Foosball

From June, I think, but I forgot to post it.  

...

I arrived to the park on my bike, as usual, in the late morning.  I usually arrive at that time because I take my time eating breakfast and drinking coffee in the morning, and I like to turn up before it gets too hot.  We are in the rainy season now, though, so we have a constant low, dark cloud cover throughout the day with intermittent sun (like San Diego’s “June Gloom”).  It is cool.  I still go to work in the late morning, though, merely out of habit.

When I showed up, I saw Arimi, Denis, and another man huddled around a foosball table.  It was brand new, with the plastic still on and around it, and was still sitting on top of the cardboard box that it was delivered on.  I parked my bike and walked around to where it was situated, across a corner of the concrete slab by the office but still under the overhang.

“Good Morning,” I said.

“Good Morning,” replied Arimi.

“When did we get this?”

“This morning.  The mayor paid for it.”

“Oh, that was nice of him.”

“No.  He is not nice.”

I thought of all the things the mayor could have paid for, such as higher wages for the employees or to print marketing materials.  A foosball table was unnecessary, especially considering that we all had to come to the park early a few weeks ago—Théo, Arimi, Denis, Elie, and I—to clear out weeds because the mayor had not paid the groundskeeper in the past eighteen months—eighteen months!

As they fidgeted with the screwdrivers and wrenches and assorted metal and plastic parts strewn about the table, I started to look for the instructions.  They all looked clueless, so I thought maybe the instructions were in English.  But had there been directions only in English, they would have asked me to help (I hope).

I looked at the dark clouds hanging low, directly over us, and asked what they would do with the table if it rains.  The table looks too wide to fit through the door of the office, and if left outside it would just be ruined, like everything else.

“We will take it inside.”

“Where are the instructions?”

“We don’t have any.  You see, the mayor is not nice.”

Arimi and Denis moved the table to the side of the building, flush up against the wall so it was not visible from the street, and if it rains it would be unlikely to get too wet.  The group walked inside and Arimi and Denis laid down on the benches inside the office which line two of the walls.  Time for a break.  They would finish up with the table later, but for now, the mayor is not so nice.

West African Mania

 Craig had his post visit with his PC boss the day before we left to go south to head to Ghana.  Last year, it didn't leave Craig feeling warm and fuzzy, we'll leave it at that.  This year was a hundred times better.  He paid attention to Craig and what he was doing and saying, what he was working on, and genuinely seemed interested and pleased.  Not to mention that he not only treated Craig to dinner/sodas, but he got some to go for me.  How nice!  My post visit, which was after we got back from Ghana, the day before Thanksgiving, was very similar to Craig’s last year. 

So on the 15^th, we went down south to Cotonou then on the 16^th, we left for Ghana.  We got to the taxi station at 6am, but had to wait for the taxi to fill up and didn’t leave until like 6:45.  I was sitting by a really nice Beninese man who waited for us to get our Togo visas at the boarder with his cute little son.  When we got to Lome, which looks way nicer than Cotonou, he also helped us get a zem to the Togo/Ghana boarder, which he definitely didn't have to do.  Once we crossed over to Ghana, they were wearing really colorful green uniforms, much different than the normal khaki or army green that everyone else wears, and they all spoke English.  It threw me off a bit to have to revert to English since we're so use to speaking French in West Africa.  The two are linked in our minds.  We got into a tro-tro, which is like a minibus, to head to Accra from the boarder.  While we were waiting, I discovered that they sold guacamole sandwiches at the station.  Yum!  From the boarder to Accra, it is about 4 hours. 

Accra was pretty impressive.  There are some streets in Accra that you could confuse with a posh street in America somewhere.  It was really surreal.  We went straight to the airport to get Brian.  Dustin was already there so we all waited for Brian together.  When we finally saw Brian, it was a nice reunion.  

We went out for a drink that night to celebrate.  The next morning, we were supposed to leave bright and early for the coast, but we discovered that Dustin never got his Benin visa.  He had some issues with getting the Ghanaian visa since he had to send his passport from Germany, where he recently relocated, to the US to do it and wait for it to come back and it took too long.  He changed his flight to arrive on the 14^th in order to take care of the Benin visa before we even got there, but he didn’t do it.  So off to the Beninese embassy we went when we should have been half wait to Butre.  He did his paperwork and then was told that he can only pick up visas in the afternoon and he’d have to come back.  This really didn’t bode well with us.  I went outside to let Brian know what was going on when I ran into the Ambassador for Benin.  I explained our problem to him and he was very helpful in getting our visa to us within the next hour.  So off to the coast we went. 

It was a really long ride, very pretty though, to the coastal town of Butre.  Butre is a small fishing village and we were just outside of it in this secluded “hideout” called Ellis Hideout that was absolutely amazing and the best part of the trip for me.  It was pretty cheap to stay there, like $6/night/person and it also had a restaurant that served amazing food as well as happy hour.  The beer in Ghana is way better than the beer in Benin, too.  We hung out there for a couple days, enjoying their beautiful beach that made it seem that we were the only ones for miles.  The beach was small and was surrounded by lush green vegetation everywhere, but unlike Benin, there were hills and mountains included in this lush scenery.  It was amazing.    

After leaving amazing Butre, we went to Cape Coast.  There we saw the famous castle that was used to house captured slaves before there departure to the “New World”, as seen in Roots and other movies.  We also took a side trip up about 45 minutes north to a national park that had a canopy walk.  The walk was cool, but there were a lot of people and it was just a circle of connecting bridges a little high up in the trees.  Not really worth the money, in my opinion.  

After Cape Coast, we went back to Accra, changed minibuses, and headed directly up north along the Togo boarder to a monkey sanctuary in a place called Tafi-Atome.  We paid about $12 to have a place to stay, dinner and breakfast, food for the monkeys, and a guide that took us to feed the monkeys in the early morning the next day.  It was really pretty up there and there was actual forest around in the area.  We walked to where the monkeys usually congregate in the morning to feed them.  They were completely wild and we called them with making kissy noises to get them to come closer.  Soon enough, they were jumping all over us, using their little hands to peel back the banana and eat their breakfast.  It was really cool. 

Right after we were done feeding the monkeys, we took a zem to the boarder of Togo, where we had some problems with getting Dustin and Brian a visa.  They had to pay a “guide” to take them to a nearby town where there was a consulate to get a visa since they didn’t give them at the boarder up there.  This took much longer than we thought but the ride there was through hills and forests and it was really pretty.  We waited around the taxi gare for them, getting something lined up to take us across the boarder.  We all got into this tro-tro that was like a Flintstone car.  Every time we hit a bump, the side would sway one way, the back would sway another, and so on.  I thought it was going to fall apart around us.  The road was a bumpy dirt road, which made us very dirty by the time we got half way across where we switched to a taxi.  We thought it’d take 2 hours total to cross the country of Togo (it’s so small!) but it took over 3 hours just to get half way.  Then it took another 2 or so in a taxi to get to the Benin/Togo boarder.  From there, our taxi took us to Azove, which is south of Bohicon.  The night marche in the taxi gare in Azove was crazy and their first look at Benin.  Very different from Ghana and Togo.  By this time it was night, and we were a bit nervous in traveling at night, but the road was good and paved, so it worked out fine.  We didn't get home (after a pit stop for dinner in Bohicon) until almost 11pm at night.  Silly us thought that we may even get home by lunchtime.  That was before we realized that that distinct line on the map that seems like a very nice road was all bumpy and dirty.  

We spent a total of one week in Bohicon, showing them around, seeing voodoo stuff, introducing them to people, and hanging out.  We also went to the local artist's house, Julien, to see his art, buy his art, and make new art with him, which was a really cool experience.  It reinforced what I already knew about myself though; I am not artistic.  Ha!  Everyone was super excited to meet Brian and they all commented on his size compared to Craig.  They would say things like, "He likes the fastfood, huh?"  Ha!  It was funny to watch their reactions.  We all had Thanksgiving together and invited some other volunteers that came from around the area. We had a total of ten people.  I made pumpkin pie, cherry pie, and a brownie cake with a glaze on top, in addition to all the other normal Thanksgiving food that you normally eat (no meat though).  It was delicious!  Right as the dinner was about to be ready, Logan, our CD’s son who is doing film work in Benin, called to say he was in town and wanted to know if we could hang out, so we invited him to join us, which made our tenth person.  And he was a great addition to our group.  Since Brian brought all the food except for some stuff, like potatoes, that we could get in town, we had all the out of towners bring a bottle of wine.  We ended up with 4 bottles of wine, which was just right for 10 of us.  It was great.  Dustin and Brian also got to see both of us in action at work.  Craig gave them a tour of his park and I had a World AIDS Day event, in addition to taking them to our two English clubs so our kids could ask them questions.  It was fun. 

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we headed up to Parakou because they were giving mandatory flu vaccines and we wanted to show them Parakou anyway.  We hung out the first day and on the second day, went on a tchouk crawl.  Like a beer crawl, but with tchouk stands.  The tchouk marche that we went to was the biggest in the world.  It was really fun and much better tasting than I remembered.  The next day, we headed back to Bohicon and had a super fast driver for a taxi driver.  It didn't take the normal 4 hours to get back to Bohicon; it only took 3.  

We were back in Bohicon for a day or two before we headed back down to Cotonou.  The PCVL (volunteer who is in charge of the workstation, basically) in Cotonou was nice enough to let us stay at her house the whole time.  Once we were almost in Cotonou, Craig and I realized that neither one of us remembered to pack our passports.  Craig went back up to Bohicon that evening to get them and came back down the next morning.  That next day, we went to a village called Ganvie.  It’s in the guidebooks and we’d never been so we thought we’d go with our visitors.  We rented out a whole taxi to take us there and when we got there, discovered that the boat ride to the village was ridiculously expensive.  We ended up paying it anyway since we were already there, but it wasn’t worth it in my opinion.  That night, Logan was nice enough to invite us over for dinner to thank us for having him over for Thanksgiving.  It was a delicious dinner with homemade ice cream and pumpkin pie for dessert.  Our last full day in Cotonou, we spent at the beach, then at the Ambassador’s house for swimming, then getting ice cream, then at happy hour, where it was last man standing.  It was a lot of fun.  The next day, we headed to Ouidah, where there is a python temple and the gate of no return and more slave stuff.  They didn’t want to go into the python temple since they were tired, but we saw the gate and continued on to Grand Popo. 

We spent two days in Grand Popo laying around on the beach, reading and relaxing, as the last part of the trip before having to get them back to Ghana for their flights.  We played the “Inglorious Bastards” game, as we call it (where you’re giving a name to put on your forehead and you have to guess who or what you are), but often the geography version, which we usually enjoy more.  It was a lot of fun.    

By the end of their stay with us, we were super low on funds, so I decided to go straight back to Cotonou to save money while Craig took them back to Ghana.  He’s on his way back to Cotonou right now, as I write.  Our time together was great.  We like traveling with Brian and we anticipate that we’ll be traveling with him again soon, I’m sure.  We were sad to see him go, but we realized that we are pretty compatible travel companions and when we saw Brian again, after not seeing him for over a year and a half, it was like no time had passed at all.  Things just fell back into place.  

On a side note, I have been obsessively reading through the Twilight book series.  I finished the first three in 5 days and have the 4^th one waiting for me at post.  I really really wish there were a movie theater here that showed American movies so I could watch it when I finish the book, but I guess I will just have to wait.

Hitting The Ground Running

Since Craig and I have been back in Benin, there hasn’t been a day without loads to do, which is nice.  When we first arrived back in Cotonou, we had to spend 3 days there getting our Ghanaian visa in anticipation of Brian and Dustin’s upcoming visit.  It was kind of ridiculous because on top of all the crazy requirements, you could only go before noon to apply for a visa and only after 3pm to pick up the visa (with at least a day in between for processing), which is why it took so long.  I guess it would make sense to do it like that if there was a lot of visa turnover, but there isn’t.  So it’s just laziness, I guess. 

We got back to Bohicon and both hit the ground running.  Craig started up his soccer club and a business course right away.  I had a week to plan a launching ceremony for my Amour et Vie (Love and Life) team that our host NGO came for, so I had meetings every day on how to actually execute the ceremony.  Luckily, my team has 3 other people on it, so when it came to inviting the whole town, it wasn’t too hard to get the invitations spread out.  The ceremony went really well.  My team prepared a skit to perform and aside from the rain thundering down on the tin roof and not being able to hear for 20 minutes or so, the whole thing went really well.  The community leader of the group, Gisele, whom is a Beninese woman who works with my CPS and who has tons of experience teaching people about health-related things, created some drama when the sodas came.  Here in Benin, sodas are reserved for officials and everyone else gets beesap or some other beverage, and because of that, there are always a limited number of sodas because they are considered to be expensive.  So when the sodas came and there was a rush of everyone, official or not, she just gave them out to whomever and some people who should have gotten one didn’t.  But she herself decided to keep one and chugged it right there in front of the officials without offering it to anyone else, including her own team members.  She is slowly starting to irritate me in ways like that. 

Setting up for the lancement

I also found out that she replaced the student on my team, Patricia, with another university-level girl (whom is also named Patricia) while we were on vacation because “her dad wouldn’t let her go to Parakou for the training”.   When I talked to the original Patricia, she said that it was because her family didn’t have the money to front to get to Parakou.  I had asked Gisele if she had the funds to cover the team to get there until reimbursements were given and she said yes.  Otherwise, I would have given them the money to get there myself and gotten reimbursed afterwards.  I guess she didn’t though and instead of saying the truth, she made something up, which is quite common here.  The new Patricia is also great and motivated and smart, but I just feel really bad for my original Patricia since she was really looking forward to doing this.  It’s like she got robbed of it. 

Craig and I have both been busy going to two different CEGs (schools) that we picked out to talk to the administration about choosing a girl from a poor family to receive a scholarship for all school-related expenses for the next school year, which is a Peace Corps-funded project countrywide.  We didn’t choose the school that we do our English and soccer clubs at because they are already benefiting from our other activities.  So we chose two different schools and both sets of administration have been really helpful and happy to work with us on getting one of their disadvantaged girls a scholarship.  We should be done with all of the paperwork next week.  I specifically chose Patricia’s school (the original one from my team) in hopes that maybe I could help her out that way.  I am not playing favorites though, so the scholarship will go to the neediest girl, but seeing as how her family didn’t have $8 to send her to the training, she may actually get it.  Stay tuned!

I also started meeting to implement and organize my next big project, a week-long nutritional recuperation program.  In the months of November, we are collecting all the contact information at each baby weighing for the women who have malnourished children and in December, we are inviting them to the program, which will take place in January.  Now all I have to do is fill out the grant application and figure out exact recipes for the nutrition-rich food that we are going to teach the moms to prepare.

I also went to my Moringa supplier’s house and operations location to see his set up and give him business advice on how to expand and be more profitable.  I also suggested that he begin attending the business course that Craig just started doing with Francois, our zemijohn man.  He was really happy about all of that and as I type this blog, he is sitting at our kitchen table with Craig going over business stuff. 

Craig has started teaching his homologue Excel while at work.  They have it on the computer that they use at his job and Craig created an Excel document to help them track all the details of visitors to view progress and the such and his homologue has been blown away by Excel’s capabilities.  Craig has also been playing soccer on the weekends with people from the park and other community friends we know. 

We started up our English club and oddly enough, it’s only boys who come.  This is a problem since we’re supposed to bring a girl to the National Spelling Bee next year up in Natitingou, but if we don’t have any girls participating, it’s going to be difficult.  After the first week of no girls, we talked to all the English teachers at the school to inform their students again and encourage them to come, but there still haven’t been any girls.  I’m not quite sure how we’re going to solve this pickle, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out.  One of the boys who comes to our club is in Premier (which is like being a Junior in high school) and can speak pretty good English.  He said he had a book about American things and when we got on the subject of Thanksgiving this week, he already knew what it was, which was truly shocking.  When we did that same thing last year, and not only did no one know what it was, but it was that much more difficult to explain.  Especially since they have no idea what any of the normal foods that are eaten on Thanksgiving are, with exception to turkey and sweet potatoes. 

When we got back from vacation, we also had responses from Russ’s (Craig’s former coach who is a teacher as well) students who received our package of letters that we sent to them back in July, written by our Camp GLOW girls.  I sent out a text to all the captains of each school who had girls participating in the exchange with information on a time and a place to meet, but only one girl actually showed up.  So we tried again with a different time and place, and again, only one girl showed up.  So it’s been quite expensive (with our phone credit and zem rides) and time consuming distributing these letters and at the same time, the boys in our English club are extremely interested in participating, so we have decided to still include only the committed and serious girls from the original exchange and give the rest of the letters to the boys in our English club to respond to.  I think that will work out a lot better.

On a side note, since we have been back, we have hosted a Zou Taco Tuesday with the four new volunteers in our area, which was a smashing success.  Craig has also gone up to Parakou for a regional VAC meeting as well as the Halloween party—I stayed home in Bohicon.  I have been traveling all around the Zou visiting the new volunteers as part of my duties as a PSN member.  Statistically, most people end their contract early in the first 3 months at post, so these visits are to give volunteers company as well as support in integrating and problem solving.  They all went really well and I am even more appreciative of our western-style home now, especially after visiting one volunteer who didn’t use her latrine at night because there were bats flying around in and outside it.  Our “close-mate”, Amy, had a mishap during a lightening storm which fried her computer charger as well as slightly electrocuted her (thanks a lot, Benin, for your tin roofs) so she was kind enough to let us use her internet key until her dead computer comes back to life with a new charger, which Brian is bringing.  She and I also tried making cinnamon rolls too, which were kind of successful.  So we have had an internet connection, albeit slow, in our house for the last couple days and the prepaid connection will last until tomorrow. 

Heather and Amy at Taco Night

Lastly, Craig and I are leaving on Tuesday to head down to Cotonou.  We’re leaving early so we can get some work done while we’re there, like printing, turning in forms, applying for grants, etc. Then, next Wednesday we head to Ghana!  Dustin is flying in on the 14^th, but because Craig has his PC boss visiting on that day in the afternoon in Bohicon, the soonest we can leave for Cotonou is the 15^th.  Usually, the taxis just leave for Ghana in the morning from Cotonou, which we’ll certainly miss, so we can’t head over there until the 16^th, which is when Brian comes in.  I have all the confidence in the world that Dustin will be just fine without us for a day and a half since his girlfriend has been there before and has been giving him lots of tips and instructions, not to mention a Ghanaian phone, which is a lot more than I can say Craig and I can do.  We’re spending about a week in Ghana after they arrive to take advantage of some beaching and the western luxuries that Accra has to offer, like sushi and movie theaters.  But more importantly, we’ll be with our twinsy and Dustin.  We can’t wait!  

Vacation Blog #4

We took the train into Athens, then a bus to Litochoro to prepare to hike Mt. Olympus the next day.  Litochoro was a scenic little mountainside town, and we stayed by the beach at a place about 5km outside the town.  We woke up early the next morning and our hostel host was nice enough to drive us to the starting point for the trail on Mt. Olympus at 6am for our all-day hike.  We started out in the dark and my headlamp stopped working so we wandered around in the dark for about an hour until the sun finally came up.  It was easy going for the first few hours until we got to the first stopping point, “Refuge A”, which lies about halfway up the trail.  From there it was really steep and slippery (the trail near the top is covered with loose rock), but we huffed and puffed and finally made it to the “top” by noon.  We ate our victory Snickers and headed down, were lucky enough to get a ride back down to Litochoro by a couple at the parking lot at the bottom, and dinner in town and got ready for our next day of travel, to Thessaloniki.

We took the early train to Thessaloniki (the ride is only an hour) and headed straight to the White Tower, its most famous landmark.  Once it was used as a prison for political prisoners but now it is a museum for the culture and history of the city.  We also saw the Agia Sofia, a 7^th-century church (but didn’t go in because it closes for 6 hours in the middle of the day), and other landmarks.  We couchsurfed and went out with our host later that night to a bar then a movie.  When we were waiting to get into the movie theater, our host mentioned that the Minister of Justice was right behind us and we thought nothing of it until intermission, when 20-odd protesters barged into the theatre, chanting and throwing yogurt on the minister, who was sitting in the back row.  There was a lot of pushing and shoving and a big racket until the movie was back on for a good 5 minutes.  We had a great time with our host and sadly left the next day to fly to Milan.

We flew to Milan in the afternoon and, because of a delayed plane, arrived just in time to make it to our reservation to see The Last Supper.  Later on, we met up with one of Heather’s good friends, Massimiliano, who she knows from her “Paris days”.  We had a short, good time in Milan; it is a very pretty city but we unfortunately arrived late and were scheduled to leave the next day for Cinque Terre.

We left early in the morning to take the train to Cinque Terre, where we spent 4 days.  It was one of the highlights of our trip and we took full advantage of it, waking up early to walk to the castle at the top of Riomaggiore and spend the day eating gelato and walking the meandering paths that connect to the 4 other principal cities in the area.  We tried some freshly made limoncello from a local farmer and ate the local speciality, trofie, a pasta made from chick-pea flour and smothered in delicious pesto sauce.  We also met a nice Quebecois couple and were able to brush up on our French that had become rusty since we left Africa.  When we left Cinque Terre we took a train through the Tuscany region and visited Lucca and Pisa en route to Florence.

Florence is a beautiful city and has amazing food.  We took a lot of pictures in front of the Ponte Vecchio, a famous bridge that is covered in houses (now converted to high-end jewelry stores), saw the statue of David, visited the Uffizi museum, and took a daylong side trip to a little town in the Chianti region for some wine tasting.  The Tuscany region is spectacular and everywhere you turn, it looks like you just walked into a painting.  It is probably the most beautiful place I have ever visited, and the food is fantastic, too!

After a few days in Florence we took off to Rome again to stay for two days until our flight left to come back home.  Unbeknownst to us, Rome suffered massive riots that day that we arrived back and we missed the festivities by about 2 hours or so.  We stayed with our good friend Paolo who we had stayed with before, and this time we were able to see the Pope and enjoy a last-minute cappuccino and gelato.  We spent our last night shopping and filling up our bags with wine and pasta to take back and enjoy in Bohicon. 

We arrived safely and refreshed and were excited to get home and get to work.  We are really busy and our schedules are fairly packed until February or so.  Heather is hard at work with her projects at work and I just started teaching our favorite zem a business course because he wants to start his own business.  We also have our English Club and Football Club that just started (because school started at the beginning of October), I’m still looking for a group of guys to regularly play football with, and are always trying to schedule other stuff to do.  To top it all off, twinsy and Dustin are coming out to visit for a few weeks at the end of November!

Lots of stuff coming up soon. 

Cheers.

Update not related to our vacation

Just under our contact information on the right side of the page, we have added a list of projects that we have been working on.  Proof to the cynics that we are not on a "2-year vacation"!

Cheers

Europe or Bust! Part 2

Athens: 1-3 October

After island hopping, we went back to Athens and hung out with our new Greek friends who hosted us the last time.  It was really nice and relaxing.  Nelly, the daughter of the family, took us out to a place called Beer Academy where I had the most delicious unfiltered beer of my life.  Or…at least within the last 14 months.  We spend the entire night with her and didn’t go to bed until almost 4am. It was really fun.  We spent the next day hanging out with them in the morning over a yummy breakfast and then spent the rest of the day in Athens.  We climbed up to the top of this hill that gives a view of the entire city, which was pretty cool.  We also went to the Acropolis museum, which we missed last time.  And after we were done with all that, we went to a MALL!  It was very exciting.  We had their version of Panda Express and I ate orange chicken, which for some reason I had been craving. We were going to watch a movie too, but didn’t have time.

Corinth: 3-6 October

We woke up early to spend some time with our hosts before leaving on the 3^rd for Corinth, where we would stay with an old friend from soccer of Craig’s, Kosta, who is Greek-American.  When we called Kosta to tell him what train we were taking to Corinth, it turned out he was taking the same one just a stop away.  So we chatted the whole hour on the train.  He gave us a little walking tour of the city and then we headed back to his house where his mom had prepared an amazing lunch complete with local organic wine.  Then we went to their land where they were growing grapes and picked a good 7 pounds of them to munch on.  The next day he showed us around another part of the area and then we went bowling.  It was the first time we had gone bowling since leaving the States and we had a lot of fun.  Afterwards, we had the best gyros that we have had so far in Greece.  And his mom let us do our laundry there, which was magical. Kosta and his whole family were amazing hosts and it really felt like we were in America with the American-ran household with Greek flare.  The next morning, we got up super early to catch the train back to Athens to catch a bus up to Litochoro.

Litochoro/Mt. Olympus: 6-8 October

Once we arrived in Litochoro, we were automatically blown away by it’s charm and how warm and friendly it was.  It was everything that you would imagine and ancient mountain town to be.  We were picked up by Perry, the owner of our hostel, and hung out with him for a good part of the night.  He was super helpful with all kinds of information about climbing the mountain.  We went to bed early (9pm) in order to get up at 4am and be well rested.  Since we had to wake up so early that day, it was no problem; we were exhausted!  We were eating breakfast with Perry by 5am and we were leaving the hostel by 5:15am to head up to the start of the trail.  We were hiking by 6:20am. It was pitch black, cold (luckily Perry let me borrow a woman’s warm windbreaker that he had at the hostel), and a little intimidating since we were the only ones around.  Our imaginations definitely got the best of us while we were hiking in the dark.  On one occasion though, Craig and I both heard an animal coming towards us from the forest and were completely freaked out.  Craig threw a rock in it’s direction and we kept on hiking.  The trail was really gravely and when we stepped, our shoes would throw back rocks and we would think it was some nocturnal animal coming to get us so Craig would hear a rock fall from his step and throw another rock frantically in it’s direction, which would get me freaked out and then both of us were imagining things.  A little while down the trail, we decided that we were way too freaked out to continue, so we hid against a big rock and waited for the sun to rise.  Did I mention it was cold??

Once the sun rose, it was a 2 hour hike up to the first official rest stop where most people who do the trail in 2 days sleep.  We didn’t stay there long; just long enough to buy some supplies and use the facilities.  We kept going and after 45 minutes or so, we really hit the hard part of the trail.  It was barren and rocky and very steep.  It was definitely a challenging hike.  Once we got to the top, which we had no warning we were nearing it (that would have helped us push through if we knew the end was near), we were super happy and energized.  We got really lucky with the weather too.  Normally, the weather isn’t as good this time of year, but it was sunny and cloudless for 90% of our hike.  At the top, it was still windy and cold, but it was definitely manageable. 

Going down the trail seemed to take forever.  In reality, we were going down much faster than we were headed up, naturally.  Once we got down to the parking lot where we started, Craig asked this older couple if we could hitch a ride down to the town (which is a totally safe and common practice, according to our hostel owner).  The guy gave all kinds of excuses why he probably can’t take us, but the wife was wonderfully nice and talked him into it.  Turns out, they were from New York.  He was originally from Greece and she Brazil and they had lived in the States for the last 40 years.  She was really nice to talk to but he was absolutely insane.  He basically was completely arrogant about Greece and shot down any thought that there might be something better or equally good outside of Greece.  He even stopped the car to admire the view and then told us that we would never find a view like that in California.  I’m quite sure he had never been because the view we were looking at is littered all over the Californian countryside.  But we were getting a free ride, so I kept my mouth shut. 

We leave tomorrow for Thessaloniki, where we got lucky again to couch surf.  Then the next day, we are headed back to Italy to Milan.  Enjoy the pictures! 

Europe or Bust! Part 1

Oh, Benin…you make it so easy to leave. 

We accrue 48 days of vacation for our 2 years in Benin so we planned a month-long Italian-Greek vacation halfway through our service.  We are hoping to return refreshed for our next year of service, and I have a personal goal to gain most of the 20 pounds that I’ve lost over the past year (gyros, pizzas, pastas, gelato!).

Once we got to the airport for our 5 am flight to Rome, we couldn’t wait to get out of Benin.  The airport has one terminal and only services a few flights each day.  We lined up to check into our flight and “security” was standing there checking everyone’s passports…and taking pictures of them with a digital camera.  When we asked why, we were told that the “President of the Republic” wants pictures of passports of everyone who leaves the country.  We were traveling with a volunteer who had just finished her service and was heading home who had an especially difficult time with the airport staff who wanted to assert their masculinity one last time before she left the country for good.  She had a painting with her and had to tape it to the outside of her checked bag, only for them to tell her that her bag was one kilogram overweight, but they were out of tape so she had to go buy more after removing a pair of shoes from her checked bag so she could re-tape the painting back on.  While she was waiting in line again to re-check her bag, some ignames (yams) fell out of a bag belonging to the Beninese couple in front of her, and the security guard ran in front of us while we tried to take a picture.  So disappointing.  (See picture below.)  Then we went through 5 more security checkpoints so 11 different people could check our passports (one had a rad game of freecell going on his computer).  Finally, eventually, we left.  So long.

Rome: 17-20 September

We flew from Cotonou to Casablanca to Rome.  We arrived in Rome late and went straight to our hostel, and explored a little.  Heather had already been to Rome before so I got my first glimpse of the Coliseum, Trevi fountain, Spanish steps, Parthenon, Vatican, and countless piazzas that dot the city.  We had delicious food, gelato, pastries, and cappuccinos.  One day we just bought some cheese and wine and had a little picnic at one of the beautiful piazzas, Piazza Novanna, before going back to where we were staying.  We stayed in a hostel the first night and for our second and third nights there we stayed with our new friend Paolo, who lives just outside the city.  We had trouble with the banks in Rome.  Apparently Italy recently passed a law that disallows their banks to change traveler’s cheques, which made basically all of our money null and void (we brought the vast majority of our money in traveler’s cheques, and the moneychangers charge up to 50% in fees to change them).  We finally, after an entire morning of trying, were able to get some money.  (We had to wait until Athens to change the cheques.)  Paolo was really nice and we were able to celebrate Oktoberfest in Rome with him the first night we stayed with him.  There was a La Mesa-esque Oktoberfest celebration going on with barbeque, beer, and line dancing.  The next day, we went to the Vatican and saw the Sistine Chapel (we had climbed the basilica and saw the Pope—on the TV screens in the plaza—the previous day).  Our last night in Rome, Paolo’s brother cooked a delicious Italian pasta dish that we enjoyed together before going off to the airport.  Heather slept in the airport just enough to keep me from nodding off, and we had to change terminals at 3 am because one was closing.  It was freezing.

Athens: 20 September

Our early flight to Athens was nice and short and we arrived in the morning and got situated with our hosts, a fantastic Greek family who live just outside Athens.  Our new friend, Mel, was nice enough to host us: his mother, who speaks English, his father, who speaks French, and his sister, who speaks English and French, were so great to us, and they even had a big dog, Lion, who is just like Ole Gunnar.  We got situated at our host house and explored the Plaka area of Athens and the Acropolis.  We ate lots of delicious gyros and I got off to a good start on my weight gain regimen.  We left early the next morning on a ferry for Santorini, but before that, we stayed up really late hanging out with our adopted Greek family.

Santorini: 21-24 September

The ferry to Santorini was about 7 hours long, most of which, we spent enjoying Amstel beers.  When we finally got there, we figured out the public bus system and met with our hosts, Vlada and Inese, a newlywed couple who were nice enough to share their place with us.  Santorini currently suffers from too many tourists.  The main island, Thira, had 11 cruise ships in port one of the days we were there, but the island is gorgeous and we took a little sunset cruise ourselves to a volcanic island and “hot” springs.  On our way down the steps to the port, we passed some other folks who were taking donkeys down (it’s easier, apparently) and one girl absolutely FREAKED OUT and had a complete breakdown just after we passed them because she thought that her donkey was going too fast (they were walking and she was American, unfortunately).  We also visited a red sand beach, but couldn’t visit the white sand beach because the boats weren’t running because of the weather (it has been really windy on all of the islands, which makes for choppy seas).  Vlada was nice enough to take us to his secret swimming place, though, so I was able to get in the (cold) water and take a little swim.  I ate lots of gyros!

Naxos: 24-26 September

After a few days we said good-bye and took a ferry to Naxos, the largest island in the Cyclades chain.  We didn’t have any hosts and didn’t make reservations anywhere, so we were hoping that we could get hooked up at the port when we arrived.  A really nice local lady who lives in a smaller town, called Agia Anna, hooked us up with a really good deal on a studio apartment 5 minutes walk from the beach.  She even made us frappe’s and gave us a small bottle of wine that her family produces when we checked in!  (And there was Wi-Fi!)  We definitely could have stayed there for a long time.  The town was small and walkable and there were really good restaurants that served inexpensive but really good food.  We really wanted to rent scooters or an atv but we didn’t bring our drivers licenses (Heather’s is expired, anyway).  It didn’t really matter, though, because Agia Anna had pretty much everything we wanted and needed.  The town is a little farming town with a pretty little beach and we went for a run one morning and kept running into farmland and kept having to turn around.  One day we took the public bus to Naxos Town, the largest city, and were lucky enough to find a bar that had happy hour from 2pm to 2am, so Heather finally got her frozen cocktail that she has been craving for the past 14 months (I opted for a mojito).  There aren’t enough great things to say about Naxos.  I’m hoping that we can go back and explore some more one day.

Paros: 26 September

We decided to take a chance and leave Naxos after only a few days to check out Paros, which turned out to be a big mistake.  Paros is slightly smaller than Naxos, but one really needs a car or scooter to explore the island because the buses don’t go everywhere.  We tried our luck with accommodations again and the guy we decided to rent a room from was insane.  He was dancing in the car and kept telling us that he dances to hip-hop, rap, and R&B and told us about his YouTube page where we can see him dancing at a local bar wearing an orange hat.  He was really drunk later that night and we decided to leave the next day.  He was creepy and maybe going through some sort of midlife crisis and lied to us about the accommodations.  We couldn’t even see any of the beaches, anyway, because we didn’t have a car or scooter and boats that went to “good” beaches weren’t running because of the weather. Not to mention, a dog humped Craig's leg.  A lot of people here have great things to say about Paros, but the less that we say here the better.  Not our favorite.

Mykonos: 27 September-1 October

We couldn’t wait to get to Mykonos!  Our last island stop.  We took the “fast ferry”, a catamaran that only took 45 minutes to get there.  It was really windy and the waves rocked the boat a lot while we tried to get in.  I was in the middle of the ramp to get onto the ship and it almost fell into the water (with me on it).  It was a long rollercoaster ride.  Heather had to “go to her happy place” while I turned on my iPod and stared out the window.  We were sitting just above the water level and saw the waves shooting up and over the side of the boat.  There were huge swells and we were stuck back in our seats the whole ride.  It was a lot of fun!  We rolled the accommodations dice again in Mykonos and found a nice German lady who hooked us up with a little apartment right in the center of town.  We visited the “party beach” and went out that night and partied way too hard.  While we were getting ready to go out, we turned on the TV and there was a show about Benin!  The host went to Abomey and Bohicon!  We were transfixed, trying to remember our “home” that we had left less than two weeks before.  We tried to get up early the next day to take a day trip to Delos but that definitely was not going to happen.  We woke up late and decided to check out some quiet beaches while we sorted out the details from the previous night.  We took the bus to a recommended beach, only to find out that it was a (mostly) nude gay beach.  The beach was still nice, though, and a friend we made on the bus let us stay at a private hotel beach for free (away from all the “action”).  We went out to a really good Italian restaurant that night (needed a short break from all the gyros).  On Sept 30 we took a day trip to Delos, a small island that has amazingly well preserved Greek ruins and artifacts, and we made a delicious pesto pasta dinner.

We have been discovering all of our “Beninisms” that we have acquired over the past year.  For example, I have been keeping plastic bags and water bottles to reuse them later.  I had a huge pile of bags that I had to force myself to throw away (I was keeping them for the woman who cleans that room so she could reuse them as trash bags).  We have also been insisting on breaking big bills wherever we go in order to get small change.  We have been hoarding change like the Beninese do.  There is a big problem with a lack of “petite monnaie” in Benin because everyone hoards coins!  They last longer than bills and everything is so inexpensive, anyway, it makes sense to just pay for everything with smaller money…EXCEPT for the fact that nobody ever wants to get rid of it and many vendors would rather lose a customer than to part with their precious coins.  We are entranced by all the technology of the developed world: everyone has a new iPhone or iPad, there are working gauges on buses, wine in bottles, and working refrigerators!  It has been a little reverse culture shock but I think that it will help us cope when we finally do come home (we joke that by the time we get back to the States, there will be an iPhone 12 and iPad 5 already…). 

Cheers!