Porto-Novo

We have been in Porto-Novo for 5 days now. Porto-Novo is the administrative capital of Benin but it isn't nearly as busy as Cotonou. When we were in Cotonou we stayed in a 1-star hotel (it definitely did not have an ice machine!) a few blocks away from the Bureau (Peace Corps HQ).

We are all moved and settled in with our host family, who are fantastic--Grandpi is a former French professor with UNESCO and Granni is a former government minister here in Benin. We were really lucky to get such an amazing host family. This past weekend we washed our clothes for the first time (finally!). We needed help so we asked the domestiques how to wash clothes by hand and they thought that it was HILARIOUS that their crazy Yovos wanted to do all of their laundry by themselves! We had a group of kids sing the "Yovo song" to us while we hung up our clothes to dry, and Heather tried to teach them to input her name instead of Yovo, which worked until we turned our backs, then we turned into Yovos again. We have also mastered the art of filtering and boiling our own water. We have a system down to make sure that we have a constant supply of clean drinking water and we are waiting for more storage containers.

Language training is coming along. Heather's French is flooding back to her and she can sustain a coversation but I'm on more of a French language rollercoaster--I will understand everything for a while but then have entire minutes go by where I have no clue as to what is going on. Grandpi said tonight that I am making a lot of progress. I'm glad that he can tell that my studying is paying off.

Heather and I train at different sites and our house is between the two. Heather is close enough to bike to training but I am pretty far away so I get to Zem every day, which costs about 150CFA (about 30 cents) each way. I get to practice my French when I haggle. It goes something like this:
Me: Bonjour!
Driver: Bonjour!
Me: Comment ca va?
Driver: Ca va.
Me: Et ta famille? Et ton travaille?
Driver: Oui, Oui, ca va.
Me: Je vais aller a Songhai. Tu connais?
Driver: Oui.
Me: Combien a Songhai?
Driver: 200. (deux-cent)
Me: No, 150! (cent cinquant)
Driver: 200. (deux-cent)
Me: No, no, 150! (cent cinquant) Il y a beaucoup de zemis! (I start to walk away)
Driver: Ca va, 150. (flicks his head to motion me to get on)
SUCCESS!

The food in Benin is heavy on starches and oils and meat doesn't come in convenient steak or nugget form like it does in les Etats-Unis, so we get a lot of practice picking out fish bones of our meals. For breakfast we usually have some fruit or bread and coffee, for lunch we get some street food (usually a big plate of beans and rice with a spicy red sauce, plus an entire baguette, which all together costs 325CFA), and I try to find the Fan Milk guy wherever we go. After training we study or hang out with friends or visit with Granni or Grandpi if they are available, and for dinner we usually eat rice with jus (a tomato-y, onion-y, oily sauce which is served with basically everything), chicken or fish, and fresh pineapple for dessert. Pineapple here isn't as yellow as it is in the states, but it tastes sweeter and it's like 100CFA each and if you wait on the side of a busy street long enough, someone will walk by with a big plate of pineapple on their head and sell some to you. Amazing!

We went to a local merchant fair on Sunday and there were venders from all over the region--Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo, Nigeria, Benin--selling tissue (cloth to make clothes), food, medicine, and beer. One of the breweries in Porto-Novo even made an Obama beer! Obama is really popular in Africa. Every once in a while we see people wearing Obama shirts that were made locally. Back to the Obama beer: I think that Heather nailed it when she commented that it kind of tastes like watered-down tequila. I'm not one to turn down a 300CFA beer so I didn't really have a problem with it, but I wouldn't buy a case or anything. Since we bought two, they gave us one free. They normally don't let people take the beer to go but they let me take it because "he's our president" and I thought that it would be a nice present for Granni and Grandpi. I think that it's still in the refrigerator. We told them about it but Grandmi made the same face that Heather did so I don't think that they are going to drink it. Oh well!

We should find out information about our post soon, and have our post visit Sept 1-4. There is a big celebration this weekend for Benin's 50th anniversary so that should be pretty fun.

Last thing: We got cell numbers! The country code is 229 (cell phone service here is pay-as-you-go and it only uses credits for the person who initiates the call). Feel free to call us! We would love to hear from any/all of you!:
Craig: 66.26.83.97
Heather: 66.23.93.81

Enjoy the pictures below of Cotonou, Heather and I doing our laundry, Obama beer, me getting shots from Dr. Rufin (l) and Dr. Lomo (r), Zemidjan traffic in Porto-Novo, and the cute kids who live near Heather’s temporary training site.
Cheers!