So I was in New York City for a couple of days before heading out to Alaska. There are a few things I'd like to write about so I figure I'll start at the logical place, the beginning.... heads up this will probably be a series of posts.

Jason and Lynn dropped me off at the airport for a direct flight from Charlotte to JFK. Keep in mind this is the ONLY direct flight in my travels. When I was checking in I was put on a list of people who would be willing to take another flight for compensation. I was told to sit near the booth and listen for my name. I checked in with the representative and they said that they thought it was unlikely but to stick around. So I did. There was a guy (early 20s) who sat a few seats down from me. To borrow an expression from my dad he looked like he'd been hard used and thrown away wet. The poor guy was having a hard time keeping his eyes open, he was wearing sunglasses, coughing, and sweating profusely. I realize that these symptoms could be brought on by poor choices the night before, but I still felt a little bad for him. He then leaned over and was slurring his speech when he spoke to the point where I had to ask him to repeat what he said. He was on stand by and wanted to have a cigarette. In order to have a cigarette he had to stop outside security as there are no designated smoking areas within the Charlotte, NC airport. He asked that if he gave me his phone number if I could call him to let him know they had called his name. I politely suggested he speak to the airline representatives about his problem since he did have enough time to have a cigarette and come back and still be waiting at the gate for about 30 minutes before they boarded. He huffed off and left a carry on bag at the gate. I figured maybe he had taken my advice.

He came back 30 minutes later and looked slightly better, maybe he had gone to the bathroom and puked. He also had a strawberry milkshake and what appeared to be a medium cup of either ginger ale or sprite. I told him that there were names that were called and he should check. So he did, and then sat directly next to me and took up the whole arm rest plus a small portion of my chair. He also smelled real bad. Thanks dude. He then proceeded to fall asleep holding the milk shake. I watched as slowly his muscles released in his arm and the milkshake began to tip. I considered my options. I knew it was the right thing to do to save him from pants that smelled like sour milk and fake strawberries, but also the milkshake was in his crotch. If he woke up and found my reaching for his manhood he might take it the wrong way. But then I thought about my idea that all people are good. Here was my golden opportunity to be one of those people. Was I saving this mans life? No, but frankly if the situation were reversed I would want someone to do the same. So with less-than-cat-like reflexes I grabbed the milkshake before it could release it's wrath on his guys pants. I put it on the ground next to his other drink. As I did this, he of course woke up. I was wondering how he was going to take this. He seemed a little surprised but then he said 'uhhh.. thanks. That could have really made my trip suck' He then bought me a cup of coffee, which I almost told him to drink.

Having felt better about my impact on the universe I boarded the plane. My milkshake free friend unfortunately didn't get on, but he looked like he needed to take a 3 hour nap anyhow. When I located my seat I discovered there to be a little girl in it. I looked at the adult who was with her and He explained that he was her father, they had booked them for window seats on opposite sides of the plane. He asked if I would switch with his daughter so they could sit together. I was excited, I was seated originally in the aisle, now I got a window seat! My good karma was already paying off. This situation was a win-win. I feel like when you're a single traveler you should almost always switch seats to make sure a family with elementary aged (or younger) children can sit together. I then sat next to someone who lived in Charlotte and was off to visit his father in Uganda. I was extremely jealous. We had an excellent conversation. It was a good, short flight.

From there I caught a cab and made my way into Brooklyn to stay with my friend.

From what I learned from this experience is that in order to prove the world is full of good people I also have participate in this experiment. In order to prove my point I must also take those opportunities to help and make someones day better, not for personal gain. I'm not paying someone back, I'm paying someone forward. There's something special when kindness and compassion are share, more people want to share it with others. Whens someone thinks back 'Wow another person who I didn't know did something nice for me today, however small.' I feel that person is more likely to give someone else a random act of kindness or compassion.

On Thursday August 5th I flew out of Cotonou with a few other volunteers. There were tears and laughter the last few weeks as we said goodbye to our friends and adopted families and then had to officially close out our service with Peace Corps.

I'm honestly not really sure what to say. How does one sum up two years? A single sentence or paragraph won't do, it won't express what I feel about my time in Benin. Last year while I was on vacation in the states a friend asked me if I still enjoyed my Peace Corps service. I said that I couldn't think of anything better to do with myself. I still believe that, that being a Peace Corps Volunteer was the best thing I could be doing with my time. But now it is time to move on to new adventures.

My Peace Corps service has come to an end, and so must my blog, but you can still keep track of me at http://www.malintegre.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwy7YdfdobMthere you are guys, the zemidjan song on youtube enjoy

Yes, that's right, Benin celebrated it's 50th year yesterday. I came down to Cotonou a couple days before the fete and decided that I should go and say goodbye to my host family who opened up their home to me during the 9 weeks of training. I was on the phone with my host mama and I exlpained my plan before I went down. Originally I was going to go from Cotonou to Porto-Novo in the morning, hang out that Saturday, and then go backthat afternoon. There was another volunteer staying at their house and I didn't want to overstay my welcome. After I explained this to mama her immidate reaction was 'NO! You MUST stay here the night!' So my plans changed to spending the night.

I met up with the person who is staying with my host family this year before going over to the house and apparently mama had told them that I was staying 5 days, the time between then and when my plane flew out of Cotonou. I explained that this was not the case. I got home and I told mama that I was only spending the night and then I was going back to Cotonou. She really tried to convince me to stay there in Porto-Novo but I wouldn't budge. Then she was like 'You have to make us an American meal.' This wasn't something that I was planning on doing.

During my stay with my host family I made them Mac and Cheese. From there my host family has really gotten interested in American food. I made Mac and Cheese for my host family last year and this year it seemed like they wanted me to do it again. But when I explained the things I needed to make it, they told me they wanted a different meal. Basically the only time we had to make this meal was lunch the next day. We had to buy ingredients at the super market which was on the other side of town, and we were in the capital city on independence day. I asked mama if she thought that the super market would be open and she was positive that it was. So we got on a zem and went. Unfortunately the main road was closed because it was the parade route. So we took all the back roads which everyone else was trying to take. A bumpy long ride later we arrived at a closed super market.

So we changed our plan, tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Something that is super easy to make with all the ingredients foudn in a market. So we go back to the market and buy the stuff we needed. We then saw a helicopter, which might have been the only helicopter in Benin. We then continued and got hopelessly lost trying ti find our way home on back roads. We ended up taking a zem home which was what we should have done to begin with. Oops.

So we made tomato soup and grilled cheese after watching the parade. The parade was pretty much a bunch of kids walking down the street marching with pom pom like things. Nothing real special. So I ended up eating with my host family for lunch. Mama never made it back from work to enjoy tomato soup and grill cheese with us. Overall, a good farwell to my host family.

2am wake up to a loud banging in my salon. Think 'is it larium getting to me or is it my cats?'

3am dream about waking up to loud banging noise, in dream think 'is it larium getting to me or is it my cats?' wonder if this is actually a dream.

7am Knock on my door, wonder if it's larium

7h05 There's another knock my door, it's real. I go and answer it. I ask as I grab my pagne 'C'est qui?' receive response of 'C'est moi'

7h10 Open the door to find my landlord. 'Hi Melissa, I've come to say good morning, did you sleep well?' 'ca va' 'How is your health?' 'ca va' 'How are your cats?' 'ca va' 'Is your cat pregnant again' 'oui' 'will you give us a kitten?' 'oui' 'OK have a good day' we shake hands and I close and lock my door.

7h15 unlock and open door again to go pee. Get told by neighbor 'bonne piss'

7h20 close and lock door again and go back to bed

7h30 realize that I'm not going back to bed, read in current book.

7h40-8h00 kick cat off my mosquito net repeatedly while trying to read

9h00 wake up with book on my face

9h15 get up and boil water

9h20 heat up leftovers from the night before. Rice and tomato sauce for breakfast!

9h25 Go to get fried wagasi from plastic bin with lid, find it open on the floor. I shake my fist at the sky for dramatic effect and say as menacingly as I can 'damn cats.' decide to hard boil an egg.

9h45 eat leftovers

10h00 go out to pull some water from the well, a petite sees me and tells me I'm doing it wrong, pulls my water for me.

10h15 realize that I've been boiling my water for an hour, turn it off decide to have a cup of tea

10h15 read while having cup of tea

10h35 brush teeth and spit into my shower drain

10h45 decide to do laundry

11h00 get all set up to do laundry, and realize that I have no soap. Go put on a shirt and wear pagne as a skirt instead of a wrap dress to go and buy soap.

11h15 nearest boutique is closed, it's monday

11h20 next boutique only has Omo, rumor mill says Omo has been banned in China due to harsh chemicals present in its cleaning power. Contemplate how dangerous these chemicals are against the amount of clean clothes I have. Decide I'll test my luck, I'm probably getting cancer anyway.

11h30 start laundry and get told by a petite that I'm doing it wrong, petite does my laundry. I put a tea bag in a glass jar with some sugar and then stick it in the sun. sun tea later on today!

11h45 receive a call from a work partner. We need to 'faire le programme' about something. Make plans to do it over lunch today at 12h30.

12h30 Lunch time! Put on real clothes, tissue shorts and a t-shirt with marche flip flops. Read while I wait

13h00 still waiting for my friend, good thing this was the only thing I had planned to do today

13h15 my friend sends me a text 'je viens'

13h45 friend finally arrives and we go to lunch

14h00 order a beninoise, rice, and two chunks of wagasi.

14h10 tanti number one brings beers, leaves them on the table and forgets to open them. I use my key chain bottle opener to open our beers. Tanti number two comes with our food and a spoon and fork for each.

14h20 tanti number one comes back with a bottle opener laughs that we have already opened our beers and goes away. Mama comes up and says hello by giving me a big hug with a big smile on her face. She tells me that she has big plans for her bar. Shes going to put in another building, a fence, and one day she'll even have a projector so that people can watch the world cup games! (she actually does get all this accomplished before world cup. The projector does actually work making her bar the coolest bar in town)

14h30 my friend and I discuss work. He thinks there should be a new post a few kilometers south of here. We make a plan to go visit next week. Mission will be to determine interest from community. My friend tells me without a hint of sarcasm 'wow we've done a lot of work today'

14h45 we order another beer and get joined by some policemen.

15h30 we order another beer because the gendarmes have also joined us

16h00 I decide to walk to the market

16h05 another friend finds me on the road and gives me a ride to the market.

16h20 say hello to all my marche mamas, they tell me I've gotten fat since they saw me last I make a mental note to exercise today. I get tomatoes, onions, piedmont, greens, pure water sachet, spicy peanut ball, a couple of eggs and some dried fish

16h45 get picked up by another friend on my way back to my house

16h50 politely decline his marriage proposal as I get off his motto, but thank him for the ride.

16h55 get greeted by my cats jumping out of my window through the hole in the screen they've made

16h56 walk into house and find my bike has been toppled over, I wonder how one full size cat and one kitten could do so much damage.

17h00 feed obnoxious cats fish, equal amounts in two bowls

17h15 get changed into work out clothes and go for a bike ride

17h20-17h40 contemplate how effective development really is while riding my bike

17h45 it starts to rain

18h15 arrive in my house soaking wet and muddy. Feel relieved that I had that random plastic bag in my bike bag which saved my iPod.

18h20 make a playlist on iTunes for a couple hours of music, set up my computer in my kitchen and then take a shower

18h45 cook up dinner, rice with a sauce of everything bought in the market, topped with a hard boiled egg.

19h15 put copious amounts of salt on my dinner, then eat it

19h45 It starts to rain again, I put my buckets under my eaves, get soaked in the process

20h00 receive a call from my mom in the states. 'Sorry mom I can't talk because it's raining' she doesn't seem to understand, so I explain that I can't hear her due to the rain on my tin roof

20h10 read some more in my book as a cat is curled up my lap

20h15 As I'm putting on some pj pants in my bedroom the power goes out

20h30 I stumble around, stub my toe hard on a chair, step on a sleeping cat, walk face first into a door frame, finally find my phone and turn the flashlight on. I set up my solar powered lantern and thank the donor who thought about us peace corps volunteers.

20h35 My toe is bleeding, I go to my med kit and realize I've run out of band aids but I do have gauze and duct tape, that will work.

20h40 read some more, notice that I'm going to have to chose a new book soon

21h00 power comes back on

21h30 finish book, write it down in my book list, rate it on a scale on 1-5. its' my 107th book read since swear in

22h00 chose a movie to watch and thank Jim and Austin for setting up the Natitingou server

22h15 play a game of solitaire instead

22h30 pick a movie, Anchorman- The Legend of Ron Burgundy

00h00 finish movie, lock house, cat proof kitchen, chose new book, get into bed, tuck in mosquito net and read until I fall asleep. Last thought before drifting off 'Wasn't Peace Corps supposed to turn me into a worldly well rounded individual? I feel kinda like a 23 year old cat lady instead.' I then remember that I'm actually 24.

Girls camp this year was amazing! The Donga regional girls camp is definately a highlight of my service. The girls arrived eager and excited to start the week. They were all put into small groups, or teams. Each volunteer and tanti (Beninese camp counselor, their name is directly translated to aunti) were assigned a team to be with for the week. I was with a woman named Amina and we were the leaders of Team Green. This was a great idea because each volunteer was able to get to know a smaller group of girls. Every day the girls would start their day off with a game in their group and then go on to have a group meeting. The girls would have discussion questions relating to the topics of the day. Some sessions were about realizing your own individuality and embracing it, encouraging leadership, healthy relationships, sexual health, and a panel of professional women also came. After their morning meeting the whole group would come together for the days activities. some were arts and crafts related, others were more informative. After dinner certain girls were awarded points based on participation, leadership, and positive attitude. The girls really enjoyed the camp and you could tell by their enthusiasm during the sessions. The whole atmosphere of camp was positive and energetic. Come the end of camp we gave them all new school uniforms and a bag to put their note books in. At the end of the closing ceremony there were many of the girls crying because they liked camp so much. I also shed a tear or two in responce to how much they appreciated what was given to them. I gave each and every one of my girls a hug and more than half were crying. Thank you all so much for donating to this camp, the time spent there couldn't have been possible without you. It is most definately a worth while cause, and it shows that it had an impact on the girls.

So my medically evacuated friends and I were hanging out in our guest house and someone says 'we should try to see if we can't get tickets to the world cup game on saturday.' We all agree this is a good decision. Here is the problem we have less than 72 hours to find tickets and transportation. A game plan is made, I call up our transportation guy who's a large man named Fanie (no joke). He can drive us! Now we just need to find tickets. We look in the obvious places, ebay, criagslist, the ticket selling site. We finally find some! We contact our friend, and we come to an agreement about the exchange. He said he would contact us back, but we don't hear from him 24 hours later. So we try another guy who can meet us at the game! Perfect! We also get invited to a big pregame tailgating party with a bunch of fellow Americans! The world continues to look a bit brighter. Wealso decide that we need to get the blessing from Peace Corps to go. Which was a bit of a hassel considering how we're all here because we're sick, but we convince them all that even with our ailments we are still able to go to the game. Lets face it, a sore tooth isn't really going to affect my ability to sit in the stands and cheer for my team, hell it might even help my emotional well being.

That evening we went out and picked up some hats and mittens (the game started at 8:30pm) and t-shirts to decorate, face paint was also involved. We spent the night decorating our t-shirts by bleaching out the red/ blue and writing on them with permanent marker. I made mine striped using a tie-dye technique.

From there we get picked up by Fanie in a mini bus. He is also picking up a bunch of boys from London in Pretoria to get to Rustenburg. 8 or 9 boys all got on and we had a bit of a party including singing and drinking on the way down to the stadium. They all saw that we had our face paint and so a couple asked if I would paint their faces, so I did. Although I really did think about painting some obnoxious things on their faces rather than what they wanted. When we arrived at the park and ride we found some more Americans and talked it up with them about the game. Personally, I don't know anything about soccer, and it was good to get some info about the teams before going into the game. I then painted some more faces in exchange for beer (this is a great trade off for anyone who wants to get free drinks at a tailgating party) After having done this we realized we needed to find our tickets.

And so the adventure for the tickets began! We found out that they were in park and ride E in the green zone. Now you have to remember there are many many park and rides with number/letter/color coordinates. There is a free shuttle service to and from the park rides and the stadium. None of the shuttle drivers knew were park and ride E in the zone was. They actually just led us to this English style pub on the road near a bunch of other park and rides. This was not where we wanted to be in England central. We finally found directions and proceeded to walk 20 minutes only to find an empty parking lot in the middle of a field. While this was E for empty in a green 'zone' it was NOT the correct place. So I did what I do pretty well, I asked for directions from a random dude sitting on a parking barrier.

(Side story: I was lost in Montreal with my brother and cousins around 10pm I asked a guy for directions, at the time my brother and my eldest cousin were arguing about how to get back to the hotel. the guy i asked stumbled to the left a little puked into a drain and then gave us crystal clear directions which my brother couldn't believe were actually correct until we made it back to the hotel from them.)

Back on topic. The directions this guy gave us were pretty good but we didn't want to walk there so we flagged down a mini bus shuttle and the guy said to us 'Well, I don't know what E green stands for but there is a park and ride east sort of in that direction' the direction he pointed was definately NOT east, for the record. It was actually south. On the way me and the girls decide that we aren't going in the right direction based on the advice of the guy sitting on the parking barrier. But the driver can't turn around so we just go to the park and ride. Which does turn out to be park and ride E green! Imagine that. We finally meet our friends who greet us in true American fashion by asking 'Hey how's it going, do you want a beer?' I can't remember exactly how I responded but it was some form of 'heck yes'.

From there we made it into the game! Security was a bit of a joke. I had a bag that was full of clothes and all they asked about it was 'hey are those clothes?' 'yes' 'ok you're fine' no checking necessary. We all did get frisked by those hand held metal detectored though. The american fans were out numbered 3 to 1 I'd say. It was really cool to be there. But the horns that people have, the vuvuzelas, are completely obnoxious. We got ear plugs which were necessary. All in all the game ended in a tie. Good for the American team who were expected to lose. All the England supporters were not very happy.

From there we had a hard time finding our transport back to our park and ride. We were stuck in traffic in the bus for over an hour just getting out of the stadium. We then found our guy, Fanie, who took us along as he dropped off some other people. We were in the car to keep warm. Because of traffic the game got out at 10pm-ish and we finally arrived back at our guest house at 4am. The drive from the stadium to Pretoria is only about an hour on a normal day.

And so our adventure of hte world cup finishes. Good game, good people, fun time.

I remember when I started this whole using time of day to represent my Peace Corps experience. I remember people telling me that I would make it to midnight. I also remember midnight seeming like an eternity when I was at 2am. It's strange to think that my journey is almost over. I'm leaving for the states Aug 5th, to start a new chapter in my life. Find a job, make some money, remember how to be an American. When I started this blog I was excited about Benin, now that I'm ending my time here I'm starting to feel nostalgic about my time here, even though I'm still living it. Mixed emotions, sad to leave Benin and close the door on my time here. I realize that I can come back, but it won't be the same, even if I live in the same village, in the same house, doing exactly the same work, it won't ever be the same. People will change, my village will ever so slowly have become more developed in my absence. This has been the time of my young adult life. I know that I will have more adventures and a lifetime of opportunities to feel more alive everyday like I do in Benin. I'm a bit sad to have to leave West Africa. My emotions aren't just sadness, I'm happy to go home as well. Of course it won't be the same, just as Benin will continue to change when I leave, home has changed while I've been away. It's not the same, as much as I want it to be, even little things like my cousins getting older. I want to go home and readjust to the changes that have happened before they get out of hand and I return to a home I don't recognize.

My wish for my last days in Benin is to spend it with the people who have made my service. Go back to my village and spend time with my adopted families and friends who have graciously welcomed me into a world I knew nothing about, who encouraged me during hard times, who fed me when I burned my own dinner, who raised kittens with me, who made me smile on hard days, and who comforted and dried my tears.

A message to incoming Peace Corps Volunteers: When I went home on vacation a good friend of mine asked me 'So do you like being a Peace Corps Volunteer?' and my response was 'I couldn't be doing anything better with my time.' I still believe that, this was the best place for me at the time I joined. The good days, the bad days, the boring days, have shaped me into who I am today. I never thought I'd change so much, but I have and it's for the better. Welcome to Benin.

Just to catch you guys up on what I've been doing here in South Africa. Your tax dollars hard at work (or hardly working).

Disturbing fact: The entire Peace Corps budget is what is spent in Iraq in one day.

This is me at a restaurant called Crawdaddys. It was amazing food. I got a salad because I wanted a light dinner... This was the biggest salad I've ever seen.

I've also gone to a nature reserve just outside of pretoria and saw zebra, antelope and giraffe!

Yes, I was actually this close to the giraffe.

Interesting juxtaposition going on... giraffe with pretoria in the distance.

Me and the giraffe.

Zebra!

Since I've been in South Africa I've been able to pet lions, I've visited three malls (including the biggest one south of the equator) I've had cocktail hour, a picnic in a beautifully landscaped park, eaten sushi, Thai food, Cuban food, burgers and beer. In comparison to Benin it is the land of dreams. It's been a vacation basically. Peace Corps didn't send me here on vacation though.

The whole reason why I'm down here is because of a cracked tooth. I thought I'd update you all on the progress that has been made so far. When I arrived the dentist looked in my mouth saw two cavities that the dentist in Benin had missed and filled them. The cracked tooth, which had a crown on it from Benin, he said 'oh I see your problem right now, the crown is much too high' he then filed it down and it did improve but not enough for it to be completely better. He asked that I come in again after a few days had passed to see how it was settling down. The afternoon before I had my morning appointment I was flossing my teeth and the crown popped off. It HURT. The stub was exposed and raw I couldn't eat anything, sensitive to hot and cold, the works. I go back into the dentists office and he says 'huh, I see another problem, the dentist also didn't drill out all the infection before he put the crown on, no wonder why you were having problems.' At this point I have no faith left in the Beninese dentist. He then pumps my gums full of novocaine and drills my tooth down. He had to put more novocaine in three separate times. Close to the end I said that it hurt and he said 'I'm sorry love, we can't give you anymore'. So I cried in pain in the dentist chair. When all was said and done I had a permanent crown on my tooth. The dentist confirmed that THERE WAS ACTUALLY A CRACK IN IT! Which means I was RIGHT THE WHOLE TIME. So I've been on pain and anti-inflammatory medications for the past week or so. I went in yesterday and there is still a question of whether or not I need a root canal. I'll know more on Tuesday when I go in. I hope all goes well, and I don't need one, but if I do at least the whole deal will be over.

I am anxious to get back to Benin, I miss it and I only have a few days left there, 63, I'm not counting down or anything. I want to spend this last days in post saying goodbye to my friends and family.

The other day I took a trip to Ukutula Lion Sanctuary. It's a place where lions, cheetahs, and Tigers can live healthy lives. Lions that have been in zoos for example or places where their living situation was less than healthy can come here and continue to live out their lives. So while I'm against people thinking they can play with wild animals, such as they see a dolphin in the wild and think they can play with it like they would a dog, these animals are not living in the wild. I wish they were, but due to their past they probably won't be reintroduced into the wild. Our guide was very adamant about respect for these animals, like one would have for a horse. The expression 'don't poke the bear' came to mind a few times. So while they don't live in the wild they do take part in studies on genetics! We can learn more about them and maybe ideas of how better keep the species healthy can come from that.

Our guide told us that the cheetahs aren't normally social but this one came up and let us pet it, it was purring the whole time!

Me feeding a lion cub. It's name was fatty. Note to Perry's: I am wearing my Caspian Lake T-shirt. So a piece of camp came with me.

This is a tolder lion, only a few months (or maybe it was weeks?) older than the one in the previous picture. We went into the enclosure and it ran up and was very social. Unfortunately this lion almost tripped me while it was rubbing up against my legs and purring (such a cat!). These lions, even though young, were solid muscle and I'll never forget the strength this lion had as it was rubbing up against me. It almost toppled me over a few times.

This was our guide, Ben. He has worked with this lion since it was a cub and it was greeting him as we got close. It was strange hearing a grown lion purr. This same lion also sniffed my hand a few minutes after this picture was taken. I guess I never realized how big lions really are until this one stood right next to me, it was taller than my waist.

This guy fell asleep in my arms. How cute! They reminded me of Oose's kittens a little bit, but I could tell they would do a whole lot more damage than the pint-sized ones I've cared for.

They also had tigers too! Aren't they beautiful? We couldn't play with them because they are a bit rougher than lions are, a trait of their species, but we were able to get very close.

I realized that I had less than 100 days left in Benin awhile back. So in honor of that fact here is a list of 100 reasons why I love Benin.

Tissue

Drums

Wagasi

Never needing a sweatshirt

Air conditioning during chaleur

Babies.... everywhere

Kittens

Puppies

Cats

Dogs

Time is elastic

Friendship is easy

Beer is cheap

My Tailor

My Landlord

ORTB

Necrology

My neighbors

Chef

Funerals

Weddings

Tabaski

Family is a flexible term

Friendship es a flexible term

Local Language

French

Ex Pats

Bisap

Cafe au Lait

The Use of Sweetened Condensed Milk

Fan Milk

Sulani

Cafeterias

Yogurt on hot days

Bucket showers after taxi rides

Repo

Napping

Market

Dead Yovo piles

PCV parties

Celebrating the end of Ramadan by drinking

Rain

Sunglasses

Tailored clothes

Meals are less than a dollar

Biking

Cell phones with flashlights

Pharmacies without need of prescriptions

Relaxed attitude

Feeling alive everyday

Dancing

Mosquito nets

Easy laughter

Learning acceptance

Ceiling fans

MTN reduction

The everything adapter

Zems

Music videos

Making Music Videos

Slaughtering an animal as a form of partying

Star gazing

Lions

Elephants

Baboons

Warthogs

All other safari animals

Baobab trees

Mangos!

Yam pilee

Agouti

Folani/ Pul

Cows

Mud stoves

Compost Piles

Girls Camp

Womens Day

Gardening

Tree Nurseries

Fashion

Dry/ Rainy seasonal changes

Beninoise Beer

The Queen of Beers (Castel)

Sodabe

Tchook

Dancing is acceptable. anytime, any place

Belly Beads

Shea Butter

Pedicures

Jewelry

Pigmy Goats

Nagot

Anii

Lokpa

Djougou

Natitingou

Collines

Living in a country nobody knew existed until I explained

Pagnes

Bassila

So many of you know that I have been medically evacuated to South Africa. Now don't worry. Medical evacuation is necessary when the host country cannot fix your medical problem. It does NOT mean that someone is in critical care and in need of constant medical attention. For example my problem is that I cracked my tooth and the problem just went beyond a Beninese dentist. My dentist back in Benin suggested a root canal which is oral surgery. Oral surgery can't be medically cleared in Benin. I'm very thankful for this. Benin used to be medically evacuated to Dakar, Senegal. But due to changes within the Peace Corps Medical Office (PCMO) most (if not all) of Peace Corps Africa is now medically evacuated to Pretoria, South Africa. My jaw still drops when I realize that I can have a hot bath, go eat thai food and then have a wine and cheese picnic with my friends in the park. I have actually done all these things. It's a mix of Europe and Africa down here. I love it.

So the whole reason why I'm down here, a solution to the tooth issue! I went to the dentist here in Pretoria (whose last name is Beer, no joke) and I got a couple of cavities filled. But with the cracked tooth, Dr. de Beer said that my dentist in Benin put the crown on way too high. So he filed it down and I have another appointment. His diagnosis was that because the crown was so high it was causing excess pressure and therefore pain. Since it's been filed down teh pain has decreased but it's still there and it's now painful way down into my gum. Which when I told him this he made a face and basically said "Oh that's not good". But I have pain medication so I should be fine for a couple of days. That's the new information to add to the story of my tooth saga.

Some of the biggest moments in Peace Corps are arriving in country, Swearing in (completion of training and being an official volunteer), completed first year and Close of Service (COS). Last week I had my COS conference. Now a really cool thing about this conference is they put you up at a very nice hotel in Benin (top of the line) you get good food all the time, it's a great location ours was at Hotel du Lac in Cotonou. At the conference we learned about re-intergrating into American culture, medical information and how to get treatment for problems that arose during your service, and how to describe your Peace Corps expirence to potential employers. All important and useful information. Also it is the last time that we will all be together as a group. Never again will we all be together. A bittersweet moment. We all made it together, but now our time is coming to a close. It's been a great two years, wouldn't have been the same without you all, it's been a blast!

Hey everyone! here are a few pictures from my birthday party. Enjoy! A melange of American and German development volunteers.

Me and the guy sitting next to me. Hilarious picture. I'm pretty sure he's actually trying to look cool, whereas I quite frequently make funny faces at the camera (unintentionally and intentially)

Me and a couple Beninese friends.

Proof that I do actually glow in the dark here. This woman cooked all day for my birthday party and threw me and my friend an amazing fete. Thank you maman!

I'm stuck in the med unit in Cotonou, and honestly there's not a whole lot of things to do around here. I have excessive amounts of free time on my hands. I could be doing a few things, catching up with friends, reading, working on my project for girls camp, the usual. But what I chose to do instead is... job search. Job searching has kind of become a past time/ hobby for me at this point.

Those who know me, know that I'm a planner. I love to plan. In elementary school and high school in the winter I would plan my summers, and know exactly what my summer would like like by April. When I was applying for college I did early action (different from early application) and knew where I was going to college before all my other friends did. I began my application to the Peace Corps the summer before my senior year. I had a plan before many of my college friends even started thinking about plans. A big reason why I enjoy planning is opportuntiy it gives me to dream about what I could be doing. So it's not surprising that I've given a lot of thought about what I want to do.

Here's what I've come up with so far. I'm going to return home to the states and work at the ski mountain in town for the winter. I'm hopefully going to work there until the spring ski season is over. Then I'm going to apply to work at a wilderness adventure camp/ national park guide. Which means that I'm probably living out west!

So this is what I've been doing lately, dreaming about where I'm going to be after Peace Corps. While I am sad about knowing that I'm going to leave Benin it makes me feel a little bit better to know that there is another life that is calling.

Update: Got a crown put on my tooth but it hurts to chew much more than it did before. It's been a few days since the crown was put on... we shall see.

Dear Faithful Blog Readers,

I just found out that the 2010 Girls Camp in Djougou has been fully funded!!! To everyone who donated thanks so much This is truly an amazing oportunity for the girls of Donga region.

I was talking to my Aunt about girls camp last year and saying how while it is only a week, it's a week where girls are encouraged to be leaders, intelligent, and contributing members of a community. This is not how women are culturally treated in Benin outside of the walls of camp. My Aunt then reminded me that it wasn't just a week. Her daughter (Alayna), my cousin, went to a week long Women in Technology camp as a kid and came back wanting to be an engineer. My cousin now has a degree in Civil engineering. Aunt Monique reminded that these expirences can change the course of peoples lives, or if you believe in fate, encourage people to embrace who they were meant to be. I like to think that the latter is true. What you all have given these girls is more than just a week. Thank you.

-Melissa

Benin is like a dog who takes longer than average to train and still wees in relatives houses when you go visiting, the dog that eats an entire package of french praline chocolates brought from France, the dog that chewed up every last pair of your flip flops and then barfed on your favorite quilt. Then this same dog sleeps snuggled up against you every night, is always excited to see you, and looks up at you with eyes that make your heart melt so fast you don't know what hit you. This dog is actually mine at home, his name is Woody. He's the type of dog that you love in spite of their idiosyncrasies, a good dog underneath the weeing, chewing and eating of expensive french chocolates. Benin is like that, I love it in spite of itself. Sometimes Benin and I have our differences but I know at the end of my service, I really will have learned to love Benin.

Some places don't have to earn your love, Benin had to earn mine. When I walked off the plane I remember the hectic hip checking, elbowing game of getting you luggage off the small carousel. Then I walked out into the air of Benin, humid and hot at 11pm, it hit me like a smack across the face. During the first two weeks of living in Benin I had a severe case of amoebas where I lost about 10 pounds, almost a pound a day, and then the day that I felt I couldn't take anymore I found out that my grandfather had died. From there on out Benin and I weren't getting along and I was on 'tough it out' mode, which is probably why I ended up actually staying. But because of this choice I led the kind of life that you feel like you have to fight everything and everyone on anything just to keep some sort of sanity. Needless to say training was not a fun time for me.

I've come a long way from that girl who had a constant attitude problem. I've relaxed and let go a lot of the problems that I was having with Benin. The reasons I love Benin run much deeper than I ever expected. I love Benin for it's relaxed stance on everything, I love it for it's colorful life, I love it for being an adventure, I love how good food tastes better here, I love when I bite into a mango and the juice runs down my chin. Most of all I love it for making me feel more alive everyday of my life than I did back in the states. I'm not saying that I never want to leave, and I want to live the rest of my days in Benin, but I am saying that I will miss the daily adventures. Benin is an acquired taste, one that will probably linger in my mouth, and continue to come out my pores long after I've gone home. Benin somehow manages to magnifies every emotion, every event, good or bad. Life is more colorful, more wonderful, more irritating, and more obnoxious.

A big reason why I love Benin was that it challenged me. It gave me the opportunity to let go of insecurities that I had, and come into myself as (dare I say it?) an adult. I am more sure of who I am, and more accepting of who I'm not now than what I was back in 2008.

Even though Benin makes me want to pull my hair out sometimes, like when I'm stuck in a bush taxi with 20 other people in 110 degree heat, when strange men harass me, and when people refuse to give me the right price for things because I'm white, underneath it all, I love it, in spite of itself. Benin, you've earned my love.

OK so let your heart start to melt now.... the little boy next door who my neighbors call my husband was walking around and saw the neighbors baby in the stroller (this is an odd thing in Benin as all women just carry their babies on their backs), and he decided that he wanted to push her around. So there he goes, pushing new girlfriend around the concession... I think I might have been replaced.... ha ha oh well.

Updates: GET THOSE KITTENS OUT OF MY HOUSE NOW!tooth still isn't fixed....

One night my friend and I were at the bar having dinner and drinks and we were talking about birthdays. He tells me that his birthday is around the same time as mine. Immediately I get this idea in my head, I say 'we should celebrate together and throw a big party.' his eyes got real big and he said 'yes, that's a great idea.' We decide that we're going to bring our groups of friends together, the German development workers, the Peace Corps Volunteers, and our Beninese friends. We begin planning. What can we do now that we have lots of people to celebrate with? What better way to celebrate than slaughtering a goat?! And so the M'eat The Goat party was born.

We think about this idea. We need to find a bar, find a person to cook the goat. We were thinking of renting out a bar for the night but then decided this was going to be too much because then we'd have to hire a separate person to cook everything and then they would have to either cook it there, or we would all have to go to where she was cooking the goat. We decide to have the party at the same bar that we came up with the idea, skipping around a lot of logistical problems. The food is really good, the beer is always cold, this combination in Benin is hard to find. So we come up to her and tell her our plan. She has been harping on us to have a party at her bar one of these days. This was perfect. We tell her that we want goat, and she then talks to us about other food options. As much as I like goat, there also had to be something else. She asked how we wanted the goat prepared, we told her in sauce. We told her we wanted rice and yam pilee and she then asked us about types of sauces, specific ways of cooking the goat, and we were lost. We had never prepared a goat before. We gave her culinary freedom and said that we trusted her ability to come up with something delicious. My image of the party was that a person could eat either rice or yam pilee, whichever they wanted, with sauce, and goat. There would be a vegetarian option of wagasi. Pretty easy.

We get to the party and I inspect the food and talk to mama she has set up some tables near the dance floor. Good choice. Then she showed me the food, she had clearly been cooking all day long with her help. She took the lid off the rice, and it had cabbage, peas and carrots in it! This is exciting, she put vegetables in the rice! We were all expecting plain rice. She had made it even better. I told her this was excellent. People arrive and my german birthday friend and I had already decided we'd pay for the first round of drinks, so everyone gets a Beniniose (the Beninese equivalent to a Budweiser). After that everyone paid as they went. Then mama brings out the food. Everyone gets a plate of rice to start with a couple pieces of goat. I then saw what was happening when we said rice and yam pilee she thought we meant a course of rice and a course of yam pilee. This is actually kind of standard for Beninese parties, a coruse of rice and then a course of something else. I inwardly laughed, mama was giving a true Beninese party, and she did what she thought was best. Next the yam pilee, with peanut sauce and a piece of goat and wagasi. Mama had clearly taken her job very seriously to have made peanut sauce. In order to make peanut sauce they have to start with peanuts, that they grind by hand, making peanut butter. Mama has never made peanut sauce before for us.

Then a friend hooked up his laptop to the speakers at the bar and we danced to some music of each culture represented. My birthday friend and I decided that this was a huge success. We played American drinking games, we danced like Beninese and we all learned a few colorful German words, (which I seem to have forgotten). Overall a great evening of cultural exchange.

I didn't want you all to think that because I haven't posted a story about a taxi that traveling in them has gotten any easier. Guess what? It hasn't. Today on my way up to Natitingou I had a pretty bad taxi trip.

Lately whenever I have to take a taxi I walk on the main road, which is longer but there is a chance that I will find a taxi to Djougou on the way and leave right then instead of going to the taxi station, waiting for a taxi to fill and then leaving. I walk about half way there and no taxis what so ever have passed and a zem pulls up next to me. I decide to take a zem the rest of the way to the taxi. I get to the station and a taxi guy is like 'Hey we're leaving now, get in' and sure enough he does. This was too easy. I should have known. Another tactic I use while riding in bush taxis is to decide before I even enter the taxi that this will be a good trip, it will be without frusterations, it will go smoothly and I will arrive at my destination in a calm state. I get in and we stop at a village about 15 kilometers outside Bassila. Here we then proceed to load huge bag of grain on top of the taxi. I decided this would be a good time to take a nap. I wake up 45 minutes later they are still loading grain. Why this is taking so long I really don't know until I get out and take a look for curiousity sake. The grain bag pile is so high the pile is actually taller than the taxi. Excellent. By the time it's all loaded and everyone back into the taxi it's an hour and a half after I left. We then go about 3/4 of the way there and we pull into a market. All the grain now has to be off loaded. This time instead of taking a nap I chose to get something to eat for breakfast. About 20 minutes later I walk back just in time to watch the driver fight with the woman transporting the goods about the price. From what I gathered (they were speaking local language) the woman wanted only to pay for her seat and not extra for the exteme amount of baggage she wanted to carry to Bougou (the town) for the market day. After everyone gets off at this town the taxi is pretty much empty. We play the stop and go game to pick up more people and stuff. By the time we reach Djougou (remember this is only half way to Natitingou) it's 11:00. It has taken two hours to reach Djougou, a trip that is normally 45 minutes.

Of course, we always have to switch taxis in Djougou when going anywhere north. Now here is the first time this has happened to me. I'm waiting for change from my taxi driver and he hands it to me, 500CFA which is the correct price and then he slyly hands me another 200CFA and he says 'It's because the trip was so long and you were very patient and didn't yell at me.' We should stop everything right now and appreciate what just happened here. The man first of all said that his taxi ride sucked without prompting from me and then gave me a discount because of it.... while an extra 200CFA doesn't really make up for the two hour trip I accept it and move on. I go up to the first taxi guy who grabbed my attention and he goes to grab my bags and put them in his car. Once he's put your bags in his car you're stuck with that taxi. I hold on to my bags with slightly more force than necessary to keep him from taking them, but I wanted to make a point. I ask him 'So how many people are in your five seater taxi?' he doesn't look me in the eye but says 'we will leave very soon, just put your things in the car.' 'how many people are already in the taxi?' 'OK white girl, this is how it works I'm a driver and I drive that taxi over there and I will be going to Natitingou you should put your things in my taxi.' 'Taxi driver, you're not answering my question how many people are in your taxi?' 'There are some' 'No I want a number the answer to the question I'm looking for invovles a number, so one, two three' He looks a bit dejected and says 'you're the only one'. I then walk away, no way am I waiting hours upon hours for a taxi to fill up when I can find another one that's already full. Sure enough I find a mini bus (15 passenger van which typically holds 20-30 people) which is leaving right then. I get all packed in. Believe it or not everyone is going to Natitingou, a first. When I say packed in when we all did finally get out, at 1pm, I had bruises on my legs from where the girl sitting next to me knees were the entire ride. A few hours later while writing this I'm still sore from it. But hey c'est comme ca ici (its like that here).

Kitten update: They're ready to go get them out of my house!

Tooth update: Got impressions for a crown which will be put on earliest next week.

My cat had 4 more kittens recently. This makes the total of kittens she's had 12. This particular litter is very independent and will probably end up leaving home sooner than the others. My cat has tried very hard to keep them contained, and I build a few enclosures which the kittens have torn them down. They've already started eating real food and using the litter box. They can barely get into the litter box. I've found them sleeping in my kitchen, one day the orange one decided that it would explore outside. NOT OK. I'm going to be so happy when I don't have to deal with a cat who is constantly pregnant or has kittens.

Hope you all enjoyed the pictures.

Hey everyone! Last year if you remember the Donga region volunteers held a week long girls empowerment camp. We're doing it again this year! This week meant so much to the girls who went. Some topics we covered were self esteem building, child trafficing, sexual health, sports, arts and crafts, and of course we played lots of games and sang camp songs all week. It was a hugely rewarding time for the girls, camp tantis (Beninese women counselors) and volunteers alike. In order to fund our camp we are asking for donations from our friends and family. Please donate, it will mean the world to the girls, even if it's only a little bit, it helps.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=680-186

If that doesn’t work:Go to www.peacecorps.gov

Click Donate Now

Type “Farrell” in the search box

Click “Camp Success 2010

Thanks so much.

I've only got five more months in this country. Less than that by the time I post this. I'm writing this from my house at night. The rains will be arriving soon. I arrived in the rainy season, and I will be leaving in the rainy season. I remember when I arrived in this country with stars in my eyes, everything was a first, being in a third world country, being on the continent of Africa, first life after college, stretching my independence, the list goes on. I remember thinking that my time here seemed like it was going to be an eternity. The first year went by real slow, and the second year so far as flown by. I keep on asking myself 'where did that month go?' Benin has given me more than what I had expected to receive. Beyond learning French, and integrating into the culture, it has given me a confidence I didn't know I had, it has given me the reassurance that I can do anything I want, it has given me patience, it has given me insight into who I am, and most of all it has given me the opportunity to push my boundaries.

But now that time is coming to an end. So while that means that soon I'll be nearer to my family, in a culture that I visually belong in, and a place that I can drink the tap water without worrying about parasites, the return to the states will be bittersweet. I will miss the people here that I've met, I'll miss my second home, I'll miss going to the market everyday, riding my bike on the dirt roads, seeing the smiling faces of the neighbor kids as they run with my bike when I return, I'll miss eating a mango so delicious it melts in my mouth while the juice runs down my chin. I'll miss seeing new things everyday. While I'm eating moms good chicken soup at home I'll be thinking of mamas pate with sauce and wagasi.

I'm beginning to see how much I'm going to miss Benin now that leaving for good is becoming a reality. I may visit here again, but it is a big possibility that I won't ever live here again. I also realize that the possibility of me living in Bassila again like I am now is even smaller. As a result of this realization I've begun going around and telling people that I won't be living in Benin for too much longer. I've told many people throughout my service that I will be leaving in September 2010. They seem to have thought this date wasn't going to ever come. As I've been going I tell people I'm leaving in September and some have even reminded me that I've already told them. Every single person has been surprised that September is six months from now. I anticipated this happening that is why I didn't wait until two months before I left to tell them. People have asked me if I'm really leaving, if it's impossible for me to stay in Benin for the rest of my life, and why I just don't find other work in Benin. I've even had people offer to let me live with them while I find a job. My landlord almost began to cry (something that is completely culturally unacceptable here) when I told him I was leaving.

As I've tried to explain why I can't stay here people always come up with counter arguments. 'I need to work' 'You can find a good job here'... 'I need to finish my studies and go to graduate school' 'but then you can come back to Benin! You will be even more valuable!'... 'I don't have anywhere to live while I'm here' 'You can live with my family, free!'.... 'I like Benin but I want to experience different places' 'Togo is very different, or if you want to go very far you can go to Ghana'... these conversation go on for a long time. The only explanation I can give my friends that they have no come back for is 'My family lives in the States, and I miss them. I like it here, but they are there and I want to be with them.' Family here is very important. They take care of each other here in ways that doesn't happen very often in the states.

Families live in multi-generational concessions, often times aunts and uncles living together, cousins and siblings are the same, and if there is a death of a husband the wife and her children get absorbed into the extended family. The farthest family members go usually is the next town. Rarely they go as far as Parakou or Kara. For a member of their family to live on another continent is on such another level to what they're used to. I've been asked when I go home if I will buy a car and drive. There is no conception of the vastness of oceans, how far it really is, or that it is actually impossible to drive to North America from Africa. Unless it's the dead of winter and I cross the ice between Russia and Alaska (I'm not sure if this is even possible). My family next door is going to miss me they ask me if I will call them while I'm in states. As a member of their family leaving is very strange, so is me leaving their lives. They understand why I have to go, that my family is very important to me. But I also see them as members of an extended family I've created here in Benin. I'll be torn between two continents.

Note that none of these books are in any particular order.

5/5 rating

Eat Pray Love – Easy read. A book that just makes you feel good about life.

Ishmael – Says a lot about the world that I hope people feel, even if they don't recognize it.

Call of the Wild – This is referenced in almost every single non-fiction book about the environment or environmental protection. I can see people reading this as kids and wanted to be like the character and go savage.

Wilderness and the American Mind – History of the environmental movement. Interesting for me to see how all these events that I referenced in class affected each other.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Who can resist the magic of Harry Potter!? I can't. This is the not the first time I've read this, but it was just as good the second time around.

4/5

Ahabs Wife – A female companion to Moby Dick.

The Alchemist – Beautiful writing, interesting story.

A Farewell to Arms – I love Hemingway as an author.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals – Hilarious travel writer, who I wish Paul Thereux was.

Into the Wild – A person who decided to go against what society taught him and live his life as he saw fit.

The Time Travelers Wife – I watched the movie too, and the book contains much more of the story than the book does.

Walden – Take Thoreau with a grain of salt. His life didn't mimic the epic myth that we all chalk him up to. But he's still a great writer and has a lot of important ideas to share with the world.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – Great series in general.

War and Peace – Epic.

Tortilla Flat – Steinbecks retelling of King Arthur and the knights of the round table.

3/3

Lies my Teacher Told Me – How to better teach history.

The Scarlet Letter – It was OK. I expected a bit more from Nathaniel Hawthorn.

The Diary of Anne Frank – A book that I feel like I should have read before now.

Extreamly Loud and Incredibly Close – If you liked his first novel, Everything is Illuminated, you'd like this.

Robinson Crusoe – A jolly good holiday on a deserted island.

Under the Banner of Heaven – Mormon religion, from Krakaurs perspective. Honestly I like his books about man vs nature much better than man vs God.

Boy – Dahls childhood.

The 19th Wife – An interesting companion to Under the Banner of Heaven.

Sweet Thursday – Steinbeck, enough said.

The Places In Between – a man hikes across Afghanistan.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – coming of age story, similar to Catcher in the Rye.

So after having read 100 books, here are a few other lists:

Best Book:

Travels with Charley – John Steinbeck is my most favorite author and the story of him as a 60 year old man going on a cross country road trip with his dog is fantastic. The best book I've ever read. Not necessarily profound or challenging, but my favorite all the same.

Books I really tried to read, but couldn't get through:

Bury My Heart and Wounded Knee – the history of Native American peoples, after the white people came. While I do think that people should know all the underhanded things that were done to the Native Americans, reading hundreds of pages, upon hundreds of pages about the same thing got tedious. I can sum the whole book, the white people came, did some morally hideous things to Native populations and drove them out of their own land, they then put them on reservations, and/or killed them. The story is important. I just couldn't get through the same story over and over again.

Breaking Dawn – I got within 100 pages of finishing and couldn't do it anymore. Stephanie Meyer what happened? It's like she felt she could go all willy nilly with the last novel. My two favorite characters, Alice and Jasper, weren't around for the majority of the book, I realized I couldn't stand Bella and Edward without Alice and Jasper there to balance them out. And Renesme or whatever the name that they gave their child, seriously? And what the sperm of the undead impregnated Bella? And then Jacob imprints on this little girl who seems to age very rapidly until she's 16 or so and then stops? Stephanie.... this is too much.

Reading Lolita in Tehran – I couldn't relate to anything. I hadn't read any of the books that were heavily referenced, and I'm pretty sure if I met the author in real life I would find her a bit obnoxious.

The Ugly American – I got 10 pages in and it was torture. I figured if this was an indication as to how the rest of the book was going to go I'd rather just put it back on the shelf.

The Ginger man – Within the first 10-15 pages the main character (who the back said you would learn to love even though he was an asshole) cheated on his wife, beat his girlfriend, and professed to being an alcoholic. I frankly didn't want to learn to love this man and got so angry at this book that I threw it against the wall. As if to answer my anger the next book had an epitaph that quoted H. G. Wells “Read the best books first because you may not get the chance to read them all.”

Favorite Authors: John Steinbeck

Joseph Conrad

Edward Abbey

Aldo Leopold

Bill Bryson

A friend told me it would be a good idea to make a list of the strange crap that has happened to me since I arrived. Here we go:

Medical Adventures

The first day in Benin I stubbed my toe and then the nail bed got infected. It was originally bacterially infected and then became fungally infected. I lost the nail twice. And it finally cleared up 8 months after i stubbed it.

The first two weeks of training I lost a good 10 pounds due to an intestinal parasite.

On Thanksgiving this past year I had ameobas and food poisoning at the same time. That was not fun. Didn't gain any weight that holiday season.

I cracked my tooth two months ago... still not taken care of.

Bike Adventures (I was not injured in anyway)

I was riding around on my bike and accidently road it into a ditch which made my fly over the handle bars, land flat on my back.

One day I was riding around and a low flying duck smacked into my head.

I was crossing the road once and got hit by a motorcycle which gave the back frame a 90 degree angle.

Taxi Adventures

Delivering a kitten to Natitingou I got stuck in Djougou after the taxi I was taking decided to tow a car all the way to Djougou. The ride took 3 hours long, normally 45 minutes.

The 9 hour taxi ride from Natitingou to Bassila. My friend and I actually had to stop and call someone from my town to come pick us up when our taxi decided to stop moving forward. It died a terrible death.

20 people in a 5 seater taxi. No joke.

House Adventures

My cat has had a total of 12 kittens.

It's been so hot I've slept on my concrete floor all night.

Having friends over and my biggest problem being I didn't have enough chairs.

There you go hope you enjoyed my List of Amusing Crap that has happened to me in the last 18 months.

So my second and hopefully last chaleur I will ever experience in my life is coming to a close. I wouldn't say it's over, but its' getting there. It's good to know that I don't have to go through this again next year. Don't get my wrong I'll miss Benin, but not chaleur.

For those of you who don't know chaleur is the hottest time of the year. It lasts from late January until early March. It's hard to really describe chaleur. Because that's all it is, hot. I can't even tell you what temperature it gets to because I don't have a thermometer, I also don't really want to know half the time. The only way to give you the picture of what it feels like is to describe how I feel. While all it is, is hot. It gets so hot you can't cook, don't have any desire to eat/ move, and you also can't sleep it's so hot. Before coming to Benin never in my life had I ever gotten so hot I was literally dripping with sweat, or had a completely soaked t-shirt due to perspiration. The only thing to do is find the coolest place you can, lay down and drink water. Beyond that you body screams at you. A favorite thing of mine to do during this time is dunk my clothes in water and put them back on. I then go and lay on my concrete floor with the fan on and read. I still feel like I'm melting, but at a slower rate than before. There is no breeze and houses become like ovens and stay that way well into the night. You walk outside and it feels like you've hit a wall when you come into the sunlight. I've often times felt like I couldn't breath when I made the transition. The thing that really gets me is that it does actually get hotter in Benin where volunteers live without electricity. Here I am feeling like I'm ready to die practically and I know others have it much worse.

But as I've said, this is the last chaleur I will ever have to go through. Thank God.

In other news my cat had another 4 kittens, which makes the total number of kittens she's had 12.

My tooth is still there, nothing has happened yet.

If you don't know the full tooth story I suggest that you go back to the previous blog entry and catch up. Where we left off: the dentist has prescribed me toothpaste for what is most likely in my mind a cracked tooth. Moving on: Guess what? The toothpaste does take care of the sensitivity to hot and cold, but not the general ache that takes place at least once a day more often while eating. So I call the doctor again and explain the situation. They tell me that they want me to come down to Cotonou, which I knew was going to happen. So I go down. On the 7 hour ride down I was sitting next to this man who was riding in the first motor vehicle of his life or he had taken speed before getting on the bus. The entire way this man wouldn't stop moving. He was worse than some kids with severe ADHD I used to babysit. At one point he stood up in his seat (not in the aisle but the window seat) while the bus was moving, opened the window and stuck his head out. Nobody but me seemed to think that this was odd behavior. When we got down to Cotonou this man also wanted to get off the bus while it was moving. Regardless, I make it down. I go to the same dentist that prescribed me toothpaste and he looks at my tooth again and actually says "hm.... so you might have a crack in there' Finally! Someone believes me! He then points to the tooth in question on the x-ray which he's pulled up and says "This is the tooth with the problem" Exactly what I've been saying this entire time. And then he goes on to say "If you weren't a Peace Corps Volunteer I would give you a root canal right now, but because you are I'm going to prescribe you some antibiotics for this problem of yours" I tell him that he should write to my doctor that he would have given me a root canal so that my doctor knows that. I then go speak to the doctor. In Peace Corps you have to go through the doctors for anything medical. Any and all medical attention gets filtered through them. If your cut gets infected, it goes through them, if you need to have your ears flushed out it goes through them, if you break you arm, it goes through them, and if you hurt your teeth, it goes through them. There are no nurses in Peace Corps Benin only two doctors. So consequently these two doctors are busy on a constant basis. The doctor says that if I need a root canal I will be medically evacuated to Dakar, Senegal. But first because the dentist isn't 100% sure that I need one, I need to get a second opinion. I go to the other dentist in town. He pokes and prods my tooth, takes x-rays (the quality on these were much better than the first ones) and scratches his chin and says "Well I don't see a crack" here we go again... He then says "I'm going to prescribe you an anti-inflammatory and we'll see how it goes from there." I think to myself, OK not a problem he has given his professional opinion and now the only thing I can do is just play along. I go back to the doctor and they explain that the decision to medically evacuate me rests with the Washington DC office. In order to get authorization to go they need the second dentist to make some sort of written comment about the tooth in question. To the dentist I go again... When I arrive he's not even there, he shows up an hour late and takes an excessively long time dealing with both the patients before me. During this close to two hour wait I had a Beninese moment. I fell asleep while sitting on the couch in a room full of people. My abilities to sleep just about anywhere are getting better, I think it's the long taxi rides full of goats and screaming children. I woke up to find that the receptionist was sleeping too. Ha ha, I'm more Beninese by the day. When I do finally get into the office I ask if he spoke to my doctor and he says that he did, and he also says that he understands what they want. Good, no need for a complicated discussion in French that I don't have the vocabulary for. I sit down in the chair, and he takes a look at my tooth. Grunts at it. And then he takes the hook-like tool and begins to shove it into my tooth. which of course, causes pain. He then lets go of the tooth which is shoved so far into my tooth that it's sticking straight up out of my mouth and says "Look there is no crack." I'm sitting in a dentist chair with a tool stuck into my tooth and you're telling me that there is nothing wrong! I'm in pain you idiot get this thing out of my mouth right now! So he yanks it out. He then says to me, you have a cavity in that tooth actually and I'm going to drill it out now. At this point he's freaking me out enough and I'm not letting this man anywhere near my mouth with a drill only to play around with my teeth. I tell him this probably slightly more forcefully than what I should have and he gets offended. "But it's a simple procedure, then you will stop having pain." I then explain that what I really want is for him to write it down so that I can get authorization from the doctors. He then says "OK, but I'm prescribing you a full mouth x-ray" fine, just so long as you stay very far away from my mouth, in fact any part of body, with your dentist tools. So I leave the a dentists office for the third time in a week and go back and speak to the doctor. This is where the story gets left off. The information is apparently sent to Washington, where Washington will either approve or not approve to send me for more dental treatment in Dakar, Senegal. So I may or may not be going to Dakar. My tooth still aches on a daily basis. I will know more in a few weeks. I'll keep you all posted on this soap opera of a medical case. At least I've convinced one dentist there is a problem.

I wrote a new article for thisisdiversity.com about mud stoves and womens rights.

Check it out!

http://www.thisisdiversity.com/articles/all/4280/mud-stoves-for-gender-equality

There are a few phrases in Benin that seem to pop out of peoples mouths quite often. Like this one “Vous etes madame, ou bien mademoiselle?” “you are a mrs, or better a miss?” here are some others that I seem to here on a regular basis

“Il n'y pas la petite money” “There is no small change”

In Benin breaking large bills is a problem. The tinier your village is the less likely they are going to want to break you 10.000 FCFA bill. In small villages it is actually impossible to break these bills because the price of everything is below 1.000 FCFA. It's not even close to in the states when you give a cashier a $100 bill for a purchase of $5. In the states the cashier will probably look at you like you're obnoxious (because you are) but you can probably get the cashier to break it for you with a bit of pouting and apologizing. In the states there is no problem finding change. When I was a cashier sometimes we would run low on quarters or whatever, and then we would just put a sign out and eventually collect enough to where it wasn't a problem. But that is in the states, where the government has minted enough small change so that there is rarely a circulation problem. Here in Benin there really isn't enough small change. Even if you go to the bank they horde their coins. The bank is an annoying place to be anyway, every single I go into the bank the teller finds something wrong with my check. He in fact now rolls his eyes at me before I even hand him anything because the sight of my face frustrates him. In my own defense he always finds something different wrong with the check I hand him, and the biggest problem he has is with my signature which is not changing. I have only once been able to persuade this teller (there always seems to be only him who I deal with) to give me a roll of coins. I have a hard time finding change, even from the bank. So when I go into the store that sells expensive food items such as cookies, canned vegetables, oatmeal and wine and buy 3.450 FCFA and hand them a 10.000 FCFA bill they roll their eyes and say 'there is no small change.' but here is where it gets really annoying because you can see their little change bucket, and there is the small change in there. I have even pointed out that I can see the exact change in their bucket but they squirm under the pressure. About the time that I tell them that I'm going to leave without buying the items I've put on the counter do they relent and hand over my change. Other times that this is a problem is when I'm in the market, when I'm paying for bus or taxi fare and most of all with zems, these little tricksters never seem to have change even though they get paid in coins all day long.... grr...

“Je viens” “I'm coming”

Usually someone says this to you as they are walking away from you. You and someone will be in the middle of doing work/ talking/ on a verge of a breakthrough for the cure of AIDS and then this person will remember that they forgot to do something and they will get up and as they are walking away they will say 'I'm coming' clearly they are not coming, they are actually going. This person is recognizing that they are leaving you but they want you to know that they will be back, maybe not soon, but eventually if you just wait there long enough this person will come back.

“Douchement” “Gently”

This word can be used in many different types of situations. It can mean, 'I'm sorry' 'watch out' 'don't be stupid' or 'you're in the way' it's too bad that there is no English word because I would use it regularly. Sometimes this word is my favorite word like when you tell someone who is much taller than you to watch out for a low ceiling. Than other times someone has said this word to me and my immediate thought is that 'wow that's completely unhelpful'. Such as when a moto hit my bike while I was riding it. I was not hurt but my bike was totaled and I was sprawled out in the middle of the road. Someone stands over me and with a voice filled with concern says 'douchment'. Completely unhelpful. Another way people use this word is when they bump into you. But I tend of think they aren't really sorry and they really are saying that it was mostly your fault they bumped into you to which I respond to them 'to faire douchment' 'you watch out'.

“C'est comme ca en Afrique” “It's like that in Africa”

This is the biggest cop-out phrase I have ever heard. People use this when someone is doing something that is culturally appropriate but is still obnoxious. For example I watched as a mini bus overloaded with people already was trying to squeeze more people in through the windows. The driver of the mini buses response to my asking if that was necessary said to me 'it's like that in Africa.' or another example is when I was talking with a friend about students cheating on tests, 'it's like that in Africa' or how about when people show up for a meeting three hours late 'it's like that in Africa'. All of these examples are things that happen on a regular basis and what bugs me the most is that every single time someone has said to me 'it's like that in Africa' the response I want to give them is 'it doesn't have to be.' There is a solution to all the situations where this phrase has been used.

“Petite a petite” “Little by little'

There is a song here that my neighbors seem to like to play on repeat, after listening to the same song for an entire month I because I learn to tune it out. But the chorus is 'little by little the bird builds his nest' people use this phrase when you are learning something, little by little. It's actually one of the more encouraging phrases that I've heard here, that I don't have to learn it all at once, little by little is just fine. For example the task of learning french, little by little, it seems less daunting that way.

“Ou Bien” “Or good”

People put ou bien at the end of sentances and it's meant to add emphasis. Sort of similar to the state-side 'you know?' example: “I really like having a beer after a hard day, you know?” also you can say it as a response to something annoying. Example “I can't believe my dentist prescribed toothpaste for a cracked tooth” “ou bien” it doesn't actually mean that whatever you are talking about is good. It actually is used most often when talking about something that is bad.

As part of a larger project I'm doing I had to visit a village near Natitingou. I need to find a few people, who I only sort of know. But they are known by a volunteer who lives there so it shouldn't be too hard to find. I was also going with another volunteer to make everything a bit easier. Going into a strange village alone is a daunting task. Later the person who wanted to go with me couldn't because of circumstances out of her control, and the person who lived in the village wasn't going to be there either due to vacation (previously planned, we just assumed she'd be there). So here is the task before me, go to a strange village, locate people I've never met and only know vaguely about, and research price quotes for my project. I have zero phone numbers, zero contacts within the community already, and zero names to go on. Excellent, this should be easy...

So I decide that since I can't spend the night I should probably take a zem out (it's like an hour via taxi). I find a zem who is willing to go out there but I only realize he's a zem until we're on our way back I thought I was getting a free trip out of it. So we drive out, it takes like 2 hours. I arrive sore from the moto ride but alive.

I then get there and ask for my friends house thinking that even though my friend isn't there, I know she has a neighbor that she works with, at least sometimes. I walk around and ask for a guy in a wheel chair. I get someone who says "yes I know him!" So we go to this guys house and guess what, this guy is a teacher, so he's at school. Therefore, not able to talk to me. Not a big deal there are numerous other people that my friend works with who I can speak to. So we go and talk to another friend of hers, who is also not there. On the way to the 3rd person I go to see my zem buddy gets a flat tire. Great. After about 45 minutes of dragging his moto to a tire place and fixing it, it's the heat of the day. I called a work partner of my friend only to find out this person was in Cotonou and unable to help me in any way. While waiting, a friend of a peace corps volunteer (not the one who lives in this village) comes up to me and says 'Hi I know your friend _____" We get to talking and he actually does know the organization that I'm looking for! Yay! He agrees after lunch to drive us out to this place. Lunch really did mean eating and leaving which was great. So we go out. On the way the tire place pumped up my zems tire too much and now he fishtails when going through sand. This wouldn't have been a problem had there been paved roads, anywhere. But there aren't. A few times we fishtailed pretty bad and I thought we were going to bite the dust. When I arrived of course it was during the three hours in the middle of the day when nobody does anything except sit in the shade. The man who I needed to speak to wasn't there. So I introduced myself and whatever, but I was unable to get price quotes. The whole was in vain. And the zem stole my sunglasses, and wanted a huge price for taking me around. After I bought his gas! grrr...... this could have been a good adventure but it just wasn't. To top it all I got a terrible sunburn.

So this one day I was eating some rice and beans. Tasty and full of protein. Munch munch munch... CRUNCH! And then a back molar of mine began to hurt. I was done eating the beans and rice as now there were clearly rocks in it and I had hurt myself. Excllent. I went back home and realized that I had probably cracked my tooth from the way it felt. Sensitive to heat and cold and dull ache when I ate too much on that side of my mouth. I then looked in a mirror and saw that it most definately looked cracked. So I did what any good Peace Corps Volunteer would do, I called the office.

Peace Corps only uses one dentist in all of Benin. His office is in Cotonou. When I called the Cotonou office I knew that I was going to have to go down to Cotonou. Teeth aren't the type that fix themselves. So I call up Peace Corps and make a reservation for a week later because that's the time that the dentist could see me. I have an uneventful trip down to Cotonou and get into the Peace Corps house in good time. I then go and see the dentist. Now to be honest seeing a dentist in a 3rd world country is a scary thing to think about. It's not that I don't trust the dentists here, I'm sure they are all intelligent individuals. It is the quality of education that I doubt. I also doubt the facility, when I can get parasites from drinking water out of the tap in the same city it doesn't bode well for dental hygiene. So the entire bus ride and the wait leading up to it I worried, I didn't want to go but I wanted this tooth business taken care of.

When I arrived in the dentists office it was the most up to date dentist facilities I have seen. Ever. I sit down in the chair, they poke my teeth and look around in my mouth he scratches his chin, says 'hm.....' then I get xrays done.

'So far so good' I think to myself But then he puts the xrays up on the digital screen. He scratches his chin and says 'hm....' I sit and wait, thinking 'seriously there is a problem, I can see where it's cracked lets fix it. You must have seen it, you've explored regions of my mouth that most ex-boyfriends don't know about. You can't have mised it. It doens't take a genius to see the problem.' He then says to me "I do not see a crack. But you do have a small cavity on the other side of your mouth." I sit in the chair and say "But I still have a problem, it's not right. What do you suggest I do about it." Ready for hte responce? Brace yourself, I'm not kidding he suggested....I change my toothpaste. I've been using the same toothpast for the last year and half do you think that it's going to help I know what happened and its' not my toothpaste! "But it's still a problem" I say and he says "Well there is no crack so I can't do anything." Once again Benin you have failed! Benin really had the chance to impress me, but fell flat on its' face instead. Benin... geez.

So then I go back to the Peace Corps office and talk to the doctor here and show him my tooth nobody EXCEPT the dentist has said to me 'Oh its' not a problem." Everyone that has looked at my tooth has made a face and said "Yes you should get that looked at" The next step now is to send a copy of my xrays which don't show any crack to the states. I have a copy myself and know that there is no crack showing as the tooth looks just the same. But also now that I know I have a cavity I'm going to get that fixed as well while I'm down here. So e-mailing the xrays is also a problem because the internet is down in the medical office (no fault of the med unit). So I'm stuck here until internet is fixed and this tooth has some sort of plan of a solution at least.

I'll update you all soon.

In the states you can get in trouble with your neighbors over excessive noise. In fact, you can even call the police and they might even make you pay a fine for your excessively loud music, the kind that makes the walls of your house shake with the base. Well in Benin, this is not so.

I woke up today at 7am to very loud music originating from until today an empty apartment. There were people living there it's just they had been on holiday. They have never pulled this kind of crap before. My neighbors who are typically the noisy ones were in Natitingou for a baptism. But at least they don't turn their music on until after 11. No this was thump-thump booty shakin' club music. I went over there to see what was going on, expecting them to dancing, partying from the night before or at least doing something. Nope. Nothing. They were all watching TV. I asked them what was going on and they said 'oh we're watching TV' as if this was normal to be listening to loud music while watching television in the same small space. What they had done was they had put on a Beninese soap opera (which are much worse then American soap operas, believe it or not) and put that on mute and then turned on their club music and turned it up as far as it would go, I checked the volume couldn't actually go any higher. They were all placidly watching a mute soap opera, I guess the plot they could figure out without words.

They invited me to join them in their chosen activity but I was about at my wits end and politely said no but thanks. I then attempted to go back to sleep with my head phones on to maybe drown out the sound of their music. Loud music is something that people don't get worked up about here. Yes, I could have asked my neighbors to turn it down but honestly the locals don't do it and it gives me a chance to practice patience and understanding. Good integration, or something. I'm not sure why the Beninese don't feel that it's a problem for people to listen to music at whatever volume they see fit, this is normally the highest the volume will go. I was reading The Sex Lives of Cannibals which is about this guy who goes to live on an atoll in the middle of the pacific, and it describes the love of a certain song which in the states makes ours ears bleed it's so obnoxious 'la macerana'. I hate the dance too, for the record. They also enjoyed playing this song at full volume and nobody seemed to think it was a problem. The authors argument was that maybe the reason why people enjoyed listening to music so loud is that they haven't had stereo systems in their homes as long as the American population and so there is no unwritten law in their society that dictates this behavior to be completely assenine.

Maybe his theory works in conjunction with my own. My own theory is that before there was electricity (this is 5 years ago in Bassila) music was of course heard at the same time it was being made. To hear your favorite tune or something similar was a great treat. Live music was the only music, it was a party and people could play this as loud as they wanted. The volume range wasn't as great as on a CD player. I'd be also willing to bet that music was something to be shared as it didn't happen all the time. Unlike in the states taste in music is very person, nobodies Ipod is the same. But now that there is electricity there is an opportunity for CD players and the like with volume controls. Now they could play their favorite CD over and over again, or just one song! Imagine what you were all like when you got your first CD/record player and your first CD/record how many times did you play that, I know I played my first CD a lot. It was Ace of Base if anyone is curious to know. Back to the subject... with the volume control now they could share their love of their most favorite song with their neighbors all around who aren't playing music. I can see people here thinking 'If it goes that loud it should be played that loud'. This holds true for other places in Benin, on the bus people will have little chips in their phone and play them at high volume for all to hear. One time while listening to my Ipod someone next to me asked why I wasn't singing so that the rest of the bus could listen to American music too. I've ridden zems who were singing while driving, not too me just to themselves. So there you have it, my theory on the overplayed loud music I hear in Benin all the time. Even though at 7am I may not have wanted to listen to thump-thump music I was given it, thanks for sharing neighbors.

Here is the family who lives next door, when I say family really there are only 4 people, the kid I'm holding and the woman to my right also the child wearing the green suit. The husband of this family is taking the picture.

This little guy is affectionately called 'chef' which directly translates to boss. He visits me quite often when my door is open. He is actually the only black person my cat likes, sort of.

This is what happens when you only have flip flops on safari. Every single one of those little cuts got infected.

Huge Baobob Tree. That is my friend standing at the base.

A porcupine home!

In case you didn't already know, this is how to use a latrine.

Painted and carved gords make excellent wedding gifts!

Pole children, note the tall one has a mohawk and about 2 tons of jewerly on.

This was written last week and this was my first time online.

Today I was on my way to the market and stopped by the post office to send out a couple of letters. I was then going to go to the mayors office, then to the market, then I was thinking about getting something for dinner that was already cooked. I road up to the post office and saw that there was a lot of stuff in the post box. I saw that I had a package slip along in amongst letters for other volunteers. I went around the corner and I could see it. It was a box, I rarely get boxes as I tell people to generally send me bubble envelopes. Boxes seems to 'get lost' more often than bubble envelopes and frankly I would like to receive the things that people send out to me, they also seem to take about 10 times longer to arrive than bubble envelopes (if someone could explain this to me I would love to know why this is). I have been expecting Christmas packages from a few people and because the mail gets slow around the holidays last year I celebrated Christmas well into January, I may have even received a Christmas package in February last year. And there it was, a Christmas box, I could tell it was for me because I could see my cousins handwriting on the outside 'God Bless'. When the postman put the box on the counter for me I knew all my plans were going down the drain. Normally I receive food which would make going to the market a wasted trip, they also contain reading material most of the time. I knew I would probably now just sit in my house and read. I put it on the back of my bike and road home.

Every single package is special but let's face it, some just out do others. Little did I know this was one the better packages I have ever received, coming in third after a special package from my grandfather, and the one that contained a Christmas tree along with a decoration from home. I opened it up and inside there were chocolate bars and pasta sides galore! Then I notice that there is a candle, smelling of balsam, and a USB key taped to the outside of one of the chocolate bars. I then took a chocolate bar that the key was taped on the outside of and went to my computer. I plugged the key in and looked around on it. I expected it to contain pictures and some letters perhaps from my cousin and my aunt who sent out the package. But no, to my surprise it contained Christmas music.

Last year I had very little Christmas music to put me in the holiday spirit. But the amount of Christmas music on this USB key made up for it 10-fold. As I was looking around I saw that someone must have called my mom because hidden in a folder that just said 'music' there was my favorite Christmas album of all time. It is one that we play at our house every Christmas, I don't actually remember a Christmas without this CD in the player. 'A Holiday Celebration' by Peter Paul and Mary. I highly recommend this album to everyone who loves Christmas music. This is what made this package one of the better ones, the fact that it contained something of sentimental value to me. I lit the candle and then played the whole album through while I did some work.

Hey everyone here are a few pictures from safari enjoy!

This is the waterfall that almost stole my shoe

Our land rover

the kids truck note the 'goods only' label...

While I was in Park W I slept outside every night. At the night that we spent in the middle of park my friends and I decided to sleep out in a ranger station on the Burkina Faso side of the park. We had to cross the river which is the boarder between Benin and Burkina to get there. Now this river is pretty tame. Not an excessive current or anything. Although at the point of crossing the park had put a lot of sharp rocks in an attempt to make a bridge. Unfortunately, they had only succeeded in making a shallow spot to walk across that would puncture tires and feet, and they also made a small waterfall. By the time we had decided that we were going to leave for this ranger station it was dark. I forgot my shoes at my house back home, like an idiot. So I go to the waterfall with my flip flops and pack at night. I had two choices, I could either save my feet some pain and walk across with them on, risking the loss of one, or I could take them off possibly tearing my feet apart but keeping my flip flops. I decided that I would try to keep my flip flops on because I was going to have to be walking a little further. This was a bad choice. I managed to gingerly cross the river and keep my flip flops and save my feet until I got to a foot and half from the other side. Then the inevitable happened, I watched as one of my flip flops came off my foot and floated down the waterfall. These were my only shoes! I would have been reduced to walking bare foot in the park. This would have certainly tore my feet to shreds. Not a good idea. Then the world seemed to slow down and I thought to myself I need that shoe, I also cannot get it without getting wet. I then decided that there was only one choice, now remember I had .05 seconds to make and execute this decision. So I stripped down to my underwear and held my lamp above my head as I dove in. I did end up getting my shoe and back to shore, albeit soaking wet and in my underwear. I then realized my triumphant return to shore was marred by the fact that I couldn't put my clothes back on unless I wanted them to be wet. Here's the thing about when you go swimming in your underwear to keep you clothes from getting wet, when you do put your dry clothes back on over your underwear you've only made you clothes wet in the places that take the longest to dry. You might as well have just gone swimming in your clothes. It was then suggested to me that I just walk to the ranger station in my underwear. So we began to hike, in the dark. We hiked for a long time and we never really did find the ranger station. But we did eventually cross the boarder into Niger. After we had done this we realized that we wouldn't be able to find the ranger station. So hike back we did. We crossed the river again only this time I held my flip flops and ended up cutting open my big toe on a sharp rock. We came back into camp, me in underwear with a pagne (wrap skirt) wrapped around me, my big toe bleeding, but we were all laughing about our misadventures running around three different countries in the middle of the night.

One thing that I really wanted to do while I was in Benin was to go on safari. The best time to go on safari is during the dry season, basically now. Last year I didn't have enough money saved up to go with the rest of my training class (I'm not real sure how this happened like this, but it did.) The next dry season I was determined. Even if I had to go alone I was going. But then an oppotuntiy came up. My friend was doing a workshop for improving Park W guides. There are two national parks in Benin, there is Pendjari which everyone goes to and is set up to cater to tourists, then there is Park W which nobody goes to and is set up to cater to the needs of wildlife. Being an environmentalist I jumped at the chance to go to the rarely seen interior of Park W. In order to get to Park W I had to travel very far north. But of course just before this workshop I had to be very far south. So I took a 11 or 12 hour (I forget but once you get beyond ten hours it doesn't really matter) bus ride up, stayed at the workstation and continued to go up to the village of Alfa-Kora, an enterance site into the park.

Me and a few of my friends stayed a few nights in Alfa-Kora before entering the park. There is a watch tower that overlooks a watering hole and we all slept out there. In Alfa-Kora there is no electricity. This means no light pollution. There was no moon either. All of this on top of clear skies gave us hands down one of the best star watching nights I've ever seen. The only time that I've been more or equally impressed is in Canada, 3 hours driving from about any town. This is actually where I saw the northern lights as well. During the night we heard elephants bathing in the watering hole. It was pretty amazing, they must have been really close. We couldn't see them as there was no moon, but they were loud.

During the days that we slept at the water hole watch tower we took a few guided tours of Alfa-Kora and a smaller village. Here we learned about local folklore (the branched palm tree, the foundation of the village) to ethnic groups that live in the area. We then as a group gave feedback to the guides to better improve their guiding-abilities. In total we slept out at the water tower three nights.

The next part of the workshop was the Park W part. My friend had invited 20 local kids from the elementary school to join us. From there a guide that is based within the park met us. Two vechicles arrived to carry the children and the volunteers. The kids vechicle was an old little mac truck that said on the side very clearly "Goods Only". The kids all climbed into the back of it where we later put benches and were quite content. This was no more or less comfortable or safe than what they're used to. The vehicle for the volunteers (it could only fit like 4 comfortably) was a SUV with platform on the roof. I road on the roof the entire time, this should not surprise anyone who knows me. On the way we saw Babboons, Warthogs, and a few different types of Antelope. We drove deep into the park, and we stopped at around the point where Benin, Burkina Faso, and Niger all meet. Yes, that's right, I toured three countries while on safari. From here the kids had lunch and took a nap. The volunteers all went down to the river and swam. swimming on a hot day is one of the most amazing things that you can do. We then went back out to look for animals. We saw an antelope the size of a moose, I thought of all my moose hunters back home. From there we toured a prehistoric site where way back when the people used to make iron and planted numerous baobob trees, which are sacred in voodoo culture. They also produce tasty seed pods, which I got to sample. That night a few of my friends and I slept out under the stars. So for all the time I was up in Park W I slept outside, you can hear more animals that way. While we were outside that night we heard lions yawning. Once again they must have been really close but we couldn't see them. We then packed up teh next morning and went home. We saw some pretty amazing birds, antelope, monkeys, and landscape. All in all it was a fun time. We didn't see an lions or elephants, but we definately heard them! I also felt like I was able to see a more representative landscape to a natural Benin. Going into Park W I also felt like it was a more organic expirence because we slept outside, we ate local food (we brought a cooking mama to help) and I felt like we had more freedom than what we would have found in the touristy Park Pendjari. It was only our group in the entire park (at least I'm pretty sure), we didn't see sign of previous vistors either. Overall I'm really glad I went to Park W and got to participate in my friends workshop. I'll post pictures and other stories later!

Just for the record, flip flops are not meant to be worn on safari, I realized that I had made another serious error in my packing when I forgot my real shoes. My feet are completely torn up. Each big toe is bandaged along with a few other minor areas along the sides.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Traveling in Benin is never easy. I don't care what anyone says it's a whole lot easier to get from point A to point B in the states or the rest of the developed world for that matter than it is in Benin. Most of the time it's being frusterated with the system, or rather lack there of. Taxing is always hell due to lack of organization. Taking the bus is sometimes a hassle if you're starting from a town without an office for a bus line, sometimes the buses are full and you don't know that until they arrive in your village and you also can't really reserve a space before hand with confidence. I'm sure you can call the company but I can also see where you would end up talking to the guy who loads luggage instead of someone with actual athority.

But this last particular trip was a little different. Everything that went wrong wasn't because of an already stupid system. Nope, this time it was me. The night before I left I thought while I was in bed, 'Do you have everything you need?' I made a mental list of things that I had to pack last minute, cell phone, check for cash in wallet, reading glasses, etc. Then just as I was about to fall asleep I thought to myself 'Check to make sure your IPod is in your bag' I then fell into a deep sleep. I woke up realizing that my alarm hadn't gone off. Damn. I had 30 minutes to get out to the bus station. I put the things I had put on the list into my bag and went out the door. I got on a bus soon after and then just as we were driving by my house on the way south to Cotonou, a 7 hour drive, I realized I had left my IPod at home. When I travel my IPod is my sanity. There was nothing I could do about it at that point, I'm just along for the ride. I just had to travel like a normal Beninese person, without music of my choice. I had a long boring non-music-filled trip down to Cotonou. I arrived in Cotonou without much fuss, the bus went really fast as it was mostly full when I got on. I participated in a review of the last training class and then my plans were go to up north to the Alibori region to visit a friend of mine.

I got my bus ticket to go in advance, when I don't do this and try to catch a bus without a ticket it does bite me in the butt and I end up taking a really crappy bus line. While I'm waiting for the bus I'm mentally preparing myself for the longer non-music filled bus ride of my trip. This trip was 12 hours in one day. I'm not kidding I watched the sun come up on the bus, and then set while still on the same bus. No music. At least the person sitting next to me wasn't obnoxious, she was actually really nice. But it was still 12 hours of bus. After arriving at my destination I was needless to say very tired and at the end of my sanity. I then go to get my large bag from underneath the bus. It's not in sight. We move everything around and for 15 minutes I'm freaking out. That bag is my everything. Without it I'm pretty much sunk. That and I really like my backpack. I finally find it after 15 minutes of looking. Then I reach for my cell phone to call and ask someone where the volunteer house is. My cell phone is also missing. I run back to the bus which door is closing as I run up to it. I look for my cell phone. It is not in or around my seat. I then get handed a flashlight (thank you lady sitting behind me the whole time) It is between the seat and the outside of the bus. Thank goodness. I then thank the bus line and everyone on it for waiting for me while I frantically looked for my cell phone. I then begin to dial my friends number. No reception. My zem things he sort of knows where the place is. In reality it is my responcibility to know where I'm going, not his fault. So I get on and we find it without much fuss. But of course at this point my nerves are shot my patience for anything is gone, and I'm tired. The guard then has me go through this overly complicated sign in (no other workstation does this including the one in Cotonou) and hands me a key. He must have seen my face at this point and he takes me bag, leads me to the door, unlocks it, and puts my bag inside and tells me to sleep well. ha ha at least I got here OK. oh yea, my phone is missing again. It'll pop up by morning I hope... Nothing I can do about it now.

So there's this group of women who I've begun to work with. A fellow Peace Corps Volunteer has worked with them in the past many times and has been successful. There was no reason to think that working with this group of women would be a problem. I met with them the first time. I told the leader of the group to find a few other women, minimum of a group of 3, if she wanted to start a project with me. She said that she had found some women who wanted to meet with me. When I arrive at her concession there are only 2 other women besides herself. She did meet the requirement of at least 3 but I was really hoping for 5 to 8 women. I said at least 3 no more than 10. I hid my slight dissapointment and began talking to the women. I explained the projects that I had been trained to teach. From these they chose to do Moringa with me.

For those who don't know Moringa is a plant that has protien rich leaves. This helps battle malnutrition. Protien is expensive to come by and it's much easier to cook starch and sauce than it is to add a meat option. Also vitamins and minerals are present in moringa that aren't in the basic foods (tomatos onions and starch... yea that's it). I was really excited to start growing Moringa with my tiny group of women. They had expressed interest in making powder from the leaves and selling it in the market (they came up with this idea all on their own).

So during this first meeting we chose a second day to meet, the next time I wanted them to collect this certain type of plastic bag that was good for starting plants out in. They are everywhere. This is not a difficult task. I found 5 on my 10 minute walk to the market one day. And I wasn't even looking very hard. When the day to meet came around I went to the womens concession (They all live together) and they were ready on time, relatively. But they forgot their bags. Of course. So instead of combining a meeting on nutrition and planting I just had a meeting about planting. We then chose a different day to meet to plant the Moringa. I go back on that day, and I wait. I wait some more. They then tell me they have to pray (Ok not a problem, but every other time I've met with you, you havent' had to do this) I look at my watch I have to get to the market before a certain time to buy fish, the fish vendors don't stay open all day. I can't sit here and wait forever. I explain to the woman if she doesn't get her crap together in 15 minutes I'm leaving. Then she tells me that she sent a child to look for a member of the group. The child comes back and says that the woman is in the market. The other two women look at me and say 'Well we're here, why don't you just teach us.' I explain that they are a group and need to work together. They are also only a group of 3 women who live in the same place. They all chose the time of the meeting, when one out of three women isn't present than I'm not effectively distributing knowledge. I pack up my stuff and basically tell them to pull it together.

The next time I go they make me wait again for 45 minutes after having a discussion about being on time. Then because they changed the time of the meeting to during their nap time so that they would all be there, they're all tired. At one point the leader put her head in my lap and said 'Oh Melissa, I'm so tired.' The meeting itself only took 40 minutes to get the bags together (Only one woman had collected) with dirt and a seed in each. It was still entirely frusterating that it takes so much effort to get ONLY THREE women together to put seeds into plastic bags filled with dirt. Seriously ladies? In the states this would have only taken one, two meetings only 30 minutes long tops. But here...... grr..... The lack of time management skills, and enthusiasm and just an attitude of 'taking it seriously' makes me wonder sometimes how anything gets done in this country.

Cat update: She's preggers all right. Ready to pop any day now.

Intestinal update: Food poisoning and ameobas at the same time. Not fun. But generally on the mend.

Here are some pictuers I took while visiting my friend:

Here is myself, and my friend (she's the second one on the right). In front of us sits a mud stove which the women built themselves.

Here is a woman giving a workshop on how build mud stoves. She did a great job!

This woman is building a mud stove for her own personal use!

It's laundry day! check out the holes that have been worn away in the rock.

Here is a vendor selling fulani clothing. The pieces of cloth above his head are traditional fulani head wraps

Here are the fulani. Hands down the most beautiful race of people on the face of the planet. I'm pretty sure they can't do anothing without being graceful. Even as kids they are breathtaking.

I visited a friend of mine in a completely diffent part of the country. My friend lives very far from the main road, completely different from myself who can see the main road from my house. It took about three hours on a dirt road to get out to where she lived. Between the main road and house there really isn't a whole lot going on either. It was cool to go out and see what her post was like. It reminded me a bit of my own small town in Vermont. People recognized everyone. In my town it is easy just by looking at someone to know that they aren't from around. Many people came up to my friend and I and asked her who I was and what I was doing there. Of course the fact that I'm glow-in-the-dark white doesn't help matters either.

At her post the population is 70% pule (pole) or also known as fulani. They are the nomadic cow herders of Benin. They are hands down the most beautiful race of people on the face of the earth. Grace, beauty, flawless features, and a sense of style must be genetic traits.

We went to a smaller village further off the main road by 15 kilometers and did a mud stove campaign. My friend and I taught 10-12 women how to build mud stoves. We then invited the secretary of the group and president to teach another group of women what they had learned. it was a chance for us to test their knowledge, to make sure they had actually retained the information. Their workshop that they gave for the women was excellent. It was really cool to see knowledge passed from one woman to another. I had a conversation with my friend and said that I felt a little like a proud parent might feel watching their child do something that they'd be taught. Total my friend and I spent two nights at this small village focusing on mud stove workshops and improving and teaching women. It was cool to see how a small village opperated wtihout the little Peace Corps protective bubble. There was no requirements for our housing (although we did stay in a cement house with a mosquito net over the bed) all things were done very village style. Meals were served to everyone who lived within the compound, there was one latrine for many people, lack of eletricity let the stars shine like I've rarely seen them before, I showered under the light of the moon, it was a very different expirence than what I'm used to, but I enjoyed it. How often do Americans have the opportunity to live like rural West Africans for a few days? I had a revelation when I was sitting in the dark waiting for dinner and watching the women cook/ glancing at the stars. I saw a plane go by overhead, I only saw the lights. I thought about how the people on that flight were living, how this moment for them differed from my own. I thought about my own flight home on vacation and how I had been served champange and wine with soft french cheese, fresh veggies, I got to watch recent movies, sat in an temperature controled environment, a toilet was available, verses my current situation of sitting on a low chair, dirty feet, listening to women talk in the local language of Boca, there were no similarities. I then realized that I would rather be where I was with the women than up in the plane sipping a cocktail. A year ago on this date I might have chosen to be in the plane, maybe not going out or even anywhere for that matter, but for the comfort and familiarity of it. I'm glad that I've become comfortable enough with the life here that I can make that choice without regret. I chose to be here, because I like it. This was a good boost of encouragement from my own changing perspectives.

So I've been feeling better the past few days and had resigned myself to believing that the medical office had been correct with my first diagnosis. My sickness was clearing up in two days. Even if my MIF kits were hopelessly lost if the medical office was correct it didn't really matter that much. All my other symptoms had gone away except for painful stomach cramps. Which I sort of figure will also go away eventually.

I'm on my way to a friends post on the other side of the country. She is doing a few mud stove work shops in her community and invited me to help sort of as an excuse for me to travel a little bit and not have to take vacation days. I hadn't heard back from Peace Corps about my MIF kits and assumed if they really wanted them they would call me and let me know. Frankly I wasn't going to waste phone credit to ask if they needed more poop. It just didn't seem necessary. I arrive in Parakou today at the volunteer house and plan on continuing my travels tomorrow morning via Peace Corps vechicle which so happens to be visiting over that way tomorrow. The first time I have been able to take advantage of this since becoming a volunteer! I arrive, I settle in, find a bed, I'm the only one in the workstation which is nice I don't have to fight with anyone over the computer. I can relax, internet, shower, find other good books I've been looking for, and maybe watch a movie.

I get a call from Peace Corps. "Hi Melissa, this is the doctor speaking.'

Oh boy I take a deep breath and expect to hear something along the lines of "Your MIFs were lost, please send down two more."

But instead they say "We have the results of the lab tests."

"Oh OK, what was it?"

"You have a different kind of parasite that you will need to take medication for. We are sending you up your perscription."

So they are sending me up some medication, NOT on a bus but with a Peace Corps vechicle that just happens to be going up anyway (second time that this has happened and in the span of a week! how lucky am I?)

So there's the update on that in other news my cat, that sexy little thing, is pregnant, for the 3rd time. Yes that's right the 3rd time, I expect kittens no later than christmas, and out of my house by Feburary. This is my prediction. I hope there are only 3 kittens rather than 5 or more.

Anyone who has ever spent time in a place were sanitation isn't what it could be knows how quickly and easily you can get sick. In Benin for example all Peace Corps Volunteers are told by the medical office to filter and boil their water for 3 minutes, thus killing all bacteria and parasites that may be present. We are also told to bleach our vegetables before eating and also to wash our hands on a regular basis throughout the day such as, before eating, after going to the bathroom, and after holding hands with the neighbor kid.

Unfortunately even the most careful volunteers come to find themselves puking into a pit latrine. Getting sick is something that is unavoidable here. You can take preventative measures such as eating only the food you cook but then you come to find yourself in a situation were you need to eat and you haven't cooked anything, your stomach growling and your mouth watering. The street food vendors rice and beans start to look pretty good at this point, my story is very similar.

As volunteers go I tend to think of myself as pretty careful when it comes to food and water. I boil my water, some volunteers after a time choose to stop doing this, I cook 90% of the food I eat, my house is generally free of fruit flies and rotting food (food rots a whole lot faster with a refrigerator). I stay away from street food that doesn't look sanitary, and I wash my hands a lot. All this week I have been pretty f'ing sick. Something is amiss. As I have had many hours to contemplate my current afflictions I've felt like a detective, retracing my steps. I have a few current theories that I'm working with.

The first theory is that during the whipping fete the entire group got pretty dehydrated. I was feeling it bad, and I had run out of water, I had eaten the Beninese version of a popsicle, and had an orange. That was it for liquids that entered my system. The day was brutally hot and we were all in desperate need for water. So we go to a bar (here bars are the places that will most likely sell water) and ask for some water. They don't have bottled water. They have pump water. Pump water is considerably cleaner than well water, but I still hesitate to drink it. But here I was, in the middle of nowhere, nobody had bottled water, I was dehydrated beyond normal levels and there was a bottle full and cold in front of me. I had meant to bring my water purification tablets with me but I had forgotten then at post. So I figure what the heck, if I get sick I'll just be dehydrated in the comfort of my own home. I drank it. It lingered in my system long enough to become something that my intestines couldn't deal with any longer and now my body is punishing me for giving into temptation. Although if I had not accepted this water I really don't know if I would have been better off.

The second theory comes from my own water supply. I was making sun tea the other day, I really enjoy a good cup chai sun tea every now and again, and with the excessive heat and sun here it only take a couple of hours to make a good cut. Best of all I get tea and I don't feel like I actually did anything. I brought the tea into my house and left it on my table for only an hour or so. I then noticed that there were bubbles in the top of it. This was disconcerting. What made my water bubble, I had only put a tea bag into it? I then dumped out my water supply, bleached my bucket and boiled more. The little microbes could have been living in my very own water supply!

A third theory is that I ate bad food. Thinking back the street food that I had eaten last week, there were a few questionable sauces and starches. Also I remembered the server had used her hands to dish out rice. How clean were those hands? I had reheated curry one day from my own cooking, this could have been a problem as well. But it seemed to taste fine.

The fourth and final theory is that it came from my just walking around. I ate off the plates of the street food vendor, my own dishes I wash with water I wouldn't drink. I thought about all the children I had held hands with, knowing how they clean their behinds I'm positive none of their hands are clean. Are my hands even clean? I'm sure at some point I touched something less than sanitary and then ate street food with my hands.

I'm not too sure what I'm to learn from all this. Because I don't think it would be in my best interest for example not to travel for fear of running out of water, or not to eat the food on the street for fear that it is not clean. I certainly would offend my neighbor kids if I didn't hug them or hold their hands. The point is that no matter how hard you try, sickness will catch up with everyone. I refuse to live my life in fear of intestinal parasites. This doesn't mean that I'm going to stop being careful and throw caution to the wind, but I'm not going to let it hold me back either.

The Continuing Story...

Oh I thought the story would come to an uneventful end too, but no never in Benin is anything that simple. I called up the doctors and they told me to do a MIF kit, which means I give them a sample of my poop, lovely I know. If anyone is thinking of becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer and would have a big problem giving a poop sample then they probably shouldn't be a PCV, they should actually stay away from 3rd world countries all together. Back to the story. So I do a MIF kit, and my plan is to put it on the Peace Corps shuttle.

Peace Corp has a vehicle that goes around Benin once a month, and it carries things like packages, fixed bikes, volunteers, anything and everything that needs to go north. It makes a stop at each of the work stations to bring things back down to the main office in Cotonou. I'm never lucky enough with timing to actually use the shuttle a whole lot but luck was with me and the shuttle was going by my house the very same day the doctors told me to do a MIF kit, it was the simplest solution to transporting a MIF kit down to Cotonou without actually going myself.

Well I get a call from my friend who accidentally forgot to tell the shuttle it needed to stop by my house and pick up my package for the medical unit. Things happen, it's cool. So I call the PCVL of my region, sort of like an RA for Peace Corps, and he tells me that I should put it on a bus down the next day. OK, that's pretty simple. There are many buses that come through my post between 9:00-9:30 this shouldn't be a problem.

I write down the information that the bus will need to contact Peace Corps when it has arrived in Cotonou, phone number, name of person picking up the package, city, all those logistical things. I then go to bed and wake up feeling mildly better, sit up and my stomach does a loop-dee-loop around my intestines. That mildly better feeling is gone. I still have to actually get up and get to the bus station. After dragging my feet and wondering whether or not I should leave the house at all I get on my bike and go 8:55, I'm cutting it close but the buses usually stagger in. As I'm going down towards the bus station a bus passes me, it's OK it's probably the first there are lots of buses. I turn the corner and see the place where the buses stop. There is one waiting and it's even a pretty good line! I then remember I've forgotten the MIF kit at my house. I bike back as fast as I can and get back to the bus station. On the way all but 2 bus lines pass me. They were of course actually on time today, every last one of them showing up at 9:00am sharp! The one time where the Beninese are more timely than I am, figures.

I get to the place where the buses stop and there's my least favorite bus line. The once charged me 30% more for my ticket than everyone else and their reasoning was 'because I was white.' I vowed back then to never take them again, to boycott them. And here I was, should I not send my MIF kit today or trust this bus line which I hate with a passion. I decided to give the bus line a chance to redeem itself. If they stole the package, what would they have, my poop sample? Why would they want that? Then as I'm walking up to the bus line the one and only bus that's late, my absolute favorite bus, Intercity, it was the new bright orange bus too! It was coming down the road. I would wait and trust this bus which is nice, air conditioned, and I take it whenever I can. This bus because it was so new and shiny would have the best chance of actually making it to Cotonou without breaking down. The other buses state wasn't inspiring much confidence. I had one of those moments were the heavens open up and angels sing that 'aaaaaahhhh...' sound. I waited on the side of the road, thanking karma for helping me out today. The damn thing didn't stop it just kept right on going. I shook my fist at the sky for dramatic effect when it did this. OK crappy bus line, here's your chance, if you blow it I will never use you again. Not even to transport my poop. I give the guys the information and they say 'oh it's no problem it's going to be 1000FCFA though' OK whatever, not a problem. I hand over the money its' not really that much. I then wave goodbye to the bus.

When I get home I realize that I didn't get the buses phone number. Thing start to slip when you haven't been able to absorb any nutrients from your food in a week and half. I then think to myself it's a well known bus line I see it everywhere, Peace Corps has on file loads of transport agencies they should have this one. I feel confident that it will all work out. I call Peace Corps and tell them the name of the bus line it's on. They've never heard of it. Seriously guys? It's one of six bus lines in the entire country and you've never heard of it, or have the offices phone number on file? Nope. I call the PCVL for Cotonou and they don't have the phone number either. And so the wild goose chase begins! Nobody has the phone number. This is maddening. I speak with the guy who picks up packages from the buses and he says that the bus is obligated to call them when it arrives in Cotonou, he was very confident it would arrive. This is just how the package system works on the buses, it's standard procedure. So now it is totally in the hands of the bus line, which has yet to prove itself. The only thing it has to do is call the number I gave them and let Peace Corps know when they are in Cotonou and where they can pick it up. It's not rocket science.

I call it a day, because I can't do anything about it at this point anyway. I call the office in the morning and ask if my package did or did not actually arrive. It never arrived. Bus line, you fail, never again, I mean it this time. Peace Corps is still searching for the phone number (there aren't phone books in Benin) and they have still yet to find it. Apparently there is one person in the office who has it, but he's not in the office for the next few days so it's useless. When I get off the phone I have a good laugh about it, I'm not really feeling much better health wise, but the whole scenario that has been born from my sickness was pretty laughable.

The day goes by, I resign myself to believing that the MIF kit is lost I'll have to do another one only this time I'll wait and give it to my supervisor who is visiting me in the next few days. At 4:45 I get a call from the doctor. “We have the results from your MIF kit.”

I was pleasantly surprised. “Glad to hear you located the MIF, what's the diagnosis?”

“You have an intestinal parasite. It will go away in 2 days.”

“But I've had it for closer to 2 weeks, will it really go away.”

“From my diagnosis your body should fight it and win in 2 days.”

“Should I call you back in 2 days if I am not feeling better.”

“Yes.”

“Oh OK, we'll try that.”

“I also want you to send down two more MIF kits to make sure the diagnosis is accurate.”

We'll see what kind of fiasco my second batch of MIF kits gets into....

The Story Continues... again...

So I get the MIF kits together and yesterday morning I leave my house and double check to make sure I have the MIF kits, make sure that the paper that is on it has the phone number of the Peace Corps office, make sure I have the correct amount of money to give to the bus line... and I do. I lock my door and head on over to the bus station. Today unlike the time before I am early by a good half an hour. I brought a book in case I had to wait for two hours. I ask the ladies who sell things to people on the buses as they come by, they tell me that only the bus which starts in Djougou has gone by but none of the Natitingou buses have. I feel better and find a comfortable place to sit and read while I wait. The morning is already hot and I'm sweating, I buy some cold water from the store and I feel better. 9:00 no buses. I read some more, sweat some more.

Then a bus comes! I can put the package on the bus and get the buses phone number and then go home. Then I realize it's that crappy unreliable bus line that I vowed never to use again, regardless of the situation. I might actually stay a day longer in a place than take that bus line at this point. I let it pass without even getting up. They aren't getting any more of my money. I then see it, like last time the big orange Intercity bus which is both reliable and one the Peace Corps Volunteers frequently use. I know that Peace Corps has the phone number for them and that Intercity has delivered packages for them in the past. I then remember it went right on by last time. I don't hold my breath. But I do stand up. The fates decided it was time to give me a break and the bus stops. I run over to where it is and ask to deliver a package. The woman makes this face as if Intercity is above delivering packages. I know they are not as other volunteers have done this. I explain that it needs to go to Peace Corps in Cotonou if they dropped it off at their office that would be great as their office is near the Peace Corps office. I show them the phone number, that I have written down the information for them. It's simple they just have to call that number when they arrive at their office. No problem. The woman asks for 2000 CFA. I give it to her. This is double the price that the other bus line charged me, but if it does actually arrive it was worth it. I wave as the bus leaves knowing full well that there is a very good chance of it actually arriving. After all this is how many Beninese get things from place to place, they wouldn't use this system if nothing actually arrived. Peace Corps wouldn't have recommended me use this system if it didn't work in the past.

I call Peace Corps and let them know that I sent the package down on Intercity lines they confirm that they do have the phone number and that all should be well. They are confident that the package will actually arrive without incident. Obviously I wouldn't be writing this post if it arrived like that.

How hard is it to send a package down to Cotonou? Really I want to know if any of them actually arrive like they're supposed to. The package should have arrived Thursday afternoon, which would give Peace Corps the morning to analyze it and get back and tell me if I have an intestinal parasite as before or if I actually have something else. Peace Corps is only open until noon on Fridays but because of the way everything was supposed to happen this isn't a problem. I get a call around 11:30 from Peace Corps. “Melissa, you sent a package down yesterday right?”

“Yes.”

“On which bus line”

“I put it on the Intercity bus which left Natitingou”

“Did they have the phone number of Peace Corps?”

“Yes I gave it to them and I wrote it down on the outside of the package in neat big letters.”

“hm....”

I wait... although I can already see what's happened.

“The reason why we ask is because we never received the package.”

“Well I put it on the bus, and I know that there are many people in Peace Corps who have the phone number for Intercity”

“Yes we have the phone number.”

I was getting frustrated and really wanted to say “What did you think I meant yesterday when I called you to let you know that there was a package on the Intercity bus lines? Did you think I meant that I hadn't put a package on the bus, or that I had put it on another bus, or that I had put it on the bus the day before or planned to do it the day after? And have you even called Intercity to ask if there is a package for you at their office where I told them to leave it, as you do actually have their phone number and if you can't find it I can tell you where it is posted within the building so that you can call them. Oh and if it was supposed to arrive yesterday why are you calling half an hour before you close for the weekend asking where it is? Shouldn't you have called in the morning so that maybe this could have been straightened out by now?!” But instead I took a deep breath and said “OK, well I can't really help you very much other than tell you what you already know.” (For all I know they could have actually been looking very hard to find the package all day and called me after every other attempt to find my package had failed. I do realize that this is very possible.)

“OK we will look.”

They hung up the phone and I shook my fist at the sky for dramatic effect again. Seriously Benin, I just can't win. This whole putting stuff on a bus, regardless of busline has proved to be something that I clearly can't put my trust in. The only other bus line that I will try to use to carry packages to and from Cotonou is the one that is run by the post office. I figure it's their job to deliver mail, they should have it figured out by now. Maybe I will have the opportunity to test this system in the near future when my second package proves to be hopelessly lost and I have to give Peace Corps two more MIF kits. (Note it is now Tuesday of the next week, the MIF kit saga started on Sunday when I couldn't get it the first one on the shuttle.)

Every year there is a traditional coming of age celebration in a small village in a pretty out-of-the-way part of Benin. Last year I didn't go, but after having heard excellent things about the celebration last year I decided to make it a priority. A bunch of us from the region and a few from other regions of the country gathered at the home of a volunteer and spent the night, eating good food, drinking locally made beer, and having a good time. We then woke up at 4am to leave to go to a neighboring village where the ceremony was going to take place. We watched the sun rise in the market while waiting for the ceremony to start. The ceremony/ celebration is a time when boys become men. They do this by taking homemade whips and whipping eachother. They leave men, with open wounds. Here is a picture of my friends and I eating yam pilea

The really important guy in the white sitting in the super nice chair is the king of the village that we were visiting. He invited us to his house ot eat lunch.

Here is an action shot of the men whipping eachother

The whipping stops every now and again and then people dance.

here is a good example of the whips they use at the end of the ceremony I was given one

In the morning the men march from either side of the road before they whip eachother.

here is a line of read-to-be-men coming! Overall it was a really good time and I'm glad that I went, even though it took me close to a week to recover!

My mom asked me when I was home if I could take more pictures of regular things that happen in my village things that at this point, I don't think are all that interesting. So I went to my market and took pictures of me and my favorite market ladies! This girl works with her mother (in the back left) at their market stall everyday. When I asked if I could get a picture with her she threw her arms around. The reason why this picture is so good is probably because we are both actually laughing and not giving fake picture smiles.

A scene in the market. Stalls are made from tree trunks and covered with corregated tin/ straw/ tarps. If you are a regular at the market you get a stall.

Other women, such as this one do not come weekly, or do and just come to late to get a stall and table. They set up on plastic pieces on the ground. I have found that when I take out my camera there are two types of people, people who come running, and beg while jumping to get their picture taken, and then the others who think it steals your soul. This woman was a bit afriad of the camera and only let me take the picture if I bought some tomatos. All the other children are the type who followed me around for the rest of my market visit.

The woman on the right is one of my friends in the market. She has a large metal box about hte size of a big closet that she keeps her stuff in. She sells dried goods like powdered milk, pasta, rice, and also soap, detergents, cigarettes, and matches. She's sort of the market version of one-stop-shopping.

Here is a tissue stall (fabric is called tissue here) So there you have it, a petite tour of my market through pictures.

Taxis are not my most faveorite mode of transportation in Benin. Loyal blog readers already know my luck with taxis. Normally the problem is not the taxi from Bassila to Djougou but the other way around. But to the story, so I was going to deliver a kitten two days ago. My plan was to get to Natitingou, drop the kitten off with the volunteer and then go home the next day. Because I was traveling with an animal I was forced to take a taxi. I was going to leave in the morning and get to Natitingou in good time. I get all my things together, and put the cat in the box, and then I get a knock on the door. I open the door and it's a guy covered in paint splatters says to me 'guess what we're going to paint the doors and window frames in your house today!'

'Seriously?'

'Yes aren't you excited!'

I really want to say to him 'No I'm really not actually, you've totally messed up my day.'

But what i say instead is 'Oh you can't paint tomorow when I return?'

'No'

We go back and forth for a few minutes but the result is that I cave and let them do it, I had promised my landlord that they could do it. There are 3 of them and there aren't many windows or doors in my house and they finish quickly but then i have to wait until at least the paint is tacky. I end up leaving to go to Natitingou at noon. I go to the taxi station and wait for 3 hours, with a kitten. I told my taxi driver that I wasn't going to leave with him if he didn't leave before 3:30, it was 3:00 now. If I waited until after that I wasn't going to make it to Natitingou before nightfall. At 3:25 he pulls up and says 'Ok we're ready!'

I reluctantly get in the car and then he says 'We're towing the car behind us.'

'how far' I ask

'Only a little ways' by this he means the entire way.

The car behind us is making us go about twice as slow as we normally would. the taxi driver also stops at every single village between Bassila and Djougou. Overall it takes 3 hours to get from Bassila to Djougou. A trip that should only take 45 minutes to an hour.

I finally get to Djougou, and it's 6:30, only half an hour until dark. No possible way that I get to Natitingou now before dark. So I call up some friends and ask to crash at their place, with my kitten. I spend the night and Djougou and have a very easy trip to Natitingou in the morning via taxi.

A trip that should only take four/five hours took more like 24. Figures. Foiled again by the taxis.

Since August, it is now two months later, my landlord has been retro fitting the apartments with running water. This is great! I want running water. Although I wish he wasn't so Beninese about the whole thing. What's he's doing is working on one house, then finishing that project and moving on to the next house. For example, tiles one house, they moves to the next, when that phase of the project is complete he starts on the next one. Which is great when nobody is living in the houses but really obnoxious when they are. Every time I think to myself, they must be done, I find that Papa has found something else that needs improving.

Normally he's a very good landlord. He understands that sometimes when he asks about something technical in regards to my house I may not know about it, he has often times taken care of my cat while I'm gone, and whenever I go over to his house he feeds me something. I call him Papa and as far as I know I'm the only person in my concession who can get away with that. But with the business of improvements on the apartments he doesn't really really know what he's doing. This is the first time that he's had to go through and do work on them while people are living in them. My concession is relatively new no need to do improvements on it just yet.

Here comes running water! In my house I had a very small shower and a drain. I also have a pit latrine, which is something that I've grown to love. The cool thing is after running water happens I will have a toilet and a pit latrine! Only Peace Corps Volunteer I've heard of with choices as to where they go to the bathroom. One day, Papa knocks on my door and says 'guess what we're going to begin putting running water into your house today' if you look back on former posts you will see what a headache that was. We finally get to the end of it and my house was quiet for a time. Then Papa knocks on my door again at 7:30am I roll out of bed and answer the door. 'We're tiling your bathroom today! Isn't that exciting!'

'Today, as in like right now?'

'yea!'

'is the this last thing you're going to have to do to my house?'

'Yes after this it's over!'

I look around my house is a total mess, I have stuff in my bathroom like laundry that's been soaking, he could have hardly picked a worse day to come. I tell him that I need like about 20 minutes. I quickly pick up my house and get the stuff out of my bathroom. I move the litter box from it's location where they are working (last time they used the contents as filler for around the pipes). I get a knock on my door. Now the way that the works announce their entry into your house is they knock once on your door, say 'ko ko ko' and then open the door themselves and stride right in. This is truly obnoxious. I have explained to the workers numerous times that I really hate this and I wish they would wait for me to open the door. After all, it is my house and I'm letting them enter it. They nod their head and repeat when I say, they say they understand. Next time they need to open my door the do it again. There is no use pissing them off, they are all good trust worthy guys. And they are just doing what is culturally acceptable for them.

I get settled for some computing and reading for the day when from my back area comes more banging, I didn't realize that much banging was involved in tiling a bathroom. Another few days go by after the initial day of tilling and then they all come back and put the toilet, shower, and fixtures back in. I think to myself, wow this must be it! The counter to know how much water we use is installed, the sink, shower, toilet and now tiles are in place what more could I need. Papa has a key to my house, I trust him and he is someone who I really do enjoy spending time with in Bassila, he always knows where I'm going and the fact that it's his job to take care of the apartments he feels like he's already responsible. Papa is someone who takes his job very seriously.

Then today at 8:00am I get a knock on my door. It's Papa, I go and answer it. Papa is the only person who can wake me up out of a dead sleep here who I am not angry at. Because normally when he does this he wants to give me things.

'Good morning Papa'

'Good morning Melissa'

'How are you today?'

'Good and you?'

'Just fine thanks'

'How is your bike?'

'My bike is good, it gets me places, how is your family?'

'They are very well lately how is your cat'

'She's good, there's only one kitten remaining in my house, how are you pigeons?'

'They are very fat and happy, and your health how is your health?'

'My health is very good, and yours Papa, how is your health?'

'My health is very good, thank you God'

This is typical Beninese style greeting, you ask about everything you can think of before actually getting to the point. Papa then says 'We're painting your house today.'

'What?'

'Yea, we're painting your house today.'

I look around, and just like last time my house is a mess three days before it was immaculately clean. But then I got sick and basically ate oatmeal for two days and slept. Needless to say things were starting to pile up. In my shower I had hung all my underwear to dry, the floor needed to be cleaned and there were dishes everywhere. Today was just not a good day. I will still recovering from being sick. This is something that Papa does which is OK within Benin, but not OK for Americans he arrives at my house and tells me as if I'm ready for anything at any given moment that he's doing work on my house. A few times he's been caught off guard when the workers have come and I'm in another part of the country for work related reasons. I've tried to explain if he gave me a weeks notice as to when the workers were showing up then I would be ready for them when they did arrive, I would move things around in my schedule to best fit their needs and if I knew I was going to be gone I would give him the key to my house so that he could do the work while I was away. Even if he came by the day before I would be better prepared.

My response, 'But Papa, I'm not ready. Can they paint another house today and come back tomorrow?'

I know full well that this gets in the way of his system but I also know that there are empty houses which could be done before mine, another thing I know is that my neighbor is gone and that Papa has the key to his house. After a pause in which Papa fretted and wrung his hands in agitation he said 'Well OK, but you're going to be here tomorrow then right, and ready?'

'Yes'

So here we are, I'm sitting in my house smelling paint fumes from my neighbors, periodically cleaning and getting ready for them to arrive. Hopefully I will be able to make an impression on Papa that it works a lot better and everyone is happy when he waits an extra day to come to my house.