Bikram Yoga?

   A while ago, a fellow volunteer asked me if I had ever tried Bikram Yoga back in the States.  I hadn’t, but another volunteer said, “No, but I’ve done yoga in Benin and it’s practically the same thing.”  That got me thinking…it IS basically the same thing.  Week after week, as we do our marathon training sessions, we arrive back at the house drenched in sweat.  You probably think that it would be normal to be like that after an intense work out, but I have done intense work outs many times at home, both in the gym and outside, and never have I ever been so completely soaking wet.   I am talking; someone just dumped a bucket of water over us, drenched.  Craig actually wrings out his shirt several times afterwards and can water our garden with what comes out (but he doesn’t).  I get salt in my eyes when I lay down to do crunches afterwards WITH a hat on (that is also completely drenched) and after a good 20 minutes of cool-down.  All of our fingers and hands get wrinkly like we just got out of a bath, and we drink enough water to fuel a caravan of camels.  Part of this is because we aren’t early birds, so we do these workouts in the late morning.  The other part of it is the intense humidity and heat.  And it’s the “cool season” right now.

    After one of our training sessions, Craig and I got to talking about how the next two years of our lives will probably be the healthiest that we have ever, and will ever, live.  Sure the lack of regulations for cars/motos and their exhaust may cut this down a little, but it’s no biggie.  And this is not just because we’re less stressed, happier, have more time, are doing something we enjoy, have fulfilling jobs, getting the liberty of creativity and entrepreneurship in our tasks, or ride our bikes everywhere.  It’s also because the foods that are available to us, are largely, all organic and fresh with no chemicals, preservatives, pesticides, or anything else unnatural.  We cook most of our own meals, cutting out the chance of what we intake being dowsed in palm oil, but instead, cook with Extra Virgin Olive Oil.  We are boiling our water, filtering it, and then drinking it, making it probably better quality than anything we can find in the States, in addition to having a half-glass of wine every other night or so with dinner. 

    But the biggest thing that links all of those others together is the time that we make for exercise and how it makes us feel afterwards.  Craig and I spent quite a bit of time, money, energy, and effort back home making sure that our food was completely organic and trying out different detoxes to rid our bodies from any toxins to remain as healthy as possible.  They were difficult, expensive, time consuming, and torture (for us), for the most part.  By living in Benin, we sweat so much here (and therefore, drink so much water) and eat healthy things that there is no possible way that there are any toxins left hiding around our fat cells that haven’t been flushed out by our new lifestyle.  After a 5-mile run down a beautiful dirt road in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by lush green fields, we not only feel calm in our mind and spirit, but our body feels rejuvenated.  Bikram yoga?  It’s got nothing on living as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin. 

The Ups and Downs

Last Saturday night, we had the highest of ups and the highest of downs, all in one evening. It all started when another volunteer, Ivy, that lives about half and hour away called us because she was in town and wanted to hang out. After our internet café session, we went back home with her and ate dinner. After dinner, due to the stifling heat in our house, we went 100 yards down the road to the bar by our house that has a second story with a nice breeze. Over some cheap Beninoise (local beer) and conversation, we heard a faint meow coming from somewhere. It sounded like a kitten trapped somewhere. Since my American cat, Jewels, always got caught in some cupboard, my senses are especially tuned to listen for pleading meows. I began looking around for where this kitten was and when I looked down from the second story, I found it.
One the other side of the wall of the bar down below, there was a small wired cage the size of a normal bird cage at best, with 4 kittens and 3 puppies all crammed together. The animal rights activist in me immediately got the attention of the guy down there and told him that he should let them out. He just laughed at me, like they all do. So I went down there to persuade him. Big mistake…Once I got down there, I realized that not only were these 7 little animals cooped up together in this small cage, but there were 4 pairs of chickens laying about, tied together by their feet. A pair here, a pair there, all trying to free themselves and get away. I was heartbroken. After the guy went around the corner, I started to untie the cage when one of the puppies licked my finger. This may seem normal, but in Benin, dogs are treated so badly here that you’re much more likely to get bitten than licked. Stifling back tears, I went back upstairs to try to convince Craig that we should take one kitten and one puppy. We had already agreed long ago that we wouldn’t have any pets because it would be too hard to leave them in two years. I couldn’t help it though. He of course said no, but I knew if I could get him down there to see how cute they were that maybe he would change his mind. Eventually, my plan worked and he was soon inspecting the animals in the cage and he gave in. He asked me to call Katie, our postmate, to see if she’d watch them when we travel.
I called her, and after she said, “I thought you guys didn’t want to adopt any animals?” I lost it and broke down crying, describing these awful conditions that they were in and that I felt that I had to do something. Katie, a former PETA member before joining Peace Cops, reiterated that we couldn’t be a shelter for animals and that we’d have to face the same thing throughout our two years here and if we had already agreed that we shouldn’t adopt, then we should stick to that, or at least give it some time to rethink it. I knew she was right. At that time, I realized that the next day was marché day and all these animals would probably be sold in the marché. It was extremely hard, but I had to walk away from them and while walking out to leave, I hoped that they would have good homes by the same time the next day.
Moments later, Ivy’s boyfriend, Guyam, showed up, a Beninese national, and a very friendly and charismatic guy whom I had already met when I went on tech visit with Ivy. We were getting ready to leave and talking about where we were going to go next when I noticed that he was holding Craig’s hand. When men hold hands here, like in India, it’s a sign of friendship. You don’t see a man and woman holding hands ever, but occasionally you’ll see women holding hands, and often you see men holding hands. I began to giggle inside. This was Craig’s first experience with a HCN (host country national) holding his hand. And he seems incredibly uncomfortable and awkward. Seeing that cheered me up from my traumatic animal experience. I asked him later, when we were at a lounge/bar/club type place how he felt, and he said, “I was so freaked out! I didn’t know what to do and I broke out into a sweat!”
At the lounge bar, Ivy was teaching me how to “African dance” while Guyam was teaching Craig how to “African dance” (it’s different for the men and the women). It was pretty amusing. I kinda already knew how to do it, but Craig was doing all kinds of things I had never seen before, including shaking his foot out like he was trying to shake a spider from the top of his shoe. They also are huge on salsa here, so they played a lot of salsa music and I got to salsa dance a little. The music was even in Spanish! So far, I had only heard French versions of the salsa music here. I had to remind myself that I was in Benin and not back in San Diego when that happened. Not like it was very difficult to remember. It was a really fun night, despite the earlier breakdown, and the first night that we were able to go out and have fun in our new town. They say that you really shouldn’t stay out very late because all of the zem drivers that nicely taxi you around in the daytime may mug you once it’s late. Luckily, Guyam had a car, so he took us out and took us home later that night. It was super fun. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera, so none of the night was documented on film. Next time…

Thank you Mama Wirick for our package of my chacos and GRE Prep book (and taco seasoning mix and American flag bandanna that will come in handy for our Halloween costumes)! Thanks a bunch!

1 Month at Post

  We got here on the 20th of September and have almost been at post a month now.  We have gotten a lot done in this month.  We have started two gardens, gotten our house set up, met some amazing people who we hope to work with, and are 1/3 the way through our report that is due at the end of our 3-month integration period.  We both have been going into work and while Craig is mainly focusing on doing research on the park and jotting down ideas and notes to help him further the success of the park, my main focus has been on making contacts and meeting potential and future work partners.  My CPS works with many ONGs that help the community in some way, and I have been working on meeting them.  This week, we met a man who works for UNICEF as well as a man who runs an orphanage.  We also went to the health center in town to talk with the doctors/nurses that we met when we were on post visit and the head doctor made an appointment with us for next week to discuss possible collaborations that we can do.  I know that they do vaccinations once a week, which would be a good time to talk to any mothers with malnourished children, for example.  We are excited about that meeting.  Since Craig’s work is a little slow, he’s planning on picking up some secondary work in the health field doing something together with me. 

   Katie’s (our post mate) homologue is farming Moringa, which is a plant that is nutrient/vitamin rich in every nutrient/vitamin imaginable and he has been trying to sell them at a very low price (the mentality is that if people pay for it, they’re more likely to use it) and he needs help with the marketing of it, which is right up my health alley and my marketing alley.  So I am definitely going to help him out with that.  They also garden every Saturday and once that gets going, we’re going to collaborate on a project that fights malnourishment.  Malaria is the biggest problem here, but since we are leaving the rainy season, it won’t be such an issue until the rain picks up again next April/May, so I want to focus on malnourishment, which is always a problem. 

    This week, we’ve stepped up our training for the marathon.  We run 20-something minutes out, then 20-something minutes back with a little break half way through.  It’s a really pretty run and very good training.  We’re going to bring our camera next time we run out there.  I really wish we had some way of knowing how far we were actually running though. It’s a good stress reliever and I am still amazed that after (probably) 5 miles or so that we ran today, my hip still doesn’t hurt!  And it use to hurt after 2 ½ or 3 miles every single time.  Incredible!

    Last week, we went to visit some volunteers who were at a training here in Bohicon and on our way back, we got caught in a flash flood on our bikes!  It was incredible!  There were literally rivers of red mud water flowing past us on both sides of the road and if it were cold, I am convinced that it would have been hailing.  It was raining really hard and by the time we got back home, I opened the gate to our concession, and water started gushing out like we were in the Beninese version of Titanic.  It actually whipped off my sandal!  It was quite an adventure! 

    Another fun little adventure that we had was when we woke up and went outside to the kitchen and found a little lizard friend right there in the doorway.  It ran away from us under our sink and by the time we finished breakfast, it was gone.  The next day, we got home from going to work and there was another lizard sitting on our toilet seat.  I have no idea how he got inside, but when I put my gardening gloves on to pick him up and put him outside, he got really scared and ran away and I ended up having to chase the poor little guy all over the bedroom.  Needless to say, he was traumatized. 

    We planted a bunch of seeds at our house a little over 3 weeks ago and they are growing nicely!  We also planted a larger-scale garden at Craig’s work that has also started growing very nicely.  It’s very exciting!  I cannot wait to have basil and cilantro!  Among the many other things we planted.  This week, we also got hair cuts in some form or another.  Craig went to a barber shop and had them shave his head.  It took a while to explain what he wanted because the kid that was cutting his hair wanted to just use scissors, and once he got him to use the clippers, he was going the wrong way with them.  It was pretty hilarious to watch.  I gave myself a little trim, but only with the bangs.  There really isn’t any place for women to get their hair cut, especially white women who have different hair.  The only places that I have heard of are the ones in hotels in Cotonou that charge a hefty price (for Benin at least) so I trimmed my bangs myself and I will find the most skilled volunteer to trim the rest at some point.  I am definitely not as good as my dear friend and hair stylist, Stephanie, but since we live in Benin, I don’t’ have to be. 

      Right around the corner from our house, we have a “mama” that has a stand right outside of her house where she sells stuff.  She is super duper helpful for us and just all around amazing!  We are coming to cherish our mama.  She is always super friendly to us and never jacks up the price.  The price that I use to have to haggle hard to get in the marche, she just gives to me without any haggling, which is like a breath of fresh air in a city full of smog. She also has two dogs that are always at her side along with her kids and grandkids.  One of her grandkids just may be the cutest kid I have ever seen in my life.  She is super polite and has that cute little 3 year-old voice.  In our first week here, we asked her where we could find honey and she got on the phone and called her friend at the marche to have her bring some back to her house after she left, and a little boy delivered our honey that night at about 8pm.  I don’t even know how he knew where we live, but I’m sure it wasn’t hard.  This week, we asked her where we could find the much-covetted peanut butter that volunteers long for and she got on the phone and worked her magic again.  It took her 2 days this time, but when we went to get our eggs and onions today to make dinner, she had a jar of very good quality peanut butter waiting for us, along with a bag of pineapples that we also asked about.  It’s much nicer for us this way because not only do we get to skip a trip into town for these things, but when she gets them for us, she knows the right price and gets it every time and doesn’t jack it up for us. 

    We are going to take a night away from our post for Halloween because up in Parakou, we have a meeting to attend, followed by a Halloween party, which we are excited about.  We decided to go as John McCain and Sarah Palin.  It’s going to be a little challenging getting Craig’s hair white, but we’ll figure something out I’m sure.  I hope it’s as funny as we want it to be, and beside that, it’s the only thing that we may be able to pull off without getting costumes made.  We’re really looking forward to that, especially since we haven’t been to Parakou yet, so we get to see something new, as well as see some of our friends that we haven’t seen in a month and a half.  It should be fun!  We’ll post pictures when we have them.  Those are all the updates for now. Enjoy the pictures!  A Bientot!

Working on our garden right outside our front door

Nigerian bread that is sweet and tastes like shortcake

Craig getting his first Beninese haircut

Our big garden at Craig's work

Sister Madeline

This week, we had the pleasure of meeting a Returned PCV from a few years ago who is here in Benin visiting old friends and colleagues on his way to do his Fulbright in Rwanda. We were riding our bikes to Katie’s house (our post mate), who lives in a small village just outside of Bohicon, when a car drove past us and this white man in the passenger seat said, “How’s it going?” as they passed and left us awe-struck as to who that yovo was. He bought us a round of drinks once we got into the village and by the end of our conversation, he invited us to go on a little day trip the next day to the even smaller and much more remote village of Toweto, where a fantastic nun was running a health center sans salary.
The following afternoon, we drove about half an hour to this tiny little village with a few mud huts and a pump water source that had the backdrop of beautiful lush green rolling hills all around it. I could kick myself for forgetting my camera. We met Sister Madeline (I changed her name to respect her privacy) right after she had just delivered a baby. And she was indeed, fantastic. She was incredibly happy to meet us and immediately welcomed us into her house where she had prepared a big lunch for us, complete with Californian wine. I instantly fell in love with this woman, especially after seeing all of the work that she has done, mostly on her own initiative. She has such a determination to help the people of this remote village who didn’t have access to any heath care before this health center was built.
When the RPCV was working in Benin with the PC, he met Katie’s homologue, Matthieu, who she works with now and who has land in this little village that he grows/farms on, where Sister Madeline now is. He saw the need that the villagers had for a health care center, and with the RPCV’s help, they raised money, got grants, funding, etc from different people and places to build a very basic structure that could function as a health care center. Sister Madeline had her own operation going on in the Nattitangou area, which is in the north of the country, and debatably, one of the best/prettiest parts of Benin. They asked her if she would come down to Toweto and run the new health center that they built. Now, keep in mind, it was very simple, nothing fancy and certainly nothing like what we have in the States. Cement floors, simple beds, no air conditioning, no electricity, no running water, tin roof, etc. She took the unpaid job of running this center and since then, which was sometime in 2006, she has expanded the building, added more rooms, gotten 10 times more medicine for the pharmacy, had a well put in, had showers built and installed for the patients to use, got solar panels, had a generator put in, and is constantly working at making the center better.
She is hands-down, the most incredible person that I have met so far in my life to date. A lot of projects that PCVs do often end or fall apart soon after the Volunteer leaves because there is no one who can run the project and keep it going that would care about it just as much and work as hard at it, unless another Volunteer took it over. She is what every Peace Corps Volunteer hopes to find in a work partner. She is honest, motivated, hard -working, passionate, and outgoing. She has love coming out of her ears. Even her pets are well loved, which is an incredibly rare thing here since pets are for utility and not company. But that’s a different story.
I asked her what her next plans were to see how and where I could get involved. Her future plans are to get a hold of some mosquito nets for the villagers as well as working on a nutrition program for kids who are malnourished, both of which I can do something to help. And not a second too soon either; as we were getting ready to leave, she was treating two very small children who came in; one who needed a blood transfusion because it was so anemic (and running a 106 fever at about 2 years old), and another child who was a year and a half old and was so malnourished that not only did he look like he was 6 months old, but he also had sores all over his face and his skin was peeling; both signs of severe malnutrition. The RPCV actually sent us back to Bohicon with the mother that had the child that needed a blood transfusion so that they could quickly get to a hospital that could accommodate that. As for the other child, Sister Madeline got him eating and gave the mother some medication and instructions to make a soy-porridge and will be doing house calls since the mother couldn’t stay at the hospital with her baby.
This day was a reality check and an abrupt reminder of why I joined the Peace Corps and why I’m here. The RPCV was an inspiration to the kind of PCV we hope to be by the time we leave and we plan on staying in contact with him while we’re here. In the meantime, we will definitely be visiting and working with Sister Madeline along with doing our normal work. We are incredibly moved by her and it’s all that we can do just to not move in with her in order to be around her all the time.

Swear-in and move

Us and Grandpi

Note: The internet was down in Bohicon for the past three weeks, which is why this is so late.
We swore in as volunteers on Friday, 17 September, then packed up over the weekend and moved to Bohicon on Monday, 20 September.
We had a nice swear-in ceremony at the ambassador's house (there was a torrential downpour at the end of the ceremony so we had to cut the festivities a little short), then we did some shopping in Cotonou before heading back to Porto-Novo. That night, we had a party at a hotel across the street from our host family's house, so we partied at the rooftop bar for a while then slept in Saturday. We headed to the marche to pick up some last-minute things and then started packing.
On Monday, we made the big move. A taxi showed up at the house a little past 8:30am and we packed it full with our stuff and strapped extra stuff to the roof, including our mattress (which was folded in half) and bikes. We picked up another volunteer from the bureau in Cotonou on the way; fortunately, the extra passenger that our taxi ("mon frere") picked up on the way was dropped off on the side of the road halfway to Cotonou.
We made it to Bohicon unscathed, then we unpacked the taxi and got settled in.
Then on Tuesday, I fell off a zem. We went to the menusier to see if our bookshelves were ready (they were), and we haggled with them for a coffee table, then we went to the marche to pick up a few things and went back to the menusier to figure out the details to get our goods delivered. Heather and I flagged down a pair of zems while one of the menusiers strapped two bookshelves and a coffee table to the back of his motorcycle. Heather's zem knew where our house was (or thought that he did), and mine had no clue so he decided to follow them. We got about 50 yards down the road and a large truck was blocking our path. Heather's zem was able to find a space large enough in the street to pass, but mine slowed down and stopped. The truck driver waved us by, my baby-faced zem driver gunned it, and I, laden down with heavy bags from our marche-ing, saw my feet fly up in front of me and the bright blue sky above. Fortunately, I fell on my back (I was wearing a backpack which broke my fall and I am glad that I took the tomatoes out and gave them to Heather an hour earlier) in front of about 100 people, who all immediately started screaming and exclaiming in Fon. I'm not sure what they were saying, but it might have been something like, "Holy shit! Did you just see that Yovo fall off of that zem?" A few people ran over to help me out and dust me off but I knew that the zem didn't know where he was going so I gathered my senses and got on as soon as I could. We had lost the other two zems and were going the wrong way, so of course he got lost. Fifteen minutes later, we finally got home, where Heather was waiting for me with the unloaded furniture inside our concession. We patched up my wounds and brought the furniture inside.
We have spent the last few days getting settled in, getting groceries, and exploring the neighborhood. Yesterday we started a garden in front of our house! We planted eggplant, carrots, cucumber, corn, squash, tomatoes (three varieties), radish, parsley, oregano, basil, and cilantro (and a few others). We hope to have a little harvest in a few months.
A la prochain...

Football

Football is as ubiquitous to life in Africa as are music and dance, red dirt and poverty. It is possible to find rudimentary football pitches everywhere, with goals being as simple as two sticks in the ground with a stick “crossbar” along the top. Often, there is no crossbar at all and most of the players play in bare feet on the soft red dirt, and one can find small children everywhere kicking around a ball and emulating their favorite superstar, be it Messi, Ronaldo, or Drogba.
I am convinced that nearly everyone here in Benin owns at least one Chelsea jersey and one jersey for another team, probably Barcelona (I will occasionally see the odd Manchester United jersey, which makes me very proud). The fact that Chelsea has so many African players probably has a lot to do with this, which was a brilliant move because clubs generally receive more value for their money from African players and Africa offers a gigantic, largely untapped market for football teams; Manchester United recently partnered up with Glo Mobile, a Nigerian telecommunications company, to offer live updates and other club-related services to Glo customers, and there are billboards all over the place to advertise the recent partnership. Assuming that someday Africans will escape abject poverty and the corrupt political institutions that allows it to thrive, kudos to football clubs for tapping this market early. I can find decent-quality football jerseys anywhere--on the street, in the marche--for way less money than I would pay in the States or Europe. I have asked around and I have been told that I can get a jersey for around 4.000 CFA, which is about US$8 (at the current exchange rate of ~500CFA to $1). A really cool part about the knock-off jerseys here is that they come in colors that you can’t find anywhere else, such as a purple Chelsea jersey or a yellow Barcelona jersey with red vertical stripes and “Mesi” stenciled across the back.

I have played a few times here and the quality of football that I have encountered is quite good, though it seems to be lacking in organization and tactical knowledge, but then again, I have only played a pair of 4v4 pickup games or watched a few minutes at a time as I waited for a zem after school. On the whole, though, the players seem quick and technically sound, and it is clear that they admire the flair that the Brazilians bring to the game; I can’t help but wonder whether it is the Brazilians who inherit their creative flair from their African ancestors rather than the other way around?
I can’t walk more than a block anywhere without seeing at least a few soccer jerseys, and there are still billboards up advertising the World Cup, which is partly because MTN (the largest telecommunications company in Africa, which was a major World Cup sponsor) probably has not gotten around to taking them down, and partly due to the excitement that still reverberates here for the World Cup or anything football-related in general.
The Beninese national team, Les Ecureuils (The Squirrels), barely missed out on the last World Cup by being edged out of qualifying by Ghana by one point. Right now, they are in the midst of qualifying for the African Cup of Nations 2012 and have drawn Rwanda, Burundi, and Cote d’Ivoire in their qualifying group. This is an historic year because Rwanda has not fielded a team in years and it looks as if Benin has a good chance to advance to the tournament this year. Current volunteers here have said that workdays ended early during this past World Cup and people gathered around little community televisions which were powered by generators to watch games, and the Beninese playfully teased them for the American’s loss to Ghana, which is about 6 hours away (just on the other side of Togo).
To be continued… Cheers

Short Update Before Swear-In

Stage is coming to an end--we swear in on Friday the 17th--and we are excited to finish jumping through the prerequisite hoops and get to Bohicon and begin settling into what will become our home for the next two years, integrating into our community, figuring out the match schedule for the local professional footy team, and getting acquainted with our host organizations and doing research for our jobs. One of the first things that we plan on doing when we arrive in Bohicon is securing a reliable internet connection so that we can communicate with you all on a relatively regular basis.

Some quick updates:

A big thanks to Vashti, Johnny, and Erin for the sweet box of goodies! The candy, tortilla press, sandals, pictures, seeds, gloves, and love were all received intact and with no damage to the goods inside or the love that accompanied it.

We (finally) received Brian's postcard from Ireland, and we appreciate the kind words and beautiful prose.

We celebrated our 5th "dating-versary" on September 10th.  Since we're still in training and on training salaries, we couldn't do much but we had a half day that day, so we got to spend some quality time together, which was nice.

We both passed our final language interviews. Heather finished at the Advanced Low level, and I finished at the Intermediate High level. We both needed to score at Intermediate High to swear in, and we plan on looking for a language tutor (in French and/or Fon) shortly after arriving in Bohicon.

There has been a chorea outbreak in West Africa and as well as Benin, but it is mostly in Cotonou, which we will not be, so don't worry about us there if you see it on the news.  We have been well versed on how to prevent getting it. 

We all visited Ouidah on Saturday and saw a sacred forest with voodoo statues, the "Gate of No Return", which is on a very beautiful beach and the slave road whereby slaves that had been sold to European traders walked to the beach from where they would be taken to waiting ships and sent to the Americas. The Gate is a World Heritage site. We also saw a snake temple. Snakes are considered sacred here, especially the python, and there is a temple in Ouidah just for snakes. At "high season" there is said to be over 200 pythons that live there. We all got to try on a snake. One thing that was a bit traumatizing for Heather was a very cute grey baby goat that was tied up and very unhappy about it. They told us that the goat would become a sacrifice. What they didn't tell us is that they were doing the sacrifice right then and there so as we exited the temple and were on our way out, without knowing that they had just killed the very cute goat, we walked right through the crowd to the opening with bright goat blood and a lifeless goat. Heather gasped, turned around and hid. She had to have someone walk her out of the area with her eyes closed and face buried into our friend so that she could avoid seeing the very traumatizing scene. Needless to say, it was quite disturbing. Other than that unfortunate incident, the day was pretty good and we are seeing more and more of the country we will call home for the next 2 years. We are always learning something new too. That's all for now. Enjoy the pics!

Cheers!

Statue in the voodoo sacred forest

Me with a python in the snake temple

Snake Temple

On the old slave road

The "Gate of No Return" that slaves went through when they were put on ships

Us on the beach at Ouidah