COtonou. You can find little sachets of margarine in the marché that keep forever unrefrigerated. It works fine for baking (though I do look forward to butter, real butter, when I visit home...on a perfectly toasted english muffin...along with all other dairy goodness like cheese and yogurt.)

So there is ONE maman in the marche that sells vegetables. Well, everyone sells tomatoes...They are ubiquitous, along with onions, and piment (chili peppers). But they aren't like tomatoes from home: they are little with a different taste and texture so when i find 'real tomatoes' in Cotonou I always buy a few. But anyway, this maman sells other vegetables and she used to cadeau Kristin and me with veggies after we bought a lot from her. BUt whether by logic of supply and demand or by sheer getting used to the yovos, Maman DOra became really stubborn when it came to discutering the prices. We kept getting less and less for the same or more money and it was getting really annoying. THen...we found her supplier. A man from Lokossa who brings DOra her veggies every week to sell, and agreed that he would deliver our veggies to the door if we ordered a minimum of 2000CFA. So its worked out great...we split 1000 and 1000 (thats about US$2 each) and it buys us a TON more than with Dora. It's been great! However, I'm pretty sure Dora has found out because I went to her in the marché yesterday to get some veggies since we forgot to call the other guy and she was sickeningly sweet and suddenly much more agreeable with discutering, and she gave me 2 extra carrots when I was done buying. On va voir. Now that we're really getting into the dry season vegetables are getting huge and are so much more plentiful again. It is amazing. Carrots, peppers, avocadoes, cucumber, green beans!! there's even eggplant again!! Squash and radish just finished up but apparently will be back in a few months. I'm really excited because for about 2 months all you could get were some really expensive and puny carrots and wilted lettuce. So it is really nice to be able to cook with good fresh veggies again. ANd it was great to have the last of the squash for our vegetarians on friday for the veggie lasagna. The man from Lokossa has a much bigger variety than you can find in our marché, so hopefully it will continue to work out so well.

Well Anyway, so you can't travel at night in Benin because it isn't too safe and is technically not allowed or 'strongly discouraged' by Peace Corps, so all the volunteers stayed over at our houses on Friday. Saturday we met up for fresh pineapple and yummy fresh baked coffee cake and then most people were on their way. A bunch of us headed down to Lokossa though, with an ONG from Dogbo, AVPN, to see the 2 hippos that live in the lake right outside of the town. You get into a little pirogue (canoe-type boat), which, considering how dangerous hippos are, seems less than ideal in terms of safety and pushed (I'd say row but you use a long palm branch to push off the bottom of the lake...like gondalas in Venice) out into the middle of the lake. IT was beautiful out and cool on the water. When we first got into the boat we were wondering why there were so many plates inside, and shortly after leaving, realized it was to bail out water which continued to rise through our ride out. So we got to see the hippos from afar--don't want to anger them-- and they did the whole opening their mouth and swimming around thing. It was fun, and worth it to get to see it so nearby to where i live. I spent the night at another volunteers house since it was dark when we were done and it was amazing to actually watch some TV since she brought her computer and has tons of DVDs with her. We went out to a little buvette for igname pilée with sauce d'arachide...a beninese specialty actually more famous in the north. You pound ignames (like potatoes) until they are a fluffy chewy texture, and serve it with peanut sauce and wagasi...i don't know how to describe wagasi. It is cheese but not like cheese from home. It is hard, doesn't melt, has a very distinct taste, and you have to boil it for at least 20 minutes to kill off the bacteria and tuberculosis inside it.

What else has been going one??? it feels like forever since I posted last. OH! Well...so I was really nervous to have people stay over and sleep on my floor because as if scorpions weren't enough, I found a black widow spider in my house last week. It was only one, dieu merci, and i killed it toute suite, after a 20 second shot of bugspray didn't get the job done. BUt since I only have one bug net I was nervous about people on the floor. THankfully nothing happened and I was told Scout was making the rounds and did eat something by one of the girls' mats (probably just a cockroach) in the middle of the night. Speaking of Scout making the rounds...she's been catching a lot of lizards lately, and I actually feel bad. I personally think that lizards are kind of cute and she tortures them for a good 10 minutes at least before finally eating the poor things. It's kind of gross to watch.

I also started up work with another women's group nearby in Amahoue. THey are amazing, and they are THRILLED that i remembered all of their names. Actually, i saw one of the women from the group at Kpodaha in the marché on Friday and she was SOOOOO excited when she saw me and that i knew her name! It made me feel really great to run into her there. We went back and did Moringa with them last week and they LOVED these little food flashcard things i made up for them. they are great because you can do so many activities with the women with them. We had them divide all the cards up into the three african food groups (protectors, aka vitamins and minerals; growth, aka proteins; and 'la force' aka carbs and fats) and then had them construct complete meals with the foods they would use from the cards. It went really well.

As for my homologue. I sent him that txt telling him to call me when he wanted to work and yesterday made it officially 2 weeks with no word from him. It's fine because I've been doing my own thing with the PEace Corps facilitator from Lokossa, planning lifeskills classes for the orphanage in DOgbo, etc. BUt i felt bad bailing on my ONG since they pay for my housing so I went to go talk to my supervisor today about it. I told him everything, and that I no longer want to work with Innocent because he treats me like a child and does not respect me, etc. He was completely upset that it had been like that and is going to talk to him and the director. He was originally supposed to be my homologue and is very supportive of the PEace COrps, and he felt terrible when he found out that Innocent ahd been calling me yovo out in village, and wouldn't let me do anything. So we'll see what happens now. I hope it pans out ok because I really like the other people in my ONG. I just detest my homologue and his arrogant, dismissive attitude, and unless he does a 180 turn around, I don't think we can work together, since i'm pretty sure the dislike is entirely mutual.

But those are all of the highlights for now, especially since my credit is about to run out, and I have to add more time for next time. I tried to post pictures but they wouldn't go up so I'll try again next time!!

Do you Voodoo?

2009-01-16T06:56:00.000-08:00

So January 10th was National Voodoo Day in Benin...a final culmination in the triumverate of Beninese fetes (Christmas, New Years, Voodoo Day). I am glad that Voodoo Day is over and done simply because for the week leading up to it, Dogbo was going crazy. We have a pretty large Vodoun population here, and every evening for the week before they were gathering for ceremonies of considerable volume conveniently located right near chez moi. Sleeping was nearly impossible, and it reminded me a little of all through the night fete-ing that goes on for Beninese funerals.

But Voodoo Day itself was actually pretty cool to see and I am glad I got to fete. I was bouncing around and not too sure of what exactly I wanted to do (local thing, or go to Ouidah for the big national fetes there). Ouidah got too complicated in the end to throw together at the last minute because we would probably not have been able to get back to post the same night and didn't have a place to crash close by. SO instead I went to Lokossa--conveniently only a half hour away--for the regional fete there with 2 other volunteers and the Beninese friends of one of the volunteers. The fete was huge and I have to say...events like that are pretty much the only time it is fun to be white in Benin. We were the only white people in attendence so everyone was really excited to have us there (most tourists go to Ouidah) and our Carte Blanche got us pulled up to sit next to the King and Mayor of Lokossa, and the President of all the Vodoun for the Mono-Couffo regions in Benin to see the unveiling of the zembetto.

Picture: One of the zembettos
The zembetto is this dancing hay-stack like object. There are some sects of Vodoun that don't have it at all but generally it represents the specific vodoun deity that that sect worships. Ok--so there are definitely people walking around under this little zembetto costume, I am sure...but the official word is "there is no one under the haystack...it is moving all on its own because it is the deity moving it." Goodness, where's your faith? In some sects of vodoun the zembetto is dangerous for women, and not so much for others. THere is so much variety in Voodoo, and it also depends how out in village you are. If you are really out in the bush, a lot of the time women just have to stay in the house, lock the doors, and sometimes shut the lights so that the zembetto does not know you are there or it is baaaaaad news. It's not really a problem by me in Dogbo at all, but my friend has to stay indoors at her post whenever the zembetto is out. SO anyways, we're all pretty convinced that there are people under this haystack so I was pretty excited to hear that they were going to be lifting up the zembettos so we could see at Lokossa. We were standing in the back of the crowd trying to get a look--3 zembettos were lined up to be lifted--and that is when some people noticed that these strange yovos wearing Beninese tissue (clothing) couldn't see what was happening, and they immediately grabbed us and brought us up front to sit with the king, etc.

Pictures: PCVs with the King, Mayor, and President for the VOdoun; Voodoo Day Security--Because you know that when the supernaturaly forces go all willy-nilly, guns are the way to go.

I don't know HOW they did it...Never ask a magician to reveal his tricks, right? but when they lifted up the zembettos...the first one had 2 guinea pig like things that crawled out and the second one, had this massive pink blob underneath, and the third had this thumping phallus (I don't get it...but I'm sure it had to have some kind of significance...talking about Voodoo can be a delicate subject. Taking pics is also interesting--sometimes okay and sometimes not, so we gave our camera to the beninese some times to take pictures for us). No people. I don't entirely buy it (i hope that doesn't bring bad gris gris upon me). I got some great videos of the zembettos but haven't been able to post them for some reason...maybe that's just Beninese Internet cafés for you.

Picture: Unveiling of the pink blob zembetto

So after the unveiling--or the lifting of the skirts, if you will--of the zembettos, every group of Vodoun came before the King and gave a little performance of either dancing, singing, la deux ensemble, or zembetto antics etc. There had to have been about 10 different sects that came out, each with their own sign, traditional outfits, and dances, etc. It was completely awesome to see. The place publique of of Lokossa was filled to bursting with people.

Pictures: 2 of the performances for Voodoo Day. You might notice the woman front and center in the second picture is wrapped in an old "Rugrats" bedsheet...yup...that is Tommy, there. I thought it was pretty awesome.

Afterward, the grand public fete ended and everyone went home for their own fetes, etc. Thomas, one of the friends of the Volunteers with us from Lokossa, brought us to the house of a friend so we could fete with them for awhile. By the time we slowly sauntered over like the bunch of yovos who can't take equatorial Beninese midday sun that we were, the hoopla was already well underway, with dancing, music, etc. We were brought into the house of the Vodoun man there, and offered Sodabe (local alcohol that tastes remarkably like rubbing alcohol and im sure can not be safe for consumption) and beans with oil. I went out into the bush to use the bathroom (no latrines there) and ran into my first snake since coming to Benin, which freaked me out. But in general the time there was really interesting, and I was grateful to get a small scale view of a local celebration for Voodoo day. THis group was VERY excited to have us take pictures and the one man wanted us to take them with him in it all the time...it was kind of cute. We got in on some dancing with them, had oil and baby-powder thrown on us (i have no diea why)...it was all very bien integré.

Pictures: Celebrating in village. FIrst is a woman being possessed by a vodoun and the others are dancing and music. YOu can see Mami Watta paited on the wall in the background. It is a Voodoo myth (looks like a mermaid).

I went out yesterday with the Peace Corps facilitator who lives nearby to meet up with a new women's group in Amahoue, nearby. The meeting went great and there were only 10 women so I'll most likely remember all of their names, and we set up a time next thursday to go back and do some moringa work. Unfortunately I am currently at the cyber because my homologue stood me up on the one day he reserved to work with me this week. I went to the NGO at the time we agreed to meet and he wasn't there and I tried calling him but he never picked up. SO i sat--and since i never leave my house in Benin without a book--it was fine and I just read but after an hour I was annoyed so I sent him a txt (txting is main communication tool here since phone calls are so expensive) telling him that I had waited for him for over an hour and he can call me when he really wants to work. I'm just sick of his antics and have firmly decided that I will have none of it anymore. So I guess we'll see what happens.

But anyway, yesterday, like i said, was really great. After meeting up with the women's group I came back to Dogbo même with the facilitator and worked on French for 2 hours. It wasn't so much an outright tutoring session as it was just a conversation from which he would analyze my many weaknesses in speaking (ie--the past conditional and the ever damning subjunctive...ugh). So he asked me my major and when it came out I had done poli sci we got into a really great discussion about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, Israel/PAlestine, Hamas, Hezbollah, our previous support of the muhajideen during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, etc. It felt great to talk to someone about those things in general (and learn how to say bomb, suicide bomber, world power, etc. in French). It was especially nice to have this conversation with a Beninese since prior to that, the only political savvy I could glean from the Beninese population around election time was that Barak Obama was black, young, and democrat (all admirable qualities) and that John McCain was white, old, and republican (all apparently damning qualities, which always interested me since the culture here has great respect for elders and since President BUsh, who is also Republican, was the only president in U.S. history to ever take the time to come and visit Benin, as well as his pumping considerably large sums of money into Africa compared to any other president in recent memory for AIDS/HIV relief through PEPFAR--albeit with a perhaps unrealistic over-emphasis on abstince education instead of condoms, etc-- and the high number of mosquito nets provided to Benin through the President's MAlaria Initiative).

But anyway, so it was really amazing to just talk about something meaningful and beyond the basic line-up of formal greetings in Benin with a Beninese person. This man, who I'm not going to name for his own privacy, was actually a Beninese political activist during Benin's communist era . In 1986 he was imprisoned for his activities and remained in prison for 2 years--pretty good, considering that all of his friends were in for about 5 or longer. He had already been working with Peace Corps at the time and 2 volunteers, a couple in Klikamé (nearby village) were so disgusted with his imprisonment that they ETed (early terminated--ended their service) and petitioned Amnesty International when they were back home on his behalf. Benin kept popping him around to different prisons--ie, if they said he was in Cotonou in prison they would move him to Parakou so when Amnesty came to look for him there there was no one by that name...but eventually it worked and he got out. So he is really interested in politics too and liked learning about some of the things he only had vague ideas about as much as I liked hearing his own story. My high following the conversation was deflated minorly by the assigning of exercises for the subjunctive, but all in all, it was a great afternoon.

Afterwards I headed out to the hardware boutique where everyone kind of loves me because I spend a lot of money there but also thinks i'm kind of crazy because I'm this weird yovo woman buying all this stuff to do work on a house when any self respecting person would hire a professional. SO yesterday I was out for metal screening since scout, my cat with apparent chimpanzee lineage, has ripped to shreds my non-metal screening when she climbs up to the top of my back door every day (she can also climb my cement wall out back about half way). TO be entirely honest, it might just be worth it for me to pay someone to come and do the things that I end up doing myself around my house because it takes me awhile to get it done. Last night putting up the screen took me well over an hour on account of me having to stop and put bandaids on my fingers every few minutes as I cut them up, one after another, on the rough edges. Plus my neighbors always run over to look in my front door whenever I whip out the hammer and start making a lot of noise in the house. Between that, my one-sided conversations with Scout and BBCnewscasters, I'd really love to know what they think about me. Of course I hear them next door singing the yovo song quietly to themselves sometimes so we've all got our issues. BUt I think, at the end of the day, I like doing those kinds of things myself because when it is done, it is a pretty good feeling of accomplishment to know that i did that work myself and I feel like i'm being given the opportunity to learn a lot about myself. I never thought I would use a leatherman as much as I have in the past 6 months in my entire life.

Picture: Scout playing with her mouse in her diva coller.

Speaking of Scout, she is looking pretty jazzy in the little diva collar A. Loretta and U. Mike have sent over her way. It has been quite the point of cross cultural exchange with Basil and Filomene when they come over. While they both think it is pretty amazing with all of its fake little diamonds, they don't really get it, since even dogs here don't wear the most basic of collars and cats are more often dinner than pets (Basil was also pretty enamored by my mechanical pencil that Cathy sent me and I can't wait to go home and load up on some stuff that he would just love for when I get back as a souvenir/thank you for watching Scout). But I had the vet come over the other day to give her her rabies shot and i felt sooooo terrible. The vet here comes to the house since he doesn't really have an office (It's not like you're going to take your cow to the Dr. though you can actually strap a goat onto the back of a moto--they scream like children being hit...it is terrible to hear). We chatted for a few and I told him I had worked in a vets office for a few years and he was really excited because I could help hold the cat. I had told him that back home, we generally prefer working with dogs because they are usually a lot less finicky with shots and medication and I was surprised to learn that it was the exact opposite here. Beninese people most of the time strongly dislike dogs and do NOT trust them. They aren't bred for temperment and they get hit a lot, or kicked, or rocks thrown at them so they generally aren't too nice (i've had a few follow me around out in village and nip my heel). My post mate's neighbor HATES her puppy (who is actually really nice since we have a different approach to raising them) and thinks even if he seems nice that sorcerers can use the dog to attack her by sending evil spirits into it soooo....yeah. But I was surprised to learn that even the vet felt such a distrust for dogs, and Scout was still pretty squirmy. Turns out they poke the needle in the side by the ribcage here instead of by the extra skin you can bunch up at the neck or haunches, which seemed unsavvy to me, and i will DEFINITELY be bringing back a small syringe for her for next year, because I felt so terrible. What he used HAD to have been for farm animals the tip was so big and she was howling. It took forever, and a lot of forceful jabbing for that needle to pierce her skin. ugh...not fun to hold her, anyways, but at least it is done for this year. So, yeah..that is all the news that's fit to print for now. I'll be back soon. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!!

Resolutions and Changes pour la Nouvelle Année

2009-01-08T04:01:00.001-08:00

Resolution 1: Actually remember to put on sunscreen when leaving the house on a regular basis

Resolution 2: Do not catch amoebas or any other gastrointestinal distress-inducing parasites (*note—this may be too late. I guess we’ll see when my MIF kit comes back, but if I ingested them in 2008 I am not counting their unpleasant manifestation against this year)

Resolution 3: Be more patient in waiting for mango season to come

Resolution 4: Limit fanmilk consumption to 2 per week (if possible)

But seriously, I’ve been taking the start of the new year to try to redefine my role with my ONG (NGO in French). So for the first 3 months at post, we weren’t really supposed to be ‘working’ per se. We were supposed to be focusing on community integration which would theoretically facilitate our work here in the long term. No use jumping in blind in our new communities when we didn’t have the trust and respect of community members (not that I am entirely convinced that 3 months of twiddling around here accomplishes that either, or that at the end of the two years I will have even achieved that seeing as how I am still called yovo by a majority of the community that does not live on my street. I’m pretty sure that even if I lived here for years and years, I would always be seen as an outsider). So instead of turning in our quarterly report for the first 3 months, Peace Corps had us do an ‘etude de milieu’—community study—in which we went around our villages and towns and found out all different information on the social, religious, and political (local and traditional leaders, etc.) norms, as well as info on the schools in our communities, water and electricity situations, medical facilities, etc.

I wouldn’t exactly say that I did no work since coming to Dogbo, since I tend to be a chronic overachiever and have severe problems with not working (most volunteers are the same and also have started going out and doing activities, though not big projects within their neighbourhoods as well). But my work in the first 3 months was not really so much with my host country partner organization. I’m fortunate enough that one of the Peace Corps facilitators who worked in training health volunteers during summer training lives a half an hour away from me in Lokossa and I have been able to go out and do a lot of activities with him. It has been great because he actually understands volunteers and what our role in our communities is supposed to be (NOT a source of money, but rather a technical asset), and how hard it is operating under the conditions we are in. It is with him that I have gone out and done my sensibilizations on moringa and making soy cheese in Kpodaha and talked to the girls at the school in Hoedogli, or visiting the orphanage in Lokossa, etc. He translates for me between French and Aja with the women who can’t speak French and actually has convinced them to call me ‘Caterine’ (the “th” sound apparently does not exist here) instead of yovo. All in all, going out to villages with him is largely what kept me sane in my first 3 months. I think we might even start up French tutoring together, because while I can function perfectly fine in French here now, I definitely am not fluent and would like to take advantage of Peace Corps willingness to pay for a tutor for your first year of service.

But in the meantime, the time I spent with my ONG the first three months I found utterly stressful and kind of morale-killing. All volunteers in Benin (I think what has surprised me most about Peace Corps is how radically different it is run from country to country) are partnered with a ‘homologue’ or ‘work partner’ who is a host country national of your community (and normally, in the case of health volunteers, who works with your ONG or health center). Their role is supposed to be collaborative and supportive of your work in your community. Since they are already supposed to have contacts within the community they are supposed to be able to help you get going with your work, arrange meetings and activities, help with translation when necessary, etc. My homologue, for the first three months anyway (hopefully it will change now), has pretty much only made me want to tear my hair out (which is bad, since weekly Larium medication for malaria in addition to its penchant for inducing psychotic effects and dreams actually makes my hair fall out in considerable quantity already).

I found that he usually just toted me around with him to villages to see what he was already doing kind of as his token yovo. I don’t think he respects me fully as a volunteer or as a woman (just a vibe I get from little things he says like I should do this or that with the secretary for the ONG since she is a woman too). He never let me talk when we went out to village because I don’t really speak Aja beyond the greetings. Also, he calls me yovo to people all of the time even though I have told him countless times to refer to me as madame (mademoiselle, which he has also been known to refer to me as in a room full of men, is just an invitation to unwanted male attention and marriage proposals…Hence, the wedding band I wear here) and scold him publicly when he does call me yovo now. And as much as I thought ‘maybe it is just me’ for awhile, ALL of the other volunteers thought he was equally obnoxious and arrogant at our December IST in Porto Novo, and the Dutch woman in Dogbo who works with my ONG and also dislikes my homologue had me over for dinner one night and started off conversation with ‘How do you stand the way he treats you like a child?’. My job, pretty much, when I was with him was to tape up the posters he brought on the walls. He also just seems to think that he knows EVERYTHING under the sun and has NOTHING to learn from ANYbody, in which case I couldn’t help but wonder, what is the point of our partnering together if we are supposed to be learning from each other. But then again, I think that goes back to the me being much younger and female issue.

I’m truly ashamed to admit that sometimes when he really frustrated me in the first three months, I just wanted to shout at him “I don’t care if I am younger than you, or if I am a woman! I am so much smarter than you!!! You can shut me down all you want, but at the end of 2 years I am going home and will achieve something more than you can even begin to imagine, and you will still be here forever, doing this exact same damn thing!!” I never did. When it got that bad I would walk away from the moment and try to file the situation under the cultural adjustment folder. And please, don’t feel the need to point out how terrible that sounds because I am perfectly well aware of just how terrible it is. I actually went home that one night crying because I was so angry and frustrated, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I really thought that, then why am I here at all? What the hell am I doing? I had a similar problem the day that I did the HIV AIDS talks at the school here. The students were SO unbelievably disrespectful to me and their peers that I wanted to just leave. Fine, I thought; Get AIDS—If you don’t want to listen, I certainly can’t make you, and I am at my wits end. Please, again, don’t say anything. I know it sounds like I am a terrible person but I truly believe it is impossible to understand if you have not been in the situation to feel how overwhelmingly discouraged you can get. I never knew it was possible for me to feel so frustrated and useless at any given moment.

I actually stopped the talk to tell the students that we (I had worked with a group of kids from the school to do the presentations) came there for them and that this was all for them; that if they didn’t care about their own health we would leave. I told them that AIDS in Benin is the worst in the Mono –Couffo regions, and there is no cure—if they get it, they will die…it’s really just a matter of time. Contrary to popular belief, sleeping with a virgin won’t cure it. Maybe it wasn’t the wisest approach but I didn’t know what else to do. Brutal truth, I thought in a last ditch effort, might hit the point home. It didn’t. Finally the group of students I was working with and I did actually walk out of one of the classrooms and the saving grace for the day was the one boy who ran up to me afterwards asking if I could give him some information to read on HIV since he couldn’t hear anything in the classroom and he wanted to know more. Good, I thought. We got to one. And it might only be one, but on any given day in Benin, it is that one person that keeps me here because even one is worth it. That’s pretty hard to see and to realize and it takes my blood boiling over and me calming myself down considerably enough to objectively understand the situation from the cultural context in order to try to stay sane here. And I remember in those moments that that is why I am here. Because at the end of the day I do believe that we can work from the ground up to change, even though I am prepared to admit that I will likely never see the change that I want to see within my lifetime. That doesn’t mean I can’t do my part to help.

But anyway, back to my homologue. So I didn’t cross the Atlantic and settle down in Benin to become a little yovo assistant. I think part of the problem is that my ONG already works with some Dutch people, and the role of a PCV is so radically different from any other western development work. I get the vibe that even though they requested a volunteer, my ONG doesn’t really know what to do with me. The role of the yovos working with the ONG now is to find financing for their projects and then help in the management of projects. So they don’t ever really go out and DO stuff in the field with the animateurs of the ONG, like I am supposed to. And I am not here at all to locate funding for the ONG. I guess something I am struggling with myself is my point in being here. Benin is different from a lot of other peace corps countries (but certainly not all) in that there is so much local language. We are taught French because that is the national language and because it is impossible to learn over 50 local languages, but in the smaller villages where this is the first generation of kids going to school and learning French, and especially up north where there is very little French spoken, PCVs have to operate through the homologue as translator system, and my homologue does not seem interested in bothering with this at all. I’m pretty sure he sees what I sometimes can’t help but think—that I have no credibility or legitimacy for lack of a better word, going out to villages and working in French when people don’t understand. Another side note. Part of what is also difficult is that I am a Rural community health volunteer but am not posted in an itty bitty rural village, so it is a challenge to mold my type of work to my community and a lot of my work with my ONG is out in the smaller villages in the grander commune of Dogbo where I am not a direct community member. Yet as much as I see this as a barrier when I am with him that can’t be all true because when I work with the Peace Corps facilitator, it really isn’t a problem at all. I think we just have a misunderstanding of my function here and the support a homologue is supposed to give a volunteer.

That is why today, I arranged a meeting with him to sit down and talk about how we are going to proceed now for 2009. I thought being assertive might be a good approach to commanding some respect from him so I told him I didn’t leave all of my family and friends in the US to come here and do nothing when I go out to villages with him; that from now on he would not be toting me around with him to just sit there stupidly. We would schedule different activities and plan them together, and then execute them together. I am not coming to my ONG every day anymore (no volunteer is supposed to do that but he seemed to think I should be there 9-5 M-F) because I have other work partners (women’s groups, student groups, the other Peace Corps employee etc) that I have work with too so it is necessary to plan in advance what he wants to work on. He has his work, I have mine, and then we have some things we can do together. It would be foolish and naïve of me to think that I have nothing to learn from him, just as it is equally foolish for him to think he has nothing to learn from me since apparently he didn’t even know women should technically keep breast-feeding after 6 months or how to conduct a baby-weighing. This is his country, his community, and he is bien integré here already. He understands the cultural norms and nuances that can trip me up. That is why PCVs and homologues work together…ideally. Most situations, I have heard however, are less than ideal. Before totally brushing off my ONG and doing my own thing here in terms of work here though, I am determined to take action and do what I can to redefine my role here and try my hardest to make it work. He seemed receptive in our conversation today (we arranged a meeting this Monday with the head of the Dogbo health center to see if we can use a scale to go out and do baby weighings and we are going to meet up next week to make a schedule for what villages we are going to go out and see, etc, even though he still doesn’t want to let me do sensibilizations in places where there is no French because he doesn’t want to translate), but I don’t know if he was just placating me. So I will give it a chance to see how work seems to develop over the next few weeks and if it does not seem to improve at all, I will distance myself from my ONG and continue searching out more partners for work independently. In other PC countries, the role of the homologue is not emphasized NEARLY as much as it is in PC Benin rhetoric (maybe it is because in PC Benin, the host country agency pays for volunteer housing, but I don’t really know why), so I don’t think that is the end of the world.

Anyway, that has been a struggle for me here and hopefully it will change now with 2009! On va voir, as they say in French. Wish me luck. On a random note, yesterday in cotonou, it turned out that repose there actually goes until 4:00 which in my mind is truly obnoxious…we’re talking like a 5-6 hour work day, people—how much nappage do you need? Especially when it is in air conditioning. At least out in village, I understand not wanting to be out in the hottest part of the day, but come on. Something that made me really really happy was finding a bottle of balsamic vinegar AND the olive oil that my mom uses at home--Philip Berrio. Sounds stupid, maybe, but definitely is nice to have some things like that that are familiar, even if it was wicked expensive. They say you shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you are hungry. Well PCVs probably shouldn’t be let into the supermarchés in Cotonou with more than 10.000CFA, because it is just dangerous to see so many tasty and familiar snacks that one cannot really afford (and does not REALLLLY need).

I ran into these two PCVs from Gambia at etoile rouge (throwback to Benin’s days of communism) in cotonou when I was getting a taxi home and they were on vacation on their way to Grand Popo, asking me for some info. It’s a small PCV West African World. They are heading to the voodoo fete in Ouidah on Saturday, so I might go meet up with them. Part of me doesn’t want to spend the money to leave post again and then part of me can’t help but think I am only in Benin for 2 voodoo days in my entire life (probably), I should just go and see what it is about, so I guess I shall see. Alright, this is ridiculously long now, so I shall leave for now but will post again soon!

Just Touching Base

2009-01-07T05:04:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone and Meilleurs voeux pour la nouvelle anee (figures I am on an American keyboard and can't find the accents). Also, if i putz up typing it is because of the American keyboard too so my apologies in advance.

I am in Cotonou today for a little break from post and to do some business at Headquarters and the med unit. Nothing too exciting has been going on because the weeks of 'the fete' no one worked and everyone partied it up all the time. Hopefully the ball will get rolling again because I tend to go stir crazy. I have a meeting with my homologue tomorrow to start planning out some work so I am looking forward to that.

I had just gotten back to post for New Years and did not feel particularly compelled to hop back in a brush taxi and travel so it was a pretty boring affair, and then the next day I ended up getting sick so it was probably better that I was at home anyway. So I pretty much spent the weekend in bed and then it was starting to hit me how much I was in Yovo withdrawal after my month of constant contact in December, coupled with my missing home for the holidays, so I decided to come to Cotonou to do some stuff that had to be done anyway (ie-clear out my locker since the headquarters office is moving from the Cotonou red light district to the jazzy too-expensive-for-volunteers expat district in a few days) and spend the night in Porto Novo with a friend there. Hanging out was great but I'm pretty sure that it might make it worse if I do it again soon so I am forcing myself to stay at post for the next few weeks and just get used to being alone again. I did get to see my host family for a few before heading out this morning which was great, especially Marianne and Matthieu who had just gotten back from school for lunch and freaked out when they saw me.

So now I am just waiting for repose (the hours between 12 and 3 when life in benin--or at least all of the supermarches in cotonou shuts down) to end so that I can pick up some stuff that I can't get back at post, and then head off to Dogbo so I can hopefully make it back before dark. I won't be back down here I don't think until February.

Saturday is National Voodoo Day, and I am pretty curious to see how that manifests itself. Part of me wants to head down to Ouidah for the day since that is like the Vodun capital of Benin, but my area has a lot of voodoo as well adn I've heard it is sometimes better to stick to the smaller villages because Ouidah can get to touristy. I guess I have a very few days to plan...we'll see. Either way I'll be back soon for a longer update. Hope all is well stateside.

Baby it's HOT Outside

2008-12-30T06:14:00.000-08:00

With extra training in Porto Novo for 2 weeks and then spending time in Bohicon afterwards for Christmas, December has absolutely flown by. I can't believe that tomorrow is NEw Years Eve. I have absolutely no plans whatsoever. Life has been so crazy that since I finally just got back to post I don't particularly feel like hopping in a brush taxi to go to any fetes in porto novo or further south of here with another volunteer. It feels way easier to say I'm coming home in 2010 when it is 2009 already too, so I am looking forward to that!

So anyway, it's back to the latrine and cold bucket shower for me, but air conditioning and running water was fabulous while it lasted. And to be honest, cold bucket showers are pretty much the only thing that ever cools me off any way so I don't mind, especially with chaleur--the hot season-- which is starting now and should continue until the rainy season picks up again in april or so. From where I am standing that seems a long way off. Now that its been several weeks without rain the dust here is becoming worse and worse. A layer of dust covers everything all the time. It just hangs in the air and it is pretty impossible to keep things 100 percent clean: I've stopped trying, really. ANts don't really seem to be a problem in my house most of the time but some second year volunteers told me that it might get bad with the dry season now, and that ants go looking for water. I'll admit when i got back from Bohicon i was disgusted to see that my water jug of clean boiled water was swimming with dead ants (i have NO idea how they got in) but i think it might have been a fluke because it hasn't happened again since. THey don't go for my food though and I never really see them around which is nice, considering that at the volunteers house I was staying in in BOhicon, if you left food out for more than 10 minutes it was swarming with ants and everything has to be really well sealed, double bagged, etc. IT just gets annoying after awhile. I'll stick with my scorpions.

So anyway...Bohicon. Spending Christmas here was definitely harder than Thanksgiving or my birthday and I missed home a lot, but we mostly had fun up in BOhicon fete-ing with the kids around there anyway. One of the volunteers organized this project with her NGO to give out presents to the orphans and less well off kids around her area so over a thousand presents (toys and clothes) were sent from her family in the US to give out. It was a pretty amazing gesture but I had some personal problems with the project and it wasn't really what I was anticipating when I signed up to help out. No one was even wearing a Christmas santa suit and with nothing to connect it to CHristmas in any way I couldn't get over it feeling like we were just a bunch of yovos giving out stuff to kids here for nothing, completely opposite of what we're going for here as peace corps volunteers trying to build self sustainability. Actually it also hadn't slipped by our joking notice when we saw a big santa clause statue in a porto novo supermarché that Santa doesn't really do much to help the yovo image either--white guy, giving stuff out for free. Some of the kids were really grateful, and then some just frustrated me. No sooner had we stepped off the motos than the kids would come up to us starting with their "donne-moi." It drove me crazy. We had every intention of giving these kids something but the minute they asked I just wanted to say no, turn around, and drive away. One of the other volunteers with us was getting frustrated that the kids weren't saying thank you. The kids came up all quiet and shy looking and would take their present and walk away. I'll have to admit, it's nothing like what i imagined of children here before I came. I thought they would be bubbling with personality and happy but they just seemed almost like zombies. The mothers were disheartening as they tried to push their kids up to get the biggest thing even though they didn't know what it would be, and sometimes tried to get second presents. It was bizarrely cut-throat. Eventually we had to keep the mothers outside altogether at one of the fetes. As for the kids and moms not saying thank you...it's going to be hard for me to effectively put my finger on what about that didn't bother me. I mean it did on some level, but on another it felt like a pride issue for them where i might understand where they wouldn't want to say thank you to the white person who came into their village to give their children presents. It's complicated I guess and i danced a fine line at feeling indignant at the lack of appreciation for us being there, and guilt for feeling so indignant at times because I'm not so convinced that what we were doing was so very wonderful to begin with. The volunteer who organized it got really angry when some of the mothers would ask to switch what their kid got because we were just giving out plastic bags with clothes and stuff in it and sometimes a baby would get toddler clothers, or a girl a boys outfit, etc. While I could kind of see where she was coming from since she had put in a lot of effort to organize the events, as had her family in buying and sending presents, I also really saw where the moms were coming from too. SHould they be so incredibly grateful for something we would probably not accept for our own families if the situation were reversed? I don't know...like i said...it was difficult, and i've had a hard time processing it. I'm putting some pictures of it up.

Pictures: Christmas fetes around Bohicon. I'm in the pink and blue boomba on the right.

The pictures with the scary santa clause that makes me think of The Nightmare before Christmas is actually from a party at an orphanage in Porto Novo. That fete was a lot of fun because the kids were animated an happy to see and talk to us. Maybe it was just the orphanage setting that was different because at the orphanage in Bohicon we had fun as well, actually getting to play with the toys with the children. THey were all really happy and fun to be around, and playing jump rope was a big hit for the boys and the girls.

Speaking of the NIghtmare before Christmas...another interesting Beninese tradition... Kids go 'trick-or-treating' for lack of a better word in ordernounce the coming of CHristmas and New Years. One kid gets dressed up in a costume witha creepy mask and goes around witha bunch of other kids singing ind dancing and collecting money from people, and I don't truly understand the significance of it, I just know it is supposed to announce the coming fete. It was pretty interesting. National Voodoo Day is coming up on January 10th so hopefully something fun will happen for that too.

Picture: Christmas 'trick-or-treater'

After leaving Bohicon two other PCVs came down to Dogbo to spend 2 nights chez moi, which was a lot of fun and helped ease the transition to being back here alone after practically a month of constant yovo presence. We actually went one day to visit another volunteer nearby who is right on the Togo border, so we took a little pirogue over the river and walked around Togo for an hour or so. You may not be able to tell from the picture...which looks remarkably like Benin...or from my passport that does not have a TOgo visa...but I was there, and it was fun.

Pictures: On the way to Togo and the Jungle on the other side 'o the border.

THat was the least amt of baggage I've ever taken with me during international travel!!! Well...until next time, and peut etre...next year! Happy New Year!

Beaucoup des Bonnes Choses

2008-12-18T01:41:00.000-08:00

So the amount of good things that have occured within the last two weeks has frankly been almost overwhelming. I have been back in Porto Novo since December 7th for 2 weeks of additional and more focused training. December 6th I hopped on down to Cotonou to break up the trip a little and meet up with some friends for the night there. Normally you have to check into a hotel in Cotonou for the night which is annoyingly expensive (there is no place in headquarters for volunteers to stay until they finish the new office where they'll have 12 beds for overnights) but since there were so many volunteers from all over the country the country director gave us permission to flood the med unit for the night since no one sick was staying there. That may not sound too exciting, but it meant i got my first HOT shower in about 5 months almost to the day, as well as running water in general, and AIR CONDITIONING. It was the first time in Benin I got to sleep under a sheet and still feel cold, and it was wonderful. That night I even went out with a group of volunteers and found a nice Chinese food restaurant. Cotonou is really like a little bit of heaven and it is truly amazing to me how much more I appreciate stuff like that here now. The morning of my birthday the country director invited all of the volunteers in Cotonou over to her palace of a home for delicious brunch and it was a great time. Plus I got to talk to see all of my friends that i pretty much haven't seen since September. Talking to people and texts from home was equally amazing, especially the fact that my parents had my HS friends over for brunch and passed the phone around so i got to talk to all of them (though you could have spared me the details of the delicious mimosas and belgian waffles you were in the process of eating...i mean really, talk about tact.:)) You'll have no idea ever how happy that made me!

Lots of bonnes choses, n'est pas? Well as if that wasn't enough, Peace Corps has put us up in the Songhai Center in Porto Novo which translates to me having air conditioning, a shower, and toilet bowl, as well as pretty amazing breakfasts and lunches that actually include MEAT for 14 incredible days (which, sadly, are steadily drawing to a close). I've been rooming with one of my friensd who is actually getting her post moved to Porto Novo since her last one wasn't workign out so its pretty exciting that now she'll be relatively closer for visiting purposes. And it has given me the chance to visit my host family. **UPDATE: for anyone interested (I certainly was) there are currently FOURTEEN rabbits (please see post titled, 'the visit, ou bien, the invasion'). Lends credence to the phrase 'breeding like bunnies.' Anywhoo, fêting the b-day with the host fam didn't work out so much do to scheduling which is so wonderfully beninese that I don't mind but I am heading over there for dinner tonight.

Also, I have sitting in my closet here at SOnghai, 11 large packages from home. How I will ever get them with my incredibly overstuffed suitcase onto a moto and into a bush taxi all the way up to Dogbo is utterly beyond me, but it is still pretty exciting--as are the number of fun letters i jsut got handed to me from home ranging from July up through November. So I will write back but it might take a few weeks for me to catch up. Il faut avoir un peu de patience, s'il vous plait, merci! I promise I will write. So Satruday is our last day in Porto Novo, and I am sticking around for a party Saturday morning at an NGO here with children suffering from AIDS ou bien, SIDA en francais.

After I'm heading back up to Dogbo, but only for a night, and then skipping off to Bohicon for Christmas week. With a bunch of other volunteers I'll be going off to visit different orphanages in the Bohicon area to hang out with the kids and organize Christmas fetes for them, handing out presents, etc. and I am really looking forward to it. There are a bunch of people heading up north for Safari as well. Christmas day the NGO that is organizing the fetes with us is throwing the volunteers a party as well so it should be a lot of fun--here's hoping, at least. So I guess that's all for now because this is like being back in summer training where every minute of my life is scheduled and i have to head off to the next session but when i am back in Dogbo, I'll get more regular with posting again!

If I don't post again before...Joyeux Noël, tout le monde!

Just some pictures!!

2008-12-06T06:46:00.000-08:00

First you have 2 pictures of the women's group in Kpodaha pounding Moringa into powder and cooking it...then you have the girls at the School in Hoedogli

Progression of thanksgiving dinner...backwards

An American Holiday in Benin

2008-12-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

It feels like so long since I've blogged probably because it has been so long. I was away last week a little for THanksgiving and the week was crazy before I left. Thanksgiving in Benin was better than I could have ever imagined. When I think about it, it might have been one of the best Thanksgivings I ever had simply because it got down to what the holiday was about--the people you spend it with and what being grateful for what you have.

I visited a friend up in a little village called Medengbé first for a day which was definitely interesting. She doesn't have electricity or water, but unlike in Dogbo, she doesn't really have people who can regularly bring her water so we spent a half hour together pulling up water from a well like contraption that holds rainwater so we had enough to cook drink and shower. That was really hard work, and i give her a lot of credit for doing it all the time since everyone in Dogbo laughs at me when i attempt carrying water on my head. Medengbe is about a third of the way up in Benin and in the Collines region (ca veut dire, the hills, en francais). My area in the Kouffo is an endless stretch of flat jungle green foliage as far as tthe eye can see so it was really nice to get to see a little more north where there is actual landscape (and it was a little cooler because of harmattan...mind you when i say cooler that is quite relative, and I was still sweating). Thursday we went to another volunteers house in Camaté to spend the day. Everybody was in charge of bringing something, and I had managed to find some vegetables and apples on my way up in BOhicon, a considerably large regional city (which means we had apple pie!). We were 10 PCVs all together and with a little help sent from home in the form of pumpkin pie spice, stuffing, and cider mix, we all helped in throwing together a Thanksgiving feast I would have never thought possible in Benin. I even defeathered a chicken, which was an interesting experience to say the least. Deborah, the volunteer in Camaté had arranged to put on a thanksgiving pageant for some BEninese friends...she even built a gigantic paper Mayflower and we saved some plucked feathers for Squanto's headdress, because we thought it would be great cross cultural exchange...but we never actually got around to it. We brought our feast over to her NGO there though, and decorated the area with paper turkeys, and shared the meal with some of her Beninese friends ( we did make everyone say what they were thankful for at least). And speaking of which, my thanks to everyone at home who is supporting me here in Benin because it would be impossible without you. It's funny to me because right before I left home, i had several melt-downs and thought there was no way I could leave my friends and family for 2 years. But it has been exactly those people I thought I couldn't leave that have been encouraging me here in thoughts, prayers, letters, packages, etc. WIthout that encouragement, I don't think I would be able to live an ocean away from home, and for that I am eternally grateful. ANyway, afterward we danced the night away until bed. We also split up and played soccer with a team here...they were way better...and the field was right at the foot of one of the collines...it was absolutely beautiful. When i have the patience of a saint, I will come back and post pictures, i promise. ANd to top off my already amazing thanksgiving day, i found out that my dear friend ms. jenn flynn is engaged, so I was on cloud nine! COngrats Jen! I still tear up! What an amazing thing to come home to!!

As great as being with friends for Thanksgiving was, I was more surprised at how amazing coming back to Dogbo was (with the exception of me getting massively sick on the way back down in Bohicon, and let me tell you...being sick on a moto like that is not fun...Especially when u consider that there really aren't public bathrooms here...thank god there was a bank with a bathroom in bohicon). I headed out to the marché to find eggs and was stopped by so many people on the street to say hi and that they hadn't seen me for a few days, how was i doing, etc. It actually really felt like coming home. And walking into my house was great. And then on Saturday I was going to come here to the cyber to blog but for the first time wasn't even in the mood. I ended up staying in my house to help Basil with his ENglish homework and then headed off to a soccer match at one of the schools here with Filomene.

The Monday before THanksgiving I had gone out to this village called Kpodaha to work with a women's group there, teaching them how to incorporate Moringa into their diet. I think it was the perfect village too because they already had moringa growing all around they just didn't use it. I did a lesson on the african food groups with them (its quite different than ours) and asked them where they thought Moringa fit in and they all said within 'restorative foods' but the answer was in all 3 groups. SO when I asked how they used moringa in the community they told me they would use it to cure malaria, ou bien, palludisme, but never incorporated it into their cooking. So Kantos, one of my work partners, and I taught them how to add it to sauce, and how to dry it properly and crush it into powder to be added to bouille (porridge like thing people eat here). It is so incredible for nutritional recuperation, and i know i say that a lot but it is just amazing how well it works. I went back to Kpodaha yesterday to do a soja (soy) cheese formation with the women and they showed me more of the powder they had made after I left. It was really satisfying to see, to say the least. ANd working with them is great because NONE of them call me Yovo. They all say catherine and its gotten to the point that i show up and they are all smiling and happy to see me and work together, and im just as happy as them so it's a lot of fun. What is good about things like moringa and soy cheese is that it incorporates things that the women here are already doing and just adds a healthier more nutritious twist to it so it is easy for them to start doing it. The women were SO excited about the soy cheese that they exclaimed they were all going to be making it for the grand fete (New Years and Christmas).

Monday was also World AIDS Day and I worked with a group of students in one of the CEGs here (secondary school) to go class to class and do short little presentations on HIV/AIDS (VIH/SIDA en français). It started out really great with the younger kids but quickly devolved into absolute chaos with the older niveaus. There is absolutely NO classroom management and when the kids were moud, rude and obnoxious, the teachers did NOTHING to help out). I give a lot of credit to english teacher PCVs because that was my original assignment and I don't think I could have ever done it. I do not have the patience to deal with kids like that all day long. It was really disheartening too because I actually get asked questions like 'If a man has AIDS and his wife doesn't but he sleeps with another girl, can the girl get AIDS?' I can't make people see the seriousness of AIDS, i can just provide some info and advice, and perhaps, condoms when I can find them, so I wished that the kids would take it seriously. I guess i have a lot of tile to work on it. ANyway, time is up for today so I've got to run. HEading down to Porto Novo this weekend for a few weeks so that should be really exciting. I'll be back next week. Enjoy the cold weather and CHristmas preparations!!!

And Now Back to our Regularly Scheduled Programming

2008-11-16T06:19:00.000-08:00

Pictures: First is laundry, beninese style. Can you spot Scout? Clearly she is very helpful to the process. It is good to know that some things don't change across the atlantic ocean...one of them being a cat's seemingly innate ability to find what you are using or working on without fail, and lie down on top of it. The next picture I really posted just for Sally and Charlie...She LOVES the bag you gave me and is all over it ALL the time.

I know it's been awhile since I posted. Pretty much because every time I touched a computer or had plans to go to the cyber, the power went out, there was no internet, or I was doubled over with stomach pain, tightly clutching my bottle of pepto bismol. Je suis desolée. At any rate, this promises to be a lengthy post as a result.

Anywhoo, so much has happened in the past 2 weeks I have to think for a minute where to begin. Randomly, I've discovered that one should never underestimate the power of even only 20 minutes of equatorial sun to render one's skin a lovely shade of red. But anyway, everyone here is pretty excited that Barak Obama won, though it is extremely difficult to explain effectively that he is in fact American and not African. From what I can gleam from BBC, the parties in Kenya are crazy and someone even wrote a play about Obama.

I decided the other week that my life here is decidedly plain...which is just to say that despite how exotic it might sound in my blog, and despite the scorpions, and voodoo, I still have to wake up every morning, go to work, figure out what I am going to eat for the day, and deal with all the normal everyday stuff like laundry (admittedly a more difficult process here) and cleaning. Maybe it's just because I am used to the livestock roaming around and the kids on the street in their underwear, but I couldn't help but think that life here isn't so very different from home. And then I was sitting with my work partner who was so excited that Obama won, that he told me he was going to come to the US, to New York to visit me when I left. He told me he'd get off the plane and ask for Catherine and that would be that. I looked at him trying to gauge whether or not he was being entirely serious and sad laughingly that he'd have to be more specific because there were a lot of Catherine's in NY. He then said, alright, he'd ask for catherine, daughter of --insert my parent's names-- (actually that's a lie...he meant daughter of my father--sorry mom-because its still patriarchal enough here to ask that way), who had lived in Benin. I looked at him blankly for a minute again thinking, yeahhhhhhhh...still going to need to be more specific, and told him as much. "Ah!! Bonne?" he asked with delighted surprise. And then I realized that I had been wrong. Life here in so many ways could not be any more different from home. I was going to say something to him and then I thought...how could I even BEGIN to describe a place like New York City? Our airport shops likely have more commodities available than the capital city of Benin. How could I possibly explain the vastness and, for the large part, absolute frivolousness of our supermarkets? How could I say that people will pay 5 dollars for a cup of coffee at starbucks when that translates to over 2,500CFA and an entire pineapple costs 75CFA? At that moment life here couldn't have felt any more different.

Pictures: First you have Filomene and Basil, the kids who help me around my house with different things and bring me water. In photos the Beninese do not smile. And a lot of the time they don't look at the camera either so they aren't unhappy or anything...that's just the way it is. Next you have me pouring the water I've been carrying on my head into my container in my house. I know the picture isn't great but having a Beninese person take your picture is like asking my mom to...you never know what you're going to get (Love you, mom!).

Despite that, in my opinion after living here for over 4 months now, the availability of things is pretty good too. In a lot of cases, when I've asked my parents for something from home, usually within a week or 2 I have found the item in a marché or in my trips to Cotonou. OK--no, you aren't garaunteed anything like walking into a supermarket at home, and things circulate each marché day so you'll never know what you'll find, but honestly, at this point that is half the fun of marché day. And while when I first arrived Cotonou didn't phase me, and I would have been horrified at the small amount of things available in Dogbo in comparison to home, now going to Cotonou is an indescribably exciting trip that keeps me happy for days, and I don't see a lack of things in DOgbo so much as I look for potential in what there is already. Plus ordinary things fro home make me ridiculously happy here. I can't even open more than one care package a day because I get overwhelmed by the stuff insided. Maybe you think I'm being dramatic, but ask my post mate--I am dead serious. Packages usually come in groups with the way Peace Corps does mail and it drives people crazy here that I don't just dive in (though fortunately, LYNN, there aren't people who strip the packing tape from my packages and send me threatening notes with them to open it). My supervisor came up from Cotonou to visit my post and NGO and see how things are going and brought me three packages on thursday. I still have one to open tonight after I finish making dinner because I spill the contents onto the floor, survey the loot, and usually have this overwhelmed grin on my face as I look through stuff over and over again. And then I can't possibly imagine being able to process more American goodness, and so I put the stuff away and open another one when i need a little dose of happy. Tuna probably wouldn't phase me at home but it's pretty incredible the difference it makes here.

Pictures: First is of our little Halloween fete in Azové. We have a butterfly, Lance Armstrong, emo kid, marathon runner, beninese school child, dorothy, and Venus to name a few here. And then, self explanatory...is the largest scorpion in my house to date (about 3 inches)

Yesterday was really great. 4 of us went out with a man who does a lot of work with Peace Corps to a village near Azové, called Hoedogli, to talk to a group of girls and boys about the importance of girls education. It was pretty amazing to see the number of people who came, and the talk actually went really well with a lot of input from the boys and the girls. Sexual harassement and abuse is a very big problem here. It happens in every school, for countless girls. Professors look for more wives among their students (lots of polygamy here), they bribe them with grades, failing girls if they refuse them some times. SO the situation is really hard for girls here, and it was good to get the kids to talk openly about it, as well as to see the different discourse and ideas between the girls and the boys in the room. The boys would raise their hands and accuse the girls of going to the professors houses, or dressing in a way that would provoke the professors into that behavior. ANd yes, that DOES happen, but they fail to realize that a lot of the time the girls here see no other choice because they want good grades, or know that the professor might pay for their education if their parents can't, or buy them things, or take care of them, etc. And as the adult and the instructor, it should be the professors who send the girls away or offer to help them at school if they say that what they want is tutoring. At any rate, there are also plenty of times when it is the teacher who is the aggressor and it is interesting to note that the boys in the classroom didn't seem to think that was nearly as important as those girls behaving negatively. Other things as a barrier to female education that we talked about is the uneven division of household labor. And I am going to restrain myself here as I have some pretty negative things to say about the male contribution--or, essentially, lack thereof--to life in the developing world as it is the women who shoulder so much of the burden for family life. Unless there are no girls in the family, for the most part, it is only girls who will carry water on their heads for the family, or draw water from wells when there aren't even proper pumps. It is the girls who will cook, and carry babies on their backs with a pagne all day long (And the women will bring their babies out to the field in a pagne the same way, swinging them around to their side so they can breast feed while still hacking away at the fields the whole time.), and who will do all the sweeping, and selling things in the marché. You'll never see a girl out playing soccer like you do the young boys, or the men who are seemingly always available for meetings smack in the middle of the work day, or sitting in groups at the local 'video club' or playing a game kind of like mancala that I still haven't figured out yet. ANyway, before getting too into it, since it just makes my blood boil a little, the kids were astounded to find out that 2 of the volunteers that were with us who are a young married couple share household responsibility and that HE cooks more than her. All the boys said that they believed in the necessity to help out more--to practice this not only in their own household when they are older but to inform their parents as well. Meanwhile the girls accused the boys of saying that in the room with us there, but that it would never happen, and so it was really interesting when it was all over to see that lunch (the village provided us with rice and oranges) was being doled out by only the girls. So we challenged them and shouted out asking why the boys who had just said they agree it is unfair that girls do all the work, weren't helping. Well, boy, did they jump up to grab plates. It is just frustrating because it is that exactly that makes me realize how difficult it is to change the way people think--letting the girls do the work is just so innate for them, that I don't even think they always realize it.

And I struggle with that a lot here, and even at home before I came here, deciding whether or not I even should. Some days I wake up, gun-ho, let's do this. ANd some days I am overwhelmed by the task at hand. What will it take to change things. I'm not talking about converting Benin to a little America. THere are starkly different cultural values between us and I have a lot of respect for Benin's culture. I am talking more about just the idea of justice for women in this society, for the educational system here, and the economic situation. SOme days the problems just seem so deeply rooted, and so impossible to rectify or even improve slightly. And then I have the moments that keep me here, those times when I realize that if everyone felt that way nothing would change. Maybe changing the mindsets of people will take decades, generations, and maybe I won't ever even see it in my lifetime for a village like Hoedogli...but does that make not trying, not even planting the seed for change, a justifiable alternative? I can not in good conscience think so. I have to believe that no matter how small a difference I make here, if I make any difference at all, even for one person, it is something. I have to think that it is a step and that one day things will change. Because that thinking that it is impossible is an overwhelmingly sinking feeling that bears down on me sometimes, and is just self-defeating and a counterproductive mindset. ANd as frustrated as i can get here on some days, and as much as I can let that mentality seep in when I am feeling overwhelmed by the culture, or homesick, I really do believe that what I am doing here is worthwhile. At the end of the talk with the girls, they got up to sing and dance for us and one of the girls pulled me in to dance (i have a video I will try to get up next time of it). Before I left she handed me a slip of paper with her name and contact info on it. I don't know why she pulled me up to dance or gave me her contact, because she didn't for any one else. I can't explain it really eloquently or anything, but that was my moment yesterday--it meant a lot to me. As frustrated as I got in the discussion at some of the things said and what they indicated of the mindsets of Hoedogli, the fact that she did that was the positive I took away from the afternoon, and helped reassurre me that yes, I need to be here now.

Dad, you'll be happy to know that I went to mass on Sunday. Perhaps you'll be less thrilled to learn that I opted for going to a Voodoo mass with my friend Filo, rather than the Catholic mass. But don't worry, I am not converting. It was actually really interesting to see. THe mass is usually in Aja though they translated some of it into french specially for me and my post mate which was made pretty clear as they stared at us yovos in our boombas during the french parts. Basically they told a story of an evil sorceror, and that voodoo protects you. One woman fell into a stupor that I could only liken to what you would think of at big chruch revivals... It was like she was possessed--so they took her away. The role of the Kola nut was also intriguing. You go up to receive some smooshed Kola paste on your forehead, and then you get another white substance (don't know what it is) drawn on your cheek. THey are meant to purify your skin. They also hand out Kola nuts to everyone (kind of like communion). You take it with your left hand and hold onto it until they tell you, then you kneel down (dirt floors, an you have to remove your shoes as a sign of respect too), and whisper your hopes and wishes to the kola nut. It was a really interesting moment and hearing this very low murmer from everyones' prayers during the mass was strangely symphonic. There is an altar for the Kola nuts, and they collect everyone's Kola nuts after the prayer and bring it to the altar.

I also went to a Soja cheese formation on Wednesday in Lokossa at an orphanage there. One of the second year volunteers was showing 2 of us first years, and the women who run the orphanage, the process for turning soy beans into protein filled cheese for the kids there. I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn't woken up with severe stomach pain, but it was still really interesting to learn. And the orphanage was really in a beautiful spot. Everyone sleeps on mats on the floors in 4 large rooms--2 for boys and 2 for girls. When I say it is beautiful, it's a difficult disconnect, because if you saw it you might be horrified compared to an orphanage in the US. One volunteer's mother went to visit a few years back and was so concerned that there weren't even latrines (they were using the field) that she came back to the states and found funding so that they now have several nice latrines. But really, what one NEEDS is there, and it is quite nice. The kids weren't there in the morning since there was school, except or a little baby who peed on me, and one girl who had class in the afternoon. But they came around lunch time and were really sweet and very polite. The woman who opened the orphanage was herself an orphan and raised by a priest. She wanted to help kids who had the same lot as her and so she had bought the land, and went on ahead ...there are about 50 kids there now, and more who are at sleep away schools, coming back on the weekends only. I guess what I found sad was the kids who were abandoned. One child's mother died shortly after birth and the father abandoned the baby. He had several other wivesq and none of them claimed responsibility for her. One girl there, who I thought was maybe 7 or 8 was actually 12, and just incredibly stunted from malnutrition when she was younger. SHe has sickle cell anemia, and when she lacked the nurtrients she needed she used to start to eat dirt, which led to her having worms chronically. Now in the orphanage though, she is on a special diet, and being well taken care of by the directrice and her staff. You could tell that it really was like a family there, and that the people running it were fully vested in what was going to happen with these children (a striking contrast to many of the teachers in Benin, who are in it only for money--kids do not at all come first in the Beninese school system). But it is also interesting to see the contrast in the orphanage at Lokossa, opened and run by a Beninese woman, versus the Dogbo orphanage, run and sponsored by a German ONG. For example, the orphanage here is constructing a bakery right now to teach kids who don't show promise in school a usable trade. There is just a lot more mney available to them.

Okay...Well while I could go on and tell you about the women's group in Kpodaha I visited last friday, my hands are getting tired, and since I am visiting them tomorrow to do Moringa Oliferi sensibilizations, I will update you on that next time. Hope all is well stateside with Thanksgiving preparations!!!

Oops

2008-11-05T02:45:00.000-08:00

Soooo...I changed the setting on the blog so that I could moderate comments because technically if people say something negative about peace corps, or benin, or just things like that I could be in trouble. As it is however, not only did that apparently cause quite the confusion...but it was annoying for me to individually approve each comment so I changed it back to the way it was before the confusion. Sorry about that!

Also...my post mate called me from Cotonou today to tell my that I had 6 wonderful packages waiting for me. How I will ever get them to Dogbo since she can't carry all 6 I am still working out but I am so excited, so thank you!!! Catch you next week!

Good God It's Hot

2008-11-02T07:59:00.000-08:00

Picture is of my host family: The first is Maman and Matthieu with me and the other is --Top from left to right Maman, Papa, Matthias, Lawrence, Germaine, and then Marianne and Matthieu in front.

"I took a deep breath and told myself that a woman anywhere on earth can understand another woman on a market day...yet however I might pretend I was their neighbor, they knew better. I was pale and wide-eyed as a fish. A fish in the dust of a market place, trying to swim, while all the other women calmly breathed in that atmosphere of overripe fruit, dried meat, sweat, spices, infusing their lives with powers I feared."

-Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

I came across this passage while reading the other day and thought it pretty adequately described the exasperation I'd been feeling the past few weeks of yovoing, cultural divide, etc. Actually, the poisonwood bible is pretty great--wonderfully written and with so many things I am relating to or feeling so if you have the time I highly recommend reading it. And in case you want to better understand a little how yovo-ing can get really old really fast, i am attaching a link to a youtube video of it that my most wonderful aunt loretta found in August and I kept forgetting to post it earlier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hCRUJIsN00&feature=related

To the left we have some random pet monkeys in Lobogo and then Me with Matthieu and below is a shot from Grand Popo.

It is hot here. It's so hot that my earrings are sticking to the sweat on my face whenever I move my head too quickly,which is every few seconds, pretty much. The short rainy season is coming to an end with the end of October and the petite chaleur is starting, much to my discomfort and dismay. November is supposed to be obnoxiously hot before Harmattan begins around december. Harmattan is the desert dust winds coming down from the north so we only catch a bit of it in Dogbo, though it is supposed to be the coolest time of year here before the long hot season starts in February...supposedly. But it has been in the 90s here and humid and while I tell myself maybe if I don't move it won't be so bad, i still sweat when I am absolutely still. It is so uncomfortable, especially when I have to boil water for an hour, which is pretty much every other day or cook every night since the stove heats up my kitchen.

Scorpions: So I am up to 16 now and have posted a picture of one of the first live ones I found for your viewing pleasure. What disturbed me about the one today--other than there being a scorpion in my house to begin with--is that I found it for the first time on my floor which totally caught me off guard because they are practically the same color and that can just get dangerous I think. Good thing I always wear shoes. My post mate is going to Cotonou for a few days so I will be dog sitting for her (stay tuned...that should make for an interesting post since he came over today to test the waters and Scout was not at all pleased) so I hope that no scorpions get him...or me. I found the biggest one in my house so far (three inches) the other day and some of the smallest this week. They say the smaller a scorpion is the more dangerous so I can't tell if I'd rather the plethora of small scorpions be a nest of hatchlings or just the more dangerous kind...kind of a coin toss i guess...i seem to lose either way.

Friday was Halloween and I thought it was as good as a lost cause in terms of celebrating here in Benin, but all the volunteers in the Mono Couffo got together in Azove for a regional meeting and then we actually stayed over with the PVCs there to have a part-ay. One volunteer who's dad sends her a package pretty much every week had accumulated so much candy it was ridiculous...there was even candy corn. My body can't handle the processed sugar anymore it feels like though..a few bites and I was ready to keel over as were most of the PCVs. Dennis, resident chef, made us all chili with cornbread and one girl came down from North Benin with a pumpkin which she carved into a Jack-o-lantern. Topped off with a bonfire and an hour-long conversation with patty...the night was quite amazing. (You are awesome for calling to, cath...all I needed was a cup of tea and it was like being at the brew :) )

So last night was a culinary masterpiece...eggplant burgers. Grated eggplant with onions and pepper all mixed and sauteed. Add an egg and throw in some gari (manioc flour) and make into patties to brown in a skillet...i even used my last 2 very chère potatoes to make french fries. I can't believe how delicious it turned out. And its amazingness was magnified by giving me an opportunity to use the itty bitty bottle of heinz ketchup i managed to stumble upon in Cotonou.

Here are some pictures of chez moi. The lavendar color room is my 'salon.' It is about 18ft long by 14 ft wide...pretty big for a volunteer house considering the ones I've seen around here. I appear to be lucky to have 3 rooms because most I've seen around here only have 2; The 2 back rooms are my 'kitchen' and bedroom and each are half the size of the salon. Before I painted it was cement walls the same color as the floor making it quite difficult to find scorpions.

Yesterday when I got back from Azove I met up with a woman who works in the Mairie (Mayor's office) here. THe training for last year's health volunteers was held in Dogbo and she hosted a PCT for the summer so she is familiar with Peace COrps and so nice to me. She is the president of a women's group in Majdre (and arrondissement of Dogbo) and took me out to see the group and what kind of work they've been doing. I'm hoping to start going to their meetings and working with them. They do a lot of things with manioc and corn and I think perhaps it might be a good place to start moringa cultivation though I will have to wait and spend more time with them first before I can actually tell. Her village is really beautiful too, and the people went crazy when I practiced the little bits of Aja I've picked up so far. It's actually kind of motivating me to practice more but I just find aja so difficult.

On a random note, I think I will open a boite postale in Dogbo for 2009 since I think it might be more efficient than waiting for Peace Corps to handle my packages and mail. I talked to the French couple who live here and they say they've never had a problem getting packages out of the PTT here, and it costs less to get them than what peace corps charges us, so. There is no point paying the 10.000CFA to do it for the last 2 months of this year but I think it will be worthwhile for next year to split it with my post mate. Well that is all for now. I have to head over to pick up the puppy for what is sure to be an interesting 2 days. Bonne chance à moi. à la prochaine!

Can't believe i forgot about ms. scout!

2008-10-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

That's all i have time for...took a half hour to load this picture so I will post more next week. (there is another longer post right below)

It's Not Easy Being La Blanche

2008-10-27T06:40:00.000-07:00

Picture: Top : Sorry A. Annie / right: Doing PACA (participatory analysis for community action) au village during stage (training)...it's like 'where's waldo'. / below: why yes...that IS a giant falice in the sacred forest! / Me and Jeremy at Swear-In in a bad self taken picture.

On our way back from Cotonou last Monday in an overcrowded crappy brush taxi with an angry driver at night and lightning in the distance (in the direction in which we were heading) rendering our trip contrary to nearly every peace corps recommendation for volunteer in-country travel...

"Michelle: If this stretch of road right here is really messed up we're probably just outside of Lokossa (about a half hour away from Dogbo).

Me: OR...we could be in any number of places seeing as how you just described about 90 percent of the roadways in Benin.

Michelle: true"

So I went to Cotonou last Monday to vote, which is why I did not blog, and it was fabulous. It's funny because Cotonou didn't really phase me when we first arrived here. I thought it was dirty, scary, and overwhelming. But Cotonou on Monday was like a magical place in which we did not have nearly enough time to putter around since it took forever to get there in our taxi and we had to leave by 5 if we wanted even a hope of getting back before dark. I met up with my papa because lord knows to top that debacle of a weekend off, i discovered that they took my phone charger with them by mistake since they have the same phone as me so I had to borrow my neighbor's. At least he works in Cotonou otherwise I don't know whe I would have gotten it back. We went to the Festival des glaces for lunch where I had a cheeseburger (with unidentified cheese...but it was SOOO good) and actual icecream which has been missing since June. Michelle and I hit up several of the supermarchés in which I was able to find a number of things i haven't seen since june, the highlight of which was definitely soy sauce and raisons. I also found apples!!! 200CFA each and worth every CFA. That is only like 50 cents US but it is pretty chère here considering a whole pineapple is about 75CFA. I bought a bag of 6 and have been enjoying them quite a bit. I even made a itty bitty apple crisp with one of them the other night. Which reminds me. I've finally consumed enough tomato paste to be able to construct a dutch oven so I have been a baking fiend. I use it to cope with bad days and it is marvelous. (below is dutch oven and me at the python temple of ouidah)

And speaking of bad days. I have been in a kind of funk for the past 2 weeks or so, and I am getting frustrated by it. I have no patience for being called yovo or hearing that god-forsaken song. ANd it has been happening a lot lately...or maybe it is not more than usual but just that my tolerance is finished. I live here. I am not a tourist...and so it really is hard to realize that no matter how long you are here or how bien integre you are you will ALWAYS and FOREVER be an outsider. It's like moving to a place like swan's island, maine...if you're not born there you will always be 'from away.' And a lot of kids have been walking up to me saying 'donnes d'argent' (give money). I actually freaked out last week and screamed down the street at them at the top of my lungs so that everyone thought i was probably a crazy Yovo "Je ne suis pas une banque!!" (I am not a bank!). And then I hopped into the taxi yesterday to go to Lokossa for high speed internet to try to upload pictures (the cyber didn't open till 5 on sunday and didn't work when it did) and a kid in the back of the taxi asks me if I live near Klaus...who is apparently a German volunteer that runs the orphanage in Dogbo. I just turned to the kid and said in french..."actually...i don't know all of the white people in Benin." And I don't know Klaus...i just know of him. Race isn't really taboo to talk about here like it is in the U.S. I mean...as soon as i reject a Beninese man's offer for coffee or marraige i have to hear 'are you racist?' So it isn't difficult to just talk about black and white. With the U.S. elections coming up I've also been really frustrated. Everyone keeps asking who I am voting for which I will not say, and everyone here is really into the elections even though they have no idea what they are talking about for the most part. My host family didn't even know the name of the republican candidate, and most people I talk to don't seem to have anything insightful to add to a discussion beyond 'John McCain is old, and Obama is young and black.' So whenever I tell people that I don't want to say who I voted for they look at me and say something along the lines of "oh you would never vote for a black person. You're white...you will vote for le blanc." In the taxi home from cotonou when one guy started saying how McCain is old i told him that didn't mean he was a bad candidate and that age and experience bring a lot of good things to a campaign and he automatically assumed that I voted for him. I can't help but think I'm in Africa with all of YOU black people so why do you assume that I would never vote for Obama. It has just been a lot of black versus white forced on me in recent weeks and it is wearing quite thin. THere has also been a LARGE group of Dutch people in and out of Dogbo for the last 2 weeks checking up on their NGO projects here. The group of students with them organized a whole sporting even on Saturday so I went over to the school to watch some of the soccer matches and even my friend here, Chanceline, saw all of the Dutch people and turned to me and said 'Look...it's your people. You should go talk to them." I don't know all of the dutch people...and they are not MY people. They are from an entirely different country. And i find it as annoying as when people talk about Africa like it is a monolithic lump...or the Middle East. Every country here is markedly different despite large similarities. It is sooooo annoying. So yeah...i've had more and more days where I've felt like shutting myself away and pretending I am not here. Which is probably why I made regular bread, teriyaki stir fry (with my newly found soy sauce), and papya bread last thursday. IT might also just be that I've never gone so long without seeing family and friends though, and that fall is my favorite season at home and i am acutely aware as I sit in my house constantly sweating, that I am missing it. And for Owen...no there is nothing like Halloween here with the exception of the presence of Voodoo. But I do have a halloween part/ VAC regional meeting for volunteers in Azové on Friday and need to think of a costume. ANy ideas? What are you going as?

This is a picture of all of us in the buses one day during training...not much unlike a bush taxi. Actually...bush taxis are usually more crowded.

Benin is also, i have decided, not overly animal friendly. On my way out to a small village for a sensibilization a few weeks ago, I saw a little dog that had been killed and was hanging from a bar suspended over the little dirt road. It was for a voodoo ceremony, my homologue told me, to avoid bad luck. I cringed. Then I was in the marché last week one evening buying ginger for my teriyaki sauce when all of a sudden this group of kids screamed and came running with sticks. I had no idea what was going on and then i saw this huge rat run by me and jump onto one of the legs of a table. I felt really bad because he was clearly a gonner and he actually looked like he knew it was coming because it dug its claws in and had no where to go. THe kids starting beating it with sticks until it died. Everyone in the marché thought i was ridiculous because I had stopped to stare dumbfounded, having never have seen that before and the woman had been holding out my change for several seconds before I even noticed. They all laughed at me.

Pictures are taking forever here so I hope that you appreciate them :). I really want to get up some of my house, the scorpions, and my host fam so I hope I have time because I have an aja lesson at 18 heures aka...6pm which is in a half an hour. Anywhoo. That is all for the writing part for now. Be back soon. A la prochaine!

2008-10-26T09:45:00.001-07:00

I'll come back tomorrow to post for real and attempt the pictures again. don't even ask...it is just internet in benin.

The Visit...ou bien, The Invasion

2008-10-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

So I am going to start by mentioning--and A. Annie may want to skip on down to the next paragraph-- that in the upper right hand corner of the cyber right now there is a daddy longlegs who is wrapping up a fly he caught to eat. Normally that might gross me out but now I think it is actually kind of interesting.

Ok, so anyway, my host family came to visit this weekend from Saturday into Sunday. Seeing as how this is Benin, I didn't really have a say in the matter...they just told me they were coming and that was that. So it was probably good that my friend couldn't end up coming over on Friday night like we planned. Friday was our marché day so some people came up to Dogbo for the day and we had a Chinese food night. It was delicious. We made a Korean BBC type pulled meat that we wrapped up in itty bitty lettuce leaves we found with shredded carrot and pepper, and onion (One of the people comes from Lokossa where there is a lot more stuff available all the time so she brought the veggies with her). Then we made fried rice (AMAZING) and egg drop soup. For dessert we found these peanuty balls of goodness in the marché. But my one friend who I haven't seen since swear in and who lives kind of far was going to come spend the night and we had tentative plans but never confirmed them and then I never heard from her. Turns out her reseau (cell phone reception) was cut in her village for days so she couldn't get in touch with me. We have the same reseau, GloBenin, but c'est le vie in Benin I suppose. And like I said, since then I had to get ready for my host fam, it ended up working out okay.

Anyone who knows me and my lack of patience for little kids and anal retentive penchant for cleaning and neatness would be surprised to see me still sane after the 27 hours (yes i counted) that I was reunited with my host family in Dogbo. Now...my house is tiny. I mean, it is perfectly fine for me and Scout (who, by the way, Aunt Loretta is quite insulted by you undermining her femininity by calling her scott, though she sends a meow back to pork and beans) but it was not big enough for my host fam. 8 people and a cat (and all sorts of innumerable creepy crawlies) in a itty bitty house with no running water or bathroom, or furniture, and no tv (please note...i don't care that I don't have a tv but my host family was HORRIFIED...and bored, since they missed their poorly french-dubbed Spanish soap operas). I am actually going to backtrack and preface this tale with the disclaimer that I LOVE my host family. THey are amazing people who treated me very well for the 9 weeks I stayed with them, and I cried when I left for Dogbo. That being said, pray let me continue.

They all poured into the house sending Scout scampering and began unloading their things as my blood pressure began to rise slightly. All of a sudden my maman let out a PIERCING scream and ran across the room "SCORPION...SCORPION...LE CHAT!" Scout found a scorpion and was trying to kill it, so I had to run over and squash it and maman did not stop freaking out until she saw it was dead. (ps--scorpion count is up to 9 and much to my dismay, i've learned that they CAN indeed move quite quickly when they want to and will start stabbing with their tail when they feel threatened). That being done, EVERY time Marianne or Matthieu touched the wall maman would scream at them to not touch the wall because they might get stung. And she never calmed down, searching endlessly for the entire time on all my walls and doorways for scorpions. Then she had to go to the bathroom so I grabbed my keys and took her around to the latrine. She took one look at it, shook her head, and wouldn't use it...nor did she want the rest of the family to...I won't go into details as to the alternative. Then we found a lizard in my house and maman screamed again until Germaine swatted it into shock with my little broom and balayed it out of the house (balayer is ther french verb to sweep). I guess I was surprised, and surprisingly indignant as to how my host family looked down on Dogbo and the people there, their fellow countrymen. I consider myself really lucky to be posted here because Dogbo actually has relatively a lot to offer compared to some people out in the teeny villages (ie--i am using internet right now) but they couldn't get over how so many of the houses were made from mud, and the latrines, and the lack of reputable restaurants, or that I didn't have a tv. I was actually getting kind of annoyed because they just kept putting down everything here, which was difficult to hear since I lived here. Plus I couldn't help but think that I myself come from the US and have way more than my host family and if i can live in Dogbo, they should be able to spend one night without complaining. I guess it made me think a lot because I have people here that I am friends with now and just because they don't have as much money doesn't mean that they are any less good people. Maman got really angry that Papa said one girl who visited me during their stay was in the same grade as her son because she was so much older. She told him not to dare compare her children to that girl. On an aside a lot of the kids here are really behind in school because there just isn't money to go every year even though it is like the equiv. of forty bucks in the USA...and this girl in particular, who befriended the volunteer before me and went to the Peace Corps girls empowermentcamp, CampGlo, started late and is repeating 6ieme (equivelant to first grade) because she refused sexual harassement by her male professor, which is an ever present problem in the schools here for girls, and so he failed her. SO i was really annoyed by my maman's criticizing her without even knowing her. Maman was also horrified because she was vodun, a practicer of voodoo (her dad has 10 wives and a little over 40 children) and the fam was surprised how much voodoo there is in Dogbo; and the fetisher outside of my house. I want to learn all about voodoo and their rituals, beliefs, etc. because it is such an integral part of Beninese culture, and I guess I was kind of disheartened to see how much my host family turned their noses up at it. It kind of reinforced for me the chasm there is between the capital Porto Novo, and the towns, and villages outside of the cities. And I never even considered Dogbo to be in the brush or uncivilized by any means.

So then I had to start taking things and hiding them from from the constant touching, bending and other interdit activities inflicted by my little host brother. And Maman was grossed out by the moss I have growing in my back area. I tried to clean it up but there is really no point until a little into the dry season because it just keeps growing with a vengeance. SO she had Germaine go out and find a brick for her to stand on for her bucket shower...Even though she was wearing flip flops. But maman made me a beautiful dress and Boomba (a traditional beninese outfit, which is wicked comfortable) with really pretty tissue (fabric) which is so nice of her. And she brought absolutely amazing food. Pork and yummy rice for lunch and the most delicious chicken I've had in country. My house actually smelled like at home when my mom is cooking.

So we went to bed because there was really nothing left to do as my host family pointed out (I for one, turned on my flashlight and read Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan for a bit), and I could hear them moving around every few hours because Matthieu had a fever. They commandeered this huge ugly thing from the menusier to sleep on even though they came here knowing i didn't have beds and they had originally said they would be sleeping on mats. They didn't want to sleep on the floor because of scorpions but I couldn't help think that scorpions LIKE wood and could climb up the legs of that ridiculous wooden monstrosity in the middle of the night if they wanted to to sting you. I finally convinced papa to take it back with him to Porto Novo because i did NOT want it in my house and had no use for it...i already commandeered stuff from the menusier. My maman started yelling at him for cluttering up my salon. They kind of remind me of Sally FIeld and Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire with the dad acting like a little kid so that the mom always has to clean up the mess and gets really angry a lot.

Anyway, The next morning I made them crepes which they really enjoyed, and all seemed to be okay. And then the other shoe dropped. My papa went out for awhile with the kids without telling me and came back suddenly hurrying me out back to show me how to use the intense insecticide he bought for me for the scorpions (i sprayed it this afternoon, which is why I've left my house for a few hours). While he was explaining it to me Marianne repeatedly called my named until I would pay attention. "Caterine...viens ici...regarde. Les Lapins." What? i thought as I went into the house and saw a huge rabbit hopping around my living room. Oh my god--I blurted that out in English. "Papa a acheté un lapin?" (Papa bought a rabbit?) I asked from my kitchen area. "NO" she cried enthusiastically and papa walked up behind me and said, "huit." I think my blood pressure topped off at that moment and i walked into my living room to see 3 huge rabbits and 5 little baby bunnies hopping around all over peeing and pooping on my floor (which i washed with bleach water as soon as they left). My maman was LIVID and started yelling at him and then he went out and left the rabbits there with all of us. I had to lock scout in my room and frankly wished I could have locked myself in there too because all my patience was spent. I was about ready for them to leave...actually I had been counting the hours since I woke up. But they finally left...at 4:45 (even though they said they were leaving at 11...that is a cliché benin moment and why i NEVER leave my house without a book anymore because you spend so much time just waiting for meetings to start, etc.). The taxi pulled away with all the rabbits, the extra furniture, and all my family and I couldn't help but think Dieu Merci, as I walked to the marché with my post mate to vent and buy some pineapple and fanmilk to make me feel better.
So I really do love my host family...i just hope that the next time i see them it is in Porto Novo.

Well, it is Columbus Day and you're all enjoying your days off and I should be at Caumsett state Park with my mom for our annual walk, so it is a little sad today, which is why i am treating myself to an ungodly amt of internet time. I really miss apples here too...and my mom's apple sauce, and spiced cider. I haven't ever seen apples in Dogbo and the one time I saw them in Lokosso they were over 100CFA for one little one.

I have however, greatly enjoyed getting cheap and delicious pineapple, and am now an expert at cutting it quickly and effectively. By the time I leave I want to be really good at cutting coconut because my coconut girl in the marché always laughs at me that I ask her to do it for me. A random beninese thing that I never mentioned is that sphagetti sandwhiches are ever present here...yes...carbs wrapped in carbs. It is a really interesting concept.

Another random Beninese thing..homosexuality is illegal here. You could be jailed for a rumor of being gay...but at the same time it is totally normal for guys to walk down the street holding hands or hugging each other because it means they are BEST friends. Way less normal, is to see a heterosexual couple holding hands because it is culturally inappropriate. So I officially think this makes up for the short post last time. Hope everyone and everything at home is well. Happy Columbus Day!!!