A Day in the Life

A fair and common, if not easy, question I am asked is what a typical day is like for me as a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin.  Here is a description of one of mine, but first a few caveats:

            1. Peace Corps service is different in every country

            2. There really is no typical day, honestly

            3. This particular day was busier than normal

4. Be prepared that this will probably be fairly lengthy due to necessary explanations, translations, etc.

Ok, on y va.

Today I got up around 7:30, made coffee, and ate a Luna bar for breakfast (no these are not sold in Benin, I have a generous family).  I had agreed the day before to go to the house of a teacher I know who lives near me to talk about the English club he approached me about starting together.  I’d never been to his house before but lives in my quartier (neighborhood) pretty close by. I know him from Tonri since he teaches both there and in Pehunco.  I walked over to his house but he wasn’t there, so I went back home and did laundry for an hour or so while I listened to a podcast.  I tried again and he was home, so we sat and talked and settled on the days and times for English club (we’re going to try two separate times for older and younger students), and how the club would run.  I applied for and just picked up from the post office in Parakou a free box of books from an NGO from Connecticut that included easy reading and kids’ science books in English.  So, my suggestion was to review concepts the students are learning in class during the first half of the club session and to do more fun activities and practice reading during the second half (well ok so honestly probably more like looking at the pictures).  He agreed.  So then the teacher told me about an ONG (NGO in French) he’s starting to promote education and encourage parents to send their kids to school (elementary school is free but parents often don’t send their kids to school so that they can work in the fields or because they don’t see the value of education).  He has a friend at the mayor’s office that he says has an education related promotional video, in Bariba, that we can use.  His idea was to show that video in Tonri as it’s the beginning of the school year and because CEG Tonri still needs more students to enroll.  I was totally for it – a movie in Tonri, a village without electricity (we’d use a generator), would definitely attract people, and if they happen to be swayed even a little that’d be great. 

            Lunch time.  I made a tuna fish sandwich and ate that and bananas, then read for a while (Tortilla Flat by Steinbeck, it was ok).  Noon to 3:00 is repos (rest time), which means that Pehunco gets a slight ghost town feel and not much work is done.  At 3:00 I went to talk to my homologue about a latrine-building project he brought up recently and I happened to mention the Tonri movie idea.  Oh, he goes, well I have a projector that you could use.  Awesome! We talk for a little bit, but we were trying to find something online and his internet key wasn’t working, so he says ca te plait d’aller à Gnemasson? (would you like to go to Gnemasson?).  Ok, sure.  Gnemasson is a village 23 k from Pehunco on the road to Kerou (north of Pehunco).  He was going there with coworkers from Plan Benin (an NGO he works with) who were here from Nati and wanted to do a site visit and talk to some of the kids who have sponsors through Plan.  Plan is an international ONG that works to combat child trafficking and to promote children’s rights, etc, something like that.  As an added bonus, the guys from Nati came here in an air conditioned Plan SUV so we got to take that to Gnemasson.  There’s a new volunteer there this year who will be teaching English at the CEG, so I called him and he met up with us when we got there.  We went around to a few families and then drove back to Pehunco. 

            I biked home from my homologue’s office, took a shower (bucket), and then ate pate and soy cheese with my concession sister.  The family generally watches TV every night, assuming there’s electricity; I don’t always join them but I did tonight and it proved to be a good choice.  First we watched what seemed to be an African Christian channel (the family is Muslim) that was showing music videos.  They really liked this channel so we watched it for a while.  One of the songs got to me, and I don’t mean touched me deep down.  I had to try really hard to keep a straight face and not bust out laughing, which was doubly difficult because no one else was at all amused by the video.  Let me set the stage.  An African woman is lip-syncing to a religious song in French on a beach, spliced with shots of her standing on a staircase.  The camera zooms in so that the shot shows her mouth only and then out again, over and over, dizzyingly fast.  Every few seconds you see clips of what seems to be a 70s era religious movie with men wearing long robes and sandals, just sort of you know…thrown in there.  Then it was time for Shree, an Indian soap opera produced in English and dubbed over in French.  Man oh man, this one was intense.  There’s an evil woman that is trying to sabotage the family and fooling people by taking on the form of other people.  Devils and children with magic powers and Diwali all rolled into one 30 minute episode.  Lots of prolonged shots of characters’ faces contorted with emotion and dramatic music. Also, saris.   

            And then I went to bed.