I apologize in advance for the incredibly short post.
Christmas was great. We went to Grand-Popo with a few friends and hung out on the beach for a few days, soaking up the sun. Just like at home! We had a great time and had pizza and red wine for Christmas dinner.
On the 26th, we went back to Cotonou for the night and made the long haul (11 hours in a bus) up to Tanguieta to visit some friends and check out some things for work. We are in Natitingou right now and early tomorrow morning (5:30am) we begin our 3-day safari to end the year on a high! We're excited to see some lions and elephants.
Stay tuned for pictures and we will see you next year!
For the first time in months, I’ve been able to watch an entire EPL game, and tonight didn’t disappoint. I finally found out where I could watch a game here in Bohicon, and there just happens to be a place down the street from the Grand Mosque that shows the games and it only costs 200 cfa to get a seat on the bench. I sat 7 rows back in the room, which was more like a lean-to, built from mud brick with an aluminum sheeting roof. The screen wasn’t huge, and sometimes I lost track of the ball because I was constantly straining to see the TV. There were lots of Arsenal supporters and a few United supporters in the room. All around me people were talking smack to each other and causing a ruckus. It was an amazing atmosphere to watch a game in. The only thing I was missing was a few pints, and maybe mon jumeau to fight with. In true yovo fashion, I got plenty of stares and everyone wanted to know which team I was rooting for. The Mighty Reds, of course! Comme normal here, I was in the minority. What follows is my analysis of the match and a look forward to Sunday’s contest:
Rooney is not yet on form. Surprisingly, he was most effective when sitting on the last defender’s shoulder and barging through Arsenal’s defense, rather than dropping back into space to play it to the wingers Park and Nani and then moving forward. Speaking of Nani, he ran wild tonight like he did in last season’s final encounter between the two sides and, with the help of an unfortunate deflection, served Park for the winner. As far as Park was concerned, this was a normal game for him. He worked hard, sprinted box-to-box for the full 90+ minutes, and wasn’t terribly effective save for the goal (how far did he run to get to that spot?), which he has a knack for in the important games. The goal was a bit fortunate at best; in fact, it was a classic “Craigy goal”: the result of a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck. Rooney ultimately created the space in the middle for Park to run into while Nani held up play for long enough for Park to get inside the 18. United looked very dangerous on the counter-attacks through Evra and Rafael, who played better offensively than defensively tonight. Back to Rooney, I thought that he would have been more effective. He generally seems to do well against Arsenal, and anyone could tell that he isn’t yet in form. I can’t help but wonder if Chicharito would have been more effective? His penalty was nothing less than embarrassing, trying to do a Ruud van Nistelrooy-versus-Arsenal circa 2003 (when he smacked the ball so hard against the crossbar with his penalty that it nearly flew to midfield). What was he thinking? “I make £200,000 per week now, gotta put a hole in the net every time?” If it weren’t for a good save later on, his cheeky little chip would have just about redeemed him.
Arsenal, for their part, were a bit awkward and seemed to quickly run out of ideas. Nasri has been in brilliant form lately, bagging a double in their last match, but he wasn’t able to quite get on track tonight. He started on the right, but when Rafael exposed his flank while launching counter-attacks, Nasri switched over to the left, which I thought was a good move, as Evra is less prone to making mistakes than is Rafael. Arsenal had a lot of trouble getting service to Chamakh. After a frustrating opening 25 minutes or so, he started dropping far back into the defensive half to get the ball (notice where he was on the pitch when he fouled Nani when he got his yellow card). The introduction of Fabregas and Van Persie was a positive move, especially since Rosicky and Wilshire had all but disappeared from the game and Van Persie could fill that hole up top that Chamakh left when he dropped deep to receive the ball. Arsenal were ultimately let down by their wingers, who couldn’t service a decent ball in, and their central midfielders, who often left Chamakh to attack the wingers’ crosses by himself. Their introduction maybe should have been made at half-time. Arsenal came out strong in the second half but Rosicky and Wilshire were so far out of the game by then that Chamakh was still left attacking the United goal basically by himself with wide support and service from Nasri and Arshavin.
Overall, United had more quality chances and did better tactically to counter-attack versus Arsenal’s possession game, though possession seemed to be fairly even. It was always going to be a tight game and it had to come down to who could better capitalize on the other’s mistakes. Nani by far wins Man of the Match in my eyes.
Definitely worth my 200 cfa. Now on to Stamford Bridge on Sunday which will be just as tricky, since Chelsea have not won in over a month and are bound to break out of their slump. Let’s hope they wait at least another week before then. (Note: Since this entire continent supports Chelsea, I will be lacking fellow Reds to cheer with.) Look for Fergie to pack the center of the midfield against the Blues, who should see Lampard back in the starting line-up. It’s too bad that Ballack has moved on, as he and Evra had some great bouts of handbags the past few seasons. Speaking of Evra, come Sunday, someone restrain the groundskeepers!
The Colline region of Benin is the very middle of the country where there are rolling green hills. Some say it is one of the prettiest parts of Benin. I would have to agree. When we were first told that we’d be living in Bohicon and we found out how close it was to the Collines, we knew that we wanted to go hiking a lot. This last weekend was the first chance that we have gotten to take advantage of the nearby scenery and dust off our hiking boots. We left on Friday from the bus gare. It was definitely the worst ride anywhere of our lives. We had to wait around for almost 4 hours in the heat for the bus to leave, while everyone kept telling us that the bus was coming any second. We ended up trying to get on a different bus whenever a bus would come into the gare, but they were all full. In the midst of trying to talk to one of the guys with whom we’ve had success with before in finding a bus, a huge guy came up to me with his hand out for a handshake calling me “yovo”. I don’t have the patience for adults calling me yovo, so I simply told him that my name wasn’t yovo and that he could call me “Madame”. He said, “but you are a yovo”, and then put his hand on my arm. I moved my arm and told him sternly not to touch me and then walked away. (It’s a big taboo for a guy to touch a girl here that he doesn’t know). He followed me and kept bothering me. I left and went back to Craig where he was guarding our luggage, and asked him to take over in our transport search. Long story short, we got in a minivan that was supposed to leave at 10:30 and it didn’t end up leaving until after noon and made frequent and long stops along the way. What should have taken us 2 hour, took us almost 4.
Once we got to Savalou, the small town where our friends, Carlos and Andrea live who celebrated Thanksgiving with us, we got out of the van and went to get our bag and the van started to drive away. I yelled at the van to stop, which it did. Then it started intentionally driving just fast enough for us to have to chase it, meanwhile, the entire van that was crammed full of people (19 to be exact) was laughing at the white people chasing the van. It was one of the most frustrating days in my Peace Corps life to date.
After we got to Andrea’s house, we were able to relax and enjoy the rest of our weekend. Andrea was telling us how she was having bat problems since moving into this new house because the people left the windows open the whole time it was empty. We looked everywhere, high and low, and couldn’t find any bats. As soon as night hit, there were two bats flying around. We got one of them to go out the window and the other one disappeared again. As soon as we started to go to sleep, I opened my eyes and saw it flying around above us, so I shouted for Cara to open the window again. The bat would not go out the window so Andrea thought she would try to hit it with a broom to get it out the window. Well she hit the bat directly at Craig and I, so I started freaking out even more (I don’t do rodents) and it eventually went out the window. We thought that was all, but the next night, the 3rd one appeared and we got that one out too. Now, Andrea’s house should be bat-free!
On Saturday, we got up very early (to beat the sun/heat) and took a 20-minute zem ride to a little village higher up in the collines where we started our hike. Before starting, we ate some bouille for breakfast, which is the Beninese equivalent of cream of wheat but not as good. It was cool, misty, cloudy, and nice until about 11am when the sun started to come out. Needless to say, it was a very nice hike. There was a palm tree with 7 trunks (they said it is the only one in the world, but who knows) along with a lot of other pretty things. It was just nice to get away from post for the weekend and do some outdoor activity. The company that took us out said that it was the hardest hike that they did, but we didn’t find it too hard. We were very dirty afterwards though and when we got back to Andrea’s house, the water was out so we had to walk to Carlos’ house with our shower stuff to take a shower. We left to come home on Sunday, and the ride home was much nicer than the ride there! Enjoy the pictures!
P.S. A huge thanks to Noelle and Mama/Papa Wirick for the care packages! You guys are awesome!
Carlos, Cara, Satin, and Andrea
Craig and I with the kids in the start village
All of us in front of the palm tree with 7 trunks
the start of the trail
at the top of the first peak
This bat pretended to be dead and when Craig threw him off the roof with the dust pan, he flew away!
December 1st is globally known as World AIDS Day. I knew about it before leaving the States, but I wasn’t too sure how well-known it was here. Our event started about a month ago when I was at my first baby weighing and I asked my supervisor, Sakina, if we could do something for World AIDS Day. Being the supportive supervisor she is, she said, “of course”. I told her that I’d like to organize a sesibilization about HIV/AIDS and then do voluntary testing afterwards. She elaborated on my ideas and got a video to play, organized with a school director of a local school that has a high rate of infection, and amazingly, got someone to agree to do the testing. We chose a school because here, kids start having sex at 8-10 years old, which is unconceivable in the States, and because it is not unheard of that a young girls have these relations with older men (teachers, family friends, etc), there is a much higher rate of infection. Another reason for this is because in the culture here, they believe that if you don’t have sex a lot, then you’re not healthy and you’ll get sick with all kinds of horrible things. Which I guess there is some truth to that keeping you healthy, but they put a lot more emphasis on “being healthy” in that aspect then they really need to. I asked Peace Corps if we could use our connections and resources to get someone to do the testing, but the only resources that are available through Peace Corps have to be booked months in advance. Luckily, there is a local organization that does testing whom she’s worked with before and they were happy to help.
December first came around and Craig and I met Sakina at the school. She pulled up with a vehicle full of stuff (including free female and male condoms to give out at the end) and walked up to meet us with a box on her head and a smile on her face. The turn out was much larger than I had expected since we did the presentation right after exams. We had two rooms full of kids. One room had older adolescents and the other room had the kiddies. The organization that came did a really good sensibilization on HIV and AIDS that was very informative for the kids as well as inclusive. The video that we showed was so graphic that if THAT doesn’t stop them from having unprotected sex, I have no idea what will. Craig couldn’t even watch it because it was so illustrative. And of course every time there was a penis or vagina, all the kids started yelling and getting all excited.
After the video, we did a condom demonstration with both the female and male condoms while they started the rapid testing. One of our colleagues who was leading the demonstration said to make sure the penis was hard and not floppy before putting on the condom and all hell broke loose with kids screaming and laughing and jumping around. After the kids got their results, they gave us the little paper that the technicians gave to them when they got their results and they turned it in to us for a package of free condoms. that we got to give out Sadly, there were many cases of HIV positive students. They didn’t tell them that they were positive there, but told them to go to their headquarters for more testing so that they could counsel them in a private place. Hopefully, we made some sort of impact on them to live healthier lifestyles. As our first official event that we have done in the Peace Corps, I feel that it went incredibly well. Enjoy the pictures!
My fearless leader, Sakina, with a box of donated condoms on her head
We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. It was a little weird for us, celebrating it without our families back home, but we did celebrate it with a couple members of our new Peace Corps family. At the last minute our friends Carlos and Andrea, who live about 2 hours northwest of us decided to come down and celebrate with us. We all went out to dinner the night before Thanksgiving for some cheap food (rice, sauce, and wagasi cheese—400CFA/.90 cents) and caught up.
We don’t have access to your typical Thanksgiving foods (except yams and potatoes) and since we’re all from regions with heavy Latin culture, we decided to make Mexican food. Carlos, Craig, and I all went to a garden that is run by handicaped people to buy our produce. Unfortunately, they sold us avocados that weren’t ripe yet so we couldn’t have any guacamole and the papayas that we had for our beverages weren’t all the way ripe either so it was a little chunky. Regardless, we had a nice spread. Home-made tortillas and tortilla chips, salsa, refried beans, Spanish rice, Tapatio potatoes, and the dessert—arroz con leche, or rice pudding while drinking frozen fruit daiquiris made with papaya, pineapple, and bisap syrup-made from hibiscus flowers. Sister Madeline (from a previous post) was in town and stopped by with a bottle of white wine for us to celebrate the holidays with and we had our neighbors over for the actual dinner part.
We ate all day long to make sure that something that day felt like Thanksgiving since we were without our normal company and it was extremely hot like usual. But while surrounded by new family, friends, and neighbors, it was the closest to a “normal” Thanksgiving that we would get to and it was really nice.
gutting the papayas for the daiquiris
the Thanksgiving gang
cooking away!
the finished product...or what would fit in the screen
Heather and I went to Parakou over Halloween weekend for a pair of meetings and a Halloween party (as John McCain and Sarah Palin). We tried to "come home" to Bohicon on Sunday but we had bus problems--meaning that we paid for our tickets, but the bus never showed--so we got our money back, returned back to the workstation, and left on Monday morning with a different bus line that would actually transport us.
Heather started feeling ill on Monday, and I started feeling sick on Tuesday morning. We had our first Fon tutoring session and we returned home and Heather was still not feeling particularly well, and I also began feeling ill. I began losing fluids at about 1:00pm was tired, achey, had a headache, and nausea. We called the Peace Corps doctors and they told us to drink fluids and try to stay hydrated. At about 7:30pm I threw up for the first time, and started to drink ORS, the Oral Hydration Fluid that we have in our medical kit.
At about 8 or 8:30pm, I was feeling nauseas and tried to stand up and walk 8 feet to the bathroom, when I fainted from severe dehydration. Heather saw me stumble and tried to catch me as I apparently (I don't remember, it was like a dream) ran into the wall, then fell onto the floor. She said that I passed out for about 10 seconds. When I came to, I asked her what was wrong. I had no idea what just happened. She helped me to the bathroom, then I broke out into a sweat--dripping puddles onto the tile floor--and Heather called the doctor, then rousted up our neighbor, Gilles, to help. The doctor instructed us to go to the nearest hospital to get me an IV. I got on the back of Gilles' moto while our other neighbor Gilles volunteered to take Heather. About 10 minutes later, we were at the (private, not public--everything that the government is in charge of here falls apart) hospital to check in. Two bottles of IV solution later, and I was discharged (it cost us 12,200CFA, about $25). Our Peace Corps doctor was in constant contact with the hospital doctors the entire time and they took really good care of me.
Our PC doc asked us to come down to Cotonou on Wednesday for an exam, more fluids (not intravenous), and blood work. The good news is that I don't have malaria and I may have had bacterial diarrhea. When the lab analyzes my "sample" they will let me know. We thought that we would only be here for a day or two but the doctor discovered that I have an abnormally low heart rate for someone who is not a world-class athlete (anymore). The long and short of it is the doctors want to make sure that I don't have an underlying problem that the sickness has exacerbated and illuminated.
In the meantime, we are feeling better and have been running errands around Cotonou: going to the bank, buying necessities, raiding the workstation library for books, eating ice cream and chwarma, etc.
On Saturday, we went to the Ambassador's house and went swimming. He opens his pool every Saturday for Peace Corps Volunteers and it is amazing! We didn't get to hang out with him but did walk across the street and saw some embassy staffers playing softball and hung out with them a little bit. At their invitation, we had brunch with them on Sunday at the house of one of the FSOs. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them and seeing what life is like to be Foreign Service Officers. Some are former PCVs and we were able to ask them about the Foreign Service Officer Exam, which we are both studying for and planning to take at least once before we leave Benin. We plan on getting in touch with them whenever we're in Cotonou.
We should be leaving on Tuesday to go home, and we both have a feeling that we need to make up for lost time at post since we have basically been away for almost 2 weeks.
A while ago, a fellow volunteer asked me if I had ever tried Bikram Yoga back in the States. I hadn’t, but another volunteer said, “No, but I’ve done yoga in Benin and it’s practically the same thing.” That got me thinking…it IS basically the same thing. Week after week, as we do our marathon training sessions, we arrive back at the house drenched in sweat. You probably think that it would be normal to be like that after an intense work out, but I have done intense work outs many times at home, both in the gym and outside, and never have I ever been so completely soaking wet. I am talking; someone just dumped a bucket of water over us, drenched. Craig actually wrings out his shirt several times afterwards and can water our garden with what comes out (but he doesn’t). I get salt in my eyes when I lay down to do crunches afterwards WITH a hat on (that is also completely drenched) and after a good 20 minutes of cool-down. All of our fingers and hands get wrinkly like we just got out of a bath, and we drink enough water to fuel a caravan of camels. Part of this is because we aren’t early birds, so we do these workouts in the late morning. The other part of it is the intense humidity and heat. And it’s the “cool season” right now.
After one of our training sessions, Craig and I got to talking about how the next two years of our lives will probably be the healthiest that we have ever, and will ever, live. Sure the lack of regulations for cars/motos and their exhaust may cut this down a little, but it’s no biggie. And this is not just because we’re less stressed, happier, have more time, are doing something we enjoy, have fulfilling jobs, getting the liberty of creativity and entrepreneurship in our tasks, or ride our bikes everywhere. It’s also because the foods that are available to us, are largely, all organic and fresh with no chemicals, preservatives, pesticides, or anything else unnatural. We cook most of our own meals, cutting out the chance of what we intake being dowsed in palm oil, but instead, cook with Extra Virgin Olive Oil. We are boiling our water, filtering it, and then drinking it, making it probably better quality than anything we can find in the States, in addition to having a half-glass of wine every other night or so with dinner.
But the biggest thing that links all of those others together is the time that we make for exercise and how it makes us feel afterwards. Craig and I spent quite a bit of time, money, energy, and effort back home making sure that our food was completely organic and trying out different detoxes to rid our bodies from any toxins to remain as healthy as possible. They were difficult, expensive, time consuming, and torture (for us), for the most part. By living in Benin, we sweat so much here (and therefore, drink so much water) and eat healthy things that there is no possible way that there are any toxins left hiding around our fat cells that haven’t been flushed out by our new lifestyle. After a 5-mile run down a beautiful dirt road in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by lush green fields, we not only feel calm in our mind and spirit, but our body feels rejuvenated. Bikram yoga? It’s got nothing on living as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin.
Thank you Mama Wirick for our package of my chacos and GRE Prep book (and taco seasoning mix and American flag bandanna that will come in handy for our Halloween costumes)! Thanks a bunch!
We got here on the 20th of September and have almost been at post a month now. We have gotten a lot done in this month. We have started two gardens, gotten our house set up, met some amazing people who we hope to work with, and are 1/3 the way through our report that is due at the end of our 3-month integration period. We both have been going into work and while Craig is mainly focusing on doing research on the park and jotting down ideas and notes to help him further the success of the park, my main focus has been on making contacts and meeting potential and future work partners. My CPS works with many ONGs that help the community in some way, and I have been working on meeting them. This week, we met a man who works for UNICEF as well as a man who runs an orphanage. We also went to the health center in town to talk with the doctors/nurses that we met when we were on post visit and the head doctor made an appointment with us for next week to discuss possible collaborations that we can do. I know that they do vaccinations once a week, which would be a good time to talk to any mothers with malnourished children, for example. We are excited about that meeting. Since Craig’s work is a little slow, he’s planning on picking up some secondary work in the health field doing something together with me.
Katie’s (our post mate) homologue is farming Moringa, which is a plant that is nutrient/vitamin rich in every nutrient/vitamin imaginable and he has been trying to sell them at a very low price (the mentality is that if people pay for it, they’re more likely to use it) and he needs help with the marketing of it, which is right up my health alley and my marketing alley. So I am definitely going to help him out with that. They also garden every Saturday and once that gets going, we’re going to collaborate on a project that fights malnourishment. Malaria is the biggest problem here, but since we are leaving the rainy season, it won’t be such an issue until the rain picks up again next April/May, so I want to focus on malnourishment, which is always a problem.
This week, we’ve stepped up our training for the marathon. We run 20-something minutes out, then 20-something minutes back with a little break half way through. It’s a really pretty run and very good training. We’re going to bring our camera next time we run out there. I really wish we had some way of knowing how far we were actually running though. It’s a good stress reliever and I am still amazed that after (probably) 5 miles or so that we ran today, my hip still doesn’t hurt! And it use to hurt after 2 ½ or 3 miles every single time. Incredible!
Last week, we went to visit some volunteers who were at a training here in Bohicon and on our way back, we got caught in a flash flood on our bikes! It was incredible! There were literally rivers of red mud water flowing past us on both sides of the road and if it were cold, I am convinced that it would have been hailing. It was raining really hard and by the time we got back home, I opened the gate to our concession, and water started gushing out like we were in the Beninese version of Titanic. It actually whipped off my sandal! It was quite an adventure!
Another fun little adventure that we had was when we woke up and went outside to the kitchen and found a little lizard friend right there in the doorway. It ran away from us under our sink and by the time we finished breakfast, it was gone. The next day, we got home from going to work and there was another lizard sitting on our toilet seat. I have no idea how he got inside, but when I put my gardening gloves on to pick him up and put him outside, he got really scared and ran away and I ended up having to chase the poor little guy all over the bedroom. Needless to say, he was traumatized.
We planted a bunch of seeds at our house a little over 3 weeks ago and they are growing nicely! We also planted a larger-scale garden at Craig’s work that has also started growing very nicely. It’s very exciting! I cannot wait to have basil and cilantro! Among the many other things we planted. This week, we also got hair cuts in some form or another. Craig went to a barber shop and had them shave his head. It took a while to explain what he wanted because the kid that was cutting his hair wanted to just use scissors, and once he got him to use the clippers, he was going the wrong way with them. It was pretty hilarious to watch. I gave myself a little trim, but only with the bangs. There really isn’t any place for women to get their hair cut, especially white women who have different hair. The only places that I have heard of are the ones in hotels in Cotonou that charge a hefty price (for Benin at least) so I trimmed my bangs myself and I will find the most skilled volunteer to trim the rest at some point. I am definitely not as good as my dear friend and hair stylist, Stephanie, but since we live in Benin, I don’t’ have to be.
Right around the corner from our house, we have a “mama” that has a stand right outside of her house where she sells stuff. She is super duper helpful for us and just all around amazing! We are coming to cherish our mama. She is always super friendly to us and never jacks up the price. The price that I use to have to haggle hard to get in the marche, she just gives to me without any haggling, which is like a breath of fresh air in a city full of smog. She also has two dogs that are always at her side along with her kids and grandkids. One of her grandkids just may be the cutest kid I have ever seen in my life. She is super polite and has that cute little 3 year-old voice. In our first week here, we asked her where we could find honey and she got on the phone and called her friend at the marche to have her bring some back to her house after she left, and a little boy delivered our honey that night at about 8pm. I don’t even know how he knew where we live, but I’m sure it wasn’t hard. This week, we asked her where we could find the much-covetted peanut butter that volunteers long for and she got on the phone and worked her magic again. It took her 2 days this time, but when we went to get our eggs and onions today to make dinner, she had a jar of very good quality peanut butter waiting for us, along with a bag of pineapples that we also asked about. It’s much nicer for us this way because not only do we get to skip a trip into town for these things, but when she gets them for us, she knows the right price and gets it every time and doesn’t jack it up for us.
We are going to take a night away from our post for Halloween because up in Parakou, we have a meeting to attend, followed by a Halloween party, which we are excited about. We decided to go as John McCain and Sarah Palin. It’s going to be a little challenging getting Craig’s hair white, but we’ll figure something out I’m sure. I hope it’s as funny as we want it to be, and beside that, it’s the only thing that we may be able to pull off without getting costumes made. We’re really looking forward to that, especially since we haven’t been to Parakou yet, so we get to see something new, as well as see some of our friends that we haven’t seen in a month and a half. It should be fun! We’ll post pictures when we have them. Those are all the updates for now. Enjoy the pictures! A Bientot!
Working on our garden right outside our front door
Nigerian bread that is sweet and tastes like shortcake
This week, we had the pleasure of meeting a Returned PCV from a few years ago who is here in Benin visiting old friends and colleagues on his way to do his Fulbright in Rwanda. We were riding our bikes to Katie’s house (our post mate), who lives in a small village just outside of Bohicon, when a car drove past us and this white man in the passenger seat said, “How’s it going?” as they passed and left us awe-struck as to who that yovo was. He bought us a round of drinks once we got into the village and by the end of our conversation, he invited us to go on a little day trip the next day to the even smaller and much more remote village of Toweto, where a fantastic nun was running a health center sans salary.
The following afternoon, we drove about half an hour to this tiny little village with a few mud huts and a pump water source that had the backdrop of beautiful lush green rolling hills all around it. I could kick myself for forgetting my camera. We met Sister Madeline (I changed her name to respect her privacy) right after she had just delivered a baby. And she was indeed, fantastic. She was incredibly happy to meet us and immediately welcomed us into her house where she had prepared a big lunch for us, complete with Californian wine. I instantly fell in love with this woman, especially after seeing all of the work that she has done, mostly on her own initiative. She has such a determination to help the people of this remote village who didn’t have access to any heath care before this health center was built.
When the RPCV was working in Benin with the PC, he met Katie’s homologue, Matthieu, who she works with now and who has land in this little village that he grows/farms on, where Sister Madeline now is. He saw the need that the villagers had for a health care center, and with the RPCV’s help, they raised money, got grants, funding, etc from different people and places to build a very basic structure that could function as a health care center. Sister Madeline had her own operation going on in the Nattitangou area, which is in the north of the country, and debatably, one of the best/prettiest parts of Benin. They asked her if she would come down to Toweto and run the new health center that they built. Now, keep in mind, it was very simple, nothing fancy and certainly nothing like what we have in the States. Cement floors, simple beds, no air conditioning, no electricity, no running water, tin roof, etc. She took the unpaid job of running this center and since then, which was sometime in 2006, she has expanded the building, added more rooms, gotten 10 times more medicine for the pharmacy, had a well put in, had showers built and installed for the patients to use, got solar panels, had a generator put in, and is constantly working at making the center better.
She is hands-down, the most incredible person that I have met so far in my life to date. A lot of projects that PCVs do often end or fall apart soon after the Volunteer leaves because there is no one who can run the project and keep it going that would care about it just as much and work as hard at it, unless another Volunteer took it over. She is what every Peace Corps Volunteer hopes to find in a work partner. She is honest, motivated, hard -working, passionate, and outgoing. She has love coming out of her ears. Even her pets are well loved, which is an incredibly rare thing here since pets are for utility and not company. But that’s a different story.
I asked her what her next plans were to see how and where I could get involved. Her future plans are to get a hold of some mosquito nets for the villagers as well as working on a nutrition program for kids who are malnourished, both of which I can do something to help. And not a second too soon either; as we were getting ready to leave, she was treating two very small children who came in; one who needed a blood transfusion because it was so anemic (and running a 106 fever at about 2 years old), and another child who was a year and a half old and was so malnourished that not only did he look like he was 6 months old, but he also had sores all over his face and his skin was peeling; both signs of severe malnutrition. The RPCV actually sent us back to Bohicon with the mother that had the child that needed a blood transfusion so that they could quickly get to a hospital that could accommodate that. As for the other child, Sister Madeline got him eating and gave the mother some medication and instructions to make a soy-porridge and will be doing house calls since the mother couldn’t stay at the hospital with her baby.
This day was a reality check and an abrupt reminder of why I joined the Peace Corps and why I’m here. The RPCV was an inspiration to the kind of PCV we hope to be by the time we leave and we plan on staying in contact with him while we’re here. In the meantime, we will definitely be visiting and working with Sister Madeline along with doing our normal work. We are incredibly moved by her and it’s all that we can do just to not move in with her in order to be around her all the time.
Note: The internet was down in Bohicon for the past three weeks, which is why this is so late.
We swore in as volunteers on Friday, 17 September, then packed up over the weekend and moved to Bohicon on Monday, 20 September.
We had a nice swear-in ceremony at the ambassador's house (there was a torrential downpour at the end of the ceremony so we had to cut the festivities a little short), then we did some shopping in Cotonou before heading back to Porto-Novo. That night, we had a party at a hotel across the street from our host family's house, so we partied at the rooftop bar for a while then slept in Saturday. We headed to the marche to pick up some last-minute things and then started packing.
On Monday, we made the big move. A taxi showed up at the house a little past 8:30am and we packed it full with our stuff and strapped extra stuff to the roof, including our mattress (which was folded in half) and bikes. We picked up another volunteer from the bureau in Cotonou on the way; fortunately, the extra passenger that our taxi ("mon frere") picked up on the way was dropped off on the side of the road halfway to Cotonou.
We made it to Bohicon unscathed, then we unpacked the taxi and got settled in.
Then on Tuesday, I fell off a zem. We went to the menusier to see if our bookshelves were ready (they were), and we haggled with them for a coffee table, then we went to the marche to pick up a few things and went back to the menusier to figure out the details to get our goods delivered. Heather and I flagged down a pair of zems while one of the menusiers strapped two bookshelves and a coffee table to the back of his motorcycle. Heather's zem knew where our house was (or thought that he did), and mine had no clue so he decided to follow them. We got about 50 yards down the road and a large truck was blocking our path. Heather's zem was able to find a space large enough in the street to pass, but mine slowed down and stopped. The truck driver waved us by, my baby-faced zem driver gunned it, and I, laden down with heavy bags from our marche-ing, saw my feet fly up in front of me and the bright blue sky above. Fortunately, I fell on my back (I was wearing a backpack which broke my fall and I am glad that I took the tomatoes out and gave them to Heather an hour earlier) in front of about 100 people, who all immediately started screaming and exclaiming in Fon. I'm not sure what they were saying, but it might have been something like, "Holy shit! Did you just see that Yovo fall off of that zem?" A few people ran over to help me out and dust me off but I knew that the zem didn't know where he was going so I gathered my senses and got on as soon as I could. We had lost the other two zems and were going the wrong way, so of course he got lost. Fifteen minutes later, we finally got home, where Heather was waiting for me with the unloaded furniture inside our concession. We patched up my wounds and brought the furniture inside.
We have spent the last few days getting settled in, getting groceries, and exploring the neighborhood. Yesterday we started a garden in front of our house! We planted eggplant, carrots, cucumber, corn, squash, tomatoes (three varieties), radish, parsley, oregano, basil, and cilantro (and a few others). We hope to have a little harvest in a few months.
A la prochain...
Football is as ubiquitous to life in Africa as are music and dance, red dirt and poverty. It is possible to find rudimentary football pitches everywhere, with goals being as simple as two sticks in the ground with a stick “crossbar” along the top. Often, there is no crossbar at all and most of the players play in bare feet on the soft red dirt, and one can find small children everywhere kicking around a ball and emulating their favorite superstar, be it Messi, Ronaldo, or Drogba.
I am convinced that nearly everyone here in Benin owns at least one Chelsea jersey and one jersey for another team, probably Barcelona (I will occasionally see the odd Manchester United jersey, which makes me very proud). The fact that Chelsea has so many African players probably has a lot to do with this, which was a brilliant move because clubs generally receive more value for their money from African players and Africa offers a gigantic, largely untapped market for football teams; Manchester United recently partnered up with Glo Mobile, a Nigerian telecommunications company, to offer live updates and other club-related services to Glo customers, and there are billboards all over the place to advertise the recent partnership. Assuming that someday Africans will escape abject poverty and the corrupt political institutions that allows it to thrive, kudos to football clubs for tapping this market early. I can find decent-quality football jerseys anywhere--on the street, in the marche--for way less money than I would pay in the States or Europe. I have asked around and I have been told that I can get a jersey for around 4.000 CFA, which is about US$8 (at the current exchange rate of ~500CFA to $1). A really cool part about the knock-off jerseys here is that they come in colors that you can’t find anywhere else, such as a purple Chelsea jersey or a yellow Barcelona jersey with red vertical stripes and “Mesi” stenciled across the back. I have played a few times here and the quality of football that I have encountered is quite good, though it seems to be lacking in organization and tactical knowledge, but then again, I have only played a pair of 4v4 pickup games or watched a few minutes at a time as I waited for a zem after school. On the whole, though, the players seem quick and technically sound, and it is clear that they admire the flair that the Brazilians bring to the game; I can’t help but wonder whether it is the Brazilians who inherit their creative flair from their African ancestors rather than the other way around?
I can’t walk more than a block anywhere without seeing at least a few soccer jerseys, and there are still billboards up advertising the World Cup, which is partly because MTN (the largest telecommunications company in Africa, which was a major World Cup sponsor) probably has not gotten around to taking them down, and partly due to the excitement that still reverberates here for the World Cup or anything football-related in general.
The Beninese national team, Les Ecureuils (The Squirrels), barely missed out on the last World Cup by being edged out of qualifying by Ghana by one point. Right now, they are in the midst of qualifying for the African Cup of Nations 2012 and have drawn Rwanda, Burundi, and Cote d’Ivoire in their qualifying group. This is an historic year because Rwanda has not fielded a team in years and it looks as if Benin has a good chance to advance to the tournament this year. Current volunteers here have said that workdays ended early during this past World Cup and people gathered around little community televisions which were powered by generators to watch games, and the Beninese playfully teased them for the American’s loss to Ghana, which is about 6 hours away (just on the other side of Togo).
To be continued…
Cheers
Stage is coming to an end--we swear in on Friday the 17th--and we are excited to finish jumping through the prerequisite hoops and get to Bohicon and begin settling into what will become our home for the next two years, integrating into our community, figuring out the match schedule for the local professional footy team, and getting acquainted with our host organizations and doing research for our jobs. One of the first things that we plan on doing when we arrive in Bohicon is securing a reliable internet connection so that we can communicate with you all on a relatively regular basis.
Some quick updates:
A big thanks to Vashti, Johnny, and Erin for the sweet box of goodies! The candy, tortilla press, sandals, pictures, seeds, gloves, and love were all received intact and with no damage to the goods inside or the love that accompanied it.
We (finally) received Brian's postcard from Ireland, and we appreciate the kind words and beautiful prose.
We celebrated our 5th "dating-versary" on September 10th. Since we're still in training and on training salaries, we couldn't do much but we had a half day that day, so we got to spend some quality time together, which was nice.
We both passed our final language interviews. Heather finished at the Advanced Low level, and I finished at the Intermediate High level. We both needed to score at Intermediate High to swear in, and we plan on looking for a language tutor (in French and/or Fon) shortly after arriving in Bohicon.
There has been a chorea outbreak in West Africa and as well as Benin, but it is mostly in Cotonou, which we will not be, so don't worry about us there if you see it on the news. We have been well versed on how to prevent getting it.
We all visited Ouidah on Saturday and saw a sacred forest with voodoo statues, the "Gate of No Return", which is on a very beautiful beach and the slave road whereby slaves that had been sold to European traders walked to the beach from where they would be taken to waiting ships and sent to the Americas. The Gate is a World Heritage site. We also saw a snake temple. Snakes are considered sacred here, especially the python, and there is a temple in Ouidah just for snakes. At "high season" there is said to be over 200 pythons that live there. We all got to try on a snake. One thing that was a bit traumatizing for Heather was a very cute grey baby goat that was tied up and very unhappy about it. They told us that the goat would become a sacrifice. What they didn't tell us is that they were doing the sacrifice right then and there so as we exited the temple and were on our way out, without knowing that they had just killed the very cute goat, we walked right through the crowd to the opening with bright goat blood and a lifeless goat. Heather gasped, turned around and hid. She had to have someone walk her out of the area with her eyes closed and face buried into our friend so that she could avoid seeing the very traumatizing scene. Needless to say, it was quite disturbing. Other than that unfortunate incident, the day was pretty good and we are seeing more and more of the country we will call home for the next 2 years. We are always learning something new too. That's all for now. Enjoy the pics!
Cheers!
Statue in the voodoo sacred forest
Me with a python in the snake temple
Snake Temple
On the old slave road
The "Gate of No Return" that slaves went through when they were put on ships
Sometimes I wonder how I have made it this far, two whole months, in Benin without having some sort of bodily injury occur to me. Today, I was almost hit by a moto who was going the opposite direction of traffic (and me) on the road to Nigeria as I peddled my bike away from the tailor’s shop. That was my first mistake; being on the road to Nigeria on a bike. What was their reaction? They yelled at me to be more “doucement”, or careful, while the guy walking down the street laughed hysterically at me. This happened all while I was trying to dodge the big old van with peeling blue paint that had stopped abruptly to pick up/drop off passengers whose manager hopped on and off the back bumper of the van. He saw this and the next time his van stopped abruptly in front of me, he warned to me, “doucement”. This goes on all the while, trying to ignore the kissing and hissing noises that everyone makes as a futile attempt to get my attention as I ride by. I was almost hit by a moto about a month or so ago. Maybe this will be the real task at hand with being in the Peace Corps. When I have a close encounter with a moto-kind every month, maybe the real challenge of Peace Corps is to escape these moto accidents 27 times. Two down, 25 to go!
Let’s discuss something else that has caused for some extreme efforts in adjustment. The schedules here for anything and everything are as erratic and frustrating as their traffic. Last night, we were awoken, even with our earplugs in our ears, by the woman that is staying in our little mini house. She fought with her bedroom door until she burst it open and woke us, then fought with the front door until that one burst open too, then shuffled around the living area until she decided to sit directly on the couch which is directly in front of our bedroom door and proceeded to chant something in local language over and over again 300 times. Did I mention that this was all going on at 2:30am? When we told our Grandpi about it this morning in an effort to avoid this unfortunate loss of sleep again, he asked if she was up doing her laundry. What??? Now, let’s not forget about the lady that somehow has hot, fresh bread at 4:30am every single morning and feels the need to go up and down the street right outside our window shouting about it like she is selling the daily newspaper. Then there is also the rooster that crows every morning starting at about 5:15am and doesn’t cease until every one within it’s vocal range has thrown in the towel and gotten out of bed.
Right across the dirt path from our house is a haircut place that has long since decided to blare its music so loud that you can’t hear the person next to you without a sound barrier. I couldn’t really figure out why a haircutter would need to blare music like that and the only logical explanation is to attract customers by getting their attention. The only attention it seems to attract though are unemployed young adolescents and twenty-something men that just hang out around the shop all day. I was talking to Granny one day and she said that it’s because of their religion that they blare music. I don’t know what religion this is exactly but I have since noticed a significant amount of shops blaring music that sell nothing related to music. To an unknowing eye, you may mistakenly think this place is a bar and try to order a beer, in which you would have no luck. This hair cutter doesn’t close shop, or at least turn off its music, until about 10pm every night, if we’re lucky. Even after that, they persist to loiter around their shop, which I guess wouldn’t even be considered loitering, and laugh, talk, argue, yell, sing, and cause ruckus until the wee hours of the night.
How about the kids, you ask?? Well I am sure glad you brought that up! There is no such thing as bedtime here in Benin. Nor is there a such thing as an after-school program, summer school, or anything else constructive to keep these rascals busy. My theory about how they spend their day when school isn’t in session is this: they sit outside their mama’s fruit stand or house waiting for a yovo to walk/ride by so they can practice their yovo song, and while they wait, they play the ever-popular stick and tire game. They compete as to who can roll an old tire the furthest with a stick. I have almost been clothes-lined off of my bike by a sudden appearance of a tire that was hurdled down the road that I had the unfortunate timing of crossing at that instant. You can think of it as the Beninese version of shuffleboard. Of course, they pause all games to pee on the nearest wall that doesn’t have the threat of a fine written on it in chalk. This cycle continues until late in to the night until their mama screams at them to go inside. Once she starts screaming, they of course are not completely obedient, and therefore cause her to scream even louder and longer until the threat of physical harm becomes close enough to reality to frighten them inside.
The chorus of our neighborhood in Porto-Novo is some Beninese combination of goats bleating, roosters crowing, kids singing the yovo song, zems driving past, music blaring, guys arguing, big mamas screaming for their kids or a zem, bread lady announcing the arrival of her fresh hot bread, doors slamming, kissing/hissing noises, babies crying, with the occasional appearance of a band of screaming young men running down the street after a soccer game. No wonder I have had a migraine for over 2 days now. It absolutely amazes me that Granny and Grandpi have lived in this house for so many years, raising four children, and they still have their sanity. Between my near-death experiences, the lady that can’t sleep, the bread lady, the rooster, the haircutter, the kids that chase us down the street, and just the normal noise from motos and cars driving by, I am counting down the seconds until we move to our quiet, peaceful, enclosed concession in Bohicon.
