Manchester United 1 - 0 Arsenal

For the first time in months, I’ve been able to watch an entire EPL game, and tonight didn’t disappoint. I finally found out where I could watch a game here in Bohicon, and there just happens to be a place down the street from the Grand Mosque that shows the games and it only costs 200 cfa to get a seat on the bench. I sat 7 rows back in the room, which was more like a lean-to, built from mud brick with an aluminum sheeting roof. The screen wasn’t huge, and sometimes I lost track of the ball because I was constantly straining to see the TV. There were lots of Arsenal supporters and a few United supporters in the room. All around me people were talking smack to each other and causing a ruckus. It was an amazing atmosphere to watch a game in. The only thing I was missing was a few pints, and maybe mon jumeau to fight with. In true yovo fashion, I got plenty of stares and everyone wanted to know which team I was rooting for. The Mighty Reds, of course! Comme normal here, I was in the minority. What follows is my analysis of the match and a look forward to Sunday’s contest:

Rooney is not yet on form. Surprisingly, he was most effective when sitting on the last defender’s shoulder and barging through Arsenal’s defense, rather than dropping back into space to play it to the wingers Park and Nani and then moving forward. Speaking of Nani, he ran wild tonight like he did in last season’s final encounter between the two sides and, with the help of an unfortunate deflection, served Park for the winner. As far as Park was concerned, this was a normal game for him. He worked hard, sprinted box-to-box for the full 90+ minutes, and wasn’t terribly effective save for the goal (how far did he run to get to that spot?), which he has a knack for in the important games. The goal was a bit fortunate at best; in fact, it was a classic “Craigy goal”: the result of a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck. Rooney ultimately created the space in the middle for Park to run into while Nani held up play for long enough for Park to get inside the 18. United looked very dangerous on the counter-attacks through Evra and Rafael, who played better offensively than defensively tonight. Back to Rooney, I thought that he would have been more effective. He generally seems to do well against Arsenal, and anyone could tell that he isn’t yet in form. I can’t help but wonder if Chicharito would have been more effective? His penalty was nothing less than embarrassing, trying to do a Ruud van Nistelrooy-versus-Arsenal circa 2003 (when he smacked the ball so hard against the crossbar with his penalty that it nearly flew to midfield). What was he thinking? “I make £200,000 per week now, gotta put a hole in the net every time?” If it weren’t for a good save later on, his cheeky little chip would have just about redeemed him.

Arsenal, for their part, were a bit awkward and seemed to quickly run out of ideas. Nasri has been in brilliant form lately, bagging a double in their last match, but he wasn’t able to quite get on track tonight. He started on the right, but when Rafael exposed his flank while launching counter-attacks, Nasri switched over to the left, which I thought was a good move, as Evra is less prone to making mistakes than is Rafael. Arsenal had a lot of trouble getting service to Chamakh. After a frustrating opening 25 minutes or so, he started dropping far back into the defensive half to get the ball (notice where he was on the pitch when he fouled Nani when he got his yellow card). The introduction of Fabregas and Van Persie was a positive move, especially since Rosicky and Wilshire had all but disappeared from the game and Van Persie could fill that hole up top that Chamakh left when he dropped deep to receive the ball. Arsenal were ultimately let down by their wingers, who couldn’t service a decent ball in, and their central midfielders, who often left Chamakh to attack the wingers’ crosses by himself. Their introduction maybe should have been made at half-time. Arsenal came out strong in the second half but Rosicky and Wilshire were so far out of the game by then that Chamakh was still left attacking the United goal basically by himself with wide support and service from Nasri and Arshavin.

Overall, United had more quality chances and did better tactically to counter-attack versus Arsenal’s possession game, though possession seemed to be fairly even. It was always going to be a tight game and it had to come down to who could better capitalize on the other’s mistakes. Nani by far wins Man of the Match in my eyes.

Definitely worth my 200 cfa. Now on to Stamford Bridge on Sunday which will be just as tricky, since Chelsea have not won in over a month and are bound to break out of their slump. Let’s hope they wait at least another week before then. (Note: Since this entire continent supports Chelsea, I will be lacking fellow Reds to cheer with.) Look for Fergie to pack the center of the midfield against the Blues, who should see Lampard back in the starting line-up. It’s too bad that Ballack has moved on, as he and Evra had some great bouts of handbags the past few seasons. Speaking of Evra, come Sunday, someone restrain the groundskeepers!

Cheers!

Minibuses, Bats, and Collines--Oh My!

   The Colline region of Benin is the very middle of the country where there are rolling green hills.  Some say it is one of the prettiest parts of Benin.  I would have to agree.  When we were first told that we’d be living in Bohicon and we found out how close it was to the Collines, we knew that we wanted to go hiking a lot.  This last weekend was the first chance that we have gotten to take advantage of the nearby scenery and dust off our hiking boots.  We left on Friday from the bus gare.  It was definitely the worst ride anywhere of our lives.  We had to wait around for almost 4 hours in the heat for the bus to leave, while everyone kept telling us that the bus was coming any second.  We ended up trying to get on a different bus whenever a bus would come into the gare, but they were all full.  In the midst of trying to talk to one of the guys with whom we’ve had success with before in finding a bus, a huge guy came up to me with his hand out for a handshake calling me “yovo”.  I don’t have the patience for adults calling me yovo, so I simply told him that my name wasn’t yovo and that he could call me “Madame”.  He said, “but you are a yovo”, and then put his hand on my arm.  I moved my arm and told him sternly not to touch me and then walked away.  (It’s a big taboo for a guy to touch a girl here that he doesn’t know).  He followed me and kept bothering me.  I left and went back to Craig where he was guarding our luggage, and asked him to take over in our transport search.  Long story short, we got in a minivan that was supposed to leave at 10:30 and it didn’t end up leaving until after noon and made frequent and long stops along the way.  What should have taken us 2 hour, took us almost 4. 

    Once we got to Savalou, the small town where our friends, Carlos and Andrea live who celebrated Thanksgiving with us, we got out of the van and went to get our bag and the van started to drive away.  I yelled at the van to stop, which it did.  Then it started intentionally driving just fast enough for us to have to chase it, meanwhile, the entire van that was crammed full of people (19 to be exact) was laughing at the white people chasing the van.  It was one of the most frustrating days in my Peace Corps life to date. 

    After we got to Andrea’s house, we were able to relax and enjoy the rest of our weekend.  Andrea was telling us how she was having bat problems since moving into this new house because the people left the windows open the whole time it was empty.  We looked everywhere, high and low, and couldn’t find any bats.  As soon as night hit, there were two bats flying around.  We got one of them to go out the window and the other one disappeared again.  As soon as we started to go to sleep, I opened my eyes and saw it flying around above us, so I shouted for Cara to open the window again.  The bat would not go out the window so Andrea thought she would try to hit it with a broom to get it out the window.  Well she hit the bat directly at Craig and I, so I started freaking out even more (I don’t do rodents) and it eventually went out the window.  We thought that was all, but the next night, the 3^rd one appeared and we got that one out too.  Now, Andrea’s house should be bat-free!

    On Saturday, we got up very early (to beat the sun/heat) and took a 20-minute zem ride to a little village higher up in the collines where we started our hike.  Before starting, we ate some bouille for breakfast, which is the Beninese equivalent of cream of wheat but not as good.  It was cool, misty, cloudy, and nice until about 11am when the sun started to come out.  Needless to say, it was a very nice hike.  There was a palm tree with 7 trunks (they said it is the only one in the world, but who knows) along with a lot of other pretty things.  It was just nice to get away from post for the weekend and do some outdoor activity.  The company that took us out said that it was the hardest hike that they did, but we didn’t find it too hard.  We were very dirty afterwards though and when we got back to Andrea’s house, the water was out so we had to walk to Carlos’ house with our shower stuff to take a shower.  We left to come home on Sunday, and the ride home was much nicer than the ride there!  Enjoy the pictures!

P.S. A huge thanks to Noelle and Mama/Papa Wirick for the care packages!  You guys are awesome! 

Carlos, Cara, Satin, and Andrea

Craig and I with the kids in the start village

All of us in front of the palm tree with 7 trunks

the start of the trail

at the top of the first peak

This bat pretended to be dead and when Craig threw him off the roof with the dust pan, he flew away!

World AIDS Day

   December 1^st is globally known as World AIDS Day.  I knew about it before leaving the States, but I wasn’t too sure how well-known it was here.  Our event started about a month ago when I was at my first baby weighing and I asked my supervisor, Sakina, if we could do something for World AIDS Day.  Being the supportive supervisor she is, she said, “of course”.  I told her that I’d like to organize a sesibilization about HIV/AIDS and then do voluntary testing afterwards.  She elaborated on my ideas and got a video to play, organized with a school director of a local school that has a high rate of infection, and amazingly, got someone to agree to do the testing.  We chose a school because here, kids start having sex at 8-10 years old, which is unconceivable in the States, and because it is not unheard of that a young girls have these relations with older men (teachers, family friends, etc), there is a much higher rate of infection.  Another reason for this is because in the culture here, they believe that if you don’t have sex a lot, then you’re not healthy and you’ll get sick with all kinds of horrible things.  Which I guess there is some truth to that keeping you healthy, but they put a lot more emphasis on “being healthy” in that aspect then they really need to.  I asked Peace Corps if we could use our connections and resources to get someone to do the testing, but the only resources that are available through Peace Corps have to be booked months in advance.  Luckily, there is a local organization that does testing whom she’s worked with before and they were happy to help. 

     December first came around and Craig and I met Sakina at the school.  She pulled up with a vehicle full of stuff (including free female and male condoms to give out at the end) and walked up to meet us with a box on her head and a smile on her face.  The turn out was much larger than I had expected since we did the presentation right after exams.  We had two rooms full of kids.  One room had older adolescents and the other room had the kiddies.  The organization that came did a really good sensibilization on HIV and AIDS that was very informative for the kids as well as inclusive.  The video that we showed was so graphic that if THAT doesn’t stop them from having unprotected sex, I have no idea what will.  Craig couldn’t even watch it because it was so illustrative.  And of course every time there was a penis or vagina, all the kids started yelling and getting all excited.  

    After the video, we did a condom demonstration with both the female and male condoms while they started the rapid testing.  One of our colleagues who was leading the demonstration said to make sure the penis was hard and not floppy before putting on the condom and all hell broke loose with kids screaming and laughing and jumping around.  After the kids got their results, they gave us the little paper that the technicians gave to them when they got their results and they turned it in to us for a package of free condoms. that we got to give out  Sadly, there were many cases of HIV positive students.  They didn’t tell them that they were positive there, but told them to go to their headquarters for more testing so that they could counsel them in a private place.  Hopefully, we made some sort of impact on them to live healthier lifestyles.  As our first official event that we have done in the Peace Corps, I feel that it went incredibly well.  Enjoy the pictures!         

My fearless leader, Sakina, with a box of donated condoms on her head

The class with all the older kids

Doing the rapid testing

Ready to give out condoms!

                                          

Thanksgiving

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. It was a little weird for us, celebrating it without our families back home, but we did celebrate it with a couple members of our new Peace Corps family. At the last minute our friends Carlos and Andrea, who live about 2 hours northwest of us decided to come down and celebrate with us. We all went out to dinner the night before Thanksgiving for some cheap food (rice, sauce, and wagasi cheese—400CFA/.90 cents) and caught up.
We don’t have access to your typical Thanksgiving foods (except yams and potatoes) and since we’re all from regions with heavy Latin culture, we decided to make Mexican food. Carlos, Craig, and I all went to a garden that is run by handicaped people to buy our produce. Unfortunately, they sold us avocados that weren’t ripe yet so we couldn’t have any guacamole and the papayas that we had for our beverages weren’t all the way ripe either so it was a little chunky. Regardless, we had a nice spread. Home-made tortillas and tortilla chips, salsa, refried beans, Spanish rice, Tapatio potatoes, and the dessert—arroz con leche, or rice pudding while drinking frozen fruit daiquiris made with papaya, pineapple, and bisap syrup-made from hibiscus flowers. Sister Madeline (from a previous post) was in town and stopped by with a bottle of white wine for us to celebrate the holidays with and we had our neighbors over for the actual dinner part.
We ate all day long to make sure that something that day felt like Thanksgiving since we were without our normal company and it was extremely hot like usual. But while surrounded by new family, friends, and neighbors, it was the closest to a “normal” Thanksgiving that we would get to and it was really nice.

gutting the papayas for the daiquiris

the Thanksgiving gang

cooking away!

the finished product...or what would fit in the screen

Something to Be Thankful For

We have been living in Benin for less than six months, and it is interesting to reflect back and see how we have already changed—and what we have to be thankful for.
It was not until we arrived here that we realized just how well we live back in the States. It’s easy to take for granted the little things, like free public education and a civil service and law enforcement that isn’t rife with endemic corruption. Kids in Benin regularly wake up at 5:00am on a school day to do homework then housework before going off to school, then come home and cook and clean before going to bed at 11:00 at night. School costs money, and if Moms does not make enough money selling rice and beans outside the front door and Pops is a degenerate drunken Zem driver with a second family somewhere else, kids sometimes have to pick up a job cleaning houses or working at the marché to pay their school fees, which are something like $20 a year; or even worse, having to work as an apprentice for free because you cannot afford school fees, like the 10-year old apprentice to the 14-year old man-boy barber who cuts my hair for sixty cents (ages are approximate). Corrupt police set up checkpoints along the only major road in the country to force taxi drivers into supplementing their income, usually right in front of a roadside stand that peddles pilfered Nigerian gasoline at a discounted rate.
There are great things here, though. It’s great to wake up early before it gets really hot and walk down the dirt road and salue the Mama’s setting up their makeshift food stands (or walking around with various assorted goods on their heads), to see the joy and surprise on their faces when the Yovo greets them with a cheerful “A fon gonji a!” or greeting our neighbors with a quick “bonjour” and “bonne journée” as they walk their motos out the gate to leave for work. Little things are fulfilling, like when my work partner treats me to a satisfactory “Voila!” as I begin to slowly figure out what is going on around me. Making those personal connections is one of the most important parts of this experience.
Thanksgiving is about being appreciative of the little things, but also of the big things, like family and friends. We left behind family and friends in Arizona, California, and Texas to come on this little journey and we couldn’t be more thankful for their love, wisdom, and support, and we are thankful for our new extended family here, from our host family in Porto-Novo, Embassy staff, our Beninese neighbors, and, of course, our fellow PCVs.
To our family, here’s to you on this Thanksgiving. We have much to be thankful for.

Work

Work has started slowly here, but is quickly picking up. Our first (almost) two months at post was spent getting accustomed to the area, meeting people, figuring out the marché schedule, reading a lot of books, magazines, and online articles, and preparing for the work that would inevitably come our way.
That time is hurtling toward us with reckless abandon. Our schedule is starting to get packed with Fongbe lessons, meetings, excursions, baby-weighings, sensibilizations, and trips to the Cyber to research and post marketing materials. It seems like every day this week we have something on our schedules. To wit: Monday we had a meeting at the local CEG to present an English Spelling Bee project (that PC Benin is putting on--the finals are in Nattitangou in June or at the end of the school year, whichever comes first); Tuesday and Friday we have Fongbe (Fon) lessons; Wednesday we have another meeting at the CEG, this time with an English professor who may become our contact person for the spelling bee as well as a soccer game (we might be starting not only an English club, which would coincide with the spelling bee, but also a girls’ soccer club at the school, with help from our neighbor); Thursday Heather has her APCD (her PC boss) visit; Friday we have a sensibilization on Moringa in Abomey and the aforementioned Fongbe lessons but I also need to research the histoire of the parc and write up information to post on travel websites and meet with my homologue to discuss ideas that I have for the parc (and how to present them to the mayor so we can actually get some reinvestment there). Saturday we have off but Sunday I have my APCD visit and next week is Thanksgiving.
So everything is picking up now. No more whining about having nothing to do. We’re also trying to coordinate “work trips” with other volunteers to visit other parts of Benin, all the while studying for the FSOT, building up mileage before we start marathon training, and trying to avoid explosive diarrhea.
Fun times.

Cheers.

Halloween, The Faint, and Cotonou

Heather and I went to Parakou over Halloween weekend for a pair of meetings and a Halloween party (as John McCain and Sarah Palin). We tried to "come home" to Bohicon on Sunday but we had bus problems--meaning that we paid for our tickets, but the bus never showed--so we got our money back, returned back to the workstation, and left on Monday morning with a different bus line that would actually transport us.
Heather started feeling ill on Monday, and I started feeling sick on Tuesday morning. We had our first Fon tutoring session and we returned home and Heather was still not feeling particularly well, and I also began feeling ill. I began losing fluids at about 1:00pm was tired, achey, had a headache, and nausea. We called the Peace Corps doctors and they told us to drink fluids and try to stay hydrated. At about 7:30pm I threw up for the first time, and started to drink ORS, the Oral Hydration Fluid that we have in our medical kit.
At about 8 or 8:30pm, I was feeling nauseas and tried to stand up and walk 8 feet to the bathroom, when I fainted from severe dehydration. Heather saw me stumble and tried to catch me as I apparently (I don't remember, it was like a dream) ran into the wall, then fell onto the floor. She said that I passed out for about 10 seconds. When I came to, I asked her what was wrong. I had no idea what just happened. She helped me to the bathroom, then I broke out into a sweat--dripping puddles onto the tile floor--and Heather called the doctor, then rousted up our neighbor, Gilles, to help. The doctor instructed us to go to the nearest hospital to get me an IV. I got on the back of Gilles' moto while our other neighbor Gilles volunteered to take Heather. About 10 minutes later, we were at the (private, not public--everything that the government is in charge of here falls apart) hospital to check in. Two bottles of IV solution later, and I was discharged (it cost us 12,200CFA, about $25). Our Peace Corps doctor was in constant contact with the hospital doctors the entire time and they took really good care of me.
Our PC doc asked us to come down to Cotonou on Wednesday for an exam, more fluids (not intravenous), and blood work. The good news is that I don't have malaria and I may have had bacterial diarrhea. When the lab analyzes my "sample" they will let me know. We thought that we would only be here for a day or two but the doctor discovered that I have an abnormally low heart rate for someone who is not a world-class athlete (anymore). The long and short of it is the doctors want to make sure that I don't have an underlying problem that the sickness has exacerbated and illuminated.
In the meantime, we are feeling better and have been running errands around Cotonou: going to the bank, buying necessities, raiding the workstation library for books, eating ice cream and chwarma, etc.
On Saturday, we went to the Ambassador's house and went swimming. He opens his pool every Saturday for Peace Corps Volunteers and it is amazing! We didn't get to hang out with him but did walk across the street and saw some embassy staffers playing softball and hung out with them a little bit. At their invitation, we had brunch with them on Sunday at the house of one of the FSOs. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them and seeing what life is like to be Foreign Service Officers. Some are former PCVs and we were able to ask them about the Foreign Service Officer Exam, which we are both studying for and planning to take at least once before we leave Benin. We plan on getting in touch with them whenever we're in Cotonou.
We should be leaving on Tuesday to go home, and we both have a feeling that we need to make up for lost time at post since we have basically been away for almost 2 weeks.

Cheers!