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.

GAD Dinner and Auction

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

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.