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.