I’ve been in Benin one month! It’s hard to believe, but at
the same time sometimes I feel like I’ve been living here for a while. Today starts week 5 of 9 of stage, so
we are officially more than half way through training. I’m excited to get to post and see my
village and pull out my guitar and start…really living. We’ve been pretty sheltered so far,
less so than the first week in Cotonou, but still I’m surrounded by Americans
all day and have between 8 am and 5 pm of every day planned out for me.
I got back Sunday from my technical visit to Dassa, a pretty
good sized town right on the gudrone (paved road) about 4 hours or so north of
Cotonou. Two other volunteers, Alex and Becca, and I split the visit between
two current volunteers – one lives in Dassa and one lives in a small village
nearby. We were in the Collines,
which means hills, and in Benin means huge bare rock boulder things that were
really pretty. We were supposed to
hike up one but it was too rainy so no go. Highlights of the trip:
- My current record of humans in a ‘taxi’ (aka station wagon retrofitted with a third row of seats) stands at 14 (I was one of them)
- I ate rabbit for the first time (it’s awesome)
- I was in my first zem accident (got muddy, not hurt)
- Brigitte and Tony, the volunteers we stayed with, made REAL brownies with frosting
- We built two mud stoves in Tony’s village
- I tried tchouk for the first time (millet or something beer that tastes like sweet vinegary apple cider…kinda. It’s delicious.)
- We went to the yam pilée fête in Savalou and danced in front of a few hundred Beninese because it was either that or pay to watch them dance. The women dancing all had white powder on their shoulders and metal jewelry and beads on their arms. We were hysterically laughed at by everyone and had to dance around the circle three times trying to copy what the woman leading us was doing. Seriously, it was like National Geographic stuff except real life. My life.
It was a nice break, pretty chill, and it was good to get
out of Porto Novo. It started to
feel more like Africa as we got farther out of Porto Novo, if that makes any
sense. It’s easy to forget
sometimes that we’re living in a city and that the rest of Benin is NOT like
Porto Novo and Cotonou. I got back
to my host family’s house around 6 pm on Sunday and just sat for the rest of
the day. Two of my host mom’s
nephews were here when I got back, not sure how long they’re staying but it’s
nice to have some other people around since Precieux and co. left. Dinner tonight was really good so I’ll
share – salad with potatoes, tomato, cucumber, carrot, green beans, onion, and
egg, ablo, jus with fish, ananas, Sprite.
Ablo was a special request made by me because I had it last week and I
really like it – it’s made with rice and is sort of sweet and a little spongy
and is in flower cut out shapes.
Jus is the name for tomatoes and onions cooked in oil (plus piment aka
spicy pepper sauce that I’m getting used to petite à petite). Ananas is pineapple, which is awesome
here. You can buy one off of
someone’s head on the street and they peel it, cut it up, put it in a sachet
(bag), and give you a toothpick to eat it with, all for 100 CFA (about a
quarter). I’ve never gotten soda
at dinner before, special occasion? No idea, but I’ll take it. Today was also a good day because I got
my first mail!! Oh happy day. Thank you thank you for the packages Mom and Dad
and shout out to Liles and my grandmother for my first African letters :).
I bought a cell phone! Fair warning that it will most likely
be crazy expensive to call me on it though, but if you call my phone through Skype
apparently it’s not too bad. Tomorrow is Songhai, another round of Hep A and B shots, and
an American meal for dinner. I was
informed tonight that I will be cooking tomorrow and the plan is eggplant and
wagasi (a kind of cheese) parmesan if they’re selling eggplant at Songhai. Beninese don’t really think it’s a meal
if there’s not a carb, a meat, and a sauce, so I figured I should be safe with
that.
All of your emails and notes and letters are appreciated so
much more than you know, thank you!
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