Back to Africa...Troisième Fois

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...

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!!!

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

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

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

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.

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.