GAD Weekend

Craig and I just returned from Parakou where we spend the weekend promoting gender and development (GAD) via auctions, bake sales, etc.  A lot of people were in town, which was nice because we haven’t seen a lot of them in months.  I helped bake breakfast stuff to sell to raise money for GAD on Friday, which ended up being a pretty big success since all of our breakfast stuff sold out really quickly as more and more volunteers were arriving.  Saturday, other volunteers focused on baking desserts to sell after the formal dinner since dessert wasn’t provided. 

Saturday was an informal night at a bar that started with a talent show.  I wore heels for the first time in 9 months and thought I was going to fall whenever the surface became uneven.  My legs aren’t use to them anymore!  The talent show consisted of a dance off between people, a duet song, and a salsa dance routine.  After the talent show, they started auctioning off dates.  Some of these dates were very tempting.  For example, there were dates that included spa treatments, sightseeing at the waterfalls, maid service, meals being cooked, and the one that I really wanted to bid on was a 2-day camping trip in the Collines.  Volunteers lead all of these dates from whatever region they occur in and are offered up voluntarily.  The volunteers cover the cost of the date and whatever price the highest bidder pays goes directly to fund the GAD program.  Afterwards, there was dancing and a shuttle that brought everyone back to their hotel or to the workstation.  This first night, we raised over 2 million cfa ($4,000), which is pretty good!

Taken on the first night. Suzie, me, Josh, Craig, and Julia

Patrick and Craig

The next day, there was a rematch of a football game.  During our first 2 months of training after we arrived, the boys (and some girls) had a football match between us newbies and the volunteers who had been here a year already.  We’re the 23^rd batch of volunteers and they’re the 22^nd, so it was them versus us.  We beat them, to their surprise, and soon after, they demanded a rematch.  The rematch was organized for this weekend.  This time, we lost horribly.  I don’t even remember what their score was, but they had at least 5 touchdowns and we had 2.  It was super hot and everyone was tired, but it was fun.  Most of us somehow managed to get sunburned, even those of us who were in the shade the whole time watching.  How does that happen?  The wrestling that we mentioned in a previous blog didn’t happen for fear of injuries so we had the football game instead. 

About to commence 

At halftime

We got ready for the formal dinner and silent auction and got there at about 6:30.  It was a pretty setting at a hotel/bar/restaurant with a pool, all outdoors.  The silent auction consisted of all kinds of different things, like a “Man Basket” that had jerky, Sports Illustrated magazines, protein powder, etc. There were different types of jewelry and other African art that were being auctioned off.  There was Starbucks stuff, candy baskets, Christmas baskets, outdoorsy baskets, and dates with people like the head of all of our programs in Peace Corps, Lauren, and our security officer at the Embassy, Tony.  Since the date with Lauren was a BBQ for 10 people and was famous for the delicious meats and many in our group of 10 were vegetarians or kinda vegetarians, we bid on Tony’s date he had up for auction.  I started the bid at $100 total and about half an hour before the auction closed, I had competition.  We had to get creative with our bidding since the people guarding that date would be watching for us.  Erin ended up winning it for $220 and added us to her group so we still get to participate.  We also got an African necklace for a certain someone in California whom I lost a super bowl bet to.

The dinner that they served was either beef stroganoff (Craig’s dinner) or vegetarian lasagna (my dinner).  It was good but definitely not what you would normally call lasagna.  It was more of a giant ravioli.  As soon as dinner was done, people started changing into bathing suits and jumping in the green pool.  Some people didn’t even bother changing and went in with all their clothes on.  I wasn’t planning on going swimming at all because the pool was green, but eventually got peer pressured into swimming and I am glad I did because it was a lot of fun.  There was a DJ playing music all night, good music, too!  We stayed out until the last shuttle left to take us home where Craig sat in the back seat with one of the German volunteers who attended the festivities and competed to see who had the best Beninese French.  It was pretty hilarious. 

At the formal dinner

During the dinner

The entire night was the most fun that I have had in a long time.  It was all very worry-free, laid back, fun.  No drama, no incidents, no dampers on the night at all.  It’s so rare to be in a group of at least 60 other people from various backgrounds with alcohol involved and for everyone to enjoy themselves and all get along without any sign of trouble throughout the night.  We all got to get dressed up to the nines, which is not something we get to do very often here, and everyone looked awesome.  We raised a bunch of money for a good cause, and had a ton of fun while doing it.  I will definitely be partaking in next year’s GAD weekend.  If anyone wants to send us things to donate for next year, it’s never too early to start collecting!  Enjoy the pictures!