Photos have been updated

That is all.

Cheers!

Dog Days of Chaleur

We are in the long, hot dry season, and it is turning out to be everything that we were promised: hot, steamy, humid, and hot. When we sit in our concrete house with tin roof we feel like we are sitting in an oven (with electricity and running water). It feels like South Florida without the ocean breeze.

I try to do my important stuff in the morning before it gets too hot. After riding the 5-7 km to work or into town in the middle of the day makes me sweat so much that my fingers pucker up like I just spent too much time in the bathtub (if I had one). We try to run a few times a week but if we sleep too late (every time), we have to wait until it’s almost dark and the heat is down to bearable levels.

Beninese people do not sweat. Maybe it’s just because I’m new in town, but my hyperactive sweat glands were never much of a problem until I moved here to the near-tropics. Fortunately we have a bar a stone’s throw away from our house with a breezy second story, plenty of music, and cold drinks. Beers are only a dollar!

Other than the oppressive heat and humidity, things are going well. I’m starting to work on a website for my park, and Heather has been running around like mad applying for grants and organizing a girl’s camp for this summer and our marathon team for September. Our mamá down the road sells ice and cold bisap (a sweet, sugary, dark-purple hibiscus drink; think: Kool-Aid).

Thank you all for the care packages, love, prayers, and support. It’s almost rainy season again! Yay!

Cheers.

Sponsor Us For The Marathon!

As most of you know, Craig and I, along with 2 other PCVs, are planning on running a marathon in Ghana in September as a team to raise money for Camp GLOWs in Benin.  Camp GLOW is a girls’ camp that Peace Corps does every summer vacation that focuses on empowering girls to stay in school, promotes self esteem, teaches them about reproductive health, staying healthy, sexual harassment, and gives them the opportunity to speak with other successful women from the community.  It is a great camp with a lot of positive feedback in respect to supporting and encouraging girls and is one of the most memorable parts of most volunteers’ service in the Peace Corps.  Craig and I are putting on a Camp GLOW in Bohicon, the first one here, this summer vacation.

We will not be asking our family and friends to donate towards Camp GLOW, unless you want to of course, given the fact that the economy has affected many people we know.  Instead, we are asking for our friends and family to cover our fees and costs to participate in the marathon.  We do not want any of the money that we raise for Camp GLOW to go towards our costs, so we are asking for your sponsorships to cover those fees.  These sponsorships will not be tax-deductible since they are not going towards Camp GLOW, but if you did want to donate towards Camp GLOW, which IS tax-deductible, we will have information on how you can do that soon.  

Every member of our team of four will be petitioning their family and friends as well to sponsor us as a team.  Our team costs to take part in the marathon are:

--Team Registration Fee                                    $130                                   

     *Must be paid by April 30^th

--Visas for Togo                                                100,000cfa  (about $200)

     *by July 31^st 

--Visas for Ghana                                                60,000cfa  (about $120)

     *by July 31^st

--Transportation Costs                                       120,000cfa  (about $240)

    *Cotonou to Accra, round trip

    *by September 1^st            

--Lodging Costs                                                120,000cfa  (about $240)

    *10,000cfa fee each to stay in

      PC office in Ghana for 3 nights

    *by September 1^st

Total                                                                        $930

Again, this is for our entire team, so Craig and I will be responsible coming up with about half of that.  The most important amount that we need now is our registration fee.  This fee goes up if not paid by April 30^th, which obviously increases our costs.  If our closest family and friends, or about 10 people, all pitch in $50, then our costs are easily covered.  As soon as all of the costs are met, we will post a blog immediately to inform everyone to avoid additional sponsorships.

If you are interested in sponsoring us, you can mail a check to Craig’s parents, the Wiricks, and they can deposit it into our account for us.  Send us an email or a message on Facebook for their address.  

Thank you for all of your support: emotional, mental, and financial!  We are lucky to have every one of you in our lives. 

Jasmine Revolutions

As most of you have probably seen on the news, North Africa and parts of the Middle East are in the midst of revolutions.  I am not sure what is being reported over there, but I have gotten several comments that those crazy “Islamic radicals” are the ones responsible for all the chaos.  This blog is to clear up any confusion regarding the revolutions that are happening in (sort of) our part of the world. 

A couple months ago, a young, unemployed, and economically frustrated man in Tunisia set himself on fire to end his life in protest of the lack of economic opportunities and years of hopelessness in Tunisia.  That brought a lot of attention to the economic problems that the majority of the population suffered from and sparked the first revolution in Tunisia.  These first protestors, most of whom had a lot in common with the young man who set himself on fire, went out into the streets to call for the current dictatorship to step down and make room for democracy so they can have a voice. 

These bold acts inspired Egypt, who suffers from similar issues, to take to the streets and call for their dictatorship to step down in the name of democracy as well.  These protestors were of the same or similar demographic as the protestors in Tunisia.  From there, it has snowballed and this contagious idea of revolt has spread like the flu to the entire North African region (Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya) and several parts of the Middle East (Bahrain, Yemen, and Iran) and people are trying to get the idea to catch in parts of China. 

The two major forces driving these “Jasmine” revolutions that these countries have in common is the lack of economic opportunity among the majority of the population, particularly with recently graduated college students who are more forthcoming with their grievances, in addition to a non-democratic form of government responsible for these causes of distress.  It is not the “radicals of Islam” who are causing or encouraging the protestors to take to the streets, causing all of this “chaos”; it is the desire of the people to make a better life for themselves. 

Some of the leaders have reluctantly respected their wishes and have, or are planning on, stepping down, such as Egypt and Tunisia.  Others have taken violent means to put down the protestors, such as in Libya.  Their leader has used fighter jets, among other things, to unsuccessfully silence the population and many have lost their lives for wanting a voice and a better life for themselves and their family. 

The United States has always been a proponent of democracy and has done their damndest to spread democracy to places such as these, who are now pulling for democracy as I write this.  Hopefully, this blog will clear up any confusion that “Islamic extremists” are the perpetrators of these revolutions.  Just because the protesters happen to live in a predominantly Muslim country doesn’t mean they are extremists.  They are people, just like us, who deserve a better life and are fighting for it.  As Americans who get the luxury of a vote, I encourage you to support them.  After all, we have been in their position before; we also once had a revolution that brought democracy and gave us a voice.  

My Most Productive Day in Bohicon

Today was a very exciting and inspiring day.  Most days I go in to work, I discuss my progress on projects that I’m working on for Bohicon (i.e. girls camp, nutritional recuperation workshops, etc) but today I actually made something concrete happen at work.  I went into work today, expecting it to be like any other day, which it started out as.  We discussed when we could go together to the school where we want to do the girls’ camp this summer and discussed menu items for the girls’ camp and then with one remark, the tides changed. 

My supervisor mentioned that Matthieu, (a politician, NGO owner, volunteer host-er, and Moringa farmer) didn’t show up for his appointment with my CPS to do his Moringa sensibilisation so that we could start selling his Moringa (he wont’ start selling it to us until he knows that everyone is properly trained on how to teach people about it) to people in need after telling his Peace Corps volunteer and our postmate, Katie, that he did.  This was the billionth time that we have tried to make this happen and that was the last go-around that we were willing to try.

Side note: For those of you who have not received my Moringa explanation, it is a small tree that grows everywhere here that has more vitamins, protein, and all-around nutrients (when it is dried and processed) than any other thing known on Earth and it just so happens to grow in almost all the places where malnutrition is an issue.  The problem is, not many people know about these great benefits so it’s quite possible for someone to have a Moringa tree in their backyard their whole life and never take advantage of it.  Since malnutrition is my primary project with my CPS, Moringa naturally is a huge part of my efforts. 

So I got on the phone to Patrick, another volunteer in Parakou whose central project is Moringa, and asked him if we could set up some sort of partnership so we can get Moringa sent down every two weeks or so.  He informed me that there was a huge Moringa farmer, Isador, right here in Bohicon and sent me his contact information.  This was very uplifting because before that phone call, we thought Matthieu was the only Moringa farmer in the Bohicon area. 

I called Isador and did the proper introduction and explanation of why I was calling and an hour later, a woman who works with him arrived at my CPS with all the sizes of bottled Moringa powder that he sells.  Luckily, I asked the prices on the phone before the woman got there and had time to call Patrick and ask him why this guy’s prices were so much higher than the Moringa Association’s, of which he is a part.  There was no clear reason why he was charging more down in Bohicon other than to just make more money.  So when the lady came with her over-priced bottles of Moringa powder, I spent about 20 minutes negotiating with her, then on the phone with Isador, and got our current and future purchases down to the normal price. 

After all the negotiations were said and done, we had 2 liters of Moringa powder for $6 to test the market with and a promise from Isador to come by and formally introduce himself when he is back in town.  I left with the wonderful satisfaction to have gotten a project that I had been working on for months off the ground all on my own without the help or local language translation of my supervisor or anyone else.  It may not seem like a very challenging task, but here, to get anything off of the ground is a huge feat and to do it by oneself is all the more gratifying.  This was a very productive day in moving forward. 

P.S.  Thank you Dad and Vashti and the Wiricks for all the care packages!  Love you guys! 

New Stuff

I tried to take advantage of the free internet here in Parakou and add a few things to our blog here. There are links at the top (under the banner) for two new pages that I created. One is a Google Map to track where we have been and where we will be going during our travels. The second is an entire page dedicated to a mélange of photos that we have taken. The bulk of our photos are still on Facebook for those to see who have accounts there. The first set of pictures are from the Fête de la Gani in Nikki. There were a lot of Peul (or Fulani) people at the celebrations and they let us take lots of pictures of them. Children love to get pictures taken and I posted some of my favorites. We will try to continue to post pictures there that are representative of our activities here.

Until next time...

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.