Sheena and Eric in Benin

From Dakar- the end!

2009-08-17T18:27:00.000+01:00

Eric and I have made in to Dakar, after a gruelling two and a half weeks on the road. Our journey took us from Cotonou to Natitingou (NW Benin), to Ouagadougou, Bukina Faso, for three days and then to Dogon country in Mali. Dogon is a region of Mali where people live mostly on hills and cliffs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogon) and their lifestyle is really mind blowing. They hike up and down cliffs everyday, carry goods 50 kilometers to market, raise cows and goats, build and rebuild huts of mud and stone... I'll post pictures as soon as I get home because pictures will say much more than words. We spent 5 days hiking and rock climbing, me carrying our huge backpack the whole way. It's the most exercise I've had in over two years!
We continued onto Bamako, Mali's capital, where we had the fortune of staying with some very nice expats. It felt so good to have a hot shower and sleep in a real bed after Dogon, where we hardly showered and slept either on mud floors or on the roofs of the mud buildings! Bamako was interesting and much more developed than Cotonou is in Benin. So I guess Cotonou still stands as the worst city I've been in. The people in Mali, as well as Burkina, are much more laid back than they are in our part of Benin, which was a nice change. No taunting, few people hassling us. And since it's Muslim nobody drinks alcohol but instead they drink a great deal of heavily sugared tea.
Our voyage from Bamako to Dakar was where the real adventures occurred. We decided to break up the multi-day journey between the two cities by stopping in Kayes, Mali, about halfway between them. Little did we know that the guidebook we were using had failed to mention the fact that all the hotels in the town were on the other side of the Niger river and that as the bridge across was under construction, the river would have to be crossed in a dugout canoe. We had arrived at dark and had no intention of crossing a big river in a canoe at night so we went to the police station to inquire about lodgings. They claimed, to our surprise, that there were peace corps volunteers we could stay with, and drove us to a house. It turned out to be the home of a German missionary family who were bewildered at us showing up at now 10:30 at night, asking about places to stay. But luckily for us they took us in.
The next day we got our bus from Kayes to Dakar, a journey that was supposedly 24 hours long. After waiting 2 hours past the time the bus was to leave, we found out that it was necessary to cross the Niger river in the canoe in order to continue to Dakar. So we got into a huge canoe. I won't lie- that was a somewhat scary event in my life, though a very good story in retrospect.
Having successfully crossed the river, we then had to wait 3 more hours for our bus to leave, now 5 hours late. But we got going and despite some stops we made it to the Senegal border. Then thins got really bad. Because we arrived so late, Senegal customs was closed and we were informed we would have to sleep at the border until the customs officials arrived in the morning! Mercifully Eric and I could rent a mattress to sleep on and given the circumstances we slept alright and our morale was up having had some sleep. But it was greatly reduced when we then waited until 1 PM for the customs to work out, which included leaving one lady behind who refused to pay the customs agents for the goods she was transporting and was holding up the whole bus!
Finally we got going and drove all day and all night. We arrived at 6 AM this morning in Dakar, but not without another major mishap. Our bus driver was not the most cautious person and took a pothole much too fast, resulting in everyone falling out of their seats and one lady getting her leg badly cut such that we put her in a taxi to the hospital. Eric and I were completely fine but so glad to be done with that truly trying and most awful journey of my life!
So, we are in Dakar, which is by far the most developed city I've been to in West Africa. There is a freeway system, huge beautiful buildings, sidewalks, tons of cafes and nice places to eat... things that to us make it feel like a nice place to live. Tomorrow I think we'll go to Goree Island, where slaves were shipped to the New World. And then, at 1:40 AM on Wednesday morning, we will leave West Africa for good! You already know how I feel about that so I won't repeat it.

See you all soon, and watch out for pictures that I will post as soon as I can. And thanks for keeping up with the blog for two years!

it's official- we're done!

2009-07-31T14:03:00.002+01:00

Today is Eric's and my last day as Peace Corps volunteers. In fact, all our paperwork has been signed so technically we aren't actually PCVs any longer, but are "returned" PCVs (despite not actually returning until August 19!). Tomorrow we'll embark on the next phase our adventure- going to Natitingou, in NW Benin, before heading to Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal. Unfortunately we had to skip Niger on our trip due to a travel advisory telling Americans not to go there.

So, soon we'll be looking back on this phase of our lives as a part of our past. It's a good feeling- we are both ready to move on. I'm not sure if this is our last post since we may or may not have internet access on our travels. But we will be back on August 19, a day we are both greatly looking forward to.

Thanks for keeping up with our blog for two years, and see you in America!

Last week in Benin...

2009-07-26T15:36:00.006+01:00

As of yesterday morning, Eric and I have officially left Klouekanme for good. For the next week we'll be residing in the Cotonou bureau, doing paperwork and medical exams so we can leave. And then we're off to Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, and the the USA!

So, this is the culmination of a hectic final week at post. We've been packing and seeing that we have a lot more to bring home with us than we thought, even after our visitors have brought things home for us. And we've been seeing friends and saying goodbye, knowing that for many of them it may be the last time we will see them. People were really sad to see us go, which is understandable. I know I hate being the one left behind when someone you care about is moving on to another chapter of their life. A lot of people say things like "oh so you want to leave Benin on Sunday" as if we actually want to leave them as opposed to our service ending. And we get lots of "you're going to forget us in the US, aren't you?" which is really sad. How could I forget people and places I spent two years of my life?

We had a going away party with our neighbors, which was interesting. I say that because not alll of the neighbors were there, including the guy who is kind of the head of the concession and who we deal with for most of our problems. Spending quality time with someone doesn't seem to be how they preface a departure. But we were very surprised when the neighbors had us unwrap a present they bought us, which turned out to be two clocks that I guess they thought we could take home to the US: A nice thought, and we were touched, but I think those will be staying in Benin.

An interesting note: today I am eating frozen pizza for dinner, cooked in a real oven at the PC office. This pizza was bought at the new "hypermarche" which, no kidding, is basically a Target in Benin with endless rows of shampoo and cookies and a cheese counter and towels and lamps and everything. I couldn't believe that when I entered that building I was still in Benin. I was really happy to see though that most of the shoppers were Beninese, and not expats. Maybe Benin does really have an emerging middle class!

Anyway, I might write more later when my feelings are more precise in my mind. The new trainees are here, having arrived on Friday, and they are so enthusiastic and ready to start their service. It brings me back to when we arrived and felt the same way. Out with the old generation, in with the new I guess. Honestly I'm just glad to be going home, seeing friends and family, eating good food and feeling free to do what I want to do and having the opportunity to do it!

I'll end with some more photos from our last days in Klouekanme. See you in a few weeks!

Ready to leave, saying last goodbyes to neighbor kids and Eric's counterpart Katte:

Eric arm wrestling our very smart neighbor Romain:

Last dinner in Klouekanme, a fried egg, cilantro, soy sauce and paprika sandwich (eric's specialty)

tropical fruits at our fruit lady's place

Mini carrots and eggplant from my garden used for our last lunch at post, fried rice:

Happy July 4th

2009-07-05T07:46:00.003+01:00

I can't believe I'm writing this: Eric and I have less than a month left of our service in Benin! And I know that's going to go by very fast. In fact, we have even less than a month left in Klouekanme, since the last week here we have to spend in Cotonou doing paperwork and medical exams. It's only recently that our departure has begun to feel really tangible to me. It's strange to think that in a matter of months we'll be settled (more or less) into a completely new stage in our life, having left this one behind. Put another way, that someday we will actually be looking back on this experience instead of living it. Because those first Peace Corps experiences- orientation in Philadelphia, arriving in Benin, meeting volunteers about to end their service and thinking to ourselves how far off that was for us- are still so vivid. And so many of our experiences here seem so recent. You come to realize that two years is really not that long in the course of life!
So now we really are winding down our projects. All I have remaining now is Amour et Vie (HIV/AIDS etc. project), and finishing my Girls' Library grant project. On Amour et Vie: yesterday I got to be on TV, on the main network station, talking about the project! We were interviewed about our involvement and I and two other volunteers got to speak. Eric and I watched the program at the neighbor's house. It was pretty cool, although I realized that my French accent is REALLY American and I was embarrassed. Not so embarrassing I can't laugh about it though.
Just last week I was in Porto Novo for the “Girls Leading our World” summer camp, which I did last year. This time I brought seven girls- logistically difficult since I had to arrange hard-to-find 9-seater taxis and chaperone those girls in Porto Novo and Cotonou. But it was worth it. The lessons this year were much like last year's- sexual harassment in schools, women's and childrens' rights, gender roles in Beninese society, HIV/AIDS and sexual health/puberty and reproduction, plus visits to the National Assembly (Beninese parliament with 9 female deputies out of 83!) and other outings. I wasn't there for many of the sessions last year and it was eye opening to watch the lessons pertaining to women's roles in society and difficulties they face. It was heartbreaking to hear so many girls and also the presenters (almost all women!) talk about the experiences they had or friends' had with sexual harassment in schools, forced marriages, parents refusing to send girls to school, and myriad other problems girls face in Benin. And yet it was encouraging how resoundingly the girls responded when asked questions like “will you accept sexual harassment from teachers and male students?” “Will you succumb to pressure to have sex and get pregnant before finishing high school?” “Will you pursue a career and achieve great success in life?” There were times when I could almost see the wheels turning in their heads, like when I said that Eric did his own laundry, helped with cooking and dishes, would help take care of our kids when we had them, at first they seemed unsure if they thought this was alright but quickly realized that this represented the male-female equality they said they stood for. I really wish I could see ten years into the future to see where these girls were at; if they stayed true to their desires to be successful, powerful women, or if they succumbed to the endless difficulties girls face here. I am so glad to have had the opportunity to expose girls to these ideas though and I think the camp will have an important effect on those girls' communities.

So things are really winding down for us. I'm having a party to celebrate the girls' library grant project, for which I've purchased almost all of the books. I'm also going to have a small party for my Amour et Vie team. And Eric is still working on his Aja grammar, teaching computer lessons at the mayor's office, and seeing his teacher friends. I'm not really sure we're going to say goodbye to our friends- it's strange to think about the fact that when we say bye to some of our friends, it might be forever. It does make us sad. It's hard to feel like this now, but I think once the shock/happiness of being back home in the US wears off a bit, we will start missing friends and things about our lives in Benin. Maybe “missing” is the wrong word- call it fond remembrance with a little nostalgia.

But speaking of home/America: yesterday I went to a 4th of July party at the ambassador's house, which I had no idea was going on and justh happened to be down here. It was populated almost entirely by people from the Mercy Ships NGO who comes on a boat to do certain medical procedures for free to those who can't normally afford it. There was so much American food- baked beans, sweet corn, bbq things, potato salad... you could immediately spot a PC volunteer in the crowd because we were literally overloading our Red white and blue themed plates and stuffing our faces, then running to the table to get more before it ran out (actually there was no danger of that). This is what we've become!

I'll end with some of the photos we've been taking recently. There's not much time to take pictures. I think we will need to rig up a device to take pictures discreetly in the market because I don't have the guts to go around Klouekanme with a camera visible in my hand!

A canteloupe growing in my garden

One of my heavier laundry days (all done by hand, of course!)

Sorting books at the girls library (more photos of that later)

Girls at Camp GLOW doing morning calisthenics

Homemade macaroons, entirely from scratch!

2 months to go (minus 1 day)

2009-06-04T13:41:00.004+01:00

As of today, Eric and I have exactly two months minus a day until our official Close-of-service date, August 3rd. It's at once exhilarating and also daunting to know that we'll be home probably before we know it. Exhilarating because of everything we have planned for our future- first, our trip overland to Senegal, then our first plane flight in over a year (we'll probably go crazy over the food and movies), arriving in America, eating everything we want and probably gaining ten pounds. And then driving out to Portland and living there, a place I love and am excited to experience when I'm old enough to partake in everything it has to offer! But for reasons I think I've brought up before, going back home is also going to be difficult. Already it's been hard going slowly through our papers and things to see what we want to bring home, give away, burn. It's always hard ending a major part of your life. And whereas a lot of people would say they are going back to the “real world”, I don't see why our life in Benin hasn't qualified as part of that real world- it's different and anomalous in the trajectory of the rest of our life, but certainly very “real”.

Thankfully I've had a lot of work this past month, although for some reason May seemed to pass very slowly by. My main project was painting a world map on the wall of the high schools in Houedogli in Klouekanme. I engaged students to help me and each map took about five days to finish. Over the course of the week I realized what an important project this is. So few schools have maps or globes (let alone students having access to them) and almost no students can afford the books where they would find maps. I was amazed at how many students (and teachers!) passed by and said “oh it's a map of Africa” or even more weird to me, “oh it's a map of Benin”. I know, there are plenty of people in America who can't point out their own country on a map, but I didn't grow up with those people and thus this experience was eye-opening. People were totally surprised to see how small Benin is compared to other countries (especially compared to America), to see that America and France do not make up “yovotome” (yovo land) but are rather two distinct countries separated by a body of water... Basically I've been taking for granted how much access we have in the west, even in passing, to constant stimuli that serve to educate us- even an advertisement in a magazine might use a world map to sell something, familiarizing us unconsciously with that map of the world! None of that goes on here.

I'm also continuing to work on my HIV/AIDS/Malaria/Diarrhea illness project in Houedogli with my Amour et Vie team. The other day we did two meetings in really rural areas. I was unprepared for the 5 or so miles we would walk in total, but it was interesting to walk deep into the bush so to speak. Whenever I get really rural I am reminded of how poor Benin really is, and that Klouekanme is not representative of how most people live. In one of the villages there was a water pump where a basin of water cost 10 francs (2 cents) and my team told me the majority of people can't afford to pay that much. Also, when we were selling aquatabs (water purification tablets) for 125 francs for 10 (25 cents) only two families bought them, even though this could be the difference between life and death for them or their children since it is now the season for nasty bugs like typhoid fever and the like. And there were a lot of really malnourished children in those two villages, to an extent I rarely (thankfully) see. That's always hard to see.

Eric and I had a really interesting religious experience last Sunday. One of the girls I took last year to Porto Novo for Camp GLOW (the girls' empowerment camp) invited us to her first communion in a village outside of Klouekanme. Eric and I, like true Americans, showed up at 8 AM sharp when we thought it was going to start. It began at around 10:30 and ended up going until 2, so we were there for 6 hours... Anyway, I've never been to a Catholic service and although I can't say this service held my attention for the 4 hours, it was not what I expected- lots of singing (very influenced by Beninese music, with cowbells and drums and actually very beautiful), dancing, more like an Evangelical service you see on TV in America. But there was also all the ritual and crossing oneself and prayer, and all that, especially surrounding the first communion of the kids. The most amazing part of the whole service though, was that not one person, man woman or child, called us “yovo” or “blanc” once, nor did anyone really give us any special attention expect for a few handshakes and a really nice, brief notice from the priest who thanked his “brother and sister for coming to participate in our service and staying for the whole mass”. It was one of the few times we have felt like normal human beings in our town (instead of novelty attractions), and it felt great. Why can't it carry over to life outside the church?

In other news, Eric's school is finished! Meaning, he never has to teach again. He's really happy about that, of course. His colleagues are throwing him a party before we leave (I'm invited too of course but I think it's more for him) and we will cook something for them, maybe chili. We thought we'd cook so the teachers don't have to spend a lot of money on us.

We've been working on a list to organize our thoughts in the last few months of service here. Actually it's three lists.

Things I will miss in Benin (in random order):

1) Friends we have made during our service (Beninese and PC friends)
2) Really good tropical fruit
3) making lots of people happy with my very presence, upon arriving at a meeting with a women's or youth group
4) The feeling of joy when I teach my name to someone and they use it instead of calling me yovo 5) really beautiful dawn and dusk, and being able to see lots of stars (not much light pollution here)
6) seeing farm animals (goats, chickens, sheep, pigs) around all the time- they provide great amusement

Things I will not miss:
1) “Yovo” song and constant taunting
2) solicitations for money from everyone from the child just learning to talk to the feeble old man who can't walk anymore
3) Torrential rains and scary rainstorms; unpredictability of weather and constant feeling of exposure to the elements
4) sleeping under a mosquito net every night
5) Crazy taxi and moto drivers and tightly packed taxis (I can just see it now, hailing a taxi all for MYSELF)

Things I will not take for granted again at home (at least for a time)
1) Access to a wide variety of vegetables besides onions, okra, and really bad tomatoes
2) Household appliances- dishwasher and washing machine especially!
3) Running water and constant electricity
4) Not having to cook every night and being able to eat out for fun
5) Being able to exercise, either outdoors or in a gym, without fear of being taunted
6) Being anonymous and not easily recognizable as an outsider
7) women’s rights!!
8) amazingly good civic infrastructure, especially for such a huge country- roads, streetlighting, parks, water and electricity
9) Having enough stimuli that I will hopefully never be bored [Note: I'm guessing some people here might think that the “simple life” we lead here is somehow appealing for the lack of modern distractions like TV and internet etc. but I can tell you that when you almost never have access to those things, and when you can't really go for a nice walk or do activities that otherwise figure into people's view of that “simple life”, you realize that is a romanticized fiction for us!] I think Eric put it well- here we have all the time in the world, and little to do with it. In America, we have endless things to do but so little time! I'd rather the time be the issue than the things to do, having lived in both worlds.

And a selection from Eric on what he'll be thankful for at home (he seconds most of what I said):
· Being able to play with dogs and not get bitten
· Not having everything be dusty all the time
· Not being hot all the time
· Not having weird people come over to greet me and then try to take my phone no.

This is a working list, of course. Those of you who have visited may be more able to relate to it, I don't know. It's a good exercise for us, though!

The photos this week:

The 1st world map I did, in Houedogli

2nd world map, done in Klouekanme- I think this one's better

Sunset at our house

At a baby weighing I did with a health volunteer- this baby was so pretty!

And this baby made me laugh a lot with it's facial expression

so close to the end

2009-05-04T00:09:00.003+01:00

Eric and I are sitting in the PC bureau in Cotonou after 4 days of hanging out in Ouidah for a close-of-service conference. 4 days of talking about 'life after Peace Corps'. It felt really strange to realize just how close we are to finishing here. Our official close-of-service date is August 3. So we'll be out of here, going through Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal before making our way to the states in late August. I have really mixed feelings about leaving... I am really ready to be done with my service, I can't lie about that. Yet I know that when I get home there will be a part of me that misses what I've left behind. But yes the desire to leave definitely trumps any sadness I will feel about leaving.
In part I'm ready to be leaving because a lot of things have happened in the past few weeks that have been really trying on us. For one thing, we've now had two snakes in our backyard, one in the shower! I made the neighbors kill it because it was really scary looking (see picture below). And the very same minute that I was showing Eric the snake I had just found in the shower, a rock whizzed about an inch from my head, presumably thrown by someone trying to hit a mango down from the tree. So two scary things in the same 5 minutes. My patience is just running out for these kind of things...
I'm working on a list of: things we will miss from Benin, things I will not miss, and what we will never take for granted again in the US. I will get back to you on that... it might be interesting.
But for now, enjoy some pictures I've taken since the last entry!

Here's the snake that was in the shower (I know it's small, but it was really frightening because most snakes here are really poisonous)

This is one of my favorite pictures ever- the two babies of our concession, making mischief with the palm nuts

The other snake we found (also small but scary)

Me with one of the babies of the concession

2009-04-24T10:55:00.004+01:00

We are fast approaching the 'last three months at post' phase of our service here. We are definitely leaving sometime in August. We hope that we'll have time to do our desired overland trip to Senegal before flying back to America. Knowing that we don't have a lot of time left has given me very mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am more than excited to get back home and to the physical and emotional comforts there. On the other hand though, I've started feeling stressed about the projects that I have going on and wanting to get everything done. I know I've complained about having too little work before so you might think that is a strange thing to say. It's not that I suddenly have loads of work, but rather that all the little projects I've wanted to do that don't require much time but that still require planning now must be done before I leave. For example, I want to paint a world map on a wall at Eric's school and at the high school in Houedogli. This requires suffering through school bureaucracy before even putting pencil to wall, so I better get on that!
And then there's my Amour et Vie (HIV/AIDS plus malaria and diarrhea prevention) project, which is going really well. My team is becoming more autonomous so that I'm not nervous to leave them to do the work on their own in August. I really hope that my team continues after I'm gone, because the work we are doing is really vital. This was highlighted for me when the other day we did a mosquito net demonstration. At the beginning of the demonstration we mentioned that we were going to be selling discounted mosquito nets so that the women would be able to put in practice what we were teaching them. The women then said that actually they already all have nets! But they said they didn't know how to use them, didn't know even how many people could fit under one to sleep which told me that they hadn't even experimented with using it. In sum, somebody has sold them the net and the women knew it was good to buy one, but nobody ever taught them how to use it! I'm guessing the same is true for the oral rehydration salts and water purification tablets that we teach women to use. These are available in the pharmacy, and have directions in French. How many rural village women who would be buying these products can read? Or even have a one-liter bottle that they can use to measure out the exact quantity demanded for the rehydration salts? Not many. People here learn well by observation, and thus what we are doing in the villages, demonstrating how to use a product using tools that are available there (a certain sized bowl instead of a plastic water bottle), is crucial to improving rural community health.
The other big work-related news is that my grant project for the girls' library was funded! The execution of the project should not take long- it involves a day of buying books, and a few weeks for a carpenter to build bookshelves. I'm really excited to get started on this and for the girls to have new schoolbooks before their exams and before the end of the year. Thank you so much to everyone who donated to the project. I will post pictures as the improvements progress.
As for Eric, he has only about three weeks of school left, then exams (unless the school year is extended for some reason). I know he's ready to be done. He's still working on the grammar of Aja and summer will afford him a lot more time to work on that. And he's had enough school bureaucracy and having to be a toady to school administrators.
Work-related stress aside, it's also hard nearing the end of service because many of our friends will be leaving before us. Normally the date at which volunteers can official begin to leave is August 21. However, many people have applied for early close of service (which has to be approved by PC Washington) and many have already had their requested approved. For me personally it's difficult to have things end in stages. So when our friends begin to leave I know I'm going to have a hard time. But the reward at the end is sweet, to be sure!

I'll end with some more cultural observations, some silly, some serious.

• Lately I've been getting a lot of excuses for things that amount to “Africans are like that.” For example, the other day I had a meeting for my environmental club and a group of kids showed up about 30 minutes late. Keep in mind they are used to having to be on time for school, so I was surprised that they were so late. When I called them on it, their response was that “it's because we are African.” This excuse is distasteful to me for two reasons. First, how can anyone generalize about an entire continent of people like that? Second, people seem to think that timeliness is a really good thing- many have expressed admiration that I'm always on time- yet they seem to hold themselves to a lower standard, as if they can't change something they themselves view as a bad habit because they are “African”. That seems rather offensive to me and I know that if anyone else said this about them, it would be viewed, rightly, as racist/ethnocentrist.

• On a different note, many people here are fascinated by my hair. They always ask me what products I use to make it so straight and smooth, and whether I relax it. They are always dismayed at my answer, that I was just born with this hair. The girl peer educator for my Amour et Vie team told me my hair looked really good wet because it was so shiny!

• People's way of complimenting someone is often very different here than what we are used to and often seems offensive to us. For example, I've mentioned that telling me I'm fat or have gained weight is a way of giving a compliment. Another way of complimenting someone is by asking them for money or telling them that they are rich. So when people ask us for money and we perhaps mention to a Beninese friend how annoying we find this, the friend often says that the person was complimenting us by recognizing that we are wealthy and are therefore important people. Likewise, when people say things like “oh you Americans are so rich” or “you have les bonnes choses la-bas” (you have 'the good stuff over there) they are trying to make us feel good and important. Finally, related to the first topic, sometimes people say things like “oh we Africans are bad, you white people are good”. This occurred when I was in a village buying a piece of bamboo to make my garden fence. I had been waiting for the bamboo to be delivered for a few weeks and was getting really frustrated. Finally my neighbor took me to a village to get it ourselves and during the process he kept saying that “oh we Africans are bad, we don't do anything on time... you whites aren't like that”. As if that made me feel good to be told such a generalization! How does one respond to a “compliment” like that?

Just some observations about Benin for you.... Hope they were interesting

Here are some more photos we've taken recently.

Here we are playing Boggle at English club:

We have this game using letter tiles called Bananagrams, which the kids like to use to make what they think are English words. Here is their rendition of "thank you", which I thought was cute:

I think "vell wele"here means "very well", and Shina refers to me, of course!

At a meeting with my Amour et Vie team:

In our usual taxi going back to Klouekanme:

2009-04-03T13:22:00.004+01:00

I don't have too much to write today but just wanted to check in and say hello. I can't say I've been doing too much lately. My Amour et Vie (HIV/AIDS plus malaria and diarrhea prevention) project took a small hiatus for March and we have just started up again doing malaria talks and mosquito net demonstrations. It's amazing to me how few people use mosquito nets here. Not only can they greatly help reduce malaria infection, since nighttime is when the most infections occur, but they can prevent other mosquito-borne diseases and help keep neighbors safe because the nets are impregnated with a mosquito-killing pesticide. And they are not terribly expensive, at least compared with other investments intended for long-term use like a motorcycle or a cell phone. In my experience there is not a lot of focus on preventative health measures here- mosquito nets, malaria prophylaxis, proper nutrition to stave off or reduce the severity of disease, water purification, hand washing, and the like. Convincing people to take these measures is difficult and it's frustrating because from my point of view I see that if only people did embrace these measures, there would be enormous improvements to community health and reduction in infant mortality. I hope that my Amour et Vie project will make some positive difference, however small.
The rainy season is beginning here. So far we have had a few days of rain punctuating the otherwise scorching-hot month of March (although my heart goes out to northerners who are living in much hotter conditions than we are down south!). My garden is in shambles and has been ravaged by chickens. I have ordered a very tall piece of bamboo to be brought by cart from a town about 7 kilometers away so that I can replace my teak fence posts that have been eaten from the inside out by termites. You would think that teak, a hardwood, would stand up well to the elements, insect and otherwise, but no, so I'm trying bamboo.
And along with the rainy season comes mango season! Besides the problems with the mango tree in the yard (refer back to last April's blog entry), I am excited. It's actually nice to eat seasonally here because when things come in season they are a real treat and break from the monotony of onions-tomatoes-okra available every day of the year. It's also custard apple and chermoya season, which I bet most of you haven't heard of but they are delicious (and rare even here). And we bought a pile of miracle berries for 2 cents the other day- I don't know what their scientific name is but read in National Geographic that they sometimes sell for $2 a berry in the US! Maybe Benin can earn some money exporting these berries, which when you eat them make everything taste a thousand times sweeter.
By the end of this weekend I will have had my first environmental club meeting of my PC service. Believe me, I have tried to get it going earlier, but have been thwarted by bureaucracy, slow-to-respond teachers who were supposed to help me, and other obstacles. If all goes well, I hope to have a week long environmental summer camp at the end of the school year. At this point I am trying to be optimistic that this will happen.

I was thinking that I might add onto each entry a few cultural factoids, things that I might not otherwise have reason to mention in an entry. I figure they will interest you, since even after almost two years we are still struggling to understand much of the local culture!

1) Names- in Benin most people have a Christian/Muslim name used at school and a local-language name. Often the traditional names are given according to the day of the week you are born. So for example Koffi (like Koffi Annan) is for boys born on Friday and Assiba is for girls born on Sunday, like me. (By the way, “Sheena” here is spelled “China” which I find humorous as people often write this on bus tickets, and some unidentified neighbor child wrote China on our screen door in marker!)
2) A lot of people have very funny ideas of what America is like, despite never having been there or even reading much about it. Many think that institutionalized slavery still exists in America, or that Americans as a people hate Africans and black people. When Eric's parents met one of Eric's classes, one of their questions was whether “Obama is the negro slave of the white man” (his own words). I don't really know why this image persists. Keep in mind that most people here don't realize that “American's” and other western countries are not 100% white.
3) Some people think that giving eggs and meat to children turns them into thieves, so they don't give any animal protein to their children. No doubt this contributes greatly to malnutrition.
4) Despite the fact that gas prices have gone down a lot, I cannot argue the price of a moto taxi any lower than it has been for the past year when prices were quite high. Interesting, since the moto drivers' excuses for raising the prices to their current levels were that gas prices went up! 5) This Beninese style of economics is mysterious to me.
Women can bare their chests but normally can't show anything above the knee, nor their lower backs and navel/midriff area if they can help it. Very different from what we consider to be indecent dressing in the west!

Just some random thoughts on life in Benin there for you. I'll end the entry with a few photos. We haven't been taking as many lately but we'll try to take many more before our service ends. Enjoy!
Here's what the girls' library looks like currently. The two guys in the matching outfits are part of my Amour et Vie team and the other guy is my main work partner in Benin

Here I built a pole with a hook attached for the kids to pull mangoes from the tree, instead of throwing rocks that end up hitting our house

Me eating the first mango of the season

Little girl at one of my lessons. I enjoyed the white doll with African-style hair being carried around like a real baby

Here we are burning a paper machee globe that I made and painted, and that subsequently had a chunk eaten from it by a very hungry and desperate mouse

Eric preparing to cut our fresh heart of palm with the machete

2009-03-25T11:39:00.002+01:00

It's been a while since I last wrote and I've been debating whether to write today or not. A very tragic event has happened in the lives of Benin Peace Corps volunteers in that we lost a fellow volunteer last week when she was murdered. This isn't something I feel totally comfortable with writing about except to say that Eric and I are safe and that if there is any threat to our safety Peace Corps will take it very seriously. I won't say it hasn't been really hard for us. Being back at post after being in Cotonou so much for memorial services and other things has been difficult. Besides just mourning the loss of a friend, the constant reminders that we are foreigners here- the cultural misunderstandings, the 'yovo' calling all the time- suddenly feel even more hurtful and acute because it's hard not to see our efforts at cultural integration as being fruitless. I know this isn't true and I think this feeling will pass, but it will take some time.
In happier news... Eric and I have found out that we will be living in Portland next year. This has affected our Peace Corps life in that we now have a place to be at the end of our service and can really see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have a lot of projects I want to do before we finish here- expanding the girls' library (and thanks to all who have donated to the grant!), environmental club and hopefully environmental summer camp, and continuing with my HIV/AIDS project which is going really well. I think I've mentioned that in addition to AIDS we also focus on malaria and diahrrea prevention. We just got mosquito nets, water purification tablets, and oral rehydration salts to start selling to women's groups with whom we do lessons. I'm excited to do this and I think we can really make a difference in the public health of the community, especially children. Meanwhile, Eric is still teaching and will hopefully be done in early May.
I will end there. Hopefully next time I will have some more pictures to post. Eric and I bought a real, fresh heart of palm at the Cotonou fruit/veg market the other day and cut it up with a machete, of which there are some nice photos. That's one of the nice things about here- there's a lot of exotic edibles that we can't get at home, at least affordably. And the best part? The palm cost $2 for a large amount, which I think is a steal. Anyway, I'll write again soon!

Quick note

2009-02-27T10:05:00.002+01:00

Hi again. Guess where I am writing from? The new Peace Corps bureau! It's in a much nicer area of town than the old one and is really fancy. There is a room with volunteers to stay in that has AC!! But it's farther away from everything else I like to do when I come to Cotonou... it will take some getting used to.
Anyway, I just wanted to post a link to photos that Eric's parents took when they visited us a few weeks ago. It's fun for us to see Benin through others' eyes and will be for you too, I think.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=morley99&target=ALBUM&id=5304355870365024433&authkey=Ay1PcOR9wrQ&feat=email

Hopefully that link will work. Have fun looking at the photos!

Coming to you from Accra

2009-02-25T12:58:00.003+01:00

Eric and I are in Accra, Ghana now. At this very moment Eric is taking the GRE and I am sitting in an internet cafe, with air conditioner, waiting for him to finish. We got here on Monday evening and are leaving tomorrow around 7 am. It's been a good trip and I have to say I'm not looking forward so much to going back to Cotonou. Although it is definitely easier to speak French in Benin than for us to alter our English to speak with people here. Ghanaian english is quite good, but they still say some funny things. We saw some wonderful signs on the road: "Pork show" (a butcher shop), "Evangelical church with bazooka fire" (don't even know what that means), and "Havard Kiddies School" for overachieving youngsters.
I think I mentioned about our last time in Accra (when we flew out to go to South Africa) that it is a bit mind-blowing for us here because it actually feels almost developed, although obviously our perception of what a "developed" city is has been altered by our time in Benin. Coming into Accra is amazing because there are huge houses and hotels and businesses all around, and you drive in on a multi-lane highway! Eric and I are staying at the Salvation Army hostel in Osu, which is a nice neighborhood in Accra. I forgot the SA is Christian so Eric and I have to stay in boy and girl rooms, but otherwise it's cheap and you know it's safe if it's church related...
We've been spending our two days here walking around, going to the market, eating at restaurants (we had real salad yesterday with tomatoes and cheese, not just lettuce with mayonaise dressing like the usual Beninese salad) and guess where we ate dinner- at a pizza restaurant in a FOOD COURT! Meaning fast-food style. It was kind of amazing. Does that mean I will enjoy going to eat in the mall when we get home? Maybe so, but don't judge.
So to conclude, we have really enjoyed our time here in Accra. We have especially liked experiencing a city in West Africa where people seem interested in development in a serious way and take pride in their country and their accomplishments. Whereas in Benin a common refrain is "we'll never do what the West has done, we'll always be behind", what we've seen here indicates that Ghanaians think they can develop and they'll do it there own way.
In other news, we had a very eventful day on Sunday. Our neighbors had invited us to go to a funeral ceremony in a town about forty minutes from our own. The funeral was supposedly for the grandma of one of our neighbors, the one who told us that his father is a big man who owns our house and lots of other property around Benin and West Africa. For this funeral Eric and I had to buy fabric, because everyone who is part of the funeral party has to match to show solidarity with the person who lost a family member. Then we had clothes made to match. The women's outfit was a shirt-vest thing with a skirt made like a Klein bottle, meaning I couldn't figure out how to wear it properly. To make matters worse the taxi we were supposed to go in didn't show so we all had to get on motos, meaning I had to ride in that awful skirt and keep a piece of cloth on my lap so I wouldn't expose my underwear to the world! At one point we had to cross the Couffo river, on a man-made bridge of bamboo and other wood, about thirty feet above the river. The motos had to cross too!
But we got to the ceremony, and it turned out that the ceremony had actually taken place on Saturday but that we were just here to greet and show solidarity (naturally the neighbors were aware of this, but Eric and I, always in the dark, were surprised that we had spent all this money to go greet the family of someone we didn't even know, and not even be in the ceremony!). We all sat down together in the house of the aforementioned big-man (it was his mom who had died- I don't know if that was clear), which Eric and I were surprised to see was not fancy or particularly nice for someone of his supposed wealth and stature. This feeling of surprise and confusion was furthered when we were fed cold akassa (fermented congealed corn mush, one of my most hated dishes in Benin) with hot chilli and cold dried up meat and fish. Now, to give you an idea of why this was dissapointing, akassa costs about 5 cents in the market, and any respectable person would feed their guests at least a tomato sauce with it, not just chilli paste, and at least make it hot! The next course was pate rouge (corn mush with tomatoes and spices- pretty good) and much less dissapointing. We all ate and drank warm beer and nobody was really talking, which is normal because there's not much to talk about. There were two babies and they spent their time scooting around, chewing on chicken bones, taking sips of beer from moms' cups and peeing on the floor.
Finally the big-man (I will call him papa) showed up, and he seemed to be a bit drunk. He made us all sit down with him, Eric and me on the couch next to him. He then talked for about 20 minutes off and on about how great it is that Eric and I are volunteering our time in Benin, and he even made other people tell us how great we are! It was very awkward. He kept asking "true or false?" after everything he said so that we all would have to tell him that yes, he was right about whatever he said. He also made us drink with him and poor Eric, who was really dehydrated, was forced to drink Guiness which is made in Nigeria and has about 8% alcohol. Basically this guy was a total creep and Eric and I both independently came to the conclusion that with more power and money, this guy could most easily be a dictator. He just had that kind of personality. It was really disturbing.
But we did learn some interesting things from spending time with papa. First, our neighbor who told us that papa is his dad seems to have lied to us; it became apparent that, unless papa has lots of illegitimate children including our neighbor, papa didn't seem to know things that a dad would know about his son- who his wife was, who was the elder among him and his sister, etc. Papa did say he has "children everywhere" (a direct quote) but I still doubt our neighbor is his real son. We already though our neighbor was kind of shady, so our suspicion of him is raised even more! We also learned that papa wants to tear down all the buildings in the concession except the one our house is in, so if this actually comes to pass we may not have many neighbors for a long time. Considering all of our electricity problems, that could turn out to be a very good thing! Finally, we learned that papa, although he expressed to us how he would love to give us our house free of rent, is charing the mayor $30 a month for it. This is a LOT of money and we thought it was payed not by the mayor but rather by Eric's school and my NGO. This definitely changes my feeling of obligation to my NGO and now I care even less about working with them.
Well. That was a lot of writing. I hope some of it was interesting. I won't write about work because, well, I haven't really had much. I'm still working on the grant project though...

It's already February?!

2009-02-04T18:37:00.003+01:00

Time is going by incredibly fast here. It seems like only a moment ago that is was Christmas, and then my birthday, and now we're already a few days into February! We're that much closer to going back to the US, which means we're that much closer to having to get back to the "real world" and get jobs, which is rather daunting. I'm crossing my fingers that there will actually be a job for me to get when we come back home...
So Benin life is as usual. We had an abrupt transition from the hot dry dusty season to the still-hot, more humid, not as dusty season. For a while our house was coated in dust and we had sore throats and couldn't breathe too well. I can only imagine how much worse it gets in the North. We had a freak rainstorm too, which is completely unusual in January. It makes you wonder, why are things like that happening more and more around the world?
My work is going alright. My Amour et Vie HIV/AIDS team is doing well especially. Though we've had some drama in which two of the members wanted to kick our female member out for not being there enough and for surreptitiously getting married/engaged, and replace her with another girl. They indicated to me that they informed her of this but then she came to my house and I had to break the news to her because she didn't know anything about it! That was embarrassing. Generally people really don't like confrontation here and will go through another person to relay delicate information- like "you're fired"- but having me be the bearer of bad new without me knowing that I have to be that is a pretty poor way of making sure everything works out the way it should. It's just another example of where there are cultural ways of dealing with things that I will just never understand, and they will always cause me problems. Anyway that drama is ongoing and I don't know how it will end.
Another cultural issue surrounds our electricity, which I know I've talked a lot about but I'm coming to see the problem as a cultural misunderstanding. Basically, everytime we get the bill Eric and I try to reason and use logic to convince our neighbor of why we should pay the amount we think we should pay. This never gets through to him. We even have an electricity counter to prove that we use less electricity than we even pay for now! The bill keeps getting higher each month, and this month the neighbor claimed that the electric company raised the price and that's why it's so high. I did the math for him on my cell phone calculator to show that no, the price is the same, it's our consumption that's going up. But even though I can prove that Eric and my consumption hasn't increased, he still wanted us to pay more! I have come to realize that no amount of reasoning will make him think that we should pay less, because we are rich and the rich are supposed to basically subsidize the poor, even if our "poor" neighbors are watching TV and rotting their brains with all that extra electricity! I never realized how much I took the use of reasoning and logic to solve problems for granted, and I never will again.
Anyway, Eric is doing well also and is counting the days until his teaching is done (not many days to go- with strikes and vacations and exams, it seems like he hardly has any teaching). He tried to do a local language club but do to "political" reasons the school told him he can't. Political meaning they think the club is an Aja club and don't want to be encouraging Aja nationalism or something like that. In fact it's a local language literacy club, not exclusive to Aja, but oh well. It's too bad that didn't work out though because it would have been an excellent project. I'd say most people who can read and write decently in French can't do so in their local language. It's just simply not taught. Which is really too bad! People don't think that their local languages are as valuable somehow as French and they don't take pride in them. They need to forget their inferiority complex toward the French.
I'll stop there but here are some funny pictures from our concession.

Pieces of wig and hair weave drying on a brick and an old moto carcass:

Chicken eating a mouse, which I think it killed itself- have you ever heard of that??

Scorpion in our shower. Don't worry it's really small and not very agile, and it's only the second one we've seen in our time in Benin.

Voodoo in Benin

2009-01-11T12:42:00.002+01:00

Eric and I are going back to Klouekanme today after spending a few days in Cotonou with Eric's brother, who was visiting us. We had a really fun day yesterday going to see the Voodoo festival in Ouidah, a city along the coast. As you know voodoo is really important to Beninese culture and Benin is one of the main countries where you can find voodoo still in practice as an important religion. The festival had a lot of different things going on- traditional dancing, lots of food, and of course lots of voodoo spectacles on the beach of Ouidah. One spectacle is the zangbeto, which is a big haystack-looking "spirit" that dances and spins around, trying to touch people. Of course there is a person under this but the spirit handlers will lift up the zangbeto to show us that there is nobody in there and that it is indeed a spirit. Another spectacle is the revenants (this means ghost in French- I think they're called egun or something like that in Fon) who dress up in extremely intricate sequined costumes and who dance around. They too are "spirits" and not real people, and they demand money and bless people. There was also a crazy guy breathing fire and rolling around among the spectators, including a cop which he accidentally tackled and felled to the ground.
So we had a really good time and it was worth it for us all to go, even for me and Eric who have already seen a lot of these things in our town and around Benin. It was great too that there were so many Beninese people there and not just tourists (though there were a lot of them too).
I'll leave off there so we can go catch our taxi!

Happy New Year!!

2009-01-02T15:45:00.002+01:00

How is it already 2009? When Eric and I think back on what we've done this year, we realize that we have done a lot. And we are blown away to think that things that seem so recent actually happened months or even a year ago! So we are looking back on a good year, and looking forward as well to finishing up our service and moving on with our lives. Not that we are racing to get out of here or anything- in fact, sometimes I get anxious that I won't have enough time to finish the things I want to do here. But it is nice to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel and know that in eight or nine months we will be back home (meaning, the US- where "home" will really be, we don't know yet).
We hope everyone had a good Christmas/Channukah and New Year's holiday season. Eric and I had a much better time than we did last year. For me, I think it made all the difference knowing that next year I will be home with family for the holidays. Not to mention that last year we were new here and felt lonely in the community, whereas this year we have a few friends and feel more comfortable. Not that we really did anything with those friends for the holidays- besides visiting one of Eric's colleagues, making cornbread for the neighbors, and greeting our acquaintances around town, we sat in our house, relaxing, watching TV on our computer, and made nice meals. Everyone else in our community went to church or sat at home. Yes, people go to church for new years. I didn't realize there was any religious significance but it's a big day for people here to get dressed up in their finest and go to church all day, and sometimes all night. Eric and I were invited to a four day church extravaganza by one of his colleagues, promising to enlighten us on the secrets of wealth and happiness as achieved by devotion to Jesus Christ. Thanks but no thanks. A lot of Eric's colleagues are really into converting us to evangelist Christianity. Telling them we don't believe in god as a way of opting out of this doesn't really work, so we are continually fending of such offers.
I haven't got much else to write about as I have had little work due to the holidays. We're having our first visitor arrive on Sunday morning- Eric's brother! Eric and I have pampered ourselves by renting a room in a fancy hotel for a night. This was mostly out of a need to use their airport shuttle service, but being able to eat good pizza and swim in their pool doesn't hurt. I think we deserve a little luxury for the holidays!
Thanks to everyone who called/emailed/wrote for the holidays. It was nice to hear from you all! And thanks to those of you who expressed interest in my library project. The holidays interrupted the grant-writing process, but as soon as I get approved I'll let you know.
No new pictures today. I've been lazy with the camera. Maybe next week, when we drop of Eric's brother!

relaxing (as much as is possible) in Cotonou

2008-12-11T16:33:00.007+01:00

Update: I just posted more photos in our photo album link at the top of the page, so have a look!

We're down for a little break in Cotonou today, to do banking and other business here. I'm glad to be getting away from post for a bit, and I think Eric is too considering he's just finished the first trimester of school.
Our lives in Klouekanme are good as usual. Eric has been busy with school. He teaches all day Monday and Thursday, and Wednesday morning. I am content with my work situation at the moment, which has improved somewhat. I'm continuing work with my HIV/AIDS teaching project in Houedogli. On December 1st we had a World AIDS day celebration, which was interesting, to say the least. We started out with a parade around the village, my team and I marching in front of a huge group of 7th, 8th, and 9th graders from the local school, accompanied by the Apostolic Church band of trumpets and drums (that felt a little silly to me but it was exciting for everyone). Then we all gathered in a school classroom, children everywhere, and listened to the head nurse of the local health center talk about HIV transmission and prevention. We also did a condom demonstration (we have a wooden penis for this part). You'd be amazed how much the kids talk when their teachers and other authorities are talking. I don't know if they were just being disrespectful or if it was a normal way to behave, but throughout the whole presentation I don't think I could hear my own voice!
The chaos really erupted when we tried to play some games and give out prizes of magazines and condoms. Rather than accepting defeat, the losers of the games fought fiercely with the winners about who should get prizes. And then our attempt to give out condoms to everyone backfired when I could not get the kids to form a line. They just kept pushing and fighting with each other to be first, despite my telling them that everyone was assured to receive a condom! Finally I gave up and didn't give anything out, to the anger of the students. The games-and-prizes aspect of our celebration was definitely a failure, but the rest of it went pretty well and I'm glad we pulled it off!
Another event Eric and I participated in in Houedogli was a celebration of girls passing their exams, which normally few girls pass. There is a small library for girls to use in Houedogli that was started by a volunteer a few years ago, which lets girls use school books that their parents can't afford to or won't buy for them. You'll be hearing about this more later, because I'm going to ask all of you to contribute money to my project, if you want, when I do a grant proposal to get more books. Anyway, at the event Eric and I and the other volunteers who came talked about the importance of girl's education and about sexism and women's issues in the US, which the girls were really interested. It's both heartening and heartbreaking to talk to girls about their struggles here. For example, sexual harassment in the schools. Teachers (they're almost all male) often sleep with their students in exchange for giving good grades. And then they have the balls to say that it's the girl's fault for seducing them- how could a man resist a tempting girl? That little piece of blame-shirking disgusts me. Every girl seems to know someone who has slept with a teacher, or even one who has gotten pregnant by a teacher. And besides that, girls do virtually all of the work at home with their mothers, having no time to study while their brothers are off playing soccer. But as I said being with these girls is heartening as well, because they have a strong desire to succeed and change women's status in this country, knowing that their lives might not be made any better in the short run but that they can make the lives of their female children better through these efforts. Needless to say this Thanksgiving I gave thanks that I was born a woman in the Western world!
I've been doing a little bit of work with my NGO. We've been building compost heaps and also starting a garden. The intention is that our current heaps are experimental, to establish how much waste we need to make a certain amount of compost. Later, supposedly, we will involve the community by encouraging use of trash cans which we can then pick up and add to our compost heaps. I'm guessing that this part of the project is going to occur long after I'm gone. We're also trying to do a garden that is fertilized by our compost, and whose produce we're going to sell during the holiday season. I'm somewhat sore that nobody has really tried to involve me in this part of the project despite my repeated asking, since as you know I really enjoy gardening. And this doesn't really involve the community either, except that we're trying to sell them things. So I'm not really sure where the project is going in terms of community development. And I'm still not clear on what my role is! But that's not anything new.
We had a really nice Thanksgiving this year. Last year was probably the worst one I've had in my life because Eric and I were alone in Klouekanme. So this year we were determined to be with friends. We went to Azove where we have two volunteer friends. Eric and I made biscuits (with realy butter) and gravy, and we had other Thanksgiving-like food (such as it can be here, given that we had limited ingredients). I hope we can also go somewhere for Christmas. Last year in Klouekanme Christmas was rather anticlimactic- I don't think anything really happened, except that kids came around asking for money (for what, I'm not sure).
Speaking of Azove, Eric and I did get to watch the US presidential elections there at Eric's colleague's house. We stayed up all night more or less. And when Obama won Eric's colleague cried even more than we did- that's saying a lot, considering Beninese men are not supposed to cry ever. Everyone here is really excited that American has an “African” for a president. I haven't met one Beninese person (besides Peace Corps staff) with whom I've had a conversation about Obama who hasn't said that he is African, whether because his father was born in Africa or because they think he was actually born here. People have really high expectations here that he will somehow miraculously help them develop and be rich. I'm afraid to tell them that even if the economy were good, I doubt he could do much to help them. But for now the excitement lingers, among Africans and Americans alike.
Not too much else is going on here. I've been helping our neighbors kids with school work. The older boy, who is about eight, asks me to read with him and help with math. It makes me both glad that he comes to me for help, since that shows that he is interested and wants to succeed, and sad knowing that I give him more attention than his parents would (or could, considering that his dad is never home and that his mom is saddled with a six month old baby and innumerable household chores- and she's illiterate and doesn't speak French, anyway). The younger boy, who is almost six, I am teaching his letters. We are beginning with the vowels and he is making some progress, except he writes all the letter backward or upside down. Is that normal? I hope he can read a little by the time we leave Benin. And we've finally installed an electricity subcounter so that we can distinguish how much of the monthly bill we receive for the concession is attributable to me and Eric. Now that more people have electricity in our concession (and have a TV!) things are getting complicated. Honestly I think the subcounter will demonstrate that we're actually using less than we're paying for now!
Other than everything I mentioned above, I've been reading a lot, gardening and studying for various grad-school tests. Nothing too interesting. And we've been thinking about what we're going to do when we get back to the US. Now that we're past the halfway point, it seems like only a short while before we will be going home, especially because time really does go fast here. And it's the first time I can remember in my life when I haven't had somewhere to be, or something specific to do, so we really have a lot of choices.
I'll leave off there, except to add one thing. In the next few weeks I am going to be applying for a grant-type project, which is funded by friends and family back home through online donations. I am applying to increase the size and stock of the girls' library in Houedogli. I'll keep you updated and I'm going to send out a mass email soon explaining more, but just keep in mind that if you want to give me something for Christmas, help me fund my project! I'll let you know more as soon as the project is approved.
I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and has a good Christmas, if I don't write before that! I'll leave you with some pictures.

Eating American food (aka mac and cheese, bbq tofu, fried okra) with Eric's colleague

Before our World AIDS day march:

Thanksgiving- eating pie and other delicacies (can you tell that it's not exactly winter here, despite it being November?)

Celebrating passing of the major school exams with girls who use the girls' library

Making tofu at an orphanage

Using the Beninese equivalent of mortar and pestle to grind chillis

Already November!

2008-11-04T07:15:00.002+01:00

And the elections are... today! (Well, we won't know any results until tomorrow anyway). Despite all the election coverage that has managed to come our way it doesn't feel real that tomorrow we will have a new president. Eric has a colleague who has MSNBC so I think we'll go to Azove to watch election coverage all night. Unless I get stuck in Cotonou in which I will hang out with a lot of other volunteers who are watching. Either way I think Eric and I will both be up all night!
Anyway. I am in Cotonou to participate in a review of this year's training for the new volunteers that I did. Hopefully it will only be a half day. Otherwise I've been to the bank where I had to wait two hours for my friend to get her money because her signature was "not in the computer." There is technology here but it is slow and people don't know how to use it! This is almost more annoying than just having no computer at all and doing everything by hand because otherwise there is the expectation that technology should actually work!
Things in Klouekanme are decent. Eric has begun school finally and only has to teach two days a week, which is nice for him. He's planning on continuing with English club and also maybe doing an Aja club, as well as teaching computer classes at the mayor's office. My work has consisted lately of getting ready for the launching of my HIV/AIDS project in Houedogli (nearby village), which took place last Friday. It went really well, and now that the project is "launched" we can actually start doing lessons in the community. This will keep me busy at least one day a week. And I hope to do some work map paintings at school and nutrition murals, so I think I will not be too bored in the upcoming months.
Last weekend I got to go to a very cool cultural event at a friends post up North. It's an initiation event for boys and young men in the community, in which they have battles where they whip each other and fight for glory. The already-initiated men dress up in drag in order to make the initiates feel more manly, and everyone is in crazy costumes and there is a lot of testosterone going around. There are hundreds of men participating so there was a sort of organized chaos in which everyone ran around frenzied and then some would suddenly find a partner to do battle with, so they would whip each other until someone won. There was a lot of blood but nobody showed pain so as not to look weak. It's hard to do the festival justice in writing but I will post some pictures. There were two things I noticed about my friend's village up north that were remarkably different from our area- there were a lot more trees and vegetation throughout the village, whereas our town is more or less barren but for a few trees and corn fields. And also, the people seem not to be afraid of snakes! In the south all the tall grass is cut down and nobody will venture near vegetation for fear of snakes, but in this northern village not only was there a lot of tall grass, but the men participating in the initiation rite actually ran into the tall grass to trample it and fight on it! That was incredible.
Nothing much else has happened of note. Actually I had an uncomfortable encounter with the Chef d'Arrondissement (county chief?) of Houedogli where I'm doing the HIV project. Here was our conversation, after the greetings:
Chef: You know, people here want money
me: yes, I know well
c: so you must bring it
m: no, that's not my job here
c: (laughing) you must do all you can
m: sorry that's just not my job
c: but you are rich! I know this
m: how do you know- because I am white?
c: (looking uncomfortable) uh... well you must bring money
m: it's impossible
c: don't you want to develop us?
m: no

Yeah, I was blunt. What can I do? This guy is a total jerk who said that there was no way the project would continue without me, thereby implying that his own citizens just can't do anything on their own without the help of a foreigner. I anticipate many such interactions with him in the future.
On Sunday night Eric's colleague from school came over to eat American food and talk with us. We made him fried okra, mac and cheese, and barbecue tofu. He liked the food and we had an interesting conversation with him about the west, since he recently came back from Germany. He disliekd the "western life" a lot because it was very lonely to him. He remarked on certain things we would never care about, like an old man buying food for himself in the grocery (an old person, let alone a man, would never have to do that here). The things I miss so much about the west- being able to be alone, the anonymity- were exactly the things he disliked. He also remarked how strange it was that we don't have a TV in Benin and that if we weren't foreigners we would have absolutely no respect. Same goes for us riding bikes- no Beninese teacher would be caught dead riding a bike! So we have a strange status here because people think we're rich simply because we're foreign yet we don't do rich-people things... people really don't know what to think about us. We also discussed women's issues with the colleague, which I've been feeling really sensitive about lately. He definitely believes the woman's place is to serve the man, as does almost everyone else here. The sexism is so painful sometimes because even the educated people don't treat women equally.
Well I think I'll stop there. I'm posting some pictures, so keep up with that!

Finally I have something to write about

2008-10-06T17:17:00.007+01:00

It's been a long summer, and it's finally coming to a close. School will begin soon for Eric (actually technically it started today but the kids just have to weed and sweep around the school for at least a week, and then the teachers may go on strike. You never know) and I am getting back into my work, a little bit at least. At the moment though, Eric and I are down in Cotonou for our midservice medical exam. Among other things this involves relieving yourself in a cup (and I don't mean peeing. Sorry to get graphic but Peace Corps life makes you really open about such things). Fun. Then we have a training on HIV/AIDS in Porto Novo. I can't say I'm excited about that, but it will be fun to get fed good food on Peace Corps' dime. We are lucky enough to have a separate budget for this training, apart from the normal, totally beleaguered budget we have now (the financial crisis is affecting everyone!), so we are going to have a good time eating well, I think and hope.
I am excited to be participating in a project to educate people about HIV/AIDS, as well as malaria and diarrheal illnesses. The project entails a team of me, a community adviser who knows the community and the authorities well, and a boy and a girl peer educator, both young people. The goal is to have the peer educators educate the public on these different health-related themes, and the community adviser and I give them feedback, support their work, and help with the planning and execution of the sessions. So we had a week-long training with the other teams (6 others I believe) in Bohicon, a big city nearby, and got to stay at a hotel. It had a pool! Anyway, the training was really interesting, for many reasons. First, I had never been in a learning situation with Beninese people, especially people from rural areas of Benin, which all the participants were. Their learning styles are so different and they know a lot less than the average American about HIV/AIDS especially but also about good hygiene, etc. simply because we've been learning about these things from a young age, and they have little education about them. People's questions and observations were also extremely interesting because it exposed what a lot of people think about issues of sexuality, condoms, hygiene, etc. For example, there's the perpetual question about how to do tell someone who tells you "you can't eat a banana without peeling it" (euphemistic for "you can't have sex with a condom") that indeed you must do this? And the assertions that homosexuality is unnatural and just can't be understood (it's illegal here, anyway). Overall, although it was not too interesting re-learning a lot of what I already knew, the training was pretty fun. And I am very excited to have a project that I know will create work for me, since we are supposed to have a minimum of two lessons given by peer educators each month, plus meetings to plan etc. Moreover I am glad to be working on health projects because I've come to believe that health issues are of primary importance to address in my work. So, I'm happy about that!
My other work isn't really going anywhere so I won't say much about it. I haven't seen my work partners much and am not really sure what I'm supposed to be doing with them. My supervisor is into doing a project to teach women to compost, yet when we discussed this earlier he made it clear that they would need boots, gloves, etc. for handling the compost, plus all of the supplies compost needs- i.e. a huge plastic bag to cover it from the rain. I tried to explain that they probably didn't need those things (not to be insensitive but people touch the nastiness that goes into the compost anyway, why would they need gloves to handle the pile? And palm branches could work perfectly well instead of a plastic bag) and anyway where would the money come for these supplies? You can see that we're hitting a wall.
Our life at home is pretty normal. Our electricity got cut and our neighbor claimed that he "forgot" to turn in the bill. We secretly and stealthily went to the electricity company to find out what happened and were informed that actually he seems to have never paid most of the bills. But somehow he managed to get it turned back on for us. I think he likes looking like our protector. In other news, the babies in our concession are getting big. Thankfully the woman with the baby who cries all the time is going to another town to teach, so we will be more at peace. Especially since the kids are going back to school! I must admit I like it better when school is in session.
My gardening is winding down. Since the rainy season is coming to a close I've decided not to plant anything new in the garden itself, since I don't want to water it with well water. I've had big successes though, mainly with kale and eggplants, which are prolific and delicious.We also had a few small but good tomatoes. Instead of replanting the garden, I have bought some baskets and planted kale, tomatoes, and herbs in the backyard in them. So we will have some good things to eat during the dry season.
A crazy thing happened in our market the other day. Actually on two separate days. The first day, we came back to our house to be told by our neighbors that someone was being burned in our market because he stole a bicycle and I guess also shot someone (probably with a homemade musket type gun). They burn people here for stealing so he was punished according to the street justice code. Despite our neighbors exhorting us to go watch the spectacle we declined. The body was supposed to be claimed by the family (the guy was from out of town). Fast-forward to the next market day. It must be said that our market is absolutely ripped up so that they can put a sewer system (well, something resembling one). Anyway, on this day Eric and I and two of our friends were having a drink at a bar, on market day. Suddenly we here an enormous commotion and run out of the bar to see a mass exodus of men, women, and children running out of the market on the tiny little footpath spared from the sewer project work, looking totally frightened. After a while we finally heard bits and pieces of the story- apparently the family came to claim the body but it wasn't there (we heard two stories: dogs ate it, or people took it to do who knows what with it). So a posse came and raised hell in the market, knocking over people's precious corn and tomatoes and probably getting physically violent. Finally the gendarmes came in, arrested some of the posse, and we haven't heard what has happened since. That was pretty intense. Don't worry, we weren't in any danger.
Another interesting thing that's happened recently is that Eric and I got to attend the opening ceremony for a king's palace in a friend's village ("palace" meaning a glorified mud hut but still cool). Kings from the region came, wearing their profuse amounts of fabric and cool hats that they wear here. There was a traditional singer who is famous in Benin, and lots of dancing and music. Much was made of use white people being there- we were definitely expected to give more money than anyone else. It was a very cool cultural experience.
What else... lots of people have been telling me (and Eric too) that I've gained weight over the summer. In fact, our one-legged old friend who we see frequently tells me every time we bring him our photos to look at that we are doing well in Africa because we've gained weight. I think it's meant to be a compliment rather than a true statement since I in fact haven't gained weight but I still don't enjoy being told that. He also tells me I don't speak any Aja and Eric does speak a lot, which I hate. Oh that hateful sexism!
I'll end there, and leave you with a few pictures. Remember to keep looking at the photo page, because we update it as much as we can!

(p.s. update on my medical exam- I have a case of asymptomatic amoebas (a type of parasite). I had no idea! But every volunteer gets those sooner or later it seems...)

Klouekanme market during the exodus (I hope you can get an idea of how bad the road is...):

Eggplant and kale from the garden:

Summer's over

2008-09-06T11:13:00.006+01:00

Well, sort of. All our vacations and summer jobs are over. I've been working in Porto Novo with the new Peace Corps trainees since early August, four weeks in total, and they just swore in yesterday. I'll be honest, I am so ready to go home to Klouekanme. I've only been home 3 full days in the month I've been working in Porto Novo, where all the trainees were put for training (our trainees were put in four different towns according to sector). It was fun though, and certainly nice to have work to do since not much is happening work-wise at home. Porto Novo is the capital so it still has a lot of decrepit colonial buildings and more roads than the usual Beninese city/town. It is rather dangerous though because the traffic is crazy and the trainees had to ride their bikes in that! Ultimately I think our training was a lot less stressful for trainers and trainees. Plus the trainees got used to eating good food (salad, butter and jam, etc.) and living in huge houses with their own toilets. Some even had cars in their families! Being the capital, the Beninese rich are more concentrated there. I think a lot of the trainees will be a little shocked when they start living at their posts!
Since I haven't been doing anything else the last month, I don't have much to write about. Swear-in yesterday was pretty fun. It was held at the Congress building. The president Yayi Boni was supposed to show up but he sent a representative so we didn't get to meet Benin's president. It was also a 40th Anniversary of Peace Corps in Benin so there were lots of festivities surrounding that- cake and such. Eric and I had matching outfits with embroidery made to wear to this and other fancy events.

I think I'll leave off there. I'm ready to go back to post, and to start up some projects. I'm hoping that this year I can get some big projects going, either on my own or with my NGO. I'm feeling re-energized after my vacations, and so is Eric, so I think the year will start off well. Eric's school will probably start in October, if all goes well.

PS there are more photos added to the Garden albums and a Porto Novo album added on our photo page!

So we're back...

2008-08-04T11:15:00.002+01:00

We are back in Benin, safely, although we had an unpleasant taxi experience on our drive across the Togo border when our driver told us we were taking too long at customs and it was all our fault etc., as if we could do anything about it! We're over it now though.
I'll keep it short today as we are still recovering a bit from the traveling and such. Overall we are sad to be back from a wonderful vacation but I think we will get used to things here again pretty quickly. I get to work at the new volunteer training next week and it will be nice to have something to do since my work situation is nonexistent now. Eric is doing a computer camp with a friend. So we'll be somewhat busy for the rest of the summer.
I've made photos available so have a look. More next time...

Since I have time...

2008-07-30T20:42:00.002+01:00

I will write more about our trips thus far, which is actually going to end quite soon (to our great sadness)! We've had a great time in Cape Town. Besides walking around and appreciating the beauty, cleanliness, and friendliness of the city, we have been able to do some fun activities. Today we got to go around the Cape- we saw the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point first. Then we went to a beach with a protected area for a penguin colony where we could observe very up close the African Penguin in its natural habitat. They were so cute and there were lots of babies!

After that we drove to Glencairn where we were able to take a hike up a hill and observe baboons in their natural habitats. The baboons here are viewed as huge nuisances because they are quite naughty and can get into trash cans, purses, cars, and even burgle houses in order to get food. You can't really blame them for trying to fulfill a basic need in the easiest way possible, i.e. taking advantage of easily found human food, but people kill them or accidentally run over them and so on. So thankfully the organization who leads these tours keeps the baboons out of human inhabited areas, and leads groups of tourists to observe them! We got very close to some, at times they even walked right next to us. They don't make contact with humans but they are habituated to our presence. Overall it was quite amazing to be so close to them and observe them grooming, fighting, nursing babies, and just going about everyday life. It was definitely one of our best wildlife experiences here!

We've learned a lot about the culture and politics here. I think most people know this but it's still strange to hear about the distinction between black, white, and colored people that is very strong here. It's hard to believe that apartheid was still in place not too long ago, and you can see that race is still of great importance here, not necessarily in terms of negative racism (which I don't think we've seen) but in terms of the Black Economic Empowerment movement and so on. We've also heard a lot about how South Africa is not heading in a totally good direction in a political or economic sense and that a lot of people who have this option are leaving, especially white people who have a hard time finding jobs because they are last in line behind blacks and coloreds. I hope that this country pulls through and doesn't become another Zimbabwe (a fear many of the people we've talked to have expressed) because there are so many great things the country has to offer. (Note- obviously these opinions those of the people we've met and not my own since I haven't been here long enough to form any opinions, so don't think I'm endorsing anything I've said).

Well, I will leave off by intimating to you that an activity I have really enjoyed on this trip, and Eric too, has been going to the mall. Yes, the mall. There is an enormous mall here right by our hotel and every time I go into it I am wide-eyed with amazement about how much there is to buy and see there. And it's hard to believe that there are stores like Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, MaxMara and all of these designer stores in Africa! I know, Africa is not homogeneous, but still. It's crazy.

Well we are leaving on Saturday. I'll probably write next from Cotonou! And stay tuned for pictures from the trip...

In Cape Town

2008-07-29T09:27:00.003+01:00

Hi from Cape Town! We have reached the last stage of our trip, and it's a nice place to be ending! I'll write about what we've been doing since I last wrote.
So we made it from Madagascar to the Johannesburg airport, where we met Eric's parents. Soon after Eric and I had our first taste of the first world when we checked into the airport hotel, which seemed so extravagant and luxurious to us- because it had a nice big bed, a TV, and a great dinner buffet with everything from brussels sprouts (which I love) to crepes for dessert. Needless to say I stuffed myself, and have been doing so ever since, and my pants are definitely tighter!
The next morning we left on a short flight up to Hoedspruit to go to the game reserve near Kruger park for our safari. We stayed in a gorgeous bungalow one night and then in a tented camp two nights ("tent" isn't exactly the right word to describe it though- more like a bungalow with a tented roof) and got to do safaris twice a day. The first day we saw pretty much everything- two leopards, two lions, elephants, zebras, giraffe, and an enormous rhino, besides all of the different deer and antelope species. We also go to see hyenas, a huge owl, lots of birds, and warthogs over the course of our outings. It was really spectacular seeing these animals so close! Pictures coming very soon. And the food was also fantastic- they cater so well to vegetarians here, and they have a mix of temperate and tropical fruits and vegetables so we were happy.
We left to go to an ocean nature reserve on the coast. The reserve was surrounded by milkwood forest and the fynbos ecosystem which is unique to the southern part of South Africa and has some very interesting plant species. We got to go whale watching and were lucky enough to see whales, penguins, and an enormous seal colony. We also got to eat even more great food, take some nice walks, and breathe in the very fresh air of the coast!
From the ocean reserve we continued into Franschhoek, a town in wine country. The ride was breathtaking as we rode through the mountains and looked down on the valleys below dotted with vineyards and pastures for wooly sheep (the sheep in Benin are not wooly but more mangy and with dreadlock-type wool so this was nice). The town itself is in the valley. Basically it looks like a small touristy town in America or Europe, with greenery everywhere, nice houses, lots of vineyards and cheese making places, many touristy art and antique shops, and lots of good restaurants. We got to stay in a beautiful hotel, very French, with a fantastic restaurant and even a TV with DVDs! (very exciting to watch movies on a TV for once). The second day we were there it rained all day, which was actually fine because none of us are into wine and weren't going to go on wine tastings, and instead we got a chance to breathe after all our safaris and nature walks. But we did get a chance to walk around the town. For me and Eric this was a very nice time because we could walk in a town without being looked at twice and have nobody taunting us or asking us for anything!
So yesterday we came to the last part of our journey when we drove from Franschhoek to Cape Town. It was an interesting drive because we got to go through the University/wine town of Stellenbosch, and then as we approached Cape Town we saw all of the townships (shanty towns) that have cropped up on the outskirts of the city. In some ways they are a lot worse than the living situation in Cotonou because the houses are crowded and very ramshackle, but we were told that there is electricity and running water and toilets shared among families, which I'm pretty sure is not the case in Cotonou. But I think the townships can also be more violent.
We arrived in Cape Town and were unprepared for our first view in a year of a real western style city. Actually it looked quite a bit like arriving in Seattle from Portland, and the city reminds me a lot of Seattle in general because it is surrounded by hills and a bay. It is quite gorgeous and very first-world feeling, and you wouldn't even know you were in Africa. Eric and I spent a lot of time walking around yesterday and there's just so much to do and see. And there's lots of fancy shopping, which is surprising but not considering the amount of wealth that I think exists in the city. Please send donations to my wardrobe rehabilitation fund (just kidding of course!). We haven't been here long but I think I can say that this is one of the more beautiful cities I've been too and I will definitely want to come back sometime in the future!
Well, I should probably end this and go out and do something. We only have a few more days here! Going back to Benin will definitely be strange and a bit difficult to be sure. I think we will be ready to get back though. And having been on this trip definitely makes us see that time is passing and someday we will be back to our normal lives!
I'll try to write before we go back to Benin, and I'll post pictures soon!

Theres so much to say!

2008-07-18T11:27:00.002+01:00

Greetings from Antananarivo, Madagascar! First, I am not using a qwerty keyboard and cant find apostrophes and such so sorry about that, and Im not going to write all that much as a result.
Anyway. We have been here now since last Thursday in the capital, besides a two day trip we took to Andasibe national park to see lemurs and other things. Ill begin far back with our car ride from Cotonou to Ghana; briefly Ill just say that the surroundings became noticeably more developped as we made our way through Togo, and then in Ghana we were stunned to see such western things as malls, housing developments, and greenery everywhere! So in short, I am a little sorry to say that Benin is not doing too well. However the upside to this is that our standards are extremely low and Eric and I have been feeling like we are living in luxury!
Moving on to Madagascar, I dont even know where to begin! At the airport I suppose. Our luggage was, unsurprisingly, still somewhere in Johannesburg where we caught the connecting flight here. But to our utter surprise the baggage attendant was extremely efficient and helpful and gave us an unsolicited 200,000 ariary to buy tshirts and toiletries! I could not believe this considering how difficult a time we have had in the past getting anything out of airlines!
We then stepped outside into the gorgeous, sunny, cool outdoors. I cant tell you how wonderful it is to be in a semi tropical winter. Its cold to be sure, sometimes unpleasantly so for us since our cold tolerance is low, but it feels nice on the whole.
We took a taxi to Tana proper and the ride was spectacular. The city is very hilly and there is a lot of paddy rice agriculture and zebu cattle roaming around, a very cool thing for us since we never see work animals in Benin. The other stunning thing besides the scenery was the masses of vegetables sold on the side of the road- cauliflower, leeks, gorgeous tomatoes and carrots, zucchini, and many tropical and temperate fruits. Coming from Benin where anything besides tomatoes and a few greens is a luxury, we were rather excited to eat here. And I will mention now that we ate strawberries for the first time in more than a year!!
Our hotel feels really nice to us because there is hot water and a TV and even a safe. Besides the necessity for a good tourist infrastructure here, I think these types of mid-range hotels with amenities can exists becuase there is actually a sizeable middle class here. In Benin an affordable hotel for us has no hot water and not even a bathroom in the room usually!
I wont describe each day here but will try to gloss over the salient points. Weve spent a lot of time walking around the city, being amazed at what a developing country can look like ( we are starting to wonder if Benin even qualifies yet as developing). The most mundane things like street drains, sidewalks, parks, and the public bus system have really blown us away. There are times when the city reminds me of Prague and Barcelona combined, Eric says with some Vladivostock mixed in. Its not the first world but its certainly a few steps up from what we are used to! As I said there seems to be a middle class here and as a result there are lots of middle priced eateries for pizza, ice cream, as well as multiple large grocery stores. We have been pleased to see Malagasy families out for a treat with their children, something we rarely see in Benin.
On the food- we ate a lot of western food at first but have now figured out where to get the cheap local food which is usually Soupe chinoise- broth with a hard boiled egg and noodles- or noodle stir fry. Plus lots of pastries. The food is very Asian influenced (and french becuase of the desserts and pastries) and very tasty and cheap and healthy.
On the local culture- first, it is so quiet here compared to Benin. People are extremely courteous to us, never taunt us or even look at us twice because we are white, and are overall quiet welcoming. However, a problem rarely encountered in Benin but very big here is the persistent beggars, often children, who break your heart by with their dirty faces and outstretched hands.
The local crafts and products here are fantastic. Besides the spices- vanilla, cinnamon, etc- they have endless raffia crafts like bags, placemats, wallets and so on, ebony wood carvings, gems and fossils, embroidery, and even silk scarves, one of which I bought today at the artisinal market. There is clearly a lot of pride in crafts and artisan traditions, which is nice.
Well I guess I should write about our trip to Andasibe national park. We used a bus service rather than a bush taxi, and we certainly got a bang for our buck because it ended up being a private car service (a nice private car, not a falling apart 1970s Peugeot).
The road up to the park was very tortuous and I became a little carsick but it had gorgeous views of mud house towns, rice paddies and very pretty scenery. And we also saw evidence of the extensive deforestation that has taken place here, which was a little sad.
We arrived at the park and checked into our hotel, aka a little ski chalet type thing with no heat. But it was quite nice anyway and served us well, even though we were a little cold for the whole trip.
We immediately took a nature walk into the park with a great guide and got to see both indri and common brown lemurs, as well as frogs and chameleons, birds, and lots of flowers including orchids. We also got to take a night walk where we saw many of the same creatures. Its really amazing seeing these in the wild! We will definitely post photos later.
The next day we took a really long and very arduous walk up and down steep hills in the park. It was worth it though because we got to see indri and sifaka lemurs, some quite close! After our walk we spent some time exploring the very quaint village that is near the park.
Theres not too much more to write about the trip and Ill keep it brief since other people are waiting for the internet (did I mention our hotel has free internet?). But overall it was an amazing trip and we must come back here and to the other national parks!
So now we are back in Tana, and we have just been walking around, going to artisan markets, taking a small day trip to a UNESCO site, and savoring our last day here since tomorrow we are moving on to South Africa! I could write a lot more but I will stop now so I dont ramble on. We will probably write next from South Africa, and post pictures soon!

quickly...

2008-07-08T15:33:00.002+01:00

A brief note- I just put up a whole lot of photos. Look in the upper right corner where it says "photos." More tomorrow, maybe, before we leave for Madagascar and South Africa on Thursday!

School is out

2008-06-24T08:32:00.002+01:00

Hi everyone - I'm in Cotonou with Sheena now as she has told you. School finally ended. I still have to enter all my grades into the official grade book, using blue ink for quizzes and red for averages and exams.
Exams took place last week. The vice-principal found a girl cheating in one of my classes and gave her a 0. I had given her a 0 on the 2nd exam of the year for cheating too. She had a note, and I found 5 people who had copied off it. They swore they didn't cheat, so we talked to the principal. I said I might not give them 0s if I found who wrote the note. The kid who wrote it came up to me said that he wrote it and everyone copied it. In the end, I said either I would give them all 0s and leave it at that (I have made it abundantly clear that any cheating results in a 0), or we could tell the principal who wrote the note and that they all lied to him. Oddly enough the students opted for the latter, so I'll be talking to the principal this Thursday when I get back.
Sheena has told you about most of the other events here, but she hasn't updated you about the 24,000CFA (~$50) electricity bill. We went to the principal of my school to talk to him about the bill. He sent someone to the house who found out that our neighbor had not paid the bill the money we had given him, but rather was just keeping it in a jar or something like that, thus the electric company sent us a bill for everything. The principal's lackey didn't seem to understand the problem here, but the principal did.
Our neighbor assured us and the school that the landlord had paid the huge electricity bill. A week later, our neighbor brought over the new bill. It was 2000CFA (~$4), which is normal compared to what other teachers and Tom pay. Before we were paying 6000CFA bills each month, which was suspiciously large. I think that whatever shady activities our neighbor was up to involving the electricity have ended. Nevertheless, he gave us the bill at 9.30 at night the day before it was due. We said we wouldn't pay until we had shown the bill to the principal, and he was pretty unhappy to let us have the bill.
Sheena went to the electricity company to see what we've paid over the year. It turns out that nothing had been paid, not even the huge bill. We told the principal, he instructed us to get our own counter and say that the school is going to pay our bill. That way we won't make our neighbor angry.
Hopefully we'll get the counter installed soon...

Getting ready for vacation...

2008-06-23T17:20:00.004+01:00

We haven't been to Cotonou in a while. Eric and I are down here now getting our visas ready to go to Madagascar and South Africa. We're flying out of Ghana to save a huge amount of money, so we need to get visas and such. We also dropped some girls off in Porto Novo from Klouekanmé for a girls camp called Camp GLOW- “Girls Leading Our World.” It's a week long camp with information sessions on hygiene, the importance of education, and other life skills to motivate girls to pursue positions of leadership. This is a wonderful thing, as women are still afforded less respect than men (even though they do SO much of the work keeping the house together, among other things) and I hope that the girls get a lot out of it.

A few interesting things have happened since last I wrote. The biggest development in Eric's and my lives is that our postmate Tom is leaving Benin. So very soon we will be the only volunteers in Klouekanmé. Tom hasn't been around a lot in the past few months because he's been working in other villages, so we haven't even really spent too much time with him lately, but it will nevertheless be very strange to know that there is no longer another American-inhabited house in our town. One benefit of his leaving though is that we received all of his furniture, pots and pans, etc. so now we have a new and improved house. We added a huge bookcase, a kitchen table, a big coffee table and even a mattress that we propped up as a couch. So now we have a much more organized, comfortable house. It's pretty posh, I think.

We had a fun going-away party for Tom at Fagla's house (the guy in a nearby village who is very involved in Voodoo rituals and ceremonies). There were six volunteers plus a lot of Beninese people I didn't know. We ate fire-roasted potatoes and vegetables, and the non-vegetarians (everyone but us) ate a slaughtered goat, the slaughtering of which Eric and I were glad to miss. Thankfully the sodabe (local grain alcohol) was not forced upon us like in times past at Fagla's so we came home feeling good. There was entertainment in the form of a troupe of kids dancing Beninese-style to techno music, and a very drunk guy dancing strangely and sensually to American rap music. It was entertaining but the drunk guy was a bit sad, as I think this is normal behavior for him.

Some of our other postmates in nearby villages will be leaving within the next few months as well. I do know that at least one new volunteer will be placed near us when his/her training is over in September, so things should balance out. I'm hoping that I can do a lot of work with the new volunteer, who is supposedly in the health sector, as a lot of my projects overlap with health volunteer work here.

My work has been very up and down lately. When I last wrote, things seemed to be improving at work because we were actually meeting and beginning to plan some projects. Well, I haven't seen my work partners since then and have barely talked to them. I can't say I'm not disappointed, but I am not surprised. The NGO has great intentions but it is difficult to get things going here.

My other work projects though have been pretty good. Eric and I finally got our English club going, and it is quite fun. It's almost all male students. We do activities like reading and discussing stories, having discussions, and playing games. It's very interesting for me, since I don't interact with students much, to see the types of things are easy for people to learn or understand here, the things that interest them etc. For example, I was rather surprised that this group of men (for they are men, since many are older than we are!) found the story “Sleeping Beauty” to be interesting and worthy of discussion (and in terms of vocabulary it was quite good- we got to explain things like “thorny briar hedge” and “spinning wheel”) We also get to help them with vocabulary such as “thick” and “thin,” for which one student made the example “Eric is thin and Sheena is thick” to illustrate. Ha. (I'm not really insulted by this because they didn't mean anything bad, but still I don't really like people's direct references to your weight here, especially when the person they most often compare me with is my very skinny husband!). As for games, we've played boggle and hangman with them. Both games are very difficult for some kids to understand, but one student found words that I didn't even find, which greatly impressed me. I'm very glad to have this opportunity to interact with students who are motivated and interested in what Eric and I can teach them, and of course it is great having a fixed activity to do every week!

I've also tentatively begun Environmental club with a biology professor at the school. There's not much to say about that as we've only had one meeting thus far, since we started pretty much right before finals and now school is out. I'm afraid the club might be too academic and not really fun for the kids because the biology teacher seems to want it this way. I guess we'll see next year how that goes.

Besides the clubs I've been doing my usual meetings with women's groups. I did some more mud stove and moringa demonstrations. And soon I'll be teaching a group how to make tofu! I love working with women's groups because it's so nice to see women trying to improve their lives by learning new skills, and they really appreciate the work I do with them. To show this they give me lots of gifts of fruit and food!

I've been doing a lot of gardening in my free time, and I'm very proud of the outcome. I have: eggplant, tomatoes, basil, onions, carrots, sunflowers, okra, corn, cucumbers, beans, and some cool-weather crops: arugula, peas, and broccoli. Miraculously everything grew and we've already had some edible things! We ate some delicious green beans the other day, and today we are going to eat an enormous cucumber. There is even edible arugula, which delicious. Soon we'll have okra and tomatoes, and sunflowers, which are already taller than Eric! Seeing the progression from the beginning stages when there was nothing but a pile of crappy dirt to the verdant paradise (I think so!) that my garden is now has been really rewarding for me. And people in the community also think it's really cool. Our neighbors help me all the time and love planting things, and some of Eric's students even come over just to look! It's amazing what a very small garden can inspire in people here.

I don't think there is too much else to mention. We are getting ready to go to South Africa and Madagascar in a few weeks! Frankly we desperately need a real break where we can travel freely. Not to mention I think the accommodations and cities are a little nicer where we'll be going than they are here, so we'll be living in luxury. And it will be cold! It's been “cold” here some days since they rainy season has really begun, but it's still hot. Going to a more temperate climate in South Africa will be absolutely delightful.

I'll sign off but leave you with some pictures.

Me holding a mango we were given as a gift, the absolute largest mango I have ever seen as it was almost the size of my head:

Eric and Tom mix and match clothes at Tom's going away party:

Eric with cucumbers from my garden (it's hard to tell but they are very big):

Me in the garden:

And finally, here's what our house looks like now (the living room at least):