Football

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

Short Update Before Swear-In

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

Us on the beach at Ouidah

Chaos

   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. 

Post Visit

This past week we met our homologues and took a taxi 4 hours northwest to Bohicon to visit our worksites, check out our house, and meet our work partners. I had been to Bohicon once before, on my way to Nati, where the bus stopped for a few frantic minutes at the bus gare. Though the bus gare was pretty frightening, I was excited to see what was beyond it and what was available in Bohicon proper. Bohicon has everything that we need. The marche operates every day, and every 4th day is a marche day when all of the vendors are there. Even on non-marche days, we can find anything and everything--pineapples and other fruit, yams, tomatoes, couscous, rice, onions, garlic, sugar, potatoes, oatmeal, knockoff soccer jerseys, jewelry, shoes, dried fish, chickens (alive or dead), goats (alive or dead), coffee (instant), plates, silverware, furniture, etc. It's like a dirty, open-air WalMart--awesome! If we ever need any specialty items (like cheese or ground cinnamon, for instance), there is a supermarche adjacent to the marche that we can utilize.
Our house is rumored to be among the best in PC Benin. We have tile floors, an inside, American-style bathroom with toilet and shower, and an outside kitchen. We also have 2 bedrooms and there is a bar 50 yards away from our house where we can sit on the breezy second story and drink the night away (note: a large beer costs a dollar). Bohicon also has an amazing chwarma restaurant that is run by some really nice Beninese guys who we have already befriended. We are looking forward to setting up our house with necessary furniture--coffee table, chairs, and bookshelves, in addition to the dining room table, chairs, and bedframe that the previous volunteer was nice enough to leave behind for us--and getting settled in.
My work site is really nice. The park has been around for 2 years and it primarily needs help with marketing and financing. I'm planning on setting up networks with hotels in the area and other tourist sites and websites, and need to get a meeting with the mayor to talk to him about financing brochures and to approve a business plan that the previous volunteer had already worked up. A long-term idea of mine is to set up a national tourist network to better advertise and market tourism abroad because Benin has a lot of interesting tourism sites but a lot of people have never heard of it and probably skip over it when looking at places to see in West Africa. I met most of my work partners and everyone is really nice and I'm looking forward to improving my French so that I can actually communicate properly with people and learning more about the park and the surrounding area so that I can get to work.
Heather was able to meet some of her work partners and her boss, and is gearing up to lead sensibilizations in the community. One of our neighbors works for UNICEF so she may be able to get a secondary project in with UNICEF and she will probably help me with her marketing expertise at the park. The good thing about Bohicon being such a large city is that it's relatively easy to find work if we look for it, which will keep us busy and let the next 2 years fly by. The drawback about Bohicon being such a large city (about 150,000-165,000 people--it is the 4th or 5th largest city in Benin), is that we don't have the intimacy of living in a village where everyone knows us, but we have already started networking and making friends to make the transition easier and Bohicon a little more bearable.
We basically have only a week or so left of training, then we swear in on the 17th and move up here around the 20th. We looked into getting a box at the post office so when we move up here and secure it we will share the address with everyone.
A la prochaine fois--until next time!