Camp Parakou & Fête des Ignames

From August 7-13 we were in Parakou to help out with another Camp GLOW.  We had organized our own camp back in July and had signed on to help with this camp, as well, though this camp in Parakou was slightly different because it was an overnight camp and the girls came from all over the north-east region of Benin.  (If you remember, our camp was a day camp and involved just girls from our city of Bohicon.)  The girls had sessions during the day where they learned about harassment, the importance of education, HIV/AIDS, malaria, sports, and women’s issues.  The girls stayed overnight in dorms while we stayed at the Peace Corps workstation.  We were supposed to bring a few girls but were not able to because our mayor refused to contribute money to pay for travel and food expenses.  The funding for the camp depended on a certain amount of “community contribution”; each volunteer who brought girls asked their local mayor for a certain amount of money to pay for travel and food expenses for the girls, which was to form part of the community contribution that was factored into the overall budget for the camp. 

The camp went well and we had a great time and gave a presentation on malaria as our major contribution to the camp.  The rest of the time, we tried to get the girls to participate and to facilitate the learning process.

After the camp was over, we traveled down to Savalou to work a tourism booth (to promote my site) and a moringa booth (to promote moringa—duh) at the annual Igname Fête, which marks the beginning of the igname harvest.  There were a lot of booths where we could buy artisanal crafts and trinkets, vendors from Togo and Ghana, and there was even cotton candy, Chilean wine, and soft-serve ice cream!  We also ate lots and lots of igname pile, which is my favorite Beninese food.  Ignam Pilé (literally, “pounded yams”) is made by boiling gigantic ignames, then placing them in a gigantic mortar and pounding the crap out of them with a huge pestle.  When finished, it looks like and has the texture of bread dough, but tastes like mashed potatoes.  It is served with a spicy peanut sauce with wagasi (locally produced cheese—also delicious!) and is cheap, normally 500 cfa (about a dollar).

After the 3-day Igname Fête we went to another local volunteer’s post to go for a hike in the beautiful Collines region of Benin.  The cities of Savalou and Dassa are well-known for their wonderful hiking, and we had been meaning for a while to visit Tony, the volunteer who lives near Dassa, and go for a hike.  We went on a two-hour long hike and the view from the top of the hill was very pretty—pictures to come!

We are in Cotonou now for our mid-service medical appointments, which include samples of certain bodily fluids.  I am pretty sure that we are not carrying around any parasites or worms or weird tropical diseases, so this should be short and sweet. 

Our Italy/Greece vacation starts begins in less than a month!

Cheers

Fête de la Gaani

This weekend we traveled northeast to Parakou, then east to Nikki to attend the Fête de la Gaani, a traditional Bariba celebration that lasts for about a week in the dusty town of Nikki, the capital of the Bariba kingdom, which traditionally spans the north of Benin and into Nigeria and Niger. They are renowned as expert horsemen, and during the celebration, the Bariba kings parade through town on their horses amidst drummers and “race” each other in front of the palace in Nikki (the videos are on Facebook).

This year’s celebration was noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First, Peace Corps had a few booths up during the festival to showcase the PC-started Beninese Moringa Association (ABM), a Shea Butter group that three PC volunteers work with, a Peace Corps 50th Anniversary booth to showcase what we as volunteers do in our communities as well as to search for new work partners, and a Tourism booth to showcase the great tourism sites in the country: Abomey, Grand Popo, Parc Pendjari, Boukoumbe, Parc W, and my archeological park in Bohicon, the Parc Archeologique d’Agongointo. Our mayors were supposed to pay for flyers to be printed but my mayor didn’t, so I had only 3 flyers for people to look at (but was able to get the word out, anyway). Second, our American ambassador was a special guest during the celebrations and got to walk hand-in-hand with the king of Nikki during the main celebration. Third, we were able to show off our booths to not only our ambassador and his staff, but also to our PC staff, including our country director; even though Benin is a small country and we have a small PC and embassy staff, we are a tight little community and it is awesome to show such camaraderie for each other.

After the fete, we returned to the Parakou workstation and we had a town hall meeting with the ambassador and embassy staff for us and other Americans who live in Benin. It was great to meet up with them again and to be able to hear our ambassador speak on issues affecting us here, such as what the embassy does for us, funding issues, safety and security issues, and upcoming elections news.

Tomorrow we head back down south to Bohicon, where we will be for a long while without any traveling, which is great because we miss being at home! Heather will go to Cotonou soon for a medical check-up but other than that, we will be staying put until at least April when I come back to Parakou for another training (and Heather heads to Cotonou for a training in May). We are sad that this big block of traveling is over because we love seeing other parts of the country but we will be happy to get home to our wonderful neighborhood and out of the dust. It’s time to focus on our projects and really get some work done.

A bientôt.

Cheers.