June

The following are excerpts from my journal…for the most part.

6/1/11

Aliou broke my heart a little today because he was the last one to finish his cloture (fence) that the director made all the kids build around their trees and they were all complaining about being hungry and he’s so little and has such a spark.  So I helped him finish up by tying strips of flexible, orange bark to tree branches and Sabi came over and helped him too.  Today is Benin’s Arbor Day.  I brought moringa seeds to the school and the kids planted them in sachets (plastic bags).  I made a “Journee Nationale de l’Arbre” sign on khaki paper and had the kids hold it up while I took a picture.  Oh how they love love love pictures – as long as you show it to them afterwards.  They also installed the C.E.G. Tonri sign today, exciting stuff.  I sat with the director for a while and chatted, mostly about how the school has no money because people in Tonri won’t pay (the idea is for every adult to pay a small contribution to the school regardless of weather or not they have kids that go there).  He knew about the tornadoes that hit recently in the U.S.  Then the professor who lives in Tonri commandéd (ordered, as in he sent one of the girl students to go get it) what I thought would be normal millet (pink) bouillie, but was actually something very close to barf in consistency.  It was kind of like normal bouillie with slightly chunky milk in it and, just for fun, small brown chunks (yes chunks) of something slightly spicy with the consistency of chewy beef jerky.  I was of course given a big bowl of it and everyone dug right in.  I was going strong until the last third or so that I had to sort of talk myself up to (honestly the taste was better than I’m sure it sounds, but the texture really got to me).  For a few minutes I was legitimately worried that I would spontaneously projectile vomit and embarrass/offend the teachers, but I held strong.  Little cautious of offers of free food now though.

6/14/11

When do you know you’re not in America anymore?  When you have to wake up the mayor (at 4 pm, at his own house) in order to have a meeting with him.   Salomon (my APCD) stopped by on his way from Kerou and we, along with the premier adjoint (the mayor’s second in command, she’s (well duh) a woman and pretty awesome) pretty much camped out outside the mayor’s house for an hour or so until he woke up.  Eventually he came stumbling out, buttoning his shirt as he walked up to greet us.  Salomon was pretty persistent and said multiple times, well I was here two months ago and you (my supervisor) said you would talk to the mayor the next week.  Didn’t happen of course.  (This is in regard to me moving to Pehunco, the commune head, which I’ve been trying to do for a while.  Both my Beninese supervisor and Peace Corps are supportive of me moving the 10k from Tonri to Pehunco, but the hold up has been who will pay for my housing.)  By the end of the conversation though they were discussing potential houses for me so…progress!   The mairie (mayor’s office) agreed to pay for my housing.  I still have to get the house approved by Peace Corps but it’s a step forward.  I biked in and on the way out of Tonri the woman with a lazy eye who does hair and makes gateaux stopped me and asked me to buy her a kilo of sugar in Pehunco, which I gladly did.  I flipped out on some kids on the ride back home.  I had bad timing and happened to be passing the elementary school in Soassararou which is on the main road right as school was letting out.  I made the mistake of stopping to say ‘i ne madame!’ (‘call me madame’ in Bariba) aka quit screaming batoure (white person) you hellions, and I got swarmed.  If I can I try to stop when kids yell batoure at me and say hey, my name is Molly or ‘il faut dire madame’ (both of which I can say in Bariba so they’re usually understood) or something, because it’s so much more pleasant to hear 30 kids yelling your name or madame than it is to hear them yelling BATOURE BATOURE.  So anyway some of the older kids laughed at my Bariba and then chased after my bike when I left, so I stopped and screamed at them in…well mostly English.  I thought it was totally called for, but the couple adults standing around just stared at me.    

Beninisms

1. It costs the same to eat breakfast in village as it does to send a text message here.

2. Oranges are green. Some (ripe) bananas are too.

3. A '5 place' taxi often holds up to 8 people; '9 place' taxi holds up to 15

4. Mamas who sell food get really upset if you try to buy a large quantity of something, like rice for example.  Their rationale? If they sell all of their rice to you, there won't be enough for them to sell to other people.  And everyone has to eat.

5. Impending transactions are often cancelled if the seller doesn't have the right change.  Having enough change (petite monnaie) is always a problem, and someone will turn down a sale rather than give you all of their change.

6. To announce your presence outside of someone's house you clap or say 'ko ko ko', because people often don't have doors to knock on.

7. When you ask someone for their name they give it to you last name first, followed by their first name. Slightly confusing at first.

8. A woman walking around village topless is completely culturally appropriate; flash anything above the knee and well...you're being a little risqué.


More to come, when I remember them.

School

My village, Tonri, has both a public école primaire and collège.  The école primaire is, yep, a primary school with grades roughly from first to sixth.  The college just opened this year and so (like Dillard Drive Middle School when I was there) has only the youngest grade, 6ème.  As Benin is a former French colony, their education system is modeled after the French one, with middle/high school grades starting at  6ème and ending with terminale.  Other French holdovers include not-as-good-as-Paris-but-decent baguettes, vache qui rit cheese (laughing cow), and nutella.  Oh and also the national language.  The school starts at 8 am, with a break at 10:30 during which the kids eat bouillie or rice, then continuing until ‘repos’ from 12-3:00.  Kids go home during this time, eat, do chores (if you’re a girl), or hang out (if you’re a boy).  Class then restarts until they ring the bell at 5:00.  Pretty straightforward right?  Here’s some particularities.

1.     Everyone has to wear a uniform.  Uniform = khaki.  All public school kids have to wear uniforms made of khaki material (as in similar to what khaki pants are made out of).  Girls wear skirts and shirts or dresses, and boys wear shorts and shirts.  Khaki adds a certain intimidation factor like when school lets out and suddenly there is a several hundred deep mass of similarly dressed children running in the same direction.  Khaki is serious business – kids who can’t afford to buy it can’t go to school.  Private and religious schools usually have non-khaki uniforms, but uniforms nonetheless.  In Pehunco I see hordes of kids in light blue or purple clothes. 

2.     Every public school student has to shave his/her head.  Yes, boys and girls.  The secret to identification is earrings, which girls always wear.  This works well with babies too.  Another identifying factor, shaving your head is a sign that you’re in school.  I mean you can have some hair, don’t get me wrong, but I have personally witnessed a teacher grabbing a boy’s hair that was apparently too long and yelling ‘il faut te coiffer!’.  Translation – cut your hair.  I’ve heard multiple explanations for this, including that it is done to minimize distractions help differentiate and unify school kids.  It was a little off-putting at first, to see all these kids with buzz cuts, but, well, the girls can pull it off. Even boys who aren’t in school have short hair, so notice that it seems to only be the girls’ hair that poses a distraction. 

3.     The kids are the janitors.  They are responsible for keeping the school clean.  Every so often I see all the little ecole primaire kids outside sweeping, raking, digging, etc the school grounds.  Manual labor is a part of school.  No, they’re not killing them, and I actually think it’s pretty reasonable and smart to give kids the responsibility to maintain their own school.  The collège has time set aside every Friday for the kids to clean the school grounds, sweep the classrooms (still dirt floors we haven’t gotten cement yet), and clean the chalkboards.  Consequence?  You don’t see gum on the desks or much trash in the classroom.  Also, as an added plus this system discounts the need for janitors.  I don’t really know who would clean up after a kid who tossed his cookies in the classroom, but I assume they just deal with that on a case by case basis. 

4.     Singing is encouraged.  This one applies mostly to the ecole primaire, although I sing songs with the older kids during English club (most recently it was head, shoulders, knees, and toes).  Singing is used to help teach French and memorize new words.  Remember, these kids all speak local language whenever they’re not in school, so they’re having to learn the French language while simultaneously being taught math, science, and history in French.  Makes for a rough first few years of school.  They’re ABCs song is to the tune of auld lang syne. 

5.     School is extremely regimented.  Thinking outside the box, imagination, and creativity are not encouraged or really recognized. When the teacher enters the classroom the kids hit the desk in front of them and stand up simultaneously to say ‘Bonjour/bonsoir madame/monsieur’.  To answer a question or when called on you stand up first then give your answer.  There’s a lot of emphasis put on how you answer as well as the content of your actual response.  Phrases have to be formulated a certain way, be in grammatically sound French, and be pronounced correctly.  Needless to say this quells most kids’ interest in voluntarily answering questions.

Ti  We're in chaleur and it is hot.  Sitting still in my house and sweating hot.  Drinking water is as warm as bath water hot.  Multiple showers a day hot.  It's almost mango season, which people say is the saving grace of chaleur.  This is still yet to be determined.  I'm really excited for Casey's wedding and to see everyone soon! Closer and closer, it's almost April!  My apologies for not writing on this for a while, I hope you're all doing well and enjoying spring :)


****I changed the address boxes can be sent to from Natitingou to Parakou - the address should be on the right side of this page.

Tobré day

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.       

Dere with Dado (Salu in the corner)

Peuhl kids

Merry Christmas from Benin!

Merry Christmas guys!!! Since I couldn't go Christmas shopping this year, here's a substitute present. For all of you.  Fresh from Benin. Hope you enjoy :)  The video won't upload on my blog but you can see it here: http://beninlife.blogspot.com/

There are about 10 of us at the Nati workstation for Christmas - a lot of other volunteers went down to Grand Popo, a really nice resort beach area.  Yesterday (Christmas eve) we made a shopping list and bought all the food we'd need for today from the supermarche and outdoor, regular marche, so now we can stay in and watch movies and EAT.  You can make a surprising amount of Americanish stuff from ingredients you can find here.  Breakfast: cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs, Lunch/Dinner: lasagna, salad, bruschetta, garlic bread, apple pie, brownies, cake.  This morning we started cooking to Elf, and now Glee is on. The workstation is decorated and we made paper snowflakes yesterday which helps it feel a little like Christmas.  It's still hard to believe, because it my mind it's still oh about...July.  I know time has passed, but it's gone by quickly and it also doesn't FEEL like Christmas (80 degrees...Christmas...what?!). 

I leave tomorrow morning (!!!) for a two day safari in Parc Pendjari, which is a few hours north of Nati.  Our guide is picking us up from the workstation and driving us up.  The park is supposed to be one of the best in West Africa because it has a lot of animals in a relatively small area.  It's also dry season which should increase our chances of seeing stuff.  Hopefully I'll have lots of pictures to put up.  The past few weeks have been really fast - I was in Porto Novo for IST (in service training) for a week, plus the two days it takes to get down there and another two to get back up.  My friend Bailey came back to Tonri with me for a few days in between IST and Christmas to see the water pump in the garden, since she works with the guy who's supposed to be finishing the hosing system.  It was really fun having her there and we made lots of crazy good food.  French onion soup, pizza, reese's peanut butter cup and banana pancakes.  I was at post for two nights and then all of a sudden it was time to head to Nati.  There's only one taxi driver that goes from Pehunco to Nati, but he's pretty good.  Generally leaves early, drives fast, all business.  Yesterday, however, he was in a hurry.  Something about he was continuing on to Tanguieta after Nati because someone was hurt etc etc, anyway we get to a part of the road that is being worked on - trucks are dumping mass amounts of dirt in an attempt to smooth out the ridiculously pitted roads.  Backing up a little bit let me set the stage. Bailey and I (plus the driver and another passenger) are crammed in the front seat, there's 8 or so other people in the car, and all of our luggage plus two guys are on the roof (this is a station wagon by the way).  We approach the construction area and see a guy standing in the middle of the road waving his hands.  Some might see this as a cause for concern, or at least motivation to slow down a little.  Our driver, in a hurry remember, maintains his speed until it's just almost too late, swerves and keeps going, brushing off the arm-waving guy's yells.  Now we're on a road with huge mounds of dirt scattered across it.  We're getting closer and closer to a particularly massive pile and it's clear there's no way to go over or under it, so we swerve around it.  Dirt roads here have big culverts (ditches) on either side of them, and our extremely top heavy car slides into one.  We ride in the ditch for a while, but then we have to get back onto the road.  The driver eases the car up...but it doesn't go.  We slide back into the ditch.  He tries again - gunning it, the car swaying, leaning at a physics-challenging angle, Bailey and I squeezing each others hands not wanting to look but doing it anyway.  We legit thought we were going over.  It was close.  But...we made it.  We screamed.  Then we added it to the tally of craziness in Benin.  About an hour later we hear a loud gunshot-sounding pow.  Busted tire.  We stop, 14 people file out of (and off of) the car, and the driver's assistant changes it in about 15 minutes.  Pile back in (and on), 20 minutes go by, and we're in Nati.  A little Christmas eve adrenaline pump.  Right now we're all coming off sugar highs from the cinnamon rolls and we're starting Planet Earth.     

Stay warm, eat a lot, enjoy the day.  And Happy New Year!

Trois à la fois

Not trying to brag, but...

Also,

do any of you guys have questions you want me to answer? Anything you're curious about? Let me know and I'll write about it...it's getting to the point where I'm not sure what's considered weird anymore, so I don't know what would be interesting to hear about.  Let me know!

Rodenticide

My proprietor's advice for getting rid of the mice in my ceiling was to get a cat and stick it up in the ceiling, thus scaring/killing all the mice.  I took the first part of his advice.  This is Scout.  I know she doesn't look super ferocious, but she's already killed and eaten a mouse.  I think she ate the whole thing - I never found any guts and she had a big belly when she was done.  She likes to sleep and play in the window, and also meow. But pretty cute nonetheless.