Birthday Weekend

First, to back up a little bit, I had my IST (in-service training) two weeks ago. It went well. I learned a bit about how to request funding for projects, was able to get together with my work partner and formally make a work plan, got to see my fellow volunteers again who live nowhere near us, and I ate a lot of free food. We are hoping to be able to get our girl’s soccer team up and running over the next month at the local private school, and I have a lot of people to meet and monies to ask for to promote my worksite. I’m ever-so-slowly gaining weight back, and as soon as we are back in our normal routine at post (in two weeks), we will be able to work out regularly again so maybe that weight that I gain back will be muscle.

Now on to this weekend. My birthday was on Friday, so we came down to Cotonou on Thursday to celebrate and also to take the State Department Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT). My birthday was basically perfect. We spared ourselves the hot West African sun and humidity by staying inside in the cool air conditioning all day, I was able to get some work done thanks to the lightning-fast internet connection in the workstation, and I ate a lot: buille, pizza, a cheeseburger, german chocolate cake, and ice cream.

On Saturday, we got up early to take the FSOT at the American Cultural Center here in Cotonou. We both took the test last year so we thought we knew what to study and what to expect but the test covers so much general information that it is difficult to study for. Despite the State Department adding an extra essay question on the end, we both are optimistic about our results (we will find out in “3-5 weeks” how we did). After the FSOT, we had a celebratory beer, then went swimming at the Ambassador’s house, played softball with the embassy staff (PC vs Embassy, the Embassy won, 1-0…we want a rematch!), then hung out with the embassy staff afterwards at a local restaurant. I was also fortunate enough to chat with my mom and friends over Facebook and received a birthday phone call from my best bud. Thanks again for all the birthday wishes. I understand that Brian partied enough for both of us this weekend!

Tonight we are going to a Super Bowl party (the game starts at 12:30am), and tomorrow we will try to get a spot in a PC vehicle that is heading north. If not, we will just take an early taxi up.

At the end of next week we will be traveling again, this time up north to Nikki, to work a PC booth at the Gaani Fete to promote PC’s 50th Anniversary and tourism in Benin. After that, we will be home for a while and unable to travel due to upcoming elections, but fortunately we have multiple cyber café’s in our town so we will be able to post updates.

Until then,

Cheers.