Today was a Tobré day. Tobré is Sara’s post and is a village
somewhere in between the size of Tonri and Péhunco (still no electricity, but
they have bread, salad, street meat, a real health center, a mayor, and a real
CEG) that’s 13 k by the big road and only 7 k or so by la petite voie (the
little path). La petite voie is
pretty cool and a nice break from the terre rouge dust madness of the big road
(still unpaved but cars go on it).
In a lot of places it’s only a zem/bike width wide and you roll through
cotton fields, herds of cows with scarily big horns, and lots of Peuhl. It’s a little BMXy but without mud it’s
manageable. On my way today I saw
four little Peuhl girls walking and thought it’d be a cool picture but also
thought it’d be a little creepy to take their picture from behind, so I rode up
to them and asked first. They were
all smiley and understood at least the word ‘photo'.
Sara was meeting me halfway on the path,
and as always happens some guy riding by on a moto stopped and said ‘oh hey, the
other one, she’s coming this way!’ It was
Tobré’s marché day (day before Péhunco’s, Tonri’s is the day after) so we went
and sat and ate bissap after bissap in the shade. No warning, but Harmattan seems to be over except for a few
sweet hours in the morning and we are now entering chaleur (hot. hot.
hot). Bissap is purpley red juice
made from hibiscus leaves and sugar, and you can buy it by the bottle (100 CFA)
or in 25 CFA sachets, frozen.
There are also pink, orange, and yellow sachets of some kind of frozen
juice that are pretty good too.
There are a ton of Peuhl people that go to Tobré’s marché, and some
women happened to be walking by when we were looking at Peuhl beads. They wear lots of jewelry – necklaces,
bracelets, anklets, and earrings, and it’s all either bright beads (they like
blue and white a lot) or silver metal.
One of the women put a strand of beads around Sara’s neck and one around
mine and then we bought a few more.
They get a kick out of us wearing Peuhl beads…well either that or they
just think we’re fou, but anyway they laugh.
We bought a pile of ignames and brought
them pack to Sara’s concession because we decided to make igname pilée with
her concession family. Steps are
as follows: 1) Peel and cut up ignames, 2) boil them, 3) pilée (pound) the hell
out of them. Piléeing is done in a
big mortar and pestle made out of a hollowed out tree trunk and a carved tree
branch. They didn’t think we were
strong enough to pilée (they may have been right…a little) so we didn’t do a
whole lot, but it was kind of fun watching anyway. They made really good sauce with tomato paste, oil, ecraséd
sesame seeds, spices, and soja that you dip the igname pilée in to eat. We did not so much for the next few hours,
being dead from biking, piléeing, and eating. That night we played uno with the girls in Sara’s concession
by candlelight and danced to Waka Waka (everyone everyone knows that song here),
and then it was one more day done.
A few weeks ago marked six months in Benin, and man le temps passe
vite. It doesn’t seem like I could
have already been here for that long, but then again I feel like I’ve come a
long long way since stage. Or even
since getting to post. Some things
that were scary are laughably easy now, but new challenges emerge everyday. Now I’m not scared to go to the pump
for water, but I’m struggling with work dynamics and negotiating my work partners
being in Péhunco and me being in Tonri.
Some days fly by and all of a sudden it’s dark and time for candles;
some days I find myself staring into space at 9 am trying to pass the time or decide
what to do.
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| Dere with Dado (Salu in the corner) |
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| Peuhl kids |
