It's Been A While...

We realized that it has been awhile since we posted a blog with substantial updates so we're planning on fixing that today!  Since Gaani Fete, we have been busy running around doing stuff.  This blog is just to give an update on random things that have been going on in our lives.  There is no flow or transitions between paragraphs, so if something doesn’t make sense, or it seems like I’m jumping subjects out of nowhere, it’s because I am.  J  So bear with me! 

Craig and I started an English club back in October and it was one of the first real things that we did here as volunteers and each week or every other week we had been meeting with the kids to go over English words in preparation for a Spelling Bee.  The last couple weeks before the Bee, we had like a “dress rehearsal” where we pretended to be judges and went through the process exactly how the real judges would to better prepare them.  The day of the Spelling Bee, March 16^th, came and as I predicted, the girls were killing it and the boys were dropping like flies.  The final two girls each spelled at least 15 words and the runner up for the girls was very upset that she lost and didn’t even want to take my “thanks for playing” candy that I was handing out at the end.  The boys were dropping like flies but eventually, they got down to the two last boys and they had a respectable battle—though nowhere near the same as the last two girls.  The boy that ended up winning had started coming to our sessions after Craig and I made a list of students that we had our neighbor and their vice principal verify to make sure they had the average gpa to be qualified to participate.  That means that we had no way of knowing for sure if our winner for the boys was even qualified to win.  Oops!  At the end, I asked him if he had the average (which is 10) and he said that he had 17 (which is super high!).  Naturally, I thought he was full of it and became even more worried about whether he was qualified.  About a week later, we found out from our neighbor that he had a 16.5 and was the top boy in his grade.  Wow!  Good for him!  So we were able to breathe a sigh of relief.  The next step for the Spelling Bee is that these two winners will get to travel with us for a few days up to Nattitangou (the north of the country, to where most kids from down here have never been) to battle all the other winners of participating schools where there are participating PCVs.  So it’s a pretty big deal for the winners. 

Before the start of the Spelling Bee

With the winners....too bad the flash wasn't working!

The other major development that has sucked us dry of free time is our grant application for our girls camp that we’re doing this summer.  While we were hanging out with one of our Spelling Bee judges, Erik, I found out that it took him 4 months to get his money for his project from when he submitted his grant application because he kept having to go back and make changes and get contracts signed before it would be approved.  So Craig and I diligently worked from the time we woke up to the time we went to bed, often foregoing our usual movie that we watch every night, to finish writing up the project.  During the day, I was running around, literally, everywhere getting contracts signed.  Any price we have in our budget has to be backed up with a contract, whether it’s a donation (like a NGO coming to teach about a topic for free that would normally cost money) or a service.  It was very tiring and time consuming but we were able to finish everything over the weekend before we left for Cotonou.  Once we were in Cotonou, I was able to nag at the lady that looks over them for approval to get remarks back right away and to fix things right away.  It took us 3 days from when we submitted our application to when it was approved.  I think that’s a new Peace Corps record!  It was also a HUGE weight off of our shoulders.  Now we’ll have money to actually host this camp.  Whoohooo!

While we were in her office, getting the good news about our grant application, our Country Director, Bob, invited us to his house for dinner.  Bob reminds me of home in so many ways.  He has that laid-back surfer attitude, he talks like a surfer, and he’s from the West Coast.  He’s from Seattle but has land out in Montana.  Dinner at his house was amazing.  Their personal chef made us fresh tortillas, fajitas, salsa, and guacamole followed by a dessert of home made ice-cream and espresso.  We got to talk a lot about Madagascar, his last post, so I got some good tips for when we do our big trip and hit Madagascar. 

Recently, my CPS opened up a “cyber”, where people can go to use the internet, as part of the CPS and we accidentally, while we were there working on grant stuff, found out that they had wifi also.  This is really good news because our house is about a 7 minute walk from the CPS, whereas our other cyber was at least a 10-minute bike ride (not bad) and I can use this wifi for free!  Of course, as soon as I pointed out to my supervisor that I was getting wifi, she had someone come in and protect it so other people couldn’t mooch off of it, which ultimately screwed everything up and I can’t get on it anymore.  The technician is supposed to come back out this week to fix it again.  That is another reason why we haven’t been online in a while.  We’ve been really busy + the closest wifi to us doesn’t work = we’re not online as often as we’d like to be.

So we have 3 neighbors and the neighbors whom we share a wall with are the closest to us and are a younger couple that is in probably their mid-thirties and they have two kids.  One of them is about 4 or so and his name is Emeric, and the other one is less than 2 years old and her name is Amanda.  Amanda has started saying my Fon name (Sikah) and both kids have warmed up to us so what they do now is put their faces against our screen door and call my name, then tell me to come in Fon (wa-wa).  It’s really cute.  Just yesterday, Amanda was peering into our house looking for me and when she saw me, she started calling me name and telling me to wa-wa, which is funny because usually it is the adults that “wa” the kids, not the other way around.  We have fun with them though.  We play soccer with them and stuff, which they like because here adults don’t play with kids.

Craig playing soccer with Emeric

They don't smile here, so we told him to smile with his teeth showing and this is what we got!  Ha!

Emeric and Amanda playing with us

Today, Craig and I had an appointment in a little village just north of us named Dan and we decided that it would be a good bike ride.  So this morning, we got on our bikes and rode…and rode…and rode.  Turns out, it was 20 km each way (about 12.4 miles each way) and the longest bike ride I have done here.  It took us an hour of road at a slight incline to get there and once we got there, we were beat.  The meeting was supposed to be a needs assessment of the village because the nun that I have worked with before wants to build a maternity ward and a nutritional recuperation center there.  We quickly realized that we were not there to really assess any needs but to talk about how we were going to help them get their buildings financed.  After an hour bike ride uphill, this was very annoying.  We are willing to help and think that they are both good projects, but they could have told us that over the phone.  We didn’t exactly have to go up there for that.  The meeting lasted an hour and a half and then we were back on the rode in the middle of the afternoon sun riding home.  Needless to say, I was completely exhausted by the time we got home.  And starving!!  Since I had only eaten a little oatmeal before our ride.  It’s good practice though to get ready for the upcoming bike tour in which we’re participating in May.

Craig with Father Cesar and Soeur Nadine

Coming up in our near future (this month), is Craig’s quarterly In-Service Training followed by our GAD dinner/auction, both in Parakou.  We will also be celebrating our 9-month PC anniversary!  We have almost been here 9 months already…unbelievable!  Craig is leaving here on the 17^th for training and I will meet him in Parakou a couple days before the dinner/after his training is over because we’re meeting with the person who is in charge of the girl’s camp in Parakou to get pointers and ideas from her since we have no clue what we’re doing yet for some of the activities for our girl’s camp.  The dinner/auction should be fun.  From how I understand it, the first night (Friday night) is informal and there is a “date” auction.  Craig and I have talked about auctioning off a “Dinner with the Wiricks”, but we’ll see what happens.  On the informal night, there will also be a wrestling match with all the boys.  Craig is paired up with the other married guy from our group, Andrew.  The second night, Saturday, is formal and consists of a fancy dinner and a silent auction of stuff, most of which are enticing luxuries from America.  All money that is raised from auctions, wrestling, etc. goes towards supporting GAD (Gender And Development), which funds small projects for volunteers all over Benin.  So it’s a good cause and it should be a lot of fun.   

We hope all is well in everyone’s lives over there and we are always thinking of all of you.  Thank you Brandy and Brian for your sponsorships for our marathon!  You guys are wonderful!  Thank you Mama Joyce for the care package!  And a delayed thank you to Vashti and my dad for their giant care package and for Mama Jamie’s two packages.  You guys are awesome and you make us the envy of all the volunteers with the wonderful goodies from America that you send!  We love you!