Happy Halloween!

Eat lots of candy for me, Halloween hasn’t caught on in Benin.  I’m in the Parakou workstation for a few days to go to the bank and use the internet and….oh yeah celebrate Halloween!  There are a ton of volunteers here, which means sleeping on the floor and fun stuff like that, but it’s nice to see people I haven’t seen since swear-in.  Life is pretty good, parasite is still kicking which is not so fun but I've had progress on the work front.  I met with the director of the ecole primaire (elementary school) in Tonri and when I told him I studied science he asked if I'd be interested in teaching the oldest class (CM2, about equivalent to 5th grade) about nutrition.  I jumped at it, and now I'm working on making some kind of lesson plans.  The kids don't have a super high level of French yet, so there's a lot of repetition and lessons are basic.  Hopefully I'll start teaching in November sometime.  I also met with my supervisor and homologue and am going to start going to Pehunco one day a week to hang out at my homologue's ONG's office (ONG = NGO in French) and maybe do some work.  Not sure on that one yet.  

Food.  If the following isn't interesting, my apologies, but I think food is interesting and I like talking about it and eating it, so here goes.  I thought it might be kinda cool to tell you about what I eat and what people in my village eat.  Since school started there's been some more street food popping up, especially breakfast stuff.  If I don't eat bread (if I've been to Pehunco recently) or oatmeal for breakfast, I usually get something from one of the mamas that makes food.  My favorite are these kind of steamed bread things that are made by pouring batter into old tomato paste cans and cooking them in a big marmite (pot) over a fire.  It's eaten with a spicy pepper sauce and no I have no idea what it's called.  Enough to fill me is 25 CFA, which is ridiculously cheap.  You can also get rice with a few beans thrown in (called wake) or bouillie, which is actually available at all hours and is a porridge kind of stuff made with flour and water.   Snacks (ever important) are cooli cooli, fried, spicy, peanut butter sticks, sometimes bananas or oranges, fried dough balls, and after 5 pm fried yams (probably my favorite, also with piment pepper sauce).  I usually cook lunch - pasta with various sauces, soup, peanut butter and banana, rice...I can get tomatoes, onions, garlic, okra, and eggplant at the marche in Pehunco, and with different spices lots of combos can be made.  My concession family gives me dinner most nights, which is igname pilee or, recently, pate (pot) with sauce.  Sauces change every day, but they're all spicy and usually have either a little okra or other green stuff.  No protein, so sometimes I supplement.  The only protein source (unless you own and kill your own animals) I've found in village is fromage de soja (soy cheese), which is actually pretty much tofu.  It's really cheap and is pretty good.  When I was down in Cotonou I bought nutella, which was a really good and a really bad decision because it's awesome but I can't stop eating it.  Thanks to my parasite buddy I'm uh...not really gaining a lot of weight, so when I have an appetite I try to eat as much as I can.  It's funny seeing people after they've been at post for a month - almost everyone, and especially the guys, have lost weight.    

Days are pretty slow paced, I usually get up (ok so really I'm woken up) before 7, since kids and radios playing loud Bariba music are turned on before 6.  I'm asleep well before 10 (ok so sometimes before 9).  I've done some weeding in the garden and have staked some tomato plants with sticks since they were horizontal from the ridiculous downpours we get.  My supervisor told me to tell the women they need to weed the tomatoes, and since I don't have a firm enough grip on Bariba yet I thought I'd lead by example and kinda hope they'd just follow along.  They didn't, but he came and we had a meeting last week and he told them if they didn't weed they be discouraging me and they said oh no Molly we don't want to discourage you so now they've weeded some.  I read a lot, I go sit with people at their houses and just kinda watch what's going on, I walk places, and I get picked on by the little kids in my concession - they like to touch my hair, my book, my pens, look in my window...cute, but knuckleheads nonetheless.    

OMG CAMERA!!! Kids going crazy.

Hope everyone is doing well!  Thank you thank you for your letters and packages :)  

Happy early bday Leslie!