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.

Cultural Exchange: Cutting My Own Hair

I used to cut my own hair at home, and so when I came to Benin I brought my own clippers with me, which worked pretty well until the voltage difference finally killed them back in September—two months into my service. There is a barber at the end of our street who I have been to a few times, but I always return home unsatisfied because my 16-year old friend has no prior experience with Yovo hair. Today I wanted to try something different.

I was thinking about going native and just growing out my hair and beard but we’re in the hot season—the chaleur—and there’s no way that I can survive the heat with long (for me) hair and a beard. I walked down to the barber in the afternoon when I had a feeling it would be slow and the electricity would be on, and asked him if I paid him for a haircut, could I just do it myself? He was surprised, but said ok, and prepared the clippers for me. I told him that he could sit down and watch, and he did. About halfway through, the power went out and a few awkward minutes later, I was able to finish up.

When I was almost done, a few guys came in to get haircuts and I offered to give them haircuts, too, and we jokingly negotiated a price (I could have made 500 cfa!). Pretty soon I had a vrai audience: my young barber, his friend sleeping on the bench inside the shop, and two other guys who came by to get their haircuts. I saw the barber study how I was cutting my hair, so as I cleaned off the clippers after I finished, I told him that next time, he can give it a try.

Haircut: 300 cfa (about 60 cents). Cultural exchange: priceless.

Cheers.

Birthday Weekend

First, to back up a little bit, I had my IST (in-service training) two weeks ago. It went well. I learned a bit about how to request funding for projects, was able to get together with my work partner and formally make a work plan, got to see my fellow volunteers again who live nowhere near us, and I ate a lot of free food. We are hoping to be able to get our girl’s soccer team up and running over the next month at the local private school, and I have a lot of people to meet and monies to ask for to promote my worksite. I’m ever-so-slowly gaining weight back, and as soon as we are back in our normal routine at post (in two weeks), we will be able to work out regularly again so maybe that weight that I gain back will be muscle.

Now on to this weekend. My birthday was on Friday, so we came down to Cotonou on Thursday to celebrate and also to take the State Department Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT). My birthday was basically perfect. We spared ourselves the hot West African sun and humidity by staying inside in the cool air conditioning all day, I was able to get some work done thanks to the lightning-fast internet connection in the workstation, and I ate a lot: buille, pizza, a cheeseburger, german chocolate cake, and ice cream.

On Saturday, we got up early to take the FSOT at the American Cultural Center here in Cotonou. We both took the test last year so we thought we knew what to study and what to expect but the test covers so much general information that it is difficult to study for. Despite the State Department adding an extra essay question on the end, we both are optimistic about our results (we will find out in “3-5 weeks” how we did). After the FSOT, we had a celebratory beer, then went swimming at the Ambassador’s house, played softball with the embassy staff (PC vs Embassy, the Embassy won, 1-0…we want a rematch!), then hung out with the embassy staff afterwards at a local restaurant. I was also fortunate enough to chat with my mom and friends over Facebook and received a birthday phone call from my best bud. Thanks again for all the birthday wishes. I understand that Brian partied enough for both of us this weekend!

Tonight we are going to a Super Bowl party (the game starts at 12:30am), and tomorrow we will try to get a spot in a PC vehicle that is heading north. If not, we will just take an early taxi up.

At the end of next week we will be traveling again, this time up north to Nikki, to work a PC booth at the Gaani Fete to promote PC’s 50th Anniversary and tourism in Benin. After that, we will be home for a while and unable to travel due to upcoming elections, but fortunately we have multiple cyber café’s in our town so we will be able to post updates.

Until then,

Cheers.

Back In Cotonou

I have been in Cotonou for the last 9 days and will be finally going home on Monday. I will not bore you with my medical details, but rest assured that it’s nothing serious. While I have been in Cotonou, Craig has been in Porto-Novo at his quarterly training (IST), which is what I had in December. There have been a few other volunteers with maladies in the med unit with me in Cotonou so we have been having a nice time all week making dinners and watching movies. I have been trying to get some work done here, but rather unsuccessfully since I have had appointments almost every day. One really exciting thing that I did get done is I have begun to help change someone’s life. Let me back up.


When I was working in property management in El Cajon, we had a lot of refugees from Iraq so therefore, we worked quite closely with Catholic Charities among other organizations who help them. I made a friend (Tim) towards the end of my two years there who works for Catholic Charities and used to live in Benin working for an NGO. When I found out we were being sent to Benin, he was one of the people that I talked to for insight. Before I left, he asked me if I could help him find his former chauffeur and friend that he had when he lived in Cotonou because he promised him that he would help him start his own chauffeur business by getting him money for a car. Since this is Africa, you can’t just send money like that because people find out about it very quickly and try to reap some of the benefits and Tim couldn’t fly out here and buy the car for him. Naturally, I said I would love to help. So I have taken on the role as the middleman. I have been trying to coordinate a time when I could look for him while I’ve been in Cotonou. I tried in December but had some mishaps and this week, I took another shot at it. I printed out all the information that Tim sent me along with a couple photos and headed out with two other volunteers to the area that the NGO is in.

I got to the NGO and talked to the head guy and asked him if he knew him. He said he did and called him up to tell him that friends of Tim were there at the NGO looking for him. He showed up on his moto about 20 minutes later. I quizzed him on some trivia to make sure that I had the right guy and then broke the good news to him that is surely going to change his life. Needless to say, he was thrilled and called it a miracle that Tim remembered him and that we were sitting down together talking about a promise that was made six years ago. When Craig gets back to Cotonou, we are meeting up with him and his wife/wives to give him the details on the process of completing this promise and to get to know each other better. When I left the office to go find him that afternoon, Tim had no idea that I would actually be conducting my search that day, so when I was successful, I couldn’t WAIT to get back to email him and tell him the good news. Clearly, he was ecstatic. I am thrilled to be a part of such a wonderfully good deed.

Craig comes back to Cotonou on Sunday and then we’re leaving for Bohicon with one of the Peace Corps staff members, which means a private air-conditioned car that isn’t crammed with marche mamas. I’m sure Craig will have an update about how his IST went. I cannot wait to get back to Bohicon and continue to work on all of our projects.  A bientot!

6 Months In Country!

Yesterday, January 17^th, marked six months since we started training and began our lives in Benin as Peace Corps Volunteers.  It seems like much longer ago.  It feels like we’ve been here a year already but at the same time, we can’t believe how fast time has gone by.  Craig and I were talking about the very beginning of our journey last night.  We were talking about how sad it was to get on the plane to leave San Diego and how I could barely control my blubbering when we were at the airport in New York, waiting to board our flight to Benin.  It hit me then how insane I was to be moving across the world from everything and everyone that I knew and loved for over two years of my life.  We packed up all of our belongings, found homes for our animals, quit our decent-paying jobs (mine, I actually really liked), did a farewell tour with family and friends, and then we found ourselves at the JFK airport, saying our last goodbyes to family and friends on our T-Mobile contracted phones, wondering what we were really getting ourselves into. 

We’re very happy that we took that leap into the unknown, especially since it’s not scary anymore.  The unknown has become known.  We are well-integrated into our community, are starting up projects left and right, have gotten used to West-African French, are learning local language, and actually know how to live here.  We know how to get from point A to point B, know how and where to pay our electric bill or water bill, we know how to haggle prices even better than how Tijuana taught us, and we know exactly how to handle our unimaginably hectic taxi gare in Bohicon.  The bus gare is still a mystery sometimes, but we’ll get the hang of it before we leave, I’m sure.  Overall, we are really happy here.  Joyfully happy.  The kind of happy that puts a smile on your face about something insignificant and you can’t wipe it away.  It’s a great feeling. 

Moving to Benin, a little-known place, and joining the Peace Corps to embark on the unknown adventure has both been the scariest thing and the most exciting thing that either of us have ever done in our lives.  We have had some lows, but we have had a lot of highs.  Without the support of all of you back home with all of your loving care packages, letters, emails, and words of encouragement, those lows probably would have taken a much harder toll on us.  We count our blessings that we have such an amazing support network of family and friends back home, patiently waiting for our return after our adventure is over.  Here’s to the next six months! 

PO Box

Quick update: Our PO Box will remain in Cotonou. The Bohicon post office decided to raise the fee for the PO Box this year and we have decided not to pay for it, since we go to Cotonou on a somewhat regular basis and there is a monthly shuttle that comes through our little town, anyway.
Thank you for all of the packages and love!
Cheers