I fly outta here three weeks from today. And it couldn't come soon enough: as if enough crappy things hadn't been happening to me, I found out that one of the kittens I just gave away (to my vet) was eaten by his dog. He told me this in the market like it was nothing, including the gruesome detail that the dog was playing with it like it was a mouse and bit its head off. Then he had the audacity to ask me if he could have another kitten and if we could hang out before I leave. I know it's not really his fault, but still. I cried myself to sleep that night, and had to get out of Lobogo for a few days, hence my Internet access. It was nice, I hung out with two of my fellow PCVs, including one who had just lost her dog so she understood.

Anyway, I'll head back to post today and leave it for good exactly two weeks from today. MAN that's gonna be tough. I'm really not looking forward to it. I've been crying a lot lately, kinda on an emotional rollercoaster.

All that being said, I can't WAIT for America! I'll be down in Cotonou for the week before I leave; time for one last blog.

As in, I fly out of Benin four weeks from tomorrow, and am about to head back to my village for the last time. It is seriously unbelieveable. I recently had my end of the year staff meeting (lasted 6 hours... for all the things I'll miss, that won't be one of them!!), and my Camp GLOW final report was turned in and approved, so I am officially done with my work. I've also finished most of my COS documents.

Now, all that's left is packing up some things in my house, and saying goodbye to people. For as excited as I am to be done and come home, I am REALLY not looking forward to the upcoming goodbyes and leaving my village. It is going to be so hard to leave some of these people, and oh lord, my cats. I get choked up just thinking about it. On the 30th I'm having a small goodbye party (which I have to pay for myself, even though other people TOLD me I was having it... gotta love Benin0, and I'll leave Lobogo sometime between the 4th and the 7th. I fly out of Benin the night of the 11th, and land in Detroit at 4:35 pm on Thursday the 12th! I'll have a day or two at home, then head to the west side of the state for four or five days of R&R.

I know you're still waiting for pictures from Camp GLOW, and of my last few weeks here; I've decided that I will load them all once I'm home, and I have Internet that is fast :)

I'll leave you with this lovely anecdote, another sure sign that it's time for me to get outta here:

Sunday, I was coming down to Cotonou with a kitten in a box on my lap: I was bringing it down for another volunteer who is taking it. All was well until we were in the suburbs of Cotonou and there was a detour since they were doing some road work on the main road. We turned off on the detour to see a huge line of cars in front of us at a standstill, so my driver decided to try and find another route rather than waiting. As we turned a corner, there was a small LAKE of standing water in front of us, one that had been there since May when the rainy season started, and contained many goodies such as dead chickens, feces, and trash. We all told the driver not to try it, but he did anyways. Our car was promptly inundated with the water that turned out to be 3 or 4 feet deep, and we all got SOAKED. The car immediately died, and the driver rushed off to find help. The other passengers and I had to basically swim through the sewer water to get to a shallow spot. Meanwhile, it's taking everything I have in my not to lose my lunch, and I still have a kitten in a box.

The kitten was getting restless, so I decided to take my things and go look for a zem somewhere. By some small miracle, my backpack was on top of all of the other luggage in the trunk, and it was the only thing that was not completely soaked. (Other things in the trunk included baskets of tomatoes and bread that some of my fellow passengers were hopeing to sell in the market...) As I started off, an old man saw me and offered to direct me to the road, and I gladly accepted. Unfortunately, the route to the road included a 25 foot stretch of path through a flooded city garbage heap, and the smell was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. I really don't think I have ever been so disgusted. To top things off, the old man harrassed me for money since he helped me, and then on the zemidjan, my dress flew up, exposing my entire thigh, probably the most sexualized part of the body here. The kitten was trying desperately to get out of the box, so I couldn't afford to move my hands and fix it. As we were pulling away from a stoplight, a man on the zem next to mine reached out an brushed my thigh. SO nasty. Absolutely made my skin crawl. Needless to say, it wasn't one of my better days here in Benin. (Don't worry, I saw the doctors and took about ten hot showers as soon as I got to the bureau)

Here's the blog you've all been waiting for! I'll start by saying that camp was an enormous success. All the girls, volunteers, and tutrices left happy and empowered. So, here's a run-down of the week:

Sunday morning, I left my house at 9:15 to go and meet the girls and our taxi. Half of the girls were already there, and said they had been waiting since 8! I've taught them well: to be early is to be on time :) My homologue decided to go and look for the other three girls, who were apparently ready to go and just sitting calmly at their houses- I'll never understand some parts of this culture! Murphy's law, the taxi driver was about thirty minutes late and extremely casual about it. (He was one of those Beninese men who you can tell constantly congratulate themselves for being a man: he had his shirt rolled up above his pot belly for the whole ride down, spit out the window a lot, etc. Attractive, really.) All morning it was POURING, so the drive down was a bit scary. All of the massive potholes (like none you've ever seen before in America) were filled with water and therefore impossible to see, so I'm surprised we didn't lose a tire on the way down. Beninese people apparently don't find it necessary to do anything differently when driving in the rain; they don't use headlights, slow down, etc. Anyway, we stopped in Cotonou on the way down and I bought the girls some pounded yams for lunch (a northern food, so something most of them hadn't tried before). You could tell they loved sitting in the little restaurant like grown ups!

Upon arrival in Porto Novo, the chaos began. The driving rain made it difficult to move around a lot, and lots of people arrived late because of it. We had almost 60 mosquito nets to hang (and a few were stolen in the process), so that took some time. Girls arrived in big groups, and I had to remember every step involved in checking them in, giving them room assignments, telling them not to touch their newly-opened mosquito nets (they need time to air out because of the chemicals on them, if not they will sting your eyes and face), etc.

Let me back up quickly to the last three days before the camp: I was already back in village, obviously with no computer/Internet access. First, I got a call from the Peace Corps office, asking me many details about the Opening Ceremony for the camp. For as much as I think I understand Beninese culture now, I am still lost when it comes to the formalities of official events. Things have to be just so, and apparently whatever dignitaries you invite, it is YOUR responsibility to write their speeches for them. I also finally got the go-ahead from the NGO that donated soccer balls to the girls, though there was more paperwork to do for that. So, I was feeling pretty helpless and stressed in Lobogo. I also got calls from several volunteers saying that their girls couldn't make it, so I had to scramble around trying to find some replacements.

Now, back to the first night of camp, I was surprised to find we had 49 girls (as opposed to the original 50) since I had thought we had many cancellations the day before. Once all the girls were checked in and settled into their rooms, we had dinner and a welcome meeting. It was fun to show them how to use a toilet and shower, and to see how excited they all were about the week ahead. It was nice and cool all week because of the rain, and we didn't even have to use the ceiling fans in our rooms to sleep at night! I'm sure the girls were chilly, though :)

Monday morning was also high stress since we had the opening ceremony of the camp, and we had invited several dignitaries. The Peace Corps invitees showed up first, followed by the Ambassador. It was fun seeing the girls' faces when his motorcade drove into the center, American flags flying. We ended up having to wait nearly an hour for the Beninese dignitaries to show up (surprise surprise), but it was a good opportunity for me to chat with the Ambassador and tell him all about the camp. All in all, the people who arrived were: the Peace Corps Benin country director, the woman in charge of the education/gender sector of Peace Corps Benin, the Ambassador, and the second to the mayor of Porto Novo. The ceremony was nice and concise; I made a speech, as did the mayor's representative, the Ambassador, and the Country Director. We then took a really nice photo with everyone in it: girls, volunteers, invitees, and all. That day we then had sessions on the rights of women and children, how to deal with/avoid sexual harrassment (especially from teachers), and study skills/tips. After dinner, we did relay races, which the girls had never seen before and LOVED. It was really fun to watch the girls open up throughout the first day and lose all their shyness. Because these girls are the best from their respective schools and villages, they enjoyed and participated in the sessions, and had impeccable behavior.

The second day started with a craft session run by PCVs. They could choose between collage making and book binding, and both were a huge hit. We were originally nervous that the book binding might be too complicated/lengthy, but the girls were really perceptive and followed the instructions well, and made adorable fabric-covered journals. I helped with the collage session, and it was really interesting to see the pictures they chose to cut out of the magazines. It tended to be a lot of photos of people, along with fauna and commercial products. These sessions were great since the girls normally have to artistic outlet. We then had a session on puberty, reproduction, and hygiene, which the girls LOVED and asked tons of questions. That afternoon, half the group went to a local museum, and the other half went to Songhai, that organic farm/green technology center in Porto Novo. It is honestly one of the most innovative, self-sustaining places I've ever seen, and it's here in Benin. Crazy, huh? At Songhai, they took a tour of the farm and then learned how to use computers: Word and basic Internet searches. I could tell that the girls felt really empowered to be able to use a computer, especially since many of their peers have never even seen one. That night we watched Bend it like Beckham, which was particularly relevant, both because it was girls playing soccer and because of the World Cup going on right now. I have never seen a group of people be so invested in a film: they cheered everytime someone scored a goal! They absolutely loved it, especially since we projected it up onto a big screen just like a movie theater. This was a good ending to a not-so-good day for me personally: I had a man at Songhai refuse to take me as the camp director because I was a woman (then had the audacity to call me his wife), and a woman on the street completely ignored myself and some other volunteers because, we were told, she hates white people. We also were having some problems with the caterer (that unfortunately continued throughout the rest of the week): arriving late, giving us fish when we were supposed to have meat, claiming that there was no fruit to be found in the whole city even though that's what we paid for. (That being said, the girls still ate awesome food and a ton compared to what they are given at home. They actually got to eat meat!)

Wednesday morning, we visited the National Assembly, basically the Beninese equivalent to our House of Respresentatives. It was quite interesting, and the girls got to sit in the seats of the deputies and ask questions through their microphones. They asked tons of good questions, such as "If there are 83 deputies in the National Assembly, why are only 9 of them women?!" These girls are so lucky; most Beninese never get to visit a government building like this. That afternoon, the girls once again went to Songhai and the museum, visiting whichever one they had not seen the day before. That night, the girls had time in their teams to develop skits about any topic we'd discussed during the week.

Quick explanation of the team system: the girls were divided into 5 teams of ten girls each. Three or four volunteers were assigned to each team, along with one Beninese tutrice. At the end of each day, the teams met to discuss the themes touched upon that day. Teams also had a competition the whole week. Teams could win or lose points, depending on factors such as participation in sessions, behavior, helping out, etc. At the end of the week, all the points were tallied and each member of the winning team received some cool prizes: a dictionary, compass set, and nice notebook.

Thursday started out with a session all about soccer: how to play, rules of the game, strategies, how to inflate a ball. We then held a mini tournament. It was amazing to see how awesome some of these girls were at soccer! One of my girls in particular was fantastic. We then had two young Beninese people come in to do a sensibilisation on HIV/AIDS and malaria, which the girls really enjoyed. We even did a condom demonstration, which the girls were really mature about. (Side note: nearly all the sessions were run by Beninese people, not volunteers.) We also had a woman living with HIV come in to talk to the girls, to show them that she was a normal person and tell them her story. That afternoon, we had a really good session on nutrition. It's an important session for these girls since the Beninese diet is so full of carbs and void of nutrition. (These people aren't starving like a lot of people think, they just don't have enough vitamins.) That night was fantastic, we had a DJ come to do a dance party for these girls, and let me tell you, these girls can DANCE. They insisted we dance with them, but they just end up making us look silly :) They really let loose and got to shine since it's normally the boys who take over the dance floor. It was a lot of fun.

Now comes the craziest part of my week. One of the girls I brought, Elise, has a disease, one that her parents called a "bone" disease. I was told it flared up during the rainy season when it's cooler, so my homologue was hesitant to let her come in case her disease flared up. But, she really wanted to come and assured us that she would bring her medicine for it, and that ibpruofen helps it a lot. During the dance party, she came up to me crying and saying that it was flaring up and she hurt, so another volunteer gave her ibpruofen and took her to her room to lie down. When the night was finished and everyone else headed to bed, I went to check on her. She was in HORRIBLE pain, writhing and crying in her bed. It seemed as if the ibpruofen had done nothing. We were constantly massaging her back and making her drink water. We finally decided to move her into my room so that her roomates could get some sleep, and we sat up with her for hours. It was so hard to see this smart, adorable little girl in so much pain. At 3am, she told us she needed to go to the hospital, so I called the Peace Corps emergency line to ask what hospital we should go to. A nice man who worked at the center drive us (two other volunteers, myself, and the girl) there in his car. He also helped us once there. (We were first taken to a back-alley clinic that looked way too sketchy, so we told him we needed to go to the big regional hospital in Porto Novo). It was such a surreal place: people sleeping all over the hospital grounds, sewer water flooding certain areas, rats. There was no one to direct us where to go, so we finally found the pediatric emergency room. It was a really hard place to see. There were two or three kids to a bed, and really bad looking patients all around. The baby on the bed next to us convulsed with each beat of his heart, there was a little girl who couldn't blink, kids in comas, etc. There was a pool of blood on the floor next to Elise's bed. The nurse came to give her an IV, and did it in a really rough and irresponsible manner, constantly bumping and pulling on the needle. There is absolutely NO bedside manner here; it's as if the nurses are there to do their job and the patients shouldn't interfere. Since it was 4am, there was no doctor there (naturally...), so they were not authorized to give her any pain meds, only a rehydrating IV drip, so she was still in terrible pain. We called in for replacement volunteers at around 8:30am so that we could get some sleep. I haven't pulled an all-nighter like that since freshman year of college! Meanwhile we had not been able to get a hold of anyone in her family (though when we did, they weren't panicked; these pain attacks are fairly common). The doctor fianlly came with the lab results and it turns out that she has Sickle Cell Anemia, occassionally causing her these massive pain attacks. In the U.S., patients are given morphine to ease the pain. Shortly after we left her with the other volunteers, the pain started to subside and she was able to get some sleep, so she came home aroung 11am that day. Not only was the whole hospital experience depressing, jarring, and sad, but it was also backwards and dysfunctional. For instance, the hospital does not simply bring you the medicine you need. They write you a prescription, and YOU are respinsible for taking it to the cashier, paying, and then going out to the pharmacy to get it. I guess it is assumed that a family member will be there to help, but what if they're not? Nor does the hospital feed the patient, it's once again the responsibility of the patient or a family member to get food. I guess it's a product of the collectivist society here. All in all, it was one of the craziest nights I've ever had and one I'll not soon forget.

Friday morning, the campers did a session on gender roles that they got really passionate about- why can't a woman do that?! Of course she can! Men can cook, too! Etc. It was really neat to see them get fired up like that. Then a panel of four professional Beninese women came to talk to the girls about how they got into these high-profile jobs in this male-dominated society. That afternoon the girls learned about money management and how to create a budget, and then got to make beautiful bead necklaces with an artisan from Ouidah. The last night, the girls preformed their skits, and it was once again heartbreaking to see how accurately they portrayed the typical Beninese man. They were great actressses and clearly loved performing!

The last morning of the camp, we just held a quick session synthesizing everything we'd learned during the week and encouraging girls to share what they'd learned with their peers, and then gave awards. The winning team got the prizes I mentioned above, and every girl got a tshirt, certificate, Camp GLOW bracelet, group photo, and soccer ball. They also got to take home their mosquito net and the books, collages, and necklaces they had made. Needless to say, they left the camp very happy :) One of the girls even presented me with flowers during the ceremony, which was really sweet. It was then time for the girls to pack up and head out. Of course, my taxi driver promised he would be there no later than 11am, and didn't show up until 3. Every time I called him, he would lie and tell me he was around the corner, and he eventually stopped answering my calls. It's infuriating that they can get away with things like that here; my homologue told me that there was no way I could pay him less since the price was already negotiated. I was especially angry because Elise wasn't feeing well, and since he arrived so late we had no time to stop in Ouidah to show the girls the ocean like we had originally planned (none of these girls had ever seen the water before!) Once again, the driver didn't apologize, and was pretty rude the rest of the way home. We had another unfortunate event at the end of camp: we realized one of the tutrices had stolen a lot of things from us, such as extra camp tshirts, bowls, toilet paper, and soap. When we privately confronted her about it (we had proof that she had done it), she threw a big fit and started insulting the camp, campers, and volunteers before running off. It was really unfortunate.

All being said and done, I would call the camp a fantastic success. All of the girls were extremely bright and I know they will do something with the lessons they learned. Elise is feeling better now, and all in all only missed a half day of camp activities. (Once back in Lobogo, her parents and brother traveled all the way from their farm many kilometers away to my house to thank me profusely for taking care of her.) Being camp director was of course stressful, but extremely satisfying. My one complaint would be that because I was so busy taking care of logistics, I didn't have as much time to play with the girls this year.

Back in Lobogo, I couldn't even catch up on sleep the next day as it was Fifa's first communion and I had to go to the four hour long Mass for that :( We then had an all day long party for her in our concession which I had to attend, and even if I had wanted to nap I couldn't have because the music was blasting so loud. First communion fetes are a really big deal here: they set up a tent, rented chairs, hired a DJ, killed a goat and pig and chicken. They even had a photographer going around and snapping tons of pictures!

The next two days I spent at school, giving students their final grades and filling out school grade books and report cards. I can't believe I'm officially done with all my school duties! Saying goodbye to my students was as sad as I thought it might be, maybe because it just doesn't quite seem real yet. I told them to stop by and say goodbye to me at some point during the next few weeks. I'll see all my colleagues one more time at the end of the year staff meeting on Friday. On Tuesday night, I gave away one of the two kittens to my vet, the other one will go to another volunteer next week. (It's a good thing, too- they were starting to destroy my house! I'll miss them, though.)

On Wednesday I came down to Cotonou to write the final report for my camp and got that all wrapped up, and on Thursday I had my final medical exam/check out. Looks like I'm healthy! Friday a few of us headed to Dogbo for one last reginal cooking session; we made sandwiches and coleslaw for dinner and red, white, and blue pancakes (with dried blueberries and strawberries) for breakfast. We also watched the Ghana v. Uraguay game at a bar that night, and the energy was incredible. People were literally dancing in the streets when Ghana scored a goal! It was too bad that Ghana lost.

I'm now back down in Cotonou staying with my friends who work at the embassy here. They are about to go home for vacation, and since I'm leaving soon, I don't think I'll see them again. They are SO sweet, and they treated me to dinner last night. It's so nice staying in a house that feels just like America! We spent the morning watching CNN and Discovery channel, and made coffee and cinnamon roles for breakfast :) Tonight there is a big potluck at one of the embassy workers' houses, so it'll be a nice way to celebrate the 4th! I'll head back to village tomorrow. I think I'll only leave one more time before I leave for good, to give all the Camp GLOW paperwork to the person who is taking the camp over next year (a man!) By the way, if you're wondering why I haven't gotten mail or packages in a long time, it turns out it's because of the volcano! All the stopped up air traffic caused major back-ups in the mail system.

I arrive in America exactly 5.5 weeks from today, can you believe it?? I can't. I'm really, REALLY excited to come home, but am getting pretty sad about leaving some of my friends and especially my cats here. I'll have my last 3 weeks or so in village just to spend time with those people and pack up my house.

This is probably one of my last blogs! Sorry it was so long. I will post pictures from the camp when I get a chance.

Thought I'd do a quick update before my couple weeks of craziness start! I'm down in Cotonou, doing all of the last-minute things for Camp GLOW.

As far as school goes, the kids took their final exams last week and I've graded half of them (all the quatrieme exams, that I wrote). For whatever reason, they really bombed it. I thought it was a very reasonable test, and had my colleagues look over it to confirm that. When I asked some of the students why the test was difficult for them, they said it was because I wrote "do NOT copy sentences from the text" for their answers in the short answer section. Normally, this is exactly what they'll do, and get all up in arms when I give them partial or no credit for it; apparently Beninese teachers find this way of answering acceptable. It was a bummer, especially getting that from my favorite class.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my sixieme students did much better... the test was all on verbs in simple present form, which we worked on for over a month but they STILL were having a difficult time with. I even decided not to progress in the curriculum and instead stayed on verbs for a long time since they are so important (and I have quatrieme students who STILL can't conjugate well). So we'll see! I did a really good review session with one class, but got rained out when I was supposed to do it with my other sixieme class. (Life 100% STOPS here when it's raining. People don't leave their house, mostly because they really can't- the roads turn to mush and it's hard to see when driving a zem into the rain.) When I arranged a makeup review session, we got rained out again! It wasn't a total waste of the afternoon, though: several students happened to be walking by when the rain got really hard, so we all huddled under the porch at the front of my concession. They stayed with me for almost three hours and we talked about EVERYTHING, from weather patterns in America to Hollywood. (One asked, "When they kill someone in an American movie... is it real? Do they really die?") It was one of those classic Peace Corps moments that I'll never forget.

Life in Lobogo is going well, but little things keep coming up that remind me why I'm excited tohead home in August. An especially devastating one happened this week: a FOUR YEAR OLD girl in my concession told us that she's been having sex with teenage boys from the neighborhood. When she was telling Angele and the other gathered around... they were laughing. A lot. Laughing with intermittent heavy beatings of the poor girl. I'm not even going to try to analyze why they reacted this way, because I can't even begin to understand it. They made her show them the positions she had sex in, and then made her pull down her underwear for them to see. It was one of the most upsetting experiences I've had here, made even worse by the fact that I really didn't understand what was going on and I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Really, really sad.

The biggest news: Camp GLOW starts in four days!!! I have been working really hard the past few days to do all of the last minute things: supply shopping, printing out certificates, getting soccer balls for all the girls, etc. I'm feeling pretty good about the camp, and I think I've done just about all that I can for now. I found out that not only the ambassador and his wife will be at the opening ceremony, but so will tons of ministers,(probably) the mayor of Porto Novo, and lots of people from the Peace Corps' office. The news might even show up! Keep posted for updates about the camp in early July! This wouldn't have been possible without all your donations, so thank you :)

Last night I was invited to dinner at my friends' house, the ones we stayed with during Kate's memorial that work at the embassy. It was so nice! Lots of wine, pizza, salad... so nice to have a nice dinner in a nice home with nice people :) While there, I heard a hilarious pick-up line that white women often get in Benin: "Let's make an Obama." Wow.

I'll head back to post today for a few days before the camp. My girls and tutrice are getting really excited! We are going to rent a whole taxi to take us straight there which will be nice. I only have a bit more time to spend with my kittens, so I'm gonna try to soak them up these next few days. They taught themselves how to use the litter box and run around the house like they own the place :)

Wish me luck for GLOW!

I'm having a bad day and decided to rant about it. Here's why:

1. Remember the goat I wrote about in my last post, who was it by a moto? About two days ago, it just decided to give up on life (even though it had been eating and walking much better the day before). It laid down in the dirt and didn't move for almost 48 hours, refusing food or water. So, for as hard and sad as it was, we all decided to let it go. The thing is, it was taking FOREVER to die, just sitting there wheezing and moaning for two full days. As of last night it was still alive, and I woke up around 1am to the sound of pounding rain that lasted for at least an hour. The poor thing drowned in a puddle that formed around it. SO sad. And my neighbors just laughed at me the whole time it was dying when I would squat by it and pet it a bit. God forbid we show a little compassion.

2. AWFUL day teaching. The kids refused to sweep the class (as usual), so we started late. I reminded them that this was our last week together, so please leave me with good memories of them, and they proceeded to act worse than ever. I sent several kids home, changed many of their seats, and took points off their conduct grades, but to no avail. When I told them that I was sad they were acting this way during our second-to-last class together, they just laughed. It was horrible. After talking to some other TEFL volunteers, this seems to be the case across the board since the school year is extended and the kids are really antsy. I know it's a lot to hope for, but I just want this last bit of teaching to feel good and go smoothly.

3. As usual, I offered to help edit all of the English exams. However, the secretary has gotten bold and told me she wanted me to TYPE all of them, getting angry when I told her I didn't have time to do that, even though it's HER job.

4. I am in Lokossa to get money from the bank because I literally had none. Our taxi broke down about a mile outside the city, so I ended up having to walk the rest of the way, in the midday sun. I can't even count the number of "Bonjour cherie!"s I got en route, and one man actually became furious that I didn't respond to him.

5. Now, in the cybercafe, the man next to me is unabashedly looking at porn online and touching himself to boot. Fabulous.

I also tried to fete Angele for her birthday, i.e. I gave her some money to buy fish and rice. Well, she bought the things and prepared them, but her husband came home so we couldn't eat until about 6 hours later because he gave her somany things to do. By the time we ate, she only served me and her husband, and I don't think she got any even though it was HER birthday. The food was also cold and a litte rancid.

I went to the mayor's office yesterday to ask for money for the girls' transport to Camp GLOW, which he gave me, though the whole encounter was a bit uncomfortable after his advances towards me last year. Sigh. My house is also a disaster right now, plus all the stress getting ready for camp and the end of the year and COS.

So, needless to say I'm not the happiest camper today. The good news is that I'm now taking 6 girls to Camp GLOW, and when I informed the sixth girl, the BIGGEST smile spread across her face and she got really giddy. It's so good to see a reaction like that out of girls who are used to being so stoic around their superiors! Camp is coming up FAST- can you believe it's June now??- 19 days! The kittens are also helping keep me sane. Their ears have opened and they can walk pretty normally now. They have also become extremey playful... so cute!

Wow, I can't believe that it's been over a month since my last post... and here I always bragged about how up-to-date my blog was :( sorry! I had absolutely no idea how crazy my last few months here in Benin were going to get. And there truly are only a few months left... And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: AUGUST 12! I will leave my village on August 4 or 5 and then fly out of Benin on the 11th. Just over two months, how crazy is that?? I feel like I've been waiting for so long to know an actual date.

I won't bore you with excruciating details of the last month of my life, but here's a taste:

-We had our last Camp GLOW meeting! We divvied up the number of girls that each volunteer gets to bring, and this year I am bringing 5! It was hard to choose, but I think I picked some really hard-working and driven girls, all from my sixieme classes. I have been visiting the girls' families with my homologue, and so far so good. No crazy bush-whacking moonlit experiences this year, but that's ok. Most of the work for Camp GLOW is done, or at least has been delegated. What I am having a hard time with now is just trusting that all of the delegated work will get done... I know it will! We have some great volunteers working on the camp this year. Camp starts in 26 days!

-On April 30, Andrew and I ran some camp errands in Porto Novo, mainly giving people down payments and trying (unsuccessfully) to meet with the mayor. We then headed to his post to hang out for the weekend and celebrate Labor day there. He lives north of Porto Novo in the Oueme river vally, which, believe it or not, is the second most fertile vally in all of AFRICA after the Nile. It really is just a beautiful, lush area, and his town is on a bit of a hill overlooking the river... which was beautiful until it rained. And rained. Than it kept raining. And rained some more. I literally got stuck there and extra day because of the rain that just wouldn't stop and the resulting quicksand/mud. The only time we ventured out of his house that day was to buy food to make some dinner, and it took us almost two hours of desperate sinking and sliding to walk a grand total of maybe a 1/4 mile. Sounds silly, but it made me REALLY appreciate drainage and sewer systems in the US!

-Belle and Baby had their kittens!! Belle had hers the morning of the Cotonou GAD fundraiser, so I didn't end up going to that. I got to watch the whole thing which was pretty fascinating. She had two adorable and healthy kittens, both white with brown and black spots. Honestly, they look a lot more like Baby! Speaking of Baby, she went into labor two days later just as I was on my way out the door. When I got back from class, there was a bit of liquid on the floor and Baby was definitely skinnier, but no sign of any kittens. My guess (hope) is the kitten(s) was stillborn and she ate it, in which case I'm sure glad I wasn't there to see it! Like before, she is acting like momma #2 for Belle's kittens, which is really cute.

-Sad story about kittens... sorry to retell this awful story, but it's fruitful to know the random and cruel way people treat animals here sometime. Brigitte, another PCV who took one of Belle's first kittens, was out of town for a training and left the kitten with her neighbors. One night while she was gone, the cat was outside in front of the house, when an old man with a walking stick started beating it mercilessly. It was able to jump into a well for safety ("safety") and the neighbors were able to get it out. Unfortunately, most of it's bones were broken and it could barely walk, and couldn't control its bladder or bowels. Brigitte called me crying, asking my permission to put the cat to sleep. Obviously I said yes, but the story just broke my heart. She said the hardest part about it all was the indifference of her Beninese friends and neighbors, just telling her to "get a new one." She has not yet told me if she ended up putting him down or not. I also recently witnessed one of the beby goats in my concession get hit by a moto and break one of it's legs pretty badly. Now it's mother refuses to nurse it and it is growing very weak. I have had a pretty thick skin so far when it comes to animals here, but both of those things have made me cry.

-Finally had a good old "hang out in Lokossa" weekend like I used to do ALL the time last year. We baked a pound cake and I learned how to make my favorite Beninese sauce. Can't wait to make it for some of you next year!

-Crazy weather. For a while, it seemed like the rain was pretty predictable, at least once every few days. Now, it seems to go a while with no rain, and it is SO hot. One day last week, I left my house for school and noticed that the sky was dark and looked like rain. I arrived at school just in time to see students and professors alike SPRINTING to take cover inside classrooms. I looked out over the soccer field to see that the sky was LITERALLY falling. It had turned black as tar and was rapidly lowering to the ground. The wind must have been blowing at 90mph, and suddenly the fiercest rain I have ever, EVER seen was falling. I was actually cold for a few minutes there! I now know that I had not experienced a real African rain until that moment.

-COS conference happened! It was at a really nice hotel in Cotonou right on the ocean (alongside the fishing tenements, lovely). Not only did we get to stay in air conditioned rooms with hot showers, but we had a HUGE swimming pool and were fed some pretty fabulous meals each day. It was really the first time we had been together as a group since training, and it's probably the last time a lot of us will see each other. The first day of the conference, we talked a lot about the logistics of COSing, picked our dates (which was SO painless... they basically let us decide amongst ourselves and there were plenty of slots available, so I basically had my pick from August 9 on... hence the 11th! I'm COSing with Michelle and Kristin, two of my best friends here in country, so that will be nice), and talked about honing our Peace Corps experiences into concrete skills. The second day was dedicated to resume writing and interview skills, along with giving feedback to PC Benin administration. We had a fancy luncheon that day during which we received certificates of thanks from the various Beninese ministries we serve... I was shown on national news accepting my award! That night, we had Kendra's bachelorette party! Please appreciate the veil made out of mosquito netting :) Her boyfriend proposed to her when he visited Benin last summer, and they are planning to get married in Atlanta in May 2011! Kendra is another TEFL volunteer. On the last day, we talked about readjusting to life in the US, how to share our experience with others back at home, and strategies for saying goodbye to our villages. We put together a really nice slideshow of our time here, too. You'll all have to be very patient with me when I come back home for good... it's gonna be a tough adjustment and I'll probably want to talk your ear off. On the way home from COS conference, I stopped at a nice bakery in Cotonou and got a slice of cake and lots of cookies for Mariam and the girls since it was her birthday. (She wanted me to bake her a cake; she had reminded me about 4 zillion times when her birthday was.) Turns out she was having a little birthday party, complete with a photographer (the hallmark of any Beninese celebration) and all! The cookies were a big hit with the kids :)

Now, the part about viscious goats. You might wonder why I'm down in Cotonou, during the school week and a whopping three days after COS conference ended. I'm in the med unit because- I kid you not (pun intended)- I was bit by a goat. On the hand. Quite hard. I had some bread in my hand and wasn't paying attention, and up snuck the goat and chomped down on my fingers. It broke the skin, and after washing it, reading the med book, and lots of deliberation, I decided to call the doctors to see if I needed any treatment. I woke up this morning with a red, sore, puffy finger, so I think I made the right choice. The good news is, goats can't carry rabies, so no risk there. I did, however, have to get a tetnus shot and am now on antibiotics. There are some things about Benin that I don't think I'll miss much!

I would say that I am overall quite happy right now, though I'm really stressed out. It's the end of the school year (last week teaching!), which means typing and grading exams and calculating year-end grades, and my end of the year report to Peace Corps. Camp GLOW is 3.5 weeks away. And now I have all my mountains of COS paperwork to fill out. So, I'll do my best to keep updating. Not sure when the next time I'll have internet access is, probably in two weeks or so when I'll come down to put the finishing touches on Camp GLOW. I'm going to try and spend as much time in Lobogo in these last few months as possible.

Quick explanation of the pictures: Mari's birthday party, the bachelorette party, the press crowding in front of the podium so the audience can't see a thing, as is usual here in Benin, the kittens!, a pink chicken (people dye them to identify which one is theirs), and one of my students who showed up as a Pink Lady one day!

For tons of pictures and videos from Ghana and a few from my village. It would be impossible/impossibly time-consuming to caption each photo, so here's the basic order, from top to bottom:

-Some shots from the night I made palm oil and cooked crab and collard greens with my neighbors,

-the filthy beach in Togo and John Mark giving Togo a thumbs-down,

-Big Milly's Backyard, our beach resort in Kokrobite,

-Cape Coast: our hotel, fishermen reeling in their nets, and the slave castle,

-brass casting! Polishing the final product with rotten lemons, breaking the molds, melting the brass, shaping the wax, etc.

-beautiful, developed Ghana!

The videos are of shaping some wax during the casting process, pouring the melted brass into the molds, fishermen pulling in their latest catch (listen carefully for the chant they sing to keep their rhythm), and pounding palm nuts to make the oil.

It took me forever to upload all of these thanks to Benin's mighty slow internet, so I hope you enjoy them! :)

So I have just been hanging out in Lobogo since my last post. School has been rough- the kids are getting squirelly since the end of the year is coming up and it is SO hot. On my second day back from vacation, I had to just leave a class and go home since they were being so bad. Unfortunately, because of this, the kids were beat pretty badly (not at my request, obviously). They were really good for our next class, but the one after that they were right back to misbehaving.

We have also just been informed that they are extening the school year because of the long teachers' strike that we had a month or so ago. I'm not exactly sure what that means for me, since it mainly effects those in national exam-taking years. Last year, my last day of regular teaching was April 29; this year, it looks like it will be about a month later. That's alright I suppose, it will keep me busy and allow me to cover more of the curriculum (if my kids have the attention span to get through it...) As of now, it's looking like it shouldn't effect Camp GLOW since the girls who come to the camp are not taking national exams.

Another infuriating thing that happened at school: remember me ranting about the other teachers taking off in the curriculum and telling me how behind I was? Well, at our department meeting last week, we discovered that I am in fact AHEAD of them, and their students took a midterm on subjects that they hadn't even come close to covering in class (whereas my students did really well). A lot of this confusion was due to the strike, but that still doesn't make it ok. When I asked my colleagues why it happened and what they were planning on doing about it, they just shrugged. Great.

Once again, it's hotter than ever. I am pretty sure that these last few days have been some of the hottest ones I have yet to experience here. Power has been cutting a lot, and even when we have power at night it is still difficult to sleep inside since the fan is just blowing scorching hot air in my face.

Baby and Belle are massively pregnant; I'm pretty sure that Belle will have her kittens in about a week and Baby will follow soon after.

Last weekend, Michelle came to Lobogo for a night, it was a lot of fun! We made a cheddar ale soup mix that I had brought back from the States and baked a chocolate-vanilla swirl cake (which we were too full to eat more than a bite or two of- lucky neighbor kids!) We went on a walk at night when it was already pitch black, which was fun since I'd never done it before. Once again, it is truly amazing just how dark it gets here at night.

I'm now down in Cotonou (thank God for AC); we have our last big meeting before Camp GLOW tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it, we'll finally be deciding the number of girls each volunteer gets to bring. I am hoping for at least three, though I would love to be able to take more! I have already informed one girl of each sixieme class (one is at the top of her class!) and I showed the administration how hard they are working. I'm looking forward to once again going to meet with their families to inform them of this opportunity.

I'll head back to Lobogo tomorrow night and am pretty sure I will be there until the 7th, when I will come back down here for our big ex-pat fundraising dinner and Take Our Daughters to Work Day. COS (Completion of Service) conference is in a few weeks, during which we will choose our dates to come home! As usual, time flies...

So, I left off right before we went to see the brass casters on Monday. Since we weren't meeting up with them until 11:30, we headed into Kumasi on Monday morning to check out the city for an hour or two. Getting into the city was much easier than we thought it would be: just hop on any old mini bus that is driving by. It is almost like a bus system in the US, without the hinderance of time tables. We got off at one of the city's major markets. Kumasi is basically a bigger, nicer version of Cotonou. The multi-story architecture is older than that in Cotonou, and the city has plenty of tree-lined streets. There are also sprawling highway overpasses and city parks to sit in. We decided that something about the slightly run-down feel of this charming city reminded us of a city in North Africa, although we don't know why we think this since neither of us has ever been to North Africa :)

After walking around for a while, we decided to try Ghana's version of cafeteria food (in Benin it's fried eggs, coffee/hot chocolate, spaghetti, and baguettes). Once again, since Ghana was a British colony, there are no baguettes there, so our omelette sandwich came on a choice of white or WHEAT soft bread. Not only do they fry the egg, but they toast both sides of the sandwich in the frying pan, too. They also make their hot chocolate with sugar and evaporated milk instead of sweetened condensed milk, so it was extra delicious. To finish our time in Kumasi, we went into a food market. They had any vegetable you can imagine, and whole street vendors dedicated to only spices. Both veggies and spices are sorely lacking in Benin. Benin's solution to lack of spice is simply to keep adding tons of blindingly hot peppers. On our way to meet the artisans, my camera ran out of batteries, so what did we do? Stop in to a gas station store and pick some up, naturally, along with some soda and snacks. Happens in Benin all the time...

The artisans, lead by George Kofi, live in a village on the outer limit of Kumasi. Quick history on this: Kumasi was the seat of the once powerful Ashanti kingdom. Since the chiefs needed crafts for themselves and to trade with other kingdoms, there are several villages around Kumasi, each dedicated to making a different craft. Krofrom, the village where we spent our day, is the brass casting village. (There is also a wood working village, a weaving village, etc.) Brass was used by the Ashanti mainly to cast scales to weigh gold dust (the kingdom's currency) and boxes to store the dust in. Brass beads were also used for decoration. In Krofrom, there are about five or six brass casting workshops, each with a few head artisans and lots of apprentices.

George has a large outdoor workshop. It is mainly him that sculpts the desired objects in wax, and the apprentices who perform the rest of the steps. Here is a brief summary of how the process works: objects, be them utilitarian or decorative, are sculpted in heated beeswax. The wax is then dipped in a mixture of clay and charcoal, and left in the sun to dry. This step is repeated several times, until the object is encased in a solid disk of hardened clay. More clay and palm fibers are then packed on. The vase-shaped container is then placed in a VERY hot fire (a fan is constantly blowing on the flames to keep them extra hot) where the wax melts out of the clay, leaving it's negative inside the hardened mold. While the mold is still hot, melted brass (usually metal scraps and knick knacks all melted together) is poured into it. After about 30 minutes, the brass has become completely hardened and the clay mold is broken, revealing the brass object inside. The object is then filed, and finally polished using rotten lemons (seriously. It works!) and a brush made out of old corn cobs and palm branches. And voila, you're left with beautiful brass objects! The day we visited the artists cast a porccupine, a symbol of power and royalty in the Ashanti kingdom, and they gave it to me! It's very cool. They also were making beads and some badges for a group of knights (?) in Nigeria. They had done a lot of extra work for us (they even let us make a few wax molds!), and so they asked for some money from us, which we were happy to give, since the process was so fascinating to see and they had been very hospitable to us. They ended up having to ask for more money, which unfortunately John Mark and I LITERALLY didn't have on us (we were under the impression that we were just going to watch them do a normal day's work), so I hope we didn't leave with any hard feelings. I think it was fine, though. We ended up buying quite a few brass objects from them (napkin rings, bottle openers, candle sticks), so at least we were able to support them that way. At the very end of our visit, the Ghanaian professor we had coordinated with came to meet up with us, and we had a nice dinner with him.

The next morning, he invited us to meet with the dean of international programs at KNUST, the technical university we had coordinated with when I was a student at Michigan. We reviewed photos of the exhibit on the brass casters that I helped to develop and install at Michigan, and discussed plans to show the exhibit at KNUST. It was so odd and so comfortable walking around this very typical college campus: students walking to class listeing to their ipod, students working in the library or coffee shop on their laptops, dorms and lecture halls. Once again, there really is nothing like this in Benin. There is only one major University here, and it has not evolved to KNUST's point yet. We had a quick breakfast with him, and then we were on our way to Cape Coast.

The drive to Cape Coast was pretty awful (Ghana has some of the worst roads I've seen as of yet), but getting to the town was beautiful. Cape Coast is on a bit of a bluff overlooking the ocean, so you can see why the British chose it as their colonial capital. We were able to get a room at a cute boutique hotel right on the ocean, where our room was just a little hut on the beach. They had a nice restaurant where we ate that night. The only aggrivating thing about this place was the intensity and pushiness of the people there, since they are so used to clueless white tourists. I can't tell you how many times we were approached and asked for money, and how outrageous the prices we were given were. Most of the people there have embraced this laid back, rasta culture, which is cool until everyone does it and it just gets really cliche.

In the morning we toured Cape Coast Castle, the slave and trading fort there. It has been well-preserved, and our brief tour of the slave dungeons and cells was very chilling. President Obama visited the castle last year, and there was a plaque commemorating his visit. In the afternoon, we took and air conditioned mini bus to Kokrobite, a small village on the ocean that happens to have a few nice resorts. Our hotel was called Big Milly's Backyard, and we once again stayed in a little hut with a private outdoor shower and toilet. The resort was filled with white people, and it was interesting to see the ways in which John Mark and I felt similar and yet different from them. For instance, we refused to pay for the rather expensive hotel breakfasts, so we ventured into the town and got street food for breakfast, obviously surprising the locals a bit. On the other hand, we enjoyed sipping cocktails on the beach and eating nice dinners as much as anyone else there. We spent all day Thursday swimming in the ocean (warm waters, just like Benin, though the riptide wasn't quite as strong as here in Benin, so that was nice), and reading under this second-story gazeebo they had overlooking the ocean.

One thing that struck us both was the borderline escort industry that went on there: plenty of young, handsome, and buff African men approaching any single-looking woman and offering to take her "to the beach" at night. More surprising than their offers was how many women seemed responsive to this.

Anyway, we had a long day of travel back to Benin yesterday. We first had to go into Accra, then find a car to the Togo border. We decided to opt for air conditioning, which turned out to be a bad choice since "air conditioning" meant a tiny stream of mildly cool air barely making the van any cooler. At least in non-AC vehicles, the windows are all open so there is constantly a breeze in your face. The ride went well until the last 40km, where the road turned so bad that 40km took us an hour and a half. Crossing the Ghana-Togo border was almsot comical: we went through exit customs on the Ghana side in a nice, air conditioned building filled with polite customs officers and fancy equipment. We literally walked over the border and into a tin shack, where the Togolese officers made us wait 20 minutes while they filled out someone else's forms when all we needed was a quick stamp in our passports. We saw someone bribing a custom's officer, and then as we emerged from customs, we were immediately being shouted at, "Yovo! Donne-moi de l'argent!" ("White person! Give me money!") When we ignored them or said something back, we were informed not to forget that "we're in Africa now", whatever that means. The beach where we waited for our taxi was absolutely filthy and the people were extremely pushy and rude. From my brief exposure to Togo, I have not been impressed and can see why people say Benin is quite a bit further along development-wise. We had to wait almost two hours for our taxi to fill up, so we didn't arrive to Cotonou until 8:30, well after dark. We made it back fine though, and the trip was amazing!

Now it really feels like I'm on the home stretch. People in my year start leaving Benin in less than 4 months! (Reminder: I won't know my return date until the end of May, though it's looking good that it will be sometime in August.) School is wrapping up and Camp GLOW is kicking into high gear, so I'm going to be quite busy for the next two or three months. I'll head back to Lobogo today or tomorrow, and will hopefully be there until the 22nd or 23rd, when we have our next GLOW meeting. On my next post I will put up pictures from Ghana!

OMG, Ghana. For as much as I dislike those silly online acronyms, I feel that that is just about the only thing I can say to accurately describe my trip thus far. Here goes:

We left the Peace Corps bureau early Thursday morning, only to get to the taxi station and wait two solid hours for the car to leave. I can't complain, though: the taxi never had more than four passengers, so our ride was comfortable. The Benin/Togo border was relatively painless, though you have to get out of the car and walk across the border, and customs officers are often in hard-to-spot places. The short drive through Togo is beautiful since it hugs the beach the whole way, though Lome, their capital, is a pretty dismal industrial city that remided me a bit of Gary Indiana, yuck. There are also TONS of police checkpoints, way more than in Benin, where the taxi driver has to bribe the policemen. At one particular checkpoint, the police complained that they were thirsty and needed to buy a sachet of water (which costs 25 francs), to which the response of my driver was to coo how sorry he was and give them 500 FRANCS. How ridiculous!

Arrival at the Togo/Ghana border was a crazy whirlwind. You are literally dropped off ON the beach, amidst thousands of people trying to get you to ride in their car, let them be your luggage porter, change money, etc. After getting a bad deal on some currency exchange, we finally found what we thought was a man taking us to a car that was going to Accra, the Ghanaian capital. Turns out he was only a porter, and he had to stand around and wait for us while we went though a fairly thorogh customs process. Walking into the office was shocking: men and women in nice uniforms, sitting behind sleek computers, SPEAKING ENGLISH. (As opposed to the Benin/Togo border, where there were no computers, only a few men sitting in a dusty shack with a pad of paper.) And not the crappy, Nigerian English I am used to... flowery, grammatically correct British English. The women who dealt with John Mark and I were ironically having a discussion about how to say certain things in French, for when non-Ghanaians cross the border.

When we emerged from customs, we were immediately accosted by about 20 men, each trying to take our bags from us/our porter and physically dragging us towards thier cars. We're used to pushy people in Benin, but we've never experienced that level of physical force before. Finally, a Ghanaian police officer saw our predicament came to shoo away the men and directed us to an air conditioned bus that was soon departing for Accra. Before getting on the bus, we reluctantly tipped the porter, but he became enraged at the "small" amount (apparently he doesn't know that we live in Benin and that we know full well that we gave him a MORE than generous tip for the maybe twenty minutes of service he rendered us). Once again, the police officer had to shoo the man away.

The bus ride was beautiful, though very long and slow. Driving through Ghana was pretty incredible; we IMMEDIATELY started noticing the difference from Benin and Togo. First of all, there are no illegal gasoline stands in Ghana, but rather a real, legitimate gas station in almost every village. The roads were all paved and smooth, there were national lottery booths all around, and people were selling things like sliced watermelon and mushrooms everywhere you looked. It was evident when we started approaching Accra: we started seeing tall, modern-looking buildings, highway overpasses and cloverleaf interchanges, a mall/movie theater.

Driving to the bus station in the heart of the city was unbelievable. I kid you not, Accra looks like it could be any medium-large American city, complete with city parks, street signs, public trashcans... you name it. Upon getting off the bus, we realized we were absolutely terrified to ask non- French speakers for directions! How funny. We got into a taxi (nicer than most American taxis); there is no such thing as a zemidjan in Ghana. Indeed, I have seen a grand total of maybe five motos since I have been in Ghana, and all of their drivers have been wearing helmets. And 95% of the cars on the road are nice and less than ten years old! (Whereas your typical Beninese car is from roughly 1970 and is falling apart.) On our way to the hotel, we passed a beautiful public sculpture park, and no less than three artful fountains bubbling on the lawns of buiildings such as the National Theater of Ghana.

Our hostel was nice, on par with any hostel in Europe. We decided to shower and then head out to Monsoon, hailed as the nicest restaurant in Accra. It was a chic place and could have belonged in any city in America. We ordered cocktails, then sushi from the full sushi bar, and finally high-end Japanese dishes. It was DELICIOUS and super expensive for Peace Corps standards, though our total for the meal was $63.

We continued living it up the next day. After an odd English-style breakfast at the hostel (Ghana was formerly a British colony, so instead of the baguettes we are used to in Benin, you have red beans and wonder bread for breakfast) we headed to the mall.

This mall was as nice as any I have come across in America, and loaded with stores like the Apple store, Coach, and tons of high-end boutiques. There was also a movie theater showing current American films, and a food court. It was really good seeing so many Ghanaian people at the mall; in Benin, it is more or less only the expats who patronize high-end (though much less high-end than here in Ghana) stores. The people there were such a hodgepodge of ethnicities, it was really nice to see. We ate lunch at the food court (pizza and ice cream, naturally) and in the afternoon saw Clash of the Titans in a theater that would rival any of the nicest in America. We also walked through a market that day where ot ONE person gave a damn that we were white and left us alone, only talking to us if we approached their stall and had a question.

That night we chose a spotsbar for dinner. It had maybe five flat-screen TVs, broadcasting sporting events from all over the world, and we ordered a pitcher of beer and nachos! As we were finishing up our meal, the young couple that I stayed with the weekend of Kate's memorial walked into the bar!! It was SUCH a weird coincidence. They were in Ghana for a short vacation. They sat down with us and ordered us some more drinks, than paid for the whole tab at the end of the night! It was so nice of them, and really fun talking with them for a few hours. How can this wonderland of civilization be less than 150 miles away from Benin??

The first reminder that we were still in West Africa came that night when we complained to the front desk at our hostel that our air conditioning was barely working. The women simply shrugged and said "It's the fault of the white man who installed it." Yes, she really said that.

On Saturday we left our hostel in the morning and had our first experience on a tro-tro, the mini buses that Ghanaians use instead of bush taxis. And no, they don't pack them full of people, but rather only seat people where a full seat actually exists. For the first 20 minutes of the ride a preacher stood up and gave a sermon (though in local language), and then lead the whole bus in prayer. Of course, John Mark and I didn't relize this until we noticed we were the only ones talking and that everyone else had their heads bowed in prayer. Oops! The ride was beautiful. Not only was the road smooth and orderly, but the landscape turned mountainy and thickly forested. We once again noticed the lack of motos on the road, and also that taxis and tro-tros here don't stack billions of things on top of their cars.

We arrived in Kumasi mid-aternoon, where the PCVL (PC volunteer leader) met us and took us to the Peace Corps workstation here. It is really nice, and HUGE compared to the ones we have in Benin. We spent the rest of the night just hanging out and chatting with the Ghana volunteers, who are all really nice. Ironically enough, the one I've been talking to the most went to OSU! It has been funny talking to the Ghana volunteers, both because it is interesting to compare our two countries, and because John Mark and I realized just how many French/Beninese-isms we throw into our conversations!

Yesterday, Easter, was REALLY laid-back. We ate a typical Ghanaian breakfast of red beans and then watched the Godfather, which took up most of our day haha. We couldn't go into town to see any of the sights since it was Easter and everything was closed. For dinner we went to one of the few hotels we found that was open, only to be told that they had almost NOTHING that they listed on their menu, including basic things like soft drinks. Mind you, this was a nice, upscale hotel. We were finally informed that they had all of their pizzas available, so we ordered that and a salad. Our pizzas finally came about 45 minutes later, with no salad. We asked for the salad, the waitress apologized for forgetting, and presumably went to get it. In the mean time, we discovered that our extremely expensive pizzas had no cheese on them, and were so undercooked that most of the dough was still raw. When the waitress walked by again about 10 minutes later, she had STILL forgotten the salad, and when we complained about the cheese, she just said "Yeah, wer're out of cheese." We argued that we shouldn't have to pay so much money for a pizza with no cheese, but she just looked at us, bewildered. She also wrote the wrong amount on the bill, then proceeded to give us incorrect change (incorrect by a LOT). Turns out that our waitress was also doing all of the cooking. Once again, a reminder that we're STILL in Africa. It will be an Easter dinner I will never foget, that's for sure!

Today we're seeing the brass casters that I worked with, which I'm REALLY excited about. We're also going to check out Kumasi a bit, which is supposed to be a nicer version of Cotonou. Tomorrow we head to Cape Coast to see the slave castle there, than it's on to the beach for a few days before heading back to Benin. Overall, I'm having a GREAT time and don't want this vacations to end! More to come :)

Leaving for Ghana tomorrow! Since I have a bit of time, I thought I'd do a quick blog on our GAD (gender and development) fundraising weekend, with pictures of course! There is a married couple with Beninese flag themed outfits, the four of us in the Mono region spelling it out our pile of helmets, and yes, that is a hamburger that was made in a waffle iron... oh Benin.

The shuttle ride up in the Peace Corps SUV wasn't nearly as awesome as I had hoped: I was in the back row where the air conditioning didn't hit and we were packed in like sardines, with no leg room. By the time we reached Parakou (after 7 hours) my butt was totally numb. We checked into our hotel, where we were told we had made reservations for the wrong night (we hadn't), and that they didn't have a second bed for us, only a matress for the floor. I guess if we were in America/were not Peace Corps volunteers we would have been enraged by this, but a matress is a matress, right? :)

Dinner Friday night was good. It was in a casual, club-like atmosphere. We had a short talent show and date auction, then people started dancing. The date auction is neat, people auction off things like "an all-American" weekend where you eat pizza and play football, or go hiking through a sacred monkey forest, or a full body massage, etc. So, 100% of the profits go to GAD! Unfortunately, I think I ate some not-so-sanitary street meat earlier in the day, so I left pretty early to go chill in our (air conditioned, thank god) hotel room.

On Saturday I was tired and still not feeling so hot, so I decided to take advantage of our air conditing and just hang out for most of the day. Getting ready with a bunch of girls was really fun- so nice getting cleaned up and pretty for once here! The night was really nice, everyone looked gorgeous and the silent auction was full of goodies, though I didn't bid since I wanted to save my money for Ghana! We had a nice pool-side dinner by candlelight, though instead of beef bourgognone on a bed of homemade noodles like they had promised we got beef stew on a bed of white rice :( People danced the rest of the night away, and there was the requisite throwing of everyone into the pool. All in all two good nights of fundraising, raising about $7000 for GAD small projects here in Benin!

Sunday was a pretty miserable day of travel. It started off with the man who worked at the hotel (and barely spoke a WORD of French) telling us that we needed to pay WAY more than I was told on the phone, and when I refused, he asked me if I would just give it to him as a "present". Then, we had paid for a nice air conditioned bus, and instead got an old bus with no AC, no shades to block out the sun, and no cargo hold, so we had to bring ALL of our baggage on the bus, making it super crowded and hot and uncomfortable. (Of course, no price reduction was offered because of these inconveniences...)When we arrived in Bohicon, the zems absolutely refused to give us the right price so we had to stand around in the baking midday sun waiting for some decent zems. When we finally took off, my zem was stopped by some village crazy where he promptly started yelling at me that I was going to marry him, spitting the soy cheese he was eating all over me, and of course my driver just thought it was funny. We once again had mean zems in Azove, topped off with a mean taxi and another long zem ride back to my village, all on a BAKING hot day. Then, as the icing on that cake of a day, there was no power in my village for the next 48 hours. That meant that none of the water pumps worked (let alone a fan), and since it is the end of the dry season, most of the wells were dry... meaning there was NO WATER in Lobogo. None. I'm serious. Even the Beninese people were starting to freak out. I mean, that is so dangerous! Nevermind all of the incredibly smelly people, we couldn't even drink water on a day where the temperature was easily over 105.

Another great Benin story: today there was a taxi that refused to stop at a police checkpoint (where they usually have to pay a bribe), and so the police shot at the car, making the car burst into flames, and many of the people in the car died. I have been in TONS of taxis that haven't stopped at checkpoints, so that's pretty scary. It's sad because it's not the fault of any of the passengers. I'm telling you, I love Benin, but I will be ready to COS when the time comes (only 4 months! Requested a date of early August today).

Now I'm in Cotonou and we leave early in the morning for GHANA! Ghana, the promised land of West Africa, complete with bowling, sushi, air conditioned taxis... amazing! I will take lots of pictures that should be on my next blog! Have a happy Easter everyone!

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. The only time I was at a computer since my last post was when I was down in Cotonou for Kate's memorial, and I wasn't much in the mood to spend time on the computer.

That weekend was really nice. Volunteers were housed with expat Americans that live in Cotonou, mostly people who work at the embassy. Myself and two other volunteers were housed with a young couple (and their adorable black lab!) in their beautiful house. Not only did we have a whole house full of airconditioning to ourselves, but we also had internet, satellite TV (read: the Travel channel, CNN, E!, etc.), and free reign over their whole kitchen and pantry, which included any kind of American food you can possibly imagine. They also had a housekeeper contantly making us quiches and other yummy things. So, it was a nice place to go back to and unwind after a few long, emotionally draining days.

The actual service for Kate was quite nice. Several volunteers read excerpts from her blog, and some read a short bio about her. Maria spoke a bit about the memorial that they were holding in Kate's village, and the US ambassador read a message from himself and the current Director of the Peace Corps. A RPCV from Kate's year played some music and our country director read some poems, and the service was capped off by a really nice slideshow. Afterwards, we all wrote in a book to Kate/her parents. Lots of tears were shed, but we laughed a lot too, and overall it was a really good and cathartic experience for all of us. The one picture is of the sort of altar we set up, and the other speaks for itself: things we'd like to say to Kate. (Other pictures are of some of my favorite concession girls, what a roadside boutique looks like, a sign denoting land ownership, how laundry is done here... jealous?, and my colleague in front of his new house.)

Life at post has been going really well. I have actually gotten to spend a decent amount of time at post lately, which has been a nice change of pace for me. School is absolutely flying now that it is second semester- we've already had semester midterms! Speaking of second semester and those midterms, I have been pretty angry with the other English teachers lately. When it came time to submit our proposals for the midterms, we all had to disciss where we were in the curriculum. (Preface to this story: for whatever reason, every class of the same level has to take the same exam, regardless of their teacher.) Now, all of first semester, I was significantly ahead of the other English teachers since I actually showed up to class every day and used time efficiently. Well, Beninese teachers get this syndrome where they panic when second semester hits and decide that it would be best to start covering material RIDICULOUSLY fast, literally cramming four lessons into one, without a care whether the kids are getting the material or not. So, magically, the other teachers are now a decent chunk ahead of me in the curriculum, and were "shocked" that I had "fallen behind". In fact, I was so far behind that I had to write a seperate exam for my students, which the other teachers were NOT happy about. I, on the other hand, was extatic because it meant that I could give my kids a well-written exam based on material that we have thoroughly covered in class. So far I have graded my quatrieme exams, and the kids did wonderfully! While this made me really happy and proud of my kids, the other teachers who saw some of my grades got huffy anf I could tell they thought that meant that my exam was just too easy. I don't care what anyone else says, I am really proud of my kids! They make me so happy this year; it's going to be hard leaving them! (Speaking of my favorite students, I proctored an exam for my favorite class from last year, and they all started cheering when I walked in! They also behaved perfectly during the exam, which was really nice.)

I also typed most of the English exams for this round of testing, and seeing the exams that some of the other teachers submitted was really disheartening. I won't go into details, but the texts were filled with grammatical errors, the questions on the text often barely even related to the texts, and some of the grammar points were so inticate that even I would fail. It's amazing to me that students who can barely greet me in English are asked to write en essay on combatting corruption in modern governments, all in English. When I pointed some of these errors out to my colleagues, they told me that those kind of errors are unavoidable since they don't get proper time to prepare the exams... apparently 2 weeks is not long enough. Hmm. I also noticed that a few nit-picky grammar rules are being taught incorrectly, but when I try to correct them, I am told that "I must not have been taught" that particular rule. No matter I'm a native speaker, right? All that being said, though, there are of course some really bright students and dedicated teachers who don't fall into those categories.

Speaking of those dedicated teachers, I did two neat things with one of my colleagues in the last few weeks. First, we went to his class at a different school and just had an open question and answer session, in English. It was fun answering questions like "Why would you LEAVE America to come live in Benin??" The kids asked some really insightful questions and their English was surprisingly advanced. I also participated in the broadcast of a weekly radio show where they translate a popular and meaningful English song into French, and listeners from all around the region can call in with questions and dedications. It was fun hearing some of my students call in! The songs we dealt with were "War" by Bob Marley and "We are the World".

Other than that, nothing major has gone on. I'm pretty sure both of my cats are pregnant again. Power cuts have still been a problem, but not nearly as bad as before. It has still been very hot, but raining a bit, which has cooled it down a little. I have been really busy with school and also Camp GLOW. I have finally received the money for the camp, so we're now in the process of making down payments and ordering things like the camp tshirts. Once again, thank you SO MUCH for all who donated! We also had a youth camp idea sharing session the weekend of Kate's memorial, where all volunteers who are planning camps came together to brainstorm and share ideas and best practices.

What else... oh! one to make your skin crawl: I visited my colleague's new house, which is quite nice but kind of in the middle of nowhere, so it has lots of bugs. He told me that recently, he was wrapping a towel around himself after a shower and hadn't shaken the towel first, and was promptly stung by a scorpion... on his penis! OUCH! He was able to get some injections though, so he was ok. On a total subject change, there is American woman living in a nearby village for a few months, so it's weird running into her periodically at my market- she's only the second white person I have ever seen in my village!

Anyway, tomorrow I'm heading up north for our huge volunteer fundraising weekend, aka "Peace Corps Prom". We all get dressed up and have a charity dinner and silent auction, all to raise money for gender-related projects here in Benin. We also have a date auction. It should be a really fun time! I will get back to post on Sunday, only to turn around and leave again on Wednesday, since one week from today I'm leaving for Ghana!! It's looking like this vacation is actually going to happen (knock on wood) :) We're also going to be able to meet up with those brasscasters I've mentioned for, and hopefully go to church (in English!) on Easter. We're also going to eat real sushi in Accra, go to a slave castle, and spend a few days at a beach resort. Should be amazing! So, my next post will probably be about my awesome trip! Happy Spring and see you 4-5 months...!

After heaading back to Lobogo on Saturday, I saw absolutely no improvement in my condition. I'll spare you of the nasty details, but I more or less lived in my latrine over the weekend. I felt so-so other than these semi-frequent stomach cramps, during which I literally curled up in a ball and waited for it to pass. The heat, once again, really didn't help. I slept inside the first night, only getting fitful sleep due to the oven-like nature of my house; this is in spite of a fan running full-blast less than a foot away from my face. The next night they cut the power at 9pm, so all of my neighbors and I decided to sleep outside. Normally it is cool enough outside overnight to sleep quite comfortably, maybe even with a pagne thrown over your shoulders. Well, it has been so hot lately that not only could I barely sleep, but neither could all of my Beninese neighbors! We all were awake for a majority of the night, dripping sweat, fanning ourselves, and lamenting this outrageous heat wave. You KNOW it's bad when it's 3am and even a Beninese person is sweating.

I came back down to the med unit on Monday. After an exam and some more tests (still found no parasites), the doctor prescribed me some heavy-duty antibiotics that seem to be kicking in, thank goodness. I've been able to eat a little more, so that's good. I'm seeing the doctor again tomorrow and if all goes well I should be heading back to post. I'm not thrilled about leaving the air conditioning and toilet fortified bureau, but it's always good to go home. I should be there for about a week before heading down for Kate's memorial.

And great news that I forgot to mention in my last blog- Camp GLOW has been completely funded! So, if you've been looking for it on the website, it is no longer up. We're now waiting on the money and a list of donors from headquareters in DC. Thank you so, so much for all of you who donated and got the word out there. We've now booked the venue and the caterer, and are now working on guest speakers and other aspects of the camp. But the most important things are done! Later this week, we are sending official invitations to the US ambassador and some Beninese government officials to the opening and/or closing ceremonies of the camp, so I'm excited about that. I will keep you informed!

that I'm not on vacation right now. After having to cancel the much-anticipated Ghana trip due to the upcoming Togolese presidential elections (that by the way got pushed back so far that it turns out we could have gone to Ghana), I had planned a 5-day trip to see some places in Benin that I hadn't yet. After no Christmas vacation and then canceling Ghana, I really needed this trip. Well, murphy's law, the day before I'm supposed to leave, I come down with a crazy fever, a rash on my arms and legs, and can't keep any food down. The fact that it's hot season (HOT HOT HOT season) and that we had no power so that I could run my fan really didn't help, so I spent the whole day laying miserable underneath my mango tree. After spending a miserable and sleepless night outside (I was still sweating the whole night, even though I was outside, just to give you an idea of how hot it was), I had to head down to the medical unit the next morning. (In addition to this illness, I have a NASTY heat rash on my neck and on my inner elbows. It must be even hotter this year than it was last.)

I had (and still have) a hunch that it is a parasite, but the tests found nothing. The doctors have no idea what I have/had. Since then, the rash has gone away and so has the fever/headache, but I'm still unable to keep down much in the way of food, and my stomach constantly hurts. I'm going to head back to post tomorrow, so I'm hoping it subsides before then.

Since my last post, I've just been hanging out at post. Wrapping up the semester went fine, though I missed a day of school that week due to some stomach issues, possibly a precursor to this yucky illness I have now :( Our power outages continued, although they seem to be cutting the power during the day more, and giving it starting at around 8:30pm, and the last few nights it stayed on until the morning. One night after a particularly scorching day, the power came on around 8pm and was still on when I went to bed, but went off right before 1am. Since I knew it was too late to see if my neighbors wanted to sleep outside, I stripped down to my underwear and laid flat on my cement floor to sleep and sweat the night away.

I went to a huge funural celebration with my neighbors the other night, which was basically just a bunch of free food and beer (warm beer since the power was not on to keep it cold) and music playing way too loud to have a conversation with anybody. At one point in the night, this large mama made me dance with her, prompting EVERYONE to whip out their cell phones and take a picture of it. Great.

In other news, I finally gave away the other kitten. When we tried to put it in a box for transport, it went absolutely crazy and we were unable to keep it in, so we had to put it in a durable bag instead :( It should be happy in it's new house, though, it's out in the middle of the jungle with plany of snacks to hunt for and trees to climb!

That's really about all for now. After heading back to post tomorrow, I should be there until the 11th or 12th when I head back to Cotonou for Kate's memorial service- can you believe it has been one year? We also have our gender and development funraising weekend in March, and if all goes well (and knowing my luck it probably won't) we should be heading to Ghana on March 30. One last cool snippet of information: just found out that an acquaintence of mine from college, Charlie White, and his partner, won a silver medal for the USA in the Olympics for ice dancing! How cool!

Yep, you read it right... vacation #2 that's been canceled! At least the first one was my choice. Here's the story: I heard a rumor that Togo's presidential elections were coming up, and that the border might be closed for a day or two around election time, so I called up Peace Corps to ask about it. After (and ONLY after) this inquiry did they tell us that the 2005 Togolese elections went badly and they fear that the same will happen again this year, possibly resulting in violence or civil unrest... so they are forbidding all travel to Togo from February 22 to March 14. (For those of you who are a bit fuzzy on the geography, Togo is a tiny country smushed in between Ghana and Benin, and one that you have to drive through for a grand total of about one hour in order to get to Ghana from here.) So, after having booked all the hotels and scheduling my visit to meet the brasscasters that I studied in college, I had to turn right back around and cancel it all. I have been feeling a bit claustrophobic in Benin lately and was really looking forward to this vacation, but c'est la vie I suppose. The good news is that we are probably able to reschedule our trip for the April school break, right around Easter. I'm still going to make the best out of this week off of school by going up north to visit Boukoumbe and the tata sombas, these cool multi-story houses that a certain ethnic group builds in the mountains. I'm also going to finally visit the palace of Abomey, which is one of the top ten west African tourist attractions and is less than two hours from my village, but for some reason I haven't visited yet. The palace was the seat of the kings of Dahomey, one of the most powerful kingdoms in west Africa for hundreds of years, and one of the kingdoms that willingly sold it's people into slavery. These kings were known for their brutality, and much of the palace is built out of the bones of people that they killed. Should be interesting!

So last Sunday Brigitte came back to post with me, and chose the striped brownish-greyish kitten to take home with her. The kittens were not at all afraid of her, so that was a good sign. It was sad putting the poor thing in a box, though, as it immediately started freaking out and crying, and it had a long journey ahead of it. I've spoken to her since, and she says that it's doing really well at her post now! I still have the second kitten, which my colleague will take in about a week. Though it's sad to give them away, I think my cats are both already in heat again, so I'm sure I'll have some more kittens before leaving Benin. The kitten that I still have has some intestinal worms (pretty normal for kittens), so I have to take care of that this week.

I guess the biggest news for the week is the continuation of these awful power outages. Sunday night, the power went off just before 7pm and didn't come back on for over 12 hours, so I slept outside with Angele the whole night. I thought that I would not feel at ease and would be uncomfortable sleeping on the cement all night, but it was really fine. Not to mention beautiful under the stars and almost a bit chilly! The same thing happened on Thursday night. The other nights the power would go off from about 7-10, but then would be on for most of the night, so I was able to sleep with a fan. For those of you reading this, don't worry! We lock the gate and my concession has a very high wall, and I feel completely safe doing it. I would never do it alone, either. Another obnoxious thing is that when they cut the electricity, the water pumps stop working too, so water is hard to come by, especially since many of the wells are dry now since it is dry season. It's also difficult to keep my phone and other electronics charged. On top of all of this fun stuff, I found another brown widow spider in my back area, joy. All in all making my life a lot more difficult than it already is and I really hope it ends soon!

Hilarious story about sleeping outside: so Thursday night, I woke up in the middle of the night to feel a warm body pressed up against me, and assumed it was Fifa or Mariam who had moved outside to sleep with us. When I reached out to put my arm around it, I discovered it was a goat! A full grown, hairy goat, literally spooning me. As cute as it was, I'm sure that these goats aren't the cleanest creatures, so I tried to shove it away, and it wouldn't budge! I was literally shaking it with all my might and smacking it hard, and it wouldn't move! I finally got it to move when I hit it over the head with a stick, poor thing. So, wake up and hour later... only to find it is there again, this time with one paw resting on my back! Shoved it away yet again. I woke up two more times during the night and it was STILL there, one time with its face nuzzled right into my shoulder! I finally gave up trying to move it and let it cuddle with me. Now THERE'S a problem that campers in America don't have...

School was fine this week, just gave the kids their grades and put them all in the gradebooks and report cards. Teachers were on strike, so I was one of the only teachers holding class, which I'm sure that my students just loved. I'm also holding class this coming week (the last one of the semester) while most other teachers are just fillng out grade books, so my students must be doubly happy :) We had a small but interesting English department meeting this week, during which the other teachers asked me many questions about American culture, including "How much does a girl cost?" (referring to a dowry), and "Since you are a woman, will you inherit your father's land one day? Surely not?" It was a good discussion, though. After all, that's why I'm here!

As I said, one more week of school, then I'll spend a few days at post before heading off on my mini vacation. Thanks for all the contributions to Camp GLOW, we only need about $1300 still! Good luck surviving the huge dumpings of snow you're getting and pray that my electricity will return to normal!

February! Here's an update on my life for the past week and a half:

Last Friday, the hot season began. You might be saying to yourself, "Hot season?? Isn't the whole year one giant hot season there? You do live in Africa..." Well, you're correct. It's always hot here. Stunningly hot. The kind of hot where you start to worry when there is a five minute period when you are not sweating. However, during the hot season, which lasts roughly February-April, Benin literally lights on fire. I am fairly certain that during this time of year, I live inside an oven. The thermometer inside of my house has not dipped below 90 degrees in the past week or so, and it only drops to 90 in the early morning. In the afternoon, temperatures in my house are in the upper 90s. The icing on the cake is the 100% humidity 100% of the time, making it feel more like a vat of boiling water than an oven.

Anyway, the hot season literally began overnight, and I'm really sad because I know it's not going to start getting any cooler until April when it will rain sporadically for two months. It won't start raining regularly until June, when the constant rain makes it almost cold (cold to us at least... temperatures in the 70s). So every time you're shivering on a bitter walk through the snow, think of me, sweating buckets here in Benin. My taxi ride to Dogbo last Friday was miserable because of the heat. Normally taxi rides aren't too bad because there is a constant wind blowing in your face, but now that the wind is blisteringly hot, it doesn't even really help.

When we got to Dogbo, though, we made probably the best meal I've had here in Benin: homemade veggie soup and sandwiches (with real ham and real cheddar cheese and Hellmans mayonnaise), grilled. And on homemade roasted garlic bread! So good! The next day we tried a new restaurant ("restaurant") in Dogbo for lunch which was awesome, complete with couches, ceiling fans, and burgers and fries, albeit the Beninese version of them, with weird toppings like chopped hot dogs (seriously).

After Dogbo, I stopped at the bank in Lokossa on my way home since I literally had the equivalent of $2 left in my pocket. The bank had already closed for the day since it was a Saturday and, surprise surprise, the ATM wasn't working. When I told the guards that I absolutely needed to get money out, they started telling me that they were calling so-and-so and they were in the process of fixing the problem. To make a long story short, it wasn't until three hours of sitting in the burning heat later that they told me that I was out of luck until Monday. To make matter worse, the whole time I was waiting there I was harassed by one of the guards who right off the bat asked me to marry him, and got pissy with me when I simply said no and refused to joke with him about it. He proceeded to spend the rest of the three hours telling me I was racist and how I clearly don't like Beninese people if I'm leaving the country after only two years. It was really disheartening. I try not to let encounters like that phase me any more, but the fact that I had to sit with it for three hours and it was so hot really didn't help. Anyway, I decided that I had JUST enough money to come back on Monday afternoon after class to get my money.

School was really good overall this week. As I mentioned in my last blog, my quatrieme students did really poorly on the semester's final exams, so we took two days going over the rough spots and on Monday they will take a quiz that is almost identical to the exam to see if they have improved. My sixieme (younger) students did pretty well on their exams, not to mention that the highest grade out of both classes was a perfect score achieved by a girl!

On Wednesday, I had one of those awesome days teaching that will stick with me for the rest of my life. The students in my favorite class of the year, who are really good in English and try hard for it, really got the lesson and I don't think I heard a word of French or local language come out of their mouths the whole time. They were even talking amongst each other and making fun of each other in English! One student came to write on on the board still wearing his backpack, to which the class exclaimed, "Hide your bag! Madam, he need to hide the bag!" They were really attentive to the lesson and still had tons of fun with it. I like that they are mature enough that I can joke with them, but then still pull them back into the lesson. At the end of class, we had about ten free minutes, during which I told them to ask me any questions about America. I was surprised by the intellect of the questions they asked, such as "If it is 12:00 here in Benin now, is it also 12:00 in America?" They also asked about my experience at university and for advice on how they can all make it to university, too. All in all, an awesome, feel-good day with my students.

Unfortunately, my high was brought down a bit on my ride home that day because of the conversation that I had with an English colleague of mine. I will preface this story by saying that aside from my work partner, this is probably the most forward-thinking Beninese man I know, who is getting his doctorate, has only one wife, and treats his two daughters like royalty. They were giving free HIV/AIDS testing to anyone who wanted it at my school (it was awesome, about 2/3 of the students had it done!) so to start a conversation, I asked if he had taken the test. He replied "No, I had it done a few years ago. Besides, I try my best to stay faithful to my wife." When I asked what he meant by trying his best, he replied that his friends have told him that when he travels for more than a week, he will be physically incapable of staying faithful. He quickly reassured me that "Don't worry, when the time comes, I will try and use protection." It was just disheartening to hear this from a colleague and friend who I thought to be so progressive. It just goes to show how deeply rooted that aspect of Beninese culture is.

Another bummer about this week was the major power outages we had, throughout the entire southwest corner of Benin. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the power was out from about 7:30 to 10:30, followed by brief cuts that continued until dawn. Then on Thursday morning, the power was cut at 7am and didn't come back on again all day. At 7pm when it was starting to get quite dark, there was still none, so I lit all my candles. When I asked my neighbors if they knew anything about the cut, they said that they had heard that the power would be cut off for a whole week, possibly up to a month! I honestly don't mind living by candle light, but especially now that it is hot season, I absolutely can not sleep without a fan. I also then have no way or charginf my cell phone or ipod (normally I would name my DVD player too, but that just randomly stopped working this week, so it's joining my computer in the ranks of nice electronics that Benin had managed to destroy.) When the power still wasn't on at 10:00, my neighbors suggested that we lock the gate to our compound and that we all sleep outside together. I thought I would be a bit apprehensive about this after what happened to Kate, but I honestly felt fine about it, and we spread our blankets under the stars to sleep. Just as I was drifting off, however, the power came back, and I was able to bask in the glory of my fan all night. Apparently power cuts become more frequent during the hot season because of a lack of water to run the dams combined with the higher rate of energy consumption. I have also heard rumors that the power cuts have to do with political disagreements in Ghana and the upcoming presidential election in Togo. Who knows... just keep your fingers crossed that they don't continue this badly, so I can get some decent sleep! (Yes, there are volunteers up north who don't have electricity and sleep withut a fan every night... but they're not also dealing with 100% humidity!)

I arrived in Cotonou yesterday morning for a day jam-packed with meetings. Our second Camp GLOW meeting went well, and we have made some progress on getting major things booked such as the venue. When I checked earlier today, we only have about $1600 left to raise for the camp, so THANK YOU so much if you have donated! After a long day of working hard, Michelle and I were craving fruit smoothies for dinner, and after we heard there was a blender in the kitchen, we headed to the supermarket to buy our ingredients. After getting back and putting all the ingredients into the blender... we find out it doesn't work. So sad, especially after having spent the money! I haven't had a fruit smoothie since before joining the Peace Corps. But, waste not want not, we ate the weird, watery concoction anyway.

This morning, I was part of a group selected to have breakfast at the ambassador's residence with the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa. It was fantastic! Not only were we the only Peace Corps volunteers on the entire CONTINENT that he met with, we got to eat real bacon and waffles with real butter and maple syrup on bone china plates with the gold-plated state department logo on them! And drink real coffee served to us by waiters wearing all white! It was great chatting with him, and he gave us an impromptu speech at the end that made us feel REALLY good about what we're doing here, saying that "we're the best face of America today." It was a neat opportunity and I'm really glad that I got to participate in it.

Tomorrow I will head back to post with the volunteer who is taking one of my kittens, and she will take it and continue on her way. It's going to be sad to part with the kittens, but they are going to good homes and I obivously can't have four cats in my tiny house. At this point, the cats are totally litter box trained, and eating a fair amount of solid food. They are also SO playful and are starting to climb everything and knock everything in my house over.

Ghana is coming up in less than two weeks now! Many of our reservations are made, and we may even get a ride back from Ghana in a Peace Corps vehicle because of a medical conference in Accra that is taking place at the same time as our trip. (Air conditioned SUV > bush taxi.) One possible hiccup that I just found out about yesterday: Togo, which we have to drive across to get to and from Ghana, is having their presidential election on February 28, a day or two after we are scheduled to pass through Togo on our way back to Benin. Now, all African nations close their borders at election time to prevent corruption, so, depending on how early they decide to close them... we might be stuck in Ghana for a few extra days! I wouldn't complain too much :) Honestly, though... I will be so sad if this messes up my trip somehow. I really need a vacation, especially after my Christmas one was cancelled! Also just happened to hear by word of mouth that you can no longer get Togo visas at the border, which PC wasn't even aware of yet, so now I have to come back down to Cotonou to get that visa. I'm hoping to just come down a day early for my trip and do it then, since I feel like I live in Cotonou lately. It would have really sucked if we got all the way to the border and had to turn back, though. Traveling is so complicated here!

Other than that, school this week should be good, just giving a quiz and then calulating and giving out semester grades, and filling out the official grade books. Other teachers take two full weeks to compute grades with the whole class, whereas I do it at home and invite each individual student to check my math, both to save time and do keep grades more private. (Students knowing each others' grades can cause huge problems... for instance, a girl went home crying from her class the other day. They had gotten their exams back and she had done very well, much better than most of the boys. The boys proceeded to tell her that it was only because she is sleeping with the professor.)

That's all for now. Until next time!

Where did January go?? Barely over 6 months of service remain.

A week ago today, at about 8pm, I was petting Baby when some fluid started dripping out of her and she started having contractions, so I knew she had gone into labor. I set up shop next to her and prepared everything to make her comfortable. After a full hour of contrations, nothing had happened, which I thought was odd. About an hour after that, the kitten started coming out, feet first, which for kittens is backwards. About thirty minutes later, she hadn't made any more progress, so I started to worry and called my parents for some help. After doing some research, we found that you are supposed to gently help pull the kitten out when the cat is having contractions (of course, using hot towels and vaseline and gloves and all of those other fancy things that I don't have at my disposal here). By the time we had figured this out, Baby had given up and stopped pushing, and the kitten was cold to the touch and hanging half way out of her. I was fairly certain that the kitten was dead, and was now worried about the danger this posed to Baby. Both Angele and I tried pulling it out, to no avail. Finally, an electrician stopped by (at almost midnight) and yanked the kitten out. It was horrible to watch and I was so scared that it was going to tear Baby's uterus or something, but I think she was ok. The kitten was indeed dead. The other cats ate the placenta but left the kitten alone, so I put it in a box and gave it to Angele to dispose of. Bless her heart, I think she buried it the next morning- I couldn't bear the thought of just throwing it down a latrine. Other than very minor bleeding for a day or two afterwards, Baby seems to be doing fine, and is now acting as mommy #2 for the other kittens! They immediately started feeding from her and letting her pick them up and give them baths. Enjoy the pictures of the kittens with their new momma! The two kittens are doing great, really healthy and active. I even litter-box trained them this week! In a week or two they will each go off to their new homes.

School has been a bit discouraging lately. Last week we had review sessions for the final exams this week, and in my older classes, my students really didn't know much. We've been working on these subjects for weeks, and they seemed to be getting it up until then. The exam (which I wrote) was neither easy nor hard, but the class which I have graded so far got an average of 7.76 out of 20! Really disappointing. Once again, it is clear to me that they simply didn't study.

This week I had to proctor exams, which you might recall from last year that I absolutely hate doing. The students don't respect me (you don't proctor for your own classes), and think that since I am different that I will be lax and they can goof off an talk during the exam. When I told one class to be quiet, they only laughed at me and continued talking, so I had to call in the surveillant who told me to give a zero to the next student who so much as coughed. In another class, I had one student get up and nearly run out of classroom before I could do anything about it. All of the students seemed shocked when I would make one of them change seats or antyhing like that. On the bright side, proctoring for other students makes me really appreciate how much my own students respect me!

Last weekend I went to Michelle's post for one night to plan out the agenda for the next GLOW meeting and work on writing some exams for the regional English competition. After getting our work done, we cooked an awesome dinner and stayed up until 2:30am playing Take Two, this game kind of like Scrabble but fast-paced. We joked that this was the latest we had stayed up in forever and what a fun Saturday night activity it was haha!

I am now down in Cotonou getting my visa for Ghana, since we are leaving on that trip three weeks from tomorrow! I'm also going to try to make our Ghana hotel reservations. The brass casters in a Ghanaian village that I helped design an exhibit about are willing to meet with me, so I'm really excited about that. We're also going to soak up the big city life in Accra (sushi and a movie theater!), check out the slave castel in Cape Coast, and spend a few days relaxing on the beach.

All of this traveling is a bit nerve-racking. Not only was Catherine recently in several moto accidents, and not only have I seen multiple dead bodies on the side of the road from accidents recently, but about two weeks ago, three volunteers were on a bus coming down to Cotonou when the bus brakes failed and they plowed head-on into a semi. All three people in the semi died, 10 people on the bus died, and several people who had been on the road side died too. Most of the people who weren't instantly killed had very bad injuries. By some miracle, all op the volunteers were ok, though very shooken up from what had happened and seeing all the carnage. Because they came into contact with so much blood, they all have to take the emergency anti-HIV drugs that make you really sick.

Death in Africa is a funny thing. It happens so much and can happen so quickly that people don't view even awful incidents like this as much of a tragedy. To them, it is all "God's will". You do become a bit desensitized from it; even I have gotten used to seeing dead bodies on the roadside after an accident. And, as morbid as this may sound, I have never been so aware of my own mortality as I am here. In America, we feel so far removed from deaths, especially tragic ones, but here, I am forced to think about it and pray silently every time I get onto a moto or into a taxi. Death really is just a part of life here. I don't mean to be morbid or depressing, it's just something to think about, and unfortunately something I'm forced to think about a lot here.

Tomorrow I will head to Dobgo for a cooking session with a few friends and to take some things from Catherine's house. I'll be back down in Cotonou a week from tomorrow for a Camp GLOW meeting (keep those donations coming!) and that breakfast with members of the State Department. Stay warm!

Catherine is leaving today; I came down to Cotonou for the weekend to spend some time with her and say goodbye. She seems to be in a really good place, though, and ready to go. I'm happy for her! Soon she will be in the good ol' USofA, enjoying all of the amenities there, while I still have seven months of sweating and intestinal parasites ahead of me.

The kittens are fine; they are incessantly curious now and since they can walk more or less normally, are running all around the house and I always have to be careful not to step on them! The vet came last week to give Belle and Baby their annual rabies shots, and also gave the kittens some deworming stuff. He seemed to think they were perfectly healthy. Still can't tell the gender of the cats. I will be giving the kittens away in the first part of February, one to another volunteer and one to a fellow English teacher at my school. I didn't have many pictures of them from this week- the camera just doesn't capture how cute they are! Hopefully next time I'll have some pictures to post.

School went pretty well this week. Exams start a week form tomorrow, so I had to submit my exams this past week. I have finally figured out why one of my quatrieme classes seem to get the lessons better than my other one: the other one has English class after three hours of exhausting gym class baking in the African sun and heat. Gym class here is nothing like what we have in America: the kids are FILTHY afterwards because they literally roll around in the dirt, do tons of tumbling and gymnastics. It's amazing how athletic and strong they are. They get so dirty that they even have burrs in their hair when they are finished! And it's not like they can take a shower afterwards like you can in the US. The two hours of English are hard for me, too- the kids stink!

Now that it's the new year, it's time for me to start really working on Camp GLOW. We're about to book the venue, and soon we will start contacting guest speakers, chauffers, etc. I've just checked the Peace Corps' website, we've raised about $1400 out of $6000 so far, so please tell people you know to think about donating!

Once again, I can't believe how fast time is moving. Only one semester left of school, then Camp GLOW, then I'm done! I still don't know when I'll be coming home. Depending on if we get early leave dates or not, I could be home as early as late July, or as late as late September. I'm hoping for sometime in August- I would really like to make it home for the first football game! Plus, once all of my work is finished by early July, I'm gonna be bored out of my mind and chomping at the bit to go home. I won't know an exact date until the end of May.

This past week I was informed that I was selected to particiate in a breakfast at the ambassador's house with some government members, though I don't have too much information on that yet. Pretty cool, though!

I came down to Cotonou on Friday morning, and have just been hanging out with Catherine and relaxing. The first night we made homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese and watched some old movies. Unfortunately, yesterday I felt AWFUL the entire day- mild fever, aches, chills, and horrible stomach cramps, so I stayed in bed most of the day. Knock on wood, but I'm feeling mostly better this morning. We'll say goodbye to Catherine and leave Cotonou in a few hours. I'm hoping that I stay well this week, my kids need to have class this last week before final exams! I really want them to do well.

Yeah. This lucky girl thought she broke her thumb, so she had to come down here for the THIRD time in two weeks to get x-rays. Monday night I accidentally slammed the heavy metal lid of my lock box down onto my thumb. It immediately became swollen and hurt too much to move, so I called the doctors the next day and they told me to come down to get the x-rays. The clinic where I went to get the x-rays was pretty archaic; the x-ray machine was enormous and looked like some sort of crazy machine from the 1950s. Turns out that nothing was broken or fractured, I just have some crazy bruising going on and it still hurts pretty bad to move it. So obviously, nothing much happened since the last time I posted. Got back to school on Monday morning only to have the director tell us that all the teachers had a week-long training in a city south of here that started in one hour, so everyone left. (I didn't have to go, thank goodness) So all the kids showed up to class on their first day after break for nothing! I still held class, which I'm sure my students were just thrilled about. Though when I showed up on Tuesday morning to try and teach before I headed down for my x-rays, only about 10% of my students were there, so I cancelled class. The kittens are still doing fine. In fact, Belle has decided that it is time for them to become more mobile, so she drags them all around the house, much to their dismay :) She as started dragging them up into my bed at night, and tucking them right up under my chin to sleep!! It is so precious. I am hoping that when I go back tomorrow, they will have started walking normally and exploring on their own a bit more. So, enjoy the pictures and video of them! And quick explanation of other pictures: the jungle-like ones are the view from my walk through the brush every evening when the sun is setting, and the funny one of Michelle and I is a typical Beninese portrait! We realized that we were wearing the same outfit today (meme tissue shirt and jeans), so we did the typical marriage photo where sunglasses are hip and no one is smiling or looking at the camera. It looks ridiculous, but I'm telling you, this is pretty spot on. Cotonou has been fine, lazed around watching the Tudors all day today, and went out for Indian food. Unfortunately, Catherine has decided to leave Benin, so I will be back down here in just over a week to see her off. It's going to be really hard for me when she leaves. Not only was she one of my best friends here, but we were supposed to do our COS trip to Morocco together on the way home this summer. I totally support her decision, though, and think it was the right thing for her to do. I'll sure miss her, though :(

Hard to believe that it's only two days away. 2010=the last year of my Peace Corps service=I'm coming home in less than eight months... wow. Nothing too sensational has happened since my last blog post, but I had to put another one up so you could see pictures of my kittens!!! They were alive and well when I got back to post, although I didn't discover this until a while after I had gotten home and searched for them to no avail and had started bawling! I eventually heard little sniffing sounds and found the kittens behind the books on my shelves. They looked healthy and happy; I think Belle had just hidden them there when she heard the door open. Belle has been really good about feeding them and cleaning them and laying with them; they are SO darling- enjoy the pictures and video! I left them in my house this time around for a few days, but I'm much less nervous about it now :) The rest of Christmas Eve and Christmas day were a lot of fun. On the 24th we went to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner and made gingerbread cookies, and spent most of Christmas day cooking an elaborate dinner that was basically Thanksgiving with steak instead of turkey- can't go wrong there! We lit Christmas-y candles, turned up the AC so we could wear sweatshirts and played Christmas music all day. I also got to talk to most of my family back home, which was really nice. All in all, a really nice time! Back at post, I mostly relaxed and spent time with the kittens. John Mark came to Lobogo last night and we just hung out and walked around the market. We headed down to Cotonou this afternoon, and we're gonna treat ourselves to some nice meals and possibly a swimming pool to celebrate New Years :) Saturday, it's back to post and back to the grind of teaching! Thanks for all of the help for Camp GLOW so far: we have raised almost $900. But, over $5000 to go, so please let your friends and coworkers know! Happy New Year!

I hope everyone is getting all set for the big day tomorrow! It is so hard to believe that this is my second Christmas away from home. The Christmas season this time around feels different than it did last year. I think that last December, I was so sad to be away from home for it that I tried my best to ignore the fact that it was Christmastime. I would say that last December, I was pretty down overall for the whole month. This year, I had a pretty good month of December, and enjoyed decorating with friends and listening to Christmas music. I noticed the subtle Christms decorations around Cotonou and even a few in my village. It has been an enjoyable month, save for the one night after a bad day at school, when I was sweating in my house and listening to Christmas music, and one song just triggered something in my brain and I got overwhelmingly homesick and called my parents, asking for them to share some Christmas memories with me. I have just returned from Cotonou after spending solid week and a half at post, and it was really nice. Honestly, I don't think I have spent a chunk of time that long at post since July, so I really enjoyed all of the reading, relaxing, playing with my cats, and catching up with my friends in village. School finished up well. I was pretty happy with the grades that all of my students got on their midterms (MUCH better than last year), although my quatrieme classes bombed their make-up quizzes which they begged me for after failing their last ones. I even told tham EXACTLY what would be on it, so it was evident that they simply didn't study. It is really frustrating the way students view English as opposed to their other classes. The last day of school was interesting: first, I taught my students how to sing "We Wish you a Merry Christmas"- enjoy the videos! Second, my director scolded the teachers after having many parents complain to him about male professors sleeping with/trying to sleep with female students. Really, really, sad... though I'm glad the director had the courage to say something. I also helped another English teacher at my school write some of the national exam students must pass to go on to University and recieve their high school degree, so that was pretty neat. For as comfortable as he is in English, it was filled with errors and odd sentences such as "Ms. Yomba is jealous of her sister's dense breasts." What does that even mean?! Last bit of exciting news from Lobogo- Belle had her kittens!!! She had two, a grey one and a white one with brown spots. She even did it in the lined box I had set up for her! Awful timing though... she had them while I was at school, the day I was leaving to come down to Cotonou. So, I saw them for a grand total of about ten minutes. They are literally the size of mice right now, can't even walk or open their eyes. I think that Belle is a little lost as to how to deal with them. She ran up to me when I called her name, and the poor things were still clamped on mer nipples, dangling from her belly! I put up a few pictures of Belle from a few days before she had the kittens, to show you her cute bloated belly :) However, here is why I'm incredibly nervous: Catherine's cat had kittens about a week before mine, while Catherine was in Cotonou for a few days. Several people went into her house while she was gone to feed Scout, and apparently they all saw her with the kittens. Well, when Catherine returned home, all of the kittens were gone, and Scout was clinging to Catherine, obviously not taking care of them... she had eaten them! Apparently, this is a quasi-common phenomenon when cats have their first litter, especially if they are feeling stressed and/or if humans have touched the kittens or gotten too close. Needless to say, I am really nervous about this, so I kept my distance from all three of them, though Belle seemed to trust me enough to let me get close. After much debate, I decided to leave Baby, Belle, and the kittens in my house for these four days, with tons of food and water. I know it will probably be stressful to Belle not to be able to go out, but hopefully she will want to stay close to the kittens. I figured that was safer than trying to move them outside. So, keep your fingers crossed that Saturday when I return to my post, there will still be two little kitties there! I will take pictures of them soon, once again didn't want to stress Belle out. It will be really hard for me if there aren't, especially since I got to see them when they were first born. So, I guess you're wondering why I'm not off in Mali right now, far away from any computer... Well, about a week before we were supposed to leave, Catherine was hit by a moto in Cotonou. For the THIRD time. That girl has the worst luck in the world. She was about to get on a zemidjan, when another moto came from behind, not paying attention, and ran over her foot, sending her sprawling accross the busy road. Luckily nothing was broken, but she did have awful cuts and bruising, resulting in stitches. The doctor told her that she could not travel, and she's not too keen on travel right now after all of the bad luck she has had on Beninese roads. So, we had to scramble and change all of our Christmas plans. Our Mali group ended up splitting up between some other groups that were going, and I decided to cancel my trip altogether and spend Christmas with Catherine here in Cotonou. She is one of my best friends in country and I couldn't let her spend it alone. We have managed to make it pretty jazzy, though- brie and apples and sausage and wine last night, listening to Christmas music and watching movies, decorating gingerbread cookies, a nice Christmas dinner tomorrow... all in all a nice and laid-back (and air-conditioned!) Christmas. Not to mention I am saving a ton of money by not going to Mali! One last thing: my Camp GLOW proposal is finally on the Peace Corps website-hooray! Please see my earlier blog post on how to donate (really easy, just go to www..peacecorps.gov and click on "Donations", then search my name). It is a great Christmas present to give to someone! The proposal has only been up for six days, and we have already raised about $500! I will head back to post the day after Christmas, and then come back down to Cotonou for a few days around New Years. I was planning on staying the whole time, but I want to go back and check on my kitties! I hope you all have a lovely Christmas, and I can't tell you how happy I am that I will be there for it next year. My group starts leaving Benin in just over 7 months, unbelieveable.

So this happened a while ago, but I forgot to write about it until now. A few weeks ago, PIRATES attacked a ship 18 miles off the coast of Benin! Believed to be Nigerians, they boarded a Ukranian oil tanker and killed one crew member before- get ready- the BENINESE NAVY stepped in to save the day. The Beninese Navy?! I'm picturing a bunch of old men in fishing boats here. (No, in all fairness I do know that Benin has a Navy, it's just that you never hear of them being needed for anything.) Apparently pirate attacks off the coast of West Africa have grown much more frequent over the past year or two, and what makes these attacks different from the ones in Somalia is their close proximity to shore. Crazy! I still can't get over the fact that Benin was mentioned on the BBC!

I have been stuck in Cotonou for the past four days, mostly just lazing around. I did have two meetings with the president of the Mamans Modeles who are sponsoring Camp GLOW this year, both were at the restaurant that she owns and manages! Pretty cool to see a Beninese woman doing stuff like that. I just checked and the PCPP is still not up on the website, but I will be surprised if it is not up by the end of the work week. Hope you're all enduring the bitter cold over there; I am, I kid you not, sweating profusely as I type this.

***CAVEAT***: you can't donate yet! It should be ready and on the website within the week, so keep checking back!

Simply go to the Peace Corps website (www.peacecorps.gov) and click on "Donations". That will lead you to a page where you can seach projects by volunteer last name. Or, you can click on "View all Volunteer Projects" on the right side of the page, and that will lead you to a place where you can search for PCPPs by country of service or home state. The page will show how much money is still needed for the project.

So, keep checking! It should be up soon! I will still send out an email the next time I have internet access and I know for sure that it is posted. Happy donating!

That means that within a few days' time (hopefully), you will be able to donate to Camp GLOW! It was approved this afternoon by the director of Peace Corps Benin, and will be sent on to Washington DC tomorrow. I'm told that when it reaches PC in Washington, it gets online within a few days. I'm still not exactly sure of the precise process for donating, but I will let you know as soon as I do.

Once again, I am back in Cotonou... I am beginning to feel like I live here! I returned to my village last Tuesday night and taught class on Wednesday and Thursday. We reviewed for the midterms that are taking place this week, and it was a lot of fun, especially with my older classes! I am really enjoying working with them. We reviewed adjectives we had learned like "afraid", "dizzy", "sick", etc and it was so much fun- I acted each one out. For "afraid", I cowered behind a students and said that there was a lion on the other side of the door; for "dizzy" I spun around in about ten circles and then stumbled around the classroom. The kids loved it, and they were actors as well when they had to do doctor-patient dialogues. I really hope they do well on the exams! I wrote the exams for both sixieme and quatrieme, so that should give my students a better chance at succeeding.

Friday morning, I headed to Dogbo to celebrate Catherine's birthday. I zemmed straight there again, but this week we took a different path than normal. It was seriously like driving through the enchanted forest/the most stereotypical image of rural Africa that you could imagine: dense jungle complete with vines and monkeys, topless women and scantily clad men, the tiniest mud-and-thatch villages you can imagine. I honestly believe that 75% of them had never seen a white person before, so driving though that area caused a huge shit storm. We were stopped multiple times en route by villagers blocking the road with a log, demanding money to pass. Can you imagine someone doing that in America?! Crazy.

Getting to Catherine's house was really nice- it is so Christmas-y! She had tons of decorations out, candles burning, and Christmas music playing. (Later in the weekend, we even made a homemade wreath- check out the picture! Other pictures are of more Harmattan dust in the air in my village.) That night, her, Michelle, and I made mexican food and brownies for dinner, and watched the Muppet Christmas Carol! It was also fun seeing her cat which is just as, if not more pregnant than mine.

We got up early the next morning to head to a small village where we were participating in a youth-oriented panel discussion. Once we got out of the taxi, we had to zem to the village, and I must say that I have never had a scarier zem experience here in Benin. The road to the village was a narrow and crowded sand path with lots of twists and turns, and I would estimate that our zems were taking it at about sixty mph. Not only were there other zems on the path and women walking to the market, but the dust was kicking up in our faces so much that we could hardly see and inch in front of our faces. We were screaming at our drivers to slow down, and they completely ignored us. When we got to our destination and I told him how dangerous he was being, he only laughed. It was awful and we were all really shaken up. Travel during the holiday season is not great: prices go up, and many drivers have had too much to drink, even at 8am.

The forum was not particularly great. It consisted of a huge group of young adults asking the five of us volunteers questions about life in America, mostly relating to women's rights. I suppose we planted seeds in their heads about the way things could be, but it really seemed like us just telling them how much better America is than Benin and them not being able to do a thing about it. The room was also boiling hot and the forum lasted about three hours, so those factors didn't help, either. One cool part about the day, though, was we got to see a library in the village that is exclusively for girls. Apparently of the 360 or so girls who used the library last year, only three of them didn't pass on to the next grade level, which is astounding for this country. To top off our not-so-great day, Catherine was describing the brown widow spiders (like black widows, only deadlier) she sometimes gets in her back area, and when she showed me what their egg sacks look like, I discovered that I, too, have them at my house. Great. At least we made yummy pad thai for dinner...

The next morning we made bacon (sent from home) and cinnamon rolls and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, so the day definitely started off on a better foot! I then came down to Cotonou and got some work done, which has been easy to do as I have been the ONLY volunteer here this whole time. This literally NEVER happens, so I have been trying to make the most of it! Today I finalized my PCPP and met with the president of the organization who is co-sponsoring Camp GLOW- the Reseau des Mamans Modeles (model mamas). They are an awesome organization of Beninese women who are lawyers, entrepreneurs, doctors, etc. and do activities such as "take your daughter to work day", so they should be perfect to help out with Camp GLOW! I met with the woman at the restaurant she owns, and she treated me to a nice dinner.

I guess the last thing I will talk about is our trip to Mali that is coming up in a few weeks. In the past year or so, several westerners have been captured and ransomed by terrorists in the Sahel (the southern part of the Sahara). About a week and a half ago, a Frenchman was captured outside of his hotel in northeastern Mali, and back in June, a British man was captured and murdered there. The recent kidnapping, combined with the termination of Peace Corps in Niger, have resurrected concerns about safety in the area. That all being said, the area where my group is traveling is not near to any of these places- Mali is an enormous country. After much discussion and a slight modification of our itinterary, I think that our trip will still be a go. We have a large group, we won't be traveling with much money, and are going with a guide who has worked with Peace Corps for many years, so we all feel pretty safe about it. I don't want this to freak you out, I just thought that I should let you all know what is going on.

I think that I am returning to my post tomorrow, but there is a slight chance that it will not be until Thursday or Friday. Hopefully, I can just stay there until the 23rd when the trip begins!

I am STUFFED. And sick of traveling. Here's why:

I left Lobogo on Wednesday to go to Dogbo to celebrate Kristin's birthday. We had a really nice time; we went to a "restaurant" and sat there for a few hours, feasting upon beef, rabbit, and chicken, probably more meat than I have had in my last six months of service. Afterwards, Catherine had us all over to her house where she had decorated with balloons and baked a delicious devil's food birthday cake! That night, when I unfolded Catherine's cot to sleep on, there was a scorpion inside. Honestly, it didn't even phase me. I just brushed it off and went to sleep. My, how Benin has changed me!

On Thursday, we started cooking at 8am. For breakfast, I made monkey bread for everyone, which is what my mom always makes on Thanksgiving morning. Needless to say, it didn't turn out as perfectly as her's always does, but nonetheless, it was impressive for Benin :) There were only three of us who cooked all day, and we divided the tasks pretty well. I made the gravy, corn bread-apple stuffing, and my first ever apple pie (see picture)! (We also had a "pumpkin" pie for dessert, made from unripe papaya.) They all turned out really well. We deep fried our turkey this year, which was much better than I was expecting it to be. For dinner we had eleven people, including four of the new volunteers who transferred from Guinea.

The next morning, Kristin and I got up at 5:30 for the long trip up to Parakou. The first leg of our trip was stress-free and went really smoothly: got right into a taxi for Bohicon and got there plenty early. Arriving at the bus station there, a man who works for a well-known bus company approached us to sell us tickets, but before we bought, we verified with him multiple times that there would be seats for us- often, the busses fill up in Cotonou and there are not seats left by the time they reach Bohicon. He assured us that we would have places, and we sat down to wait. When busses started arriving an hour later, we saw multiple busses from our company, but were always told that "This one is not your bus." Finally, all of the busses had come and gone, and there were about 15 of us left waiting for our bus. Mind you, this is at noon, when we had been promised that our bus would leave between 10 and 10:30; the man who had sold us our tickets kept disappearing and ignoring our questions. Finally, an odd bus (looked like a city bus, not a charter bus) pulled in and we were told to get on. Because there was no storage room under the bus, we each had to keep our luggage with us which was already a pain. We sat on the sweltering bus for an hour, none of us sure what we were waiting for. When we finally tracked down someone who worked on the bus, he said we were waiting for the bus to fill up... even though it was already three hours later than we were supposed to leave. Finally, at 1:30, with only THREE seats left to fill, they decided to cancel the bus, since it wasn't full. Mind you, they didn't even TELL us they were canceling the bus; only after about 30 minutes of noticing people taking their bags and leaving the bus did we realize something was up. We then had to track down the man who was lazing under a tree, and wait in line to get our money back. We were then on our own to get to Parakou. Luckily, we were able to rent a taxi with some of the other passangers, but at this point it was the middle of the afternoon and HOT. So, instead of a nice roomy and air conditioned bus ride, we smushed into a taxi for 4 hours. Oh, Benin...

We got to Parakou at dinner time, and headed out to eat with all of the TEFLers that were there. My parents called and told me about the Christmas tree, which made me sad for home... getting the Christmas tree is one of my favorite days of the whole year, and I can't WAIT to be home for it next year! I crashed at 10pm that night, even though I really wanted to stay up and catch up with my fellow TEFLers... traveling is exhausting! Sleeping in Parakou was blissful, by the way. Harmattan is in full force in the north, and that means that it gets downright COLD overnight. I made sure to get a bed in the outdoor gazeebo and brought along sweatpants and a long sleeved t-shirt to sleep in, and it was amazing. (The picture that looks like fog is actually all the dust in the air.)

We spent all of Saturday cooking. I was in charge of the sweet potato pie, so I headed to the market to buy supplies. Little did I know that Friday/Saturday was Tabaski, a huge muslim holiday, where they kill tons of goats, and that to drive to the market, you have to go directly through the slaughter grounds. Not only did I see such wonders as piles of goat heads and tons of goats lined up for the slaughter, but I was lucky enough to to drive by RIGHT as they were cutting a goat's throat. For as comfortable as I have gotten wth things like this, that still really shook me up. Anyway, I made an awesome sweet potato pie with fresh sliced apples in it, and it was a big hit. We brined some turkey and then cooked it on the grill, and it was delicious. We then played the requisite game of "Cornucopia", reflecting on our service so far, our memories of Kate, and our future plans. That is the beauty of having an (almost) all female group- you can talk abut mushy things like that! And yes, most of us cried at some point during the game :)

Yesterday was a very relaxing day. John Mark and I took the morning to plan our February trip to Ghana: living the hight life in Accra, meeting up with the artisans I developed an exhibit about, visiting some of the old slave forts, and lazing around on the beach. For the rest of the day, I watched THREE movies and ate yummy food (I'm serious, we all ate an absurd amount this weekend).

So today, I get on the 7am bus to Cotonou looking forward to 7 hours of air conditioned bliss. We made it all the way to the bus stop in Bohicon (yes, the SAME place I wa stuck on my way north), where we ran out of gas. They said it would take them about a half hour to fix this problem, but after two hours of waiting, they decided to- drumroll, please.... cancel the bus. WITHOUT giving anyone refunds or giving us another option for how to get to Cotonou. Once again, they never formally announced this, we all had to kind of figure it out on our own. Needless to say, everyone was furious and frantic to get the few open spots on other busses. Remember me saying how Beninese pople have no concept of a line? Well, ANGRY Beninese people REALLY don't have a concept of a line, and I didn't feel like pushing and shoving and clawing with them, so of course I was one of the last people to be dealt with. The men told me that there were exactly three seats left on the bus arriving from Natitingou, and promised that I could have one of them. When the bus arrived two hours later (even thuogh they had said 30 minutes max), there was only one seat, with four of us vying for it. Somehow, I got it (probably because I am white and was yelling at the driver, haha), and finally got to Cotonou a few hours ago. I'm telling you, travel in this country can be a nightmare and I have been forced to become an infinitely more patient person because of it.

Tomorrow I will head back to Lobogo, hopefully after meeting with some people about my Camp GLOW PCPP- I promise to keep you updated on when you can start donating! Unfortunately, I have to travel again next weekend, but it is only in my region and it is for a youth leadership forum and one of my best friend's birthday, so it should be fun. I am desperately hoping that after that I can just stay at my post until December 23rd when I leave for Mali!! (Please keep your fingers crossed that we will be able to go on that trip... they have had some problems with terrorists and westerners there recently, but luckily Mali is huge and it has all been in a totally different art of the country.) Not sure when I will be able to post next, so have a good start of the holiday season!! December is definitely the hardest month for me to be away, so keep those calls coming :)

As promised, here I am in Cotonou working on Camp GLOW yet again. It has been officially decided that we will be doing a PCPP to fund the project, which means that YOU can donate! We are in the process of finalizing the project proposal and budget, and by the time it gets through the bureau here in Cotonou and then the one in Washington DC, we're hoping to have the project on the website by Christmas. Once the project is online, I will definitely post a blog with detailed instructions on how to donate. All donations are tax deductible, and there is no minimum donation! Even $5 helps :)

This week went pretty well. As I said before, it is starting to get HOT. (As in, so hot that I can't take mid-day naps in my house with the fan pointed directly at my face going full speed anymore. So I have to nap outside under the mango tree, and as you can imagine, a sleeping yovo is something to be eagerly gawked at here. Are we really that fascinating, even while we are sleeping??) Harmattan, the wind that blows down from the dusty Sahara for about a month, literally arrived overnight on Wednesday night. This would be happy news in the north of Benin where Harmattan=very chilly weather, especially in the mornings, along with the dust. But us lucky volunteers down south only get the dust, no cold :( It was incredible how dusty I got in my taxi ride down here. The sun is always under a constant haze now, and a layer of dust covers everything in the house, no matter how many times you dust and sweep.

Remember how I was saying how happy I was with my first round of quizzes? Yeah, well, scratch that. My younger students did fairly well, but my older kids, to whom I gave a quiz on verb revision, for the most part failed miserably. Here is what is frustrating about that: 1. These were all verb tenses they had learned over the past two years. There was no new material on the quiz. 2. They were flying through the material on class, and I could tell that they really understood it. 3. Some students just blatently ignored the directions. For instance, in the section labeled "Simple Present" and for which the directions were "conjugate the verbs in simple present", they would conjugate all of the verbs in simple past. Literally, the class average for this quiz was 6 out of 20. Of course the students weren't happy and started begging me for a make-up quiz, and I have yet to decide if I will offer them one or not. It is obvious to me that most students simply didn't study. Some students did really well on the quiz, and I made the quiz MUCH easier than the exercises we had been doing in class, so I know I didn't just give them an unreasonable task. Luckily, we are now starting in on the new curriculum in that class, entitled "Health", and I get to teach fun words like the verb "to vomit", and "chronic diarrhea"!

This week the other English teachers came to observe me teach a class. To be quite honest, the experiece wasn't nearly as good as I thought it was going to be. First of all, I had to squeeze a two-hour lesson into one hour, so I didn't get to enforce the material as much as I would have liked. Then, when we gave feedback at the end, in true Beninese style, they tore me a new one. No positive comments (even though I had made it a point to plan a really good lesson, complete with visual aides, acting/role play, group work, and used NO French whatsoever) The feedback they gave me was absurdly nit-picky (though they made it sounds like I had committed a grave error by, say, not underlining the date) and tended to be along the lines of "Why aren't you using the teacher's manual? There are lots of exercises you should use in there!" nevermind that the government text books are FILLED with errors and somewhat vague exercises. I took it all with a grain of salt and did my best to consider the few helpful comments I received. I think that we will be observing some of the other English teachers in the coming weeks, so I will be interested to see how that goes. I think that at our next AP meeting, I will give a presentation on how to give feedback: the person who taught will go first, positive feedback first, constructive criticism only, etc.

At that meeting we also elected the two department heads. It was myself and another teacher up for one of the positions, and they decided to let the two of us talk it out. I could tell how desperately the other teacher wanted it, probably both for the title and the small amount of extra money they receive, so we worked out a system in which he will have the title but mostly I will be in charge of selecting/editing/typing exam papers and running the weekly meetings.

I began tutoring a student (not one of mine) in English this week. His English was very good and I think he has only good intentions asking for my help. He did ask "What can you give me?" and "Can I charge my cell phone at your house?", but I think he is truly just trying to get better at English- his goal is to go to university in America. I hate the fact that I'm even suspicious about things like this, but you kind of have to be in this country.

In other news, my health is still in a good state (knock on wood!), although apparently my toenail is falling off (no idea why, that's just what the doctor said) and I have a fungus on my arm. Exciting! I got a letter in my mailbox with "medically confidential" stamped all over it, and for a fleeting, joyful moment I thought maybe I would get shipped to South Africa for some sort of evaluation (this is warped, I know. But it's South Africa!) Unfortunately, or I guess fortunately, it was just saying that all of my midservice lab tests had come back clear. My cats are fine, although it is now Baby's turn to be in heat, and she literally has a totally different personality than she used to. Luckily from watching Belle go through the same thing and the return to normal, I know it will pass. I think they are both pregnant now!

This coming week I will head to Dogbo to celebrate my friend Kristin's birthday, and then Thanksgiving on Thursday. Some of the new Guinea volunteers will be joining us, so that is nice. Then Kristin and I will head up to Parakou for TEFL Thanksigiving/Ghana trip planning. I will be back in Cotonou on Monday the 30th and will post a blog then. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Apparently I couldn't stay away from the big city for more than a week! No, I'm down in Cotonou because I wanted to find out if PLAN would fund Camp GLOW this year, and when I FINALLY got a hold of them today, they said that they will not have an answer for us until January. So, I am 99% certain that we will be funding the camp using a PCPP (Peace Corps Partnership Program), which allows friends and families at home to donate. I will absolutely keep you updated on that and will let you know when you are able to go online and donate, probably starting sometime around Christmas.

School is moving right along. I gave my first quizzes this week, and so far I am quite happy with the results. My sixieme students seem to be doing better than they were last year, and I am moving along much more quickly in the curriculum, which tells me that I am a better teacher the second time around. I am frustrated, however, with my quatrieme (older) students. We spent the first two full weeks of class reviewing verb tenses, and they seemed to be doing really well with that. When I gave them a quiz, which was basically a simplified/watered-down version of what we had been doing in class, many of them were angry about how hard the quiz was. I won't pass any judgements yet since I have not started grading the papers, but it was frustrating hearing them say that, because that tells me that they didn't study.

We did not vote for head of the department this week since many people were absent for the meeting, but supposedly we are doing so next week. During our meeting next week, all of the English teachers are going to observe me teaching a class! I am a bit nervous but mostly excited to show them some new ideas, and that you really don't have to use French in the classroom.

One sad/scary thing happened this week. As I was arriving home from school one day, I noticed that Angele was wearing pants. (An odd way to start a story, I know, but when her husband is around, he does not allow her to wear pants, only skirts.) She greeted me loudly and I could tell that she was in a rather bold mood. As I was walking into my house moments later, I heard a commotion behind me, and saw that Angele and Victoire (the second wife of my proprietor) we having an all out fist fight. We're talking a real fight, not some girly spat. Even with two huge men trying to restrain them, they still managed to get at each other and give each other cuts and bruises. I still do not know what the fight was about, but I assume any small thing would have set them off- as you might imagine, the two wives don't really get along. When all was said and done, Victoire hired a photographer to take pictures of the mess and the damage, obviously with the intention of showing their husband when he returns home on the weekend. I can only hope that he is merciful towards Angele; he has always favored his secnd (and much younger) wife. Honestly, I am afraid that he might kick her out of the house. The whole village is gossiping about it now, and one man even told me I should intervene because they would listen to a stragner/white person, and I respectfully declined. I have no business interfering in a situation like this.

Let's see, other news from Lobogo... Belle is most definitely pregnant, her nipples are about half an inch long now. One night in my latrine, a cockroach boldly crawled right across my foot. I pulled a tick bigger than a ladybug out of Baby's neck. (The critter stories never stop, do they?) It's getting hotter than hell here; I don't know how I will survive another hot season. Three of my best friends from home called me this week, which was a pleasant surprise!

Tomorrow I will head back to post, but will probably have to come back to Cotonou in a week to work on the Camp GLOW PCPP. Have a nice week!

Happy weekend! The weekends are beginning to feel precious now that school is back in session- my weeks are crazy! Between teaching 4-6 hours a day, going to the market, lesson planning, and cooking/cleaning, my days are shot. Time is flying, and I am definitely ok with that.

Last weekend, we had our VAC meeting and Halloween party. We had some creative costumes: 2 zemidjan drivers, a Beninese mama, a Beninese mechanic. Kristin's neighbors got a huge kick out of those! The two French volunteers in Dogbo came to the party as Peace Corps volunteers (dirty, tattered t-shirts), so that was pretty funny, too. On a side note, it was lovely to be able to speak real French with them for a night. One of the girls turned out to be from my favorite little town in the Dordogne river valley! We made chili and corn chips for dinner, and made cinnamon rolls in the morning. The picture is of homemade donuts Michelle and I made the night before in Lokossa!

School went well this week. I am really impressed with my quatrieme students- they correctly remembered simple present, present continuous, present perfect, and simple past verb tenses! We have been reviewing all week since it has been my experience that they promptly forget all the English they have learned in a year the moment school is out for summer. (Students here don't take English as seriously as they take math and science.) One of my quatrieme classes only has three girls out of fifty students, so sad. This is one of the reasons that we have decided that the main focus of Camp GLOW this year will be giving girls techniques to stay in school. I am giving my first quizzes this week.

We had our first staff meeting this week, and I am pleased to report that they are much less painful this year with our new director- he doesn't like to hear himself talk as much as our old one did :) Our English department meetings have been going really well so far this year: we ONLY speak English, 8-10 people show up (as opposed to last year's 2-3), and we actually talk about grammar points and lesson strategies. This coming week, I will put myself up for election as head of the department... wish me luck! It will be interesting to see whether or not they will want a woman/outsider in charge.

This week my homologue came over and checked out my electricity counter and fan, to see if we could figure out why I pay about 4 times more than most volunteers for my electicity bill each month. He says that there is no problem with my counter or my fan, and that the problem is I just use my fan too much, and am being charged too much per kilowatt hour. (The part about the fan is bogus, I use my fan as much if not less than other volunteers... I bought a new, smaller fan here in Cotonou yesterday, in hopes that it will use less electricity.) He says that it is too late now to start asking to see the electricity bill so... I will just have to suck it up for the rest of my time here... which is now only nine months!

I am in Cotonou now because yesterday was our first meeting for Camp GLOW. About thirty volunteers showed up, which is wonderful. The only problem which could arise is not being able to allow all of those volunteers to actually stay at the camp for the week... I think we can only take about twenty. We'll see! I'm still waiting to hear if PLAN has decided to fund the camp or not this year.

I have also met the five new volunteers who transferred here from Guinea when their program recently closed due to civil unrest there. I can't imagine how hard it would be at this point in my service to pick up and leave your village/belongings/pets. Anyway, they all seem really nice. The new volunteers coming to my region is from Kalamazoo!

I will head back to post today, and hopefully stay there until the day before Thanksgiving. I have been traveling so much lately, and I am looking forward to a couple of weekends of doing nothing and lazing around Lobogo. The week of Thanksgiving I will take off for almost a week, during which I will have two Thanksgiving dinners and plan my February trip to Ghana! And speaking of trips, our Mali trip is coming up in less than 7 weeks! I am starting to itch for another vacation :) I hope you are all surviving the dropping temperatures. I am bitter because the volunteers in northern Benin are starting to gt Harmattan now, when they have to wear sweatshirts and socks to bed. Send some of the coldness my way- hot/dry season is just beginning :(

Here another week has blown by. Immediately after posting my blog last week, I began what turned out to be the taxi ride fom hell. Not only were we graced with an engine that straight up died right after leaving Cotonou, we then got not one but TWO flat tires. Hence, the journey that was supposed to take 1 hour took 3, and I missed most of my meeting. Afterwards, Michelle and Catherine and I checked out the hotels in Possotome. Possotome is only 13km from my village, but standing in these hotels, you would think they were a world apart. They are absolutely beautiful and I hope Benin can start increasing its tourism there! We then headed back to Lobogo for the night and made pizza for dinner and cinnamon rolls for breakfast (both totally homemade)! Check out the pictures!

I finally started my quatrieme classes this week. On Wednesday, Maria came to observe me teach and check out my house. I think it went really well! She could tell I felt more comfortable in the classroom this year and says I have really improved. Of course, my school administration had to make a big deal out of her visit and take us out for drinks (even though Maria only drinks water). My old school director actually happened to be visiting that day, so he came with us, and unfortunately stole the show from the new director a bit.

The rest of the week was fine. I am trying to figure out if I may have committed a cultural faux pas: my next door neighbor (another teacher at the school) who was happy to drive me to school last year is now acting like I am a huge burden and is being quite rude to me, and I can't figure out why. I told him that I would be more than happy to take a zem if he would like, but he said no. I baked him cookies last night, so we'll see how he acts next week!After my first full day of teaching, I remembered how exhausting that is! I have been sleeping like a baby every night, which is definitely a welcome thing after not having slept very soundly since Kate died. My cats are still crazy (and pregnant) and stay out almost every night.

I'm now in Lokossa working on Camp GLOW stuff with Michelle. I think we are killing a chicken for dinner tonight! Tomorrow we head to Dogbo for a VAC meeting and Halloween party! I am being boring and reusing my 80s party costume, but lots of people are dressing as zemidjan drivers, market women, etc. It should be fun! I will update again next weekend when I am in Cotonou for the first Camp GLOW meeting. Happy halloween!

Hey everyone! Sorry it has been a while since my last post... I haven't had much internet access, and I have been busy starting school and doing Camp GLOW stuff. Even though school has started, it still isn't in full swing. I STILL haven't been able to have class with two of my four classes because they don't have a classroom and therefore just don't show up. Our censeur also has not been around, so things have been hectic with working out schedules. School started in typical Beninese fashion: people not showing up for a few weeks, people getting kicked out for not having paid fees or- yes, this really happens- having too fancy of a hair weave. I knew what to expect this year, though, so I was much more patient with the process. Now that school has started, I am 80% relieved and 20% nostalgiac for summer! It is really good to have a set schedule once again, and I love how fast the time flies, but I forgot how exhausting teaching is! Being one your feet for five hours straight and then coming home to cook, clean, and lesson plan really takes up your day! I definitely feel much more comfortable as a teacher this year. I have my systems down for discipline, board organization, etc., and I think it makes a difference when the kids can feel that I am in control of the classroom. I am having a lot of fun teaching the basics like "to be" and "good morning" and counting to ten! We also had our first English department meeting this past week, and I am hopeful that those will be more useful this year. I am going to try and be head of the department this year, meaning I will run the meetings, meaning we will start on time and actually get stuff done :) My boss Maria is coming to observe me teach this coming Wednesday. I am really not at all nervous and think the session will go well. Last weekend, I celebrated my birthday with a few friends in Lokossa. Friday night we went out for beer and salad (yes, that is a really nice birthday dinner here!) and the next day we had a joint party for Miranna and I (see picture) at a yam pilee restaurant. Catherine has figured out how to make peanut butter filled cupcakes (amazing what you can do with a little creativity here in Benin!) so she brought those along. On my actual birthday I had to teach in the morning. That afternoon, Fifa and Mari and I baked a cake, and I ate dinner at my neighbors' house that night. They made pate and legume sauce for me (kind of like collard greens) with cheese and eggplant I had brought back from Lokossa. After dinner we ate the cake- Angele did NOT stick her fist in it this year! My neighbors then bought us all beers (even the wives and the hired help!) and we all danced for a while. They wanted me to teach them how to dance like a white person, which was pretty mortifying. They said they had seen white people dance in music videos and they wanted me to show them. I contented myself with watching them dance- Africans just have this inherent talant for amazing dancing. I have never seen anyeone else move thier body the way these people can. In the past week or two, my cats have essentially become outdoor cats. I was trying to keep them inside at night, but they would howl at the door for hours on end until I caved and let them out. I decided that the noise they make on the tin roof is more tolerable than the howling at the door and knocking things off shelves at 3am. Now that I have started letting them out overnight, I am pretty sure that Belle is pregnant, and has fleas. Nothing I can do about it, I guess. I am actually kind of excited to see little kittens born! When I go out of town over night now, I just put their food and water outside and lock them out of the house. Baby especially doesn't like it, but they will have to learn someday. Today I am heading to Come for a meeting about the regional English competition, and afterwards Michelle and Catherine and I are gonna have a nice dinner on the lake and then spend the night at my post. We are going to work on planning our Mali Christmas trip and our trip to Morocco on the way home next summer! Speaking of trips, John Mark and I are also in the process of planning our trip to Ghana in the spring! I am addicted to traveling :) I am in Cotonou now because I had a meeting with the organization I am hoping will fund Camp GLOW yesterday. Unfortunately they will not be able to give us a final answer for another three weeks or so. I will keep you posted on whether or not we will be looking for donations from home. So, all is well here. Time is REALLY flying and I am keeping planty busy with school and Camp GLOW. I know that people have been having trouble getting through to me by telephone- just keep trying over and over and over! That is usually what it takes. I miss all of you and am especially sad at this time of year ot be missing the beautiful Fall colors. I hear the weather has been quite cold over there (while it is starting to heat up dramatically here in Benin... check out the picture of the melting candles in my house)- have a cup of hot cider for me!

And enjoy the video: I fed one of the local monkeys!

I can't believe it. And here I was so sure I have had a parasite for a few months... I am down in Cotonou for my mid-service medical exam. It went smoothly, other than getting a lecture about how it is clearly my fault that I am getting the parasites... even though you can get them from a fly simply landing on your food. As I have said a million times, I am one of the few volunteers that still boils my water, bleaches my vegetables, etc. Apparently, though, I have the highest iron count in my blood of any girl in Peace Corps Benin right now :)

Once again, hanging around Cotonou has proven to be exceptionally boring. This time around, I didn't splurge on food and ate omlette sandwiches all week. I have gotten to a point in my service where those actually sound delicious...

I am heading back to my village in just a few minutes. Hopefully I will begin teaching on Monday! This year I am teaching sixieme (beginning English, one of the levels I taught last year), and quatrieme (one level higher than I taugh last year). I will be teaching Monday-Thursday, 8-12, with one afternoon class at some point during the week. I am really looking forward to getting back to a more normal schedule and spending more time at post (yet having things to do there). My DVD player that I brought back really helps in the entertainment department. I have also been sleeping a little bit better, which I am grateful for. Hopefully school will help me sleep even more soundly. I will be in my village until next weekend, when I will head to Lokossa for a birthday celebration with some of my friends :)

Enjoy the Fall colors for me!

We just finished the Designing Behavior Change workshop yesterday. It was four full days of learning the technicalities of how to select an appropriate behavior you would like to see change, how to define your priority group and who influences them, how to figure out what stage of change they are currently in, what is keeping them from changing their behavior, how to pick appropriate activities to omplement the change, and how to measure your results. It was a pretty intense couple of days, but I'm really glad I participated. We each brought our homologue, but unfortunately mine had to leave halfway through the workshop. Working with Beninese is both really rewarding and sometimes frustrating. The portion of the workshop run by an American was appreciated more by the volunteers, and the part run by a West African (she was from Burkina Faso) was appreciated more by the Beninese. I think the homologues really enjoyed the workshop- it was many of their first times to Cotonou! They got to stay in a nice hotel, get fed good food, and, of course, they got the requisite certificate at the end of the week :) They looove their certificates! (Seriously, I would bet you that 75% of them already have it framed and hanging in their house) Several people brought female homologues to the workshop which was exciting. Beninese women are definitely reserved in groups like that and it was fun encouraging them to open up throughout the week.

I mentioned that my homologue had to leave halfway through the week. The director and censeur (like a vice principal) were both moved to other schools, so Blaise (my homologue) is the only member of the administration who didn't change schools. He had to be there to show them the ropes and get the school ready for the start of the new year. (Technically, school started yesterday, which means they will spend the next 2-3 weeks setting up peoples' schedules and cleaning up the school, and FINALLY start teaching by mid-October.) I don't think the administration change should effect me too much, I will just have to let them know what my duties as a Peace Corps Volunteer are there.

Throughout the week there were tons of people at the bureau, which meant spending too much money on nice dinners: I had a cheeseburger (brought my own cheese to the restaurant and saved myself almost $5!), Indian food, AND Italian... there goes my budget for a while! Luckily, we got per diem for the workshop. It was really good spending time with TEFL volunteers, almost everyone from my year was down here. I think I will see them all again for Thanksgiving- we had such an amazing one last year that we are going to do it again this year!

I am heading back to my post today, but will have to come back on Monday for my mid-service medical exam. I got a new phone (my old one was shutting itself down a lot) so call me! :)

and I feel old. We had a good time that weekend: Friday night we went out for dinner and dancing for two volunteers' birthdays. Swear-in was the next morning, and the bureau was a zoo. The ceremony was held in the back of the Peace Corps bureau, and looked really nice. All of the TEFL volunteers for my year (minus one) were there, so it was great seeing everyone!

Later that day John Mark and I headed back to Lobogo, and made some yummy baguette pizzas. That night he started feeling sick, but nonetheless we went to the market and walked around. For the rest of the night and most of today, he was glued to the latrine. I'm telling you folks, that's one of the glories of Peace Corps Benin. We tried to enjoy the rest of our night with a movie and a big salad and we baked some banana bread, but he was pretty miserable :(

Now we're back in Cotonou and I will be here for the week doing a workshop Monday-Thursday with my homologue. He called me last night to let me know that the director and censeur of our school were moved, so that will be interesting this year... it will probably make our school year start even later- fabulous. I will have internet access and AC all week, so that will be nice!

Sorry it has been a while since my last post. Readjusting to life in Benin has definitely been challenging. Getting back to Lobogo for the first time was exciting... for about five minutes. When I opened my front door, a wave of hideous cat-urine smell hit me, and I saw that my cats had absolutely destroyed my house. Not only had they knocked everything off my shelves, but they had eaten a lot of my food that they could obviously smell through the bags, including my precious tuna and chicken packets. When I continued back into my bedroom, I saw where the smell was coming from: they had decided to use my bed/matress as a litter box while I was away. Angele then informed me that Belle had squeezed through my wooden blinds and ripped a hole in my screen, escaping out the back of my house (so, the screen had to be replaces ASAP lest I get lots of creatures in my house). It took me a few days to clean up from all of that. I let my matress dry in the sun, treated it with lots of Febreeze, and flipped it over. Surprisingly, the smell is gone now.

The first few days of sitting around doing nothing were really hard, especially after the constant go-go-go of being home. I was really sad being there alone, and kept thinking "A week ago, I was..." I definitely made a few teary phone calls home!

The saddness has all but dissappeared by now. I have gotten quite busy, and that obviously helps. I took Fifa into Cotonou one last time to pick up her glasses, and to our mutual delight they help her a lot! She has been wearing them all the time since we got them which is a good sign. I really hope they help her in school this year! Then Michelle came over for a few days, and we literally spent that entire time working on a 2000 piece Times Square puzzle I brought back from the States, and STILL couldn't finish it! (see picture :)

Later that week, I was surprised when Ryan, a former volunteer in Lobogo, showed up for a visit. He is back in Benin working on an import/export business he wants to set up, plus he just wanted to visit everyone! It has been nice seeing him; one night we went out for drinks and then he invited me to dinner at his old neighbors' house.

That weekend Michelle, Catherine, and I got together to start working on our Camp GLOW fund request and plan our trip to Mali. The picture of the clean laundry laying out to dry on the dirt pile was taken there... no comment necessary. It looks like that trip is really coming together! We will be spending Christmas Eve and Christmas up in Natitingou just like I did last year, and then traveling to Burkina Faso on the 26th. On the 27th and 28th we will get up to Mali and see the huge mud mosque in Djenne, and the 29th to the 1st will be our hike through Dogon country. I can't wait! We already have our guide booked, so all we have to do before then is book a few hotels- the rest will be done in transit. As usual when I get together with those girls, we watched lots of movies and ate lots of good food :) I had brought a few baking mixes back from the States ad they were all awesome!

Then Catherine came back to Lobogo with me for a night. We were greeted with a HUGE funeral party going on across the street from my house, and, as usual, their music was BLARING round the clock. Even at four in the morning, it sounded like someone was holding a loud radio up to my ear! The music continued for two more days, and stopped just as I was on the brink of insanity. I barely got a wink of sleep.

On Tuesday I helped out at a local English club with some other volunteers, where we talked about American sports. I then went back to Lokossa with Michelle where we- surprise- cooked and watched a movie. When I got back to post, I was greeted by two three-hour-old goats in my concession- check out the pictures!

Now I'm down in Cotonou for the night. The bureau is REALLY crowded with the last few volunteers the year ahead of me leaving, people doing mid-service medical exams, and the new volunteers swearing-in tomorrow. I can't believe they are already swearing-in! I feel bad, though- last year since it was the 40th anniversary of Peace Corps Benin, we got to swear-in at the congressional palace with a huge party, and this year the new volunteers are just swaering-in at the bureau! I also recently realized that I have less than eleven months left here in Benin: my friend Catherine and I should be leaving Benin sometime in the first half of August, and we will then go to Morocco for about ten days before heading home. So, I should be home by the end of August!! (Although I won't know exact dates until probably May) Tomorrow John Mark and I will head bac to Lobogo until Sunday, and then return to Cotonou for a Designing Behavior Change workshop we are doing with our homologues next week.

So, I am definitely feeling better than I was, but it's taken a while! I am really sad that I am missing fall colors and a great football season. And I have hardly gotten any phone calls so far... please call! I need it! Miss you all :)

I LOVE America. Coming home made me appreciate what we have in the States so, so much. I can't write about my trip home with the detail that I usually use, but I will try to give you and overview :)

Landing on American soil was seriously one of the most exciting moments I have had in a while. Stepping out of customs to see my mom and dad waiting for me was pretty emotional. Getting back to my house felt really good. Upon seeing my cats, I just started laughing and couldn't stop because- and I'm not exaggerating at all right now- those cats were as big as the goats in my village! Granted my cats in Benin are extremely tiny and these cats were very large, but it was seriously shocking! My first meal at home was good wine, a fruit salad containing no tropical fruits whatsoever, filet mignon, baked potatoes, broccoli, and my mom's chocolate cake. Sleeping in my bed with a comforter and AC was bliss.

The next day was filled with lots of happy reunions: I had breakfast at my grandma and grandpa Hurst's, homemade pizza at grandma D's with all of my relatives for lunch, and then Leah, Cam and Sarah made me dinner :) The rest of the week was filled with spending time with those people, spending hundreds of dollars at Meijers, REI, and Whole Foods, and eating an absurd amount of delicious food at my favorite restaurants. I also gave a presentation at Trinity about my first year of service, and that went really well.

The following week my parents and I did a trip Up North, which was really fun! On the first day we had breakfast with my friend Carly and her parents. Carly was a PCV in Benin who had JUST finished her service and gotten home to Kalamazoo. We also got to stop in Holland and see Dan and Corene's new house! That night we ended up in Ludington, where we played mini golf (STILL couldn't beat my dad!), walked the pier at sunset to watch the Badger go out, and hiked in the state park.

The next day we headed up the coast to the Leelenau peninsula, and ended up at Black Star Farms, a winery/creamery/B&B where we stayed for two days. The place was absolutely beautiful. The land was very lush and surrounded by vineyards ans stables. The Inn was gorgeous! We had a massive room with a fireplace, two king size beds, and gorgeous views. There was a sauna and jacuzzi we could use, and the common areas were nice. The first night we went to the wine and hors d'oeuvre reception at the Inn and then had an amaaaazing dinner at a trattoria in Traverse city. The second night we drove up Old Mission Peninsula, which was just as beautiful as I remembered. We had dinner at a nice Inn, where the mosquitoes were worse than I have ever experienced in Benin!

The next day we hugged the coast again all the way up to Mackinaw. We drove through the “Tunnel of Trees” which is a road on a bluff above Lake Michigan through dense forest and some of the most beautiful homes I have ever seen. We basically laid low in Mackinaw, spent the night in a nice B&B. On the way home the next day we stopped in Frankenmeuth for a chicken dinner!

That weekend Amanda and Morgan, friends from my study abroad, drove up from Chicago to see me. We spent all of Saturday shopping and walking around Ann Arbor, and then had a delicious dinner at Zingerman's Roadhouse. I laid a bit more low that week, since I had already done most of my shopping and eating, and a lot of my friends were busy with band week.

The last weekend was awesome! Mitch came on Friday and we went to Common Grill for dinner with my parents. Saturday was the game! I wore my fabulous dress, and we went to watch the band practice in the morning, where we saw TONS of band alums. It was sort of weird not being a part of the band, but I didn't envy them working so hard! I spent some time at euphgate, and then watched the step show for the first time ever! Watching pregame was so awesome, and I was SO proud of David, a good friends and former euph who is now the drum major. Then the game was sweet! So good seeing Michigan dominate again. It made me wish I could see every game this season!

That night Cam and Sarah's house had a party that was a lot of fun. The last full day I was home we had another gathering at my grandma D's where we ate lots of food and played bocce ball- I taught all of my friends that came how to play! The last day home was spent packing and saying a few last goodbyes. Goodbyes were actually harder for me this time around, probably because I knew exactly what I was coming back to and knew the loneliness that comes with being a Peace Corps volunteer. The flights home were not bad at all, I was actually able to sleep through most of them! Coming back was sort of sad, but I felt better as soon as I saw some of my Peace Corps friends that happened to be in Cotonou. It was also good to have rice and beans today- the food at home was awesome, but I actually got sick of eating so much and gained 8 pounds while I was home! Today I have just been readjusting to life here and organizing a few things before I head back to my village tomorrow.

So, long story short, my trip was absolutely fantastic and a really good break for me. I now have less than a year left as a volunteer here! I hope that I will readjust to the slow pace of life here; I know I will have a pretty hard time when I get back to Lobogo tomorrow, though I am SO SO excited to see my kitties!! School probably won't actually start for another month, though I will try to keep busy with looking for funding for Camp GLOW (I will let you know if I do a PCPP, which is where you can donate!). I also brought back a portable DVD player and some movies to keep me busy. Next week I will be back down in Cotonou with Fifa to get her glasses, and I will be back soon again after that when the new volunteers swear in. Hope all is well in the States and PLEASE call me, I'm really going to need it as I readjust to life here!

Salut! Here I am in France, having an awesome time. Leaving Africa after almost 4 months was pretty surreal. The airport was a good send-off- plenty of typical Beninese antics: everyone had five or six bags to check (do they pack their entire life??), one woman refused to stop harassing the security guard until he let her on the plane with THREE carry-ons, and the plane left late because a majority of the Beninese passengers arrived late. I was with another American who had come to visit another volunteer, and what struck me was how incredibly patient I have grown since being in Benin. As I watched Daniel get so frustrated, I realized that that would have been me a year ago, but honestly, nothing at the airport phased me.

Even though it was a red-eye flight, I basically got no sleep. The flight was fine though, and I have never enjoyed airplane food so much haha- it was not Beninese! Of course, since we left late, the plane landed 1.5 hours late, and then we had to wait in absurdly long customs and baggage claim lines, so, I missed my train. I was able to switch my ticket to a train leaving one hour later (to the tune of about $45), but had no way to call the Dimitrovs to let them know. When I arrived in Grenoble, no one was at the station waiting for me, so I had to take a cab to their house. (I couldn't even think about how much it was costing me- I could have taken a Taxi from Cotonou to Dakar for the same price!)

Apparently they thought I had decided not to come and were upset, but they were really happy to see me. That afternoon I just relaxed with them, and in the evening I went out on the town with Roser, a Spanish student now living with the Dimitrovs, Cyril, my host brother, and two of his friends. It was so nice to be out at 1am and feel completely safe! It was also blissfully chilly :)

The next day Roser and I walked around Grenoble and had an awesome lunch on the river bank. Roser speaks really good English and is going to live in the States for about six months starting in October. After lunch we headed to get the famous pear sorbet that I have been longing for for over four years (we got it almost every day when I studied abroad here)... only to find out they no longer make that flavor! So sad :( But I still got delicious peach sorbet. That evening it was decided that we would go to Chamonix/Mont Blanc the next day (in the heart of the Alps, the highest mountain in Europe, and only about three hours from Grenoble) so we went to bed early.

Chamonix was INCREDIBLE. We tried to go there when I was here with my parents last April, but you need a sunny day to really appreciate it and we didn't have one. It took us four hours to get there because of construction and traffic, but it was a beautiful drive through the mountains. All we really had time for there was going up the Aguille du Midi, a gondola that goes WAY up into the mountains. It is really expensive ($50 or so), but the Dimitrovs treated us which was really nice of them.

Going up was amazing, albeit a bit terrifying! Definitely not for those who are afraid of heights- I am not afraid of heights but still had a hard time! Seventy-two people squeeze into this little cable car hanging from a wire and go roughly one bajillion feet up into the mountains over snow, ice, rocky peaks, cliffs, etc. When you get to the summit, you have about two hours to enjoy the views. I don't even know how to describe to you how beautiful it was, but I think the pictures speak for themselves :) I really have never seen anything like it.

Up at the top there are plenty of places to talk around, including snow and ice caves! I literally kissed the snow. I was freezing and thoroughly enjoyed it :) We watched the insane mountain climbers, and even had a nutella crepe.

On our way home that night Roser and I took the Dimitrovs to dinner since they had driven us to Chamonix and paid for our gondola tickets. We went to a nice place and had a great time. When we got home that night (not until almost one), Cyril's friends were watching a TV special on American spring break, and were just disgusted with how Americans act. I couldn't convince them that this is a unique phenomenon and that 95% of Americans are nothing like this. Sigh.

Yesterday I went up to the old fort overlooking Grenoble with Roser, and then we got lunch. I love little French restaurants- the couple were the cooks and bar tenders, and their daughter was the waitress. We were the only people in there because it was late, so they sat next to us and talked with us, ate their own lunch, just hung out. Later in the day I went to a supermarket, which was overwhelming to say the least. I am truly astounded by the comforts we have in the western world.

Today is my last full day here. Later in the day I am going to meet up with Stephane, my other host brother, and tonight I will have dinner with the family and get ready to take off at 5am tomorrow! I really, really can't believe that I will be in the States tomorrow. I can't wait!

I can not believe this time has actually come- I have been waiting to write a “goodbye Africa” blog for a long time :) Pictures in this blog: an awesome BBQ chicken salad I made, my homologue, his wife, and oldest son at my house for pancakes and coffee, pizza I made with real mozzarella, ice cream sundaes we discovered in Cotonou (keep in mind this is sub-Saharan Africa!), Belle on my mosquito net, the Amazon women fighters at the Independence Day parade, military at the parade, the president driving by (in the photo he is all the way to the right), and my friends and I at the parade.

My last two weeks have been pretty busy. At the end of July, Melissa and Katie, two other TEFL volunteers, came to Lobogo for a few days. The first night we walked around town and then made homemade ravioli, and the second day we literally didn't even leave the concession! We just lounged around and played cards all day. Unfortunately, that day I got pretty sick with a high fever and bad headache, so I ended up having to just lay in my bed most of the evening. I did not feel well enough to head to Lokossa for the fete the next day, but I didn't want to miss out so I went anyway :)

We were able to find a direct taxi from Lobogo to Lokossa because of the fete which was nice. Since I was feeling crappy I stayed at Michelle's house all day while the other went out for lunch and walked around. We all went to sleep early since we were getting up early for the fete the next day.

We left Michelle's house early the next morning and headed to the parade site. (I think I mentioned in an earlier blog that the national independence day party was being held here?) Lokossa was PACKED with people dressed in their finest, many wearing fabric with the president's face plastered all over it. (Some volunteers who recently went to Ghana found Barack Obama fabric!) The parade route was lined with every branch of the Beninese military decked out in their full regalia, and upon arrival we promptly embarrassed ourselves by blatantly staring at a military vehicle driving by, when we realized that EVERYONE else had their backs turned in respect. Oh well. Us yovos don't know any better! A woman also came up very quickly and pinned a small Beninese pendant on us, then charged us for it. They were cute though, so we paid!

After standing around for about an hour, the crowd got very quiet, and suddenly clapping and cheering started. The president drive by right in front of us, saluting the military. Fifteen minutes later, he drove by going back the other way, this time smiling and waving. I got a decent but short video of the first pass by. After that many of the military branches and bands went marching, but the crowd got too big and pushy so we headed out.

We walked to a big public park and watched two government helicopters take off (the Beninese went nuts). We then got pounded yams for lunch, and each of us unknowingly ordered a half chicken! After we walked to another public park where we watched the zangbetos perform. They look like big pyramidal haystacks that periodically shake and dance, but when the climax comes and they lift up the hay, there is nothing underneath! It truly is amazing; we tried for a long time to figure out how they do it and truly couldn't. After that most people headed out, and Michelle, Nathaniel and I found a salad joint for dinner.

When we were looking for zems to take us back to Michelle's after dinner, we stumbled upon a crowded park where there was live music and dance perfomances. There were some INCREDIBLE dancers and some not so incredible singers. At one point, they asked for people from the crowd to come up on stage, and Nathaniel got up there! He did a little bit of free style rapping, and when he was finished an spoke a bit of local language, the crowd went crazy. Half of the crowd was watching him, and the other half was watching Michelle and I for our reaction! Later, a man in full Michael costume got up and did a spot-on performance of Billie Jean, moonwalk and all.

The next day Michelle and I headed to Catherine's post to start planning our holiday trip to Mali. We are planning to visit the mud mosque in Djenne and then do a four day trek through Dogon country, where the people live in the cliffs. We will have a guide who leads us on the hike and shows us the best vistas and villages, and each night we will sleep on the cliffs under the stars. This trip will cost a pretty penny, so I am asking for some help from home as birthday/Christmas presents.

We made delicious Mexican food for dinner and watched Mean Girls before bed :) The next morning we made a coffee cake and watched Blood Diamond. It was good to see this movie again because I understood and recognized so much more in it. They were pretty accurate in their depictions of West African cities and villages. Staying in movie mode, Michelle and I watched Slumdog Millionaire that night, which was really good. Unfortunately, it was a bootleg copy and really bad quality, so I will definitely have to see that one again.

The next day I headed back to Lobogo and promptly realized I had forgotten my checkbook at the bank in Lokossa, so I had to go right back. Luckily I was able to get the checks with no problem, and all of them were accounted for. I stayed with Michelle yet another night, this time we went out for salad and then baked a key lime pie. We watched The Last King of Scotland, which was really sad and intense.

On Thursday, my homologue had me over for lunch. It was really yummy and we ended up talking for a few hours afterward. I love having frank, intellectual conversations with him. The rest of my time in Lobogo was spent getting ready for my trip: doing laundry, packing, making lists of things to do/see/buy/eat at home, saying goodbye to people, and cat-proofing my house! (The new trend is that when I leave for more then one night, the cats get crazy and knock everything off the shelves, break things, and sometimes pee in places where they shouldn't :( It was very odd leaving my house and my cats and the village for such a long time, but this is a much needed break! Of course, everyone reminded me about a million times to bring them “bonne choses” from America. Of course I want to bring them back a few things, but it doesn't have the same feel-good sense that it usually would because they expect so much.

Well, that's all from Benin! I head to the airport at 8pm tomorrow night and catch the red-eye to Paris. I will probably do a quick update or two from France and home, but I will be busy enjoying myself :) SEE you all soon!

This has been a good week! After relaxing at post for a few days, another TEFL volunteer came to my post for the night, and we headed down to Cotonou together to greet the new volunteers! We waited for what seemed like forever at their training site, and when their busses FINALLY pulled in, we jumped, screamed, banged on the windows... you get the idea :)

There are 56 of them, which is a bit smaller than my group was. Honestly, every single one I have talked to has been really nice, really excited to be here, and outgoing. In TEFL, 5 of the 15 volunteers are men! It's hard to believe, since we only have one in our group. One of them is even from West Bloomfield and went to U of M, and graduated at the same time as me! Small world. The first two nights we spent together, we had tons of fun and danced a lot. I think they are going to be a great group and I am looking forward to this upcoming year!

It was really a huge energy boost to have these new Americans come in. We fed off of their positive evergy, and their constant questions made us feel good about all we have learned about Benin! It was fun showing them around Cotonou and telling them all about what volunteer life is like. Honestly though, I feel like I was in their shoes very recently! Hard to believe I have been here 13 months.

Yesterday was a volunteers birthday, and we went out for ice cream sundaes in Cotonou, complete with whiped cream and sprinkles!

Today I'm headed back to post, and on Wednesday another volunteer will join me there. Then we will head to Lokossa for the national celebration, and then.... I leave two weeks from today! Give me a call and we will make plans! (Getting through has been annoying lately... just try lots of time in a row)

Nothing too exciting has happened since my last post... mostly I just wanted to update so I could say THREE WEEKS UNTIL MY TRIP!!

I spent this week at my post mostly catching up on much-needed sleep. I read a lot, made myself some amazing calzones and a white pizza, and walked around Lobogo to greet people after my trip. I also got a movie onto my flash drive last time I was in Cotonou, and enjoyed watching it at post so much that I think I'm going to try and bring back a portable DVD player with me when I go home!

On Saturday I met two of my friends in Possotome, and after hanging out there for a while we came to Lobogo together (on insane zemidjans... my driver rinsed his mouth out with gasoline! What???) and walked around since it was market day. We found a lady selling turkey for dinner! (Rarely do you find meat, especially turkey, let alone a piece that has any meat on it or isn't covered in flies.) We then came back to my house and played Chutes and Ladders (seriously) and cooked an awesome breakfast this morning.

Getting to Cotonou today was a bit or an adventure since we had two different flat tires along the way and a driver that was stubborn and spoke no French whatsoever. But we made it here in one piece! Tomorrow I take Fifa to see the American optometrist again, then we will head back to Lobogo together. I am excited to see her; life in village has been not quite as fun without my two little girls around! I will be back down here on Friday to greet the new volunteers when they arrive here! I am really excited to meet the shiny, clean newbies, but totally weirded out that we will now be the old, seasoned ones.

Final note on calling me: I hear that it has been a bit harder to get though lately than normal. If you don't get through, try immediately calling back again, several times in a row (as opposed to waiting 15 minutes and then trying). You should be able to get through eventually. Also, if possible, call me early in the day your time. The phone networks get busier here as the day goes on. But please call! I haven't been getting many calls lately, probably because I'm coming home soon, but I am going to need them to get me through my second year here!

That's all for now... let me know if you want to do something when I am home! My schedule is already starting to fill up :)

It's been a busy few weeks of travel since I last updated. I left Cotonou the morning of the 2nd and took the bus to John Mark's village. As we were celebrating over a year away from home, we had to laugh because for dinner, we were making... Beninese food. Oh, how much we've changed in a year :) The next day the people from "Unseen Stories" (the American NGO that deals with child trafficking) came to Tchatchou and we helped them give two formations. At the morning showing, not many people showed up, so the school's vice principal had the brilliant idea of going across the street to the primary school where about 700 kids were hanging out and inviting all of them. Picture this: "Hey kids! There are four white people across the street with lots of fancy electronic equipment who want to show you a movie and give you free things!" Needless to say, all hell broke loose and a literal stampede of 700 kids tried to get into the classroom at the same time, ignoring the fact that the room held about 50 people comfortably. Not only was it impossible to quiet a group that size down, and the room stunk to high heaven, but the kids were so anxious to get in that three kids got trampled and had to go to the hospital, and they broke the door. When we tried to hold kids out, they pushed us and stepped on us, too. Also, when we did try to show the movie, the few kids who were listening couldn't understand a word of the movie because they have barely started learning French in school yet. Overall, it was a pretty frustrating experience. It was fun meeting the Americans who were there with the NGO, it turns out that one of the girls' uncles started Phoebe Hospital in Liberia, which my church at home supports. She is actually going there to volunteer for several months after she graduates! John Mark and I made them American spaghetti for lunch, which they were really grateful for after being subjected to Beninese food for so long. After lunch, we had a second formation for the Peul, which are the West African nomads who wear really bright colors, lots of jewelry, have gorgeous scarification and makeup, and speak their own language. They were really receptive to the film and we had a really great discussion about child trafficking afterwards, all through a translator. That night we sat under the stars for a long time before going to bed :) It was great seeing John Mark again, he is in the States now! I leave four weeks from today :)

On the 4th we headed to Parakou where the PCVs had a chili cook-off, both to celebrate the holiday AND our one year anniversary of landing in Benin! For the cook-off, there were five different entries and a blind taste test done by three judges! Then the rest of us got to dig in. We even had beer, corn bread, and sour cream to go with it! A couple of volunteers made a homemade American flag! See picture :) I also spent a good part of the day doing souvenir shopping for home :) I got to talk to alllllll of my family on the 4th, which was awesome. No one could believe that I have been gone for over a year now!

The next day we headed way up north to Kandi. The landscape up there curiously reminded me of southern France. It was really pretty, and the big differences between way up there and down where I live are: no palm trees up there, and TONS of cows everywhere! The peul herd cattle for a living, and they are all over the place. The Kandi workstation was cute and it was a nice place to stay for the week. There were 5 of us TEFL volunteers and then three environment volunteers who worked the camp for the week. We worked together to make 3 big meals throughout the week: spaghetti with tofu, mac n cheese, and a huge salad. The street food in Kandi was good too, there were tons of chick peas! Unfortunately, one day while eating on the street, Nora saw a bus (the buses that blow through town at 50 mph, hoping people get out of their way) hit a dog and take off one of its legs :( She couldn't stop crying for a while after that. (Driving here is truly scary. People pass other cars while going around blind curves or over hills, they drive WAY too fast. I am getting really tired of it.)

The camp was good overall. The kids had English class from 8-10, and then some activity lead by the environment volunteers from 10-12. They did things like kickball, learning about volcanoes and then making them out of baking soda and vinegar, cleaning up the school, how to draw using perspective, flying a kite, etc. Then, in the afternoons, they came back to watch Planet Earth! The kids really loved this at first, but got kind of fidgety by the end of the week. Us volunteers definitely loved it! We usually kept watching it when we got back to the workstation :)

I started the week team teaching the youngest grade with Nora, where we went over basic greetings and then taught them animal/habitat vocab in preparation for Planet Earth. By Wednesday, the class had grown too big and so we split it up and each took a class.I took the kids who will be starting secondary school in the Fall, so we worked on really basic things like the alphabet and spelling, numbers, and introductions. The kids were really young and there were tons of them (one day I had close to 100), so I definitely had some discipline issues. Actually, I made a student cry! I feel about it, but I didn't do anything rash. He was talking out of control while I was teaching, and I tried moving his seat twice, to no avail. I finally sent him to sit outside for ten minutes, and while he was outside the door he was STILL trying to disrupt the class, so I went out to tell him to leave the school. He wouldn't do it, so I finally picked him up and took him to the door... and he started crying and begging for forgiveness! There was no way I could go back at this point, and I didn't do anything undeserved. Comes with the territory, I guess.

We left Kandi Saturday to get back to Parakou, and after four hours in a taxi that stuffed FOUR people in the front and back and getting ripped off for our money, we got to the workstation. We got delicious chicken and fries for dinner, and then I spent the rest of my night discussing Michigan football with a fellow avid fan that I met! We took the bus down to Cotonou today. It was a long trip, and when we stopped for lunch, we all decided we wanted meat, so we went to a vendor with just a huge tray of meat. He cut off several chunks for each of us, and we thought it was delicious. We had to laugh at ourselves: here we were, eating uncovered mystery meat in sub-saharan Africa, dipping it in hot peppers and eating it with raw onions, thoroughly enjoying ourselves :) Tonight we're gonna get some Italian for dinner. Tomorrow I will head back to my post! I really miss my cats! I have been calling my neighbors every few days to check on them, and it sounds like they have refused to go outside while I have been gone. We will need to figure out how to encourage them while I am gone for a month! I am looking forward to relaxing in my village for a while, though I'm sure I'm going to start getting antsy for my trip. The new volunteers come on the 24th, so I will come down to Cotonou to welcome them! Not sure when the next time I will be able to update, though. SEE you all soon!

Here is the blog on Camp GLOW I promised! Before I get into the camp, though, I want to apologize for the lack of pictures here... my BRAND new camera that Amanda brought me in May inexplicably stopped working about a week and a half ago, right before the camp started. Every time I turned the camera on, it would immediately turn itself back off. I thought it had something to do with the batteries, but after trying several different sets of brand new batteries in it, it still wouldn't work. I had several other volunteers take a look at it, and even went on the Kodak website looking for help, but to no avail :( I am really disappointed, not only because the camera is brand new, but also because I know how much everyone was looking forward to seeing photos of the camp. And there were many great photo ops! Luckily, the camera seems to be working sporadically now, so hopefully there will be pictures on my next blog, keep your fingers crossed!

The week of the camp started out poorly. I had asked the girls to meet me at 11am sharp, and only one was there by 11:30. As I started walking towards the middle of the village hoping to spot the other one, I saw her walking towards me... with empty hands. I asked where she had been, and she said she had been waiting elsewhere, who knows why. When I asked her to get her bag so we could go since we were already running late, she informed me it was at her house. Mind you, this is the girl that lives so deep in the jungle that it takes a pair of machetes and 30 minutes to get there, let alone the rain that was falling at this point (of course) making it nearly impossible to drive there. So I flagged down a zem to take her out to her house (since my zem had not shown up), who charged an absurd amount because of the distance and the rain. It took them a full hour to get there and back. I had wanted to take the girls to a nice lunch in Cotonou, but since we no longer had time to do that we grabbed a quick lunch in the Lobogo market. When we were ready to head out, one of our zems informed me that he had a flat tire and had to wait until they replaced it. Thirty minutes later we were finally on the road. Once we got in a taxi, it of course promptly broke down and we had to stop for a while at a mechanic's shop. We finally made it to Cotonou, where we had to change taxis for Porto Novo. We were promptly squished into the back of an extremely small taxi, where there were already two extremely large women and four baskets of tomatoes in the back seat. They didn't bother trying to squish for us, although I don't believe it would have made much of a difference if they had. The girls were sitting on each other's lap, and I was literally sitting sideways. As we started driving, I notices some small pellets hitting my arm that was hanging out the window, and with horror realized (this is too perfect) that I was being pooped on by a goat that was strapped to the top of the taxi. A few minutes later we were lightly rear ended. When we finally got to Porto Novo and got on zems, we were stopped for a half hour in traffic behind a Muslim funeral procession. I'm telling you, everything that could have gone wrong with our travels that day did, but we made it to the camp in one piece nonetheless :)

The camp was held at a Protestant university, and the facilities were nice, especially compared to what these girls are used to. Each girl got their own bed (quite an upgrade from the straw mats they usually sleep on the floor on) equipped with a mosquito net which they got to take home with them at the end of the week. (Unfortunately, there were not enough nets for the volunteers to get them too, and we were consequently eaten alive every night. Thank goodness for malaria prophylaxis) On the first night we showed the girls how to use a toilet and a shower, since most of them hadn't before. (This turned out to be somewhat useless, though, as the water was either cut or had hardly any pressure for the whole week. Luckily the university also had latrines and big reserves of water so we could bucket shower. Truthfully, I think the girls were more comfortable this way.)

The girls were divided into five teams of ten girls each, and the teams competed for points throughout the week by doing things like cleaning up the grounds, being polite, etc. They could also lose points, through honestly that hardly ever happened since these girls are the best and brightest of their classes. There were about six “tutrices” at the camp: Beninese women who are leaders in their communities and fields, serving as role models to the girls. Each team had one or two tutrices and a few volunteers assigned to it, and at the end of every day we reflected in teams on what we had learned that day. Each team also had to prepare a skit based on one of the themes we discussed that week to present at the talent show on the last night. My team did a skit about forced marriage and keeping girls in school, and they did a really great job. It broke my heart to see how accurately they portrayed the dominant Beninese male.

The first day, I was in charge of leading games and songs with the girls when there was down time, and it was a lot of fun! I taught them things like the hokey pokey, and in turn they taught me many Beninese games. Breakfast was an hour late on that first day, so I definitely had my work cut out for me! Other volunteers used the morning time to lead the girls in basic calisthenics, which they loved!

Speaking of meals, the caterers were fabulous. They prepared three full meals for the girls every day, with things like turkey, eggs, chicken, crab, rice, and legumes. That is a HUGE upgrade from what most of these girls get to eat at home, and there was always plenty for the girls to get seconds. (They were shy about that at the beginning of the week, but by the end they were ravenous!) For the most part they were always on time, and they even provided one or two snacks we could serve throughout the day. The cost turned out to be about $4 per day per person, which is a great value. I talked to them and they were delighted to hear that I wanted to use them again next year!

The first day, after a brief opening ceremony, we had sessions on women's/children's rights, sexual harassment, and staying in school and study tips. The sessions were led by Beninese women from local NGOs, and they went over really well. The girls were surprised to learn all the rights they had and when they could get the law involved. That night, we projected the movie Bend it like Beckham on a big wall, and treated the girls to a night at the theater! It was a perfect movie since it involved the ubiquitous sport of soccer AND it was girls playing it. Murphy's law, the power cut out about 10 minutes before the end of the film, but they were able to finish it the next night.

On Tuesday a doctor came to talk to the girls about malaria and nutrition. It was really interesting to hear some of the the beliefs that the girls had about how you can catch malaria. In the afternoon we visited a local museum that was basically just a random assortment of artifacts that a colonial family had acquired in their home. That night I was able to visit my host family. Papa is the only one who lives in the house now; mama and her children moved out because of something involving jealousy and someone casting spells on them. Luckily, though, we were able to go and see mama and her kids (and my precious Vivi!) at the sand on the street where she sells oranges.

On Wednesday morning the girls got to visit the National Assembly, the rough equivalent of our congress. I didn't get to go along since I was on desk duty that morning (there always had to be two volunteers at the desk in case something happened, to watch for girls leaving the grounds, to help them out, etc.) I will definitely go along next year! That afternoon we visited Songhai, the eco-friendly/self-sustaining farm complex where we had our last training in February. The girls got to tour the grounds, and then got an hour-long computer lesson, since most of them had never been on one before. They were even introduced to the basics of surfing the web.

On Thursday a group from an American NGO came in to show a documentary they made about child trafficking in Benin. After that, the girls had a session busting myths about HIV//AIDS, and even got to meet a woman living with HIV. I think that this session was really great, since it turned out that the girls really didn't know much at all about contracting the disease, and they got to see how normal someone living with HIV is. After lunch we had a session on puberty/reproduction/hygiene, and this was a great day to have the session since one of the campers had come to us sobbing in the morning- she had had her first period! We finished the day's sessions with a lesson on how to crochet things out of old plastic sachets. Plastic sachets litter every corner of Benin, and now the girls know how to make bags and wallets out of them to sell for a profit. The best part of the day was the evening, though, when we hired a DJ for two hours and the girls danced their hearts out. I wish I could convey how spectacularly Beninese people dance, they have a rhythm unlike anyone I have ever seen. Of course, they made us dance with them the whole time, and we have never been so aware of our white skin! It was tons of fun, though! The girls were totally uninhibited with no boys there. (That was, indeed, the most refreshing part of the week: no boys/men there to dominate conversations and make the girls shy.)

On Friday there was a good session about gender roles followed by a career panel that included a female mechanic, lawyers, professors, doctors, etc. It was great hearing what the girls wanted to be when they grew up, and these women answered all sorts of questions on how they fought through stereotypes and got where they are today. After lunch the girls learned how to make a budget and save money, and the last session of the day was an artist who came in with her beads and the girls got to make necklaces- they LOVED it! At the end of the night was the talents show where each group presented their skit and several girls sang and danced.

Before we left the next morning we had a brief closing session where we summed up what we had taken from the week and, above all else, wished the girls lots of courage. Every girl got a copy of the official group photo, a bracelet that said Camp GLOW, and a certificate. The last part of the session was the winning team's members each getting a backpack filed with a few basic school supplies and a NICE hardcover French dictionary. I think you can guess what an amazing prize this is, which of course elated the winners. It unfortunately left the camp on a bit of a sour note for the 40 girls who didn't win. Next year I will make sure not to make that the very last thing!

Coming home was a lot easier than going there; Michelle and I were able to rent a direct taxi with our girls, and we didn't have to stop in Cotonou. We sang camp songs the whole way, and then stopped in Ouidah to take the girls out to lunch. It was definitely a great week, but exhausting!

In the few days since then I have just been relaxing and preparing for this next long trip I am on. Sunday was Fifa's tenth birthday, so I made her a cake and had beers with the family. On a whim, Fifa's aunt decided to take her to Nigeria for the summer, such a last minute decision that I didn't even get to say goodbye. I am a bit miffed because she has a doctors appointment on July 20, but her parents say they will try and make sure she makes it for that... we'll see.

It has been gloriously cool outside, starting the week of the camp in Porto Novo. It rained much of the week, which made it very pleasant temperature-wise, although I think may of the girls were cold. The last day of the camp it was even chilly enough to make hot chocolate! (Mind you, when I say “chilly” it is probably in the low to mid seventies, but after living through 100 degree plus weather, it can feel down right cold! Plus the air is damp with rain.) I didn't bring a pagne to use as a blanket and I ended up sleeping in my rain jacket every night! My first night home the power was off all night so I slept without a fan, and even with my sheet on I was shivering! I have been sleeping with the fan since then simply because I like the white noise, but that has almost made it unbearably cold. This weather is wonderful, but it makes me dread when it will get hot(ter) again late in the year!

Now I am in in Cotonou, preparing to head up north tomorrow. I will stay in John Mark's village for two days, then head to Parakou on the 4th of July for a chili cook-off, with official judges and all! I will then be in Kandi, a city in the far north (near Niger) to teach an English camp for a week or so, and then head back home.

I will leave you with this crazy fact: I left Michigan one year ago today! I really can't believe it. My family promised to call me on the 4th of July, and I remember last 4th of July when they called me from the annual cookout. I will be home before you know it- 5.5 weeks! Happy 4th to everyone :)

It's been a couple of (fairly busy) weeks since I last updated, so go ahead and settle in for a long-ish read :) I guess the last time I updated I was in Cotonou, seeing if my parasites were gone (I think they are- the doctors never called to tell me otherwise) and getting my end-of-the-year report done so that Washington DC will know that I have accomplished something in the past year! Peace Corps has moved everything to electronic format, but they definitely still haven't worked out all of the kinks yet. I must admit my first few days at post having nothing much to do were tough. After being so busy with school, the free time was somewhat overwhelming. I did enjoy all the time to read, go on walks, nap, cook (I haven't been eating any street food- hopefully that will keep me parasite-free for a while!), etc, but it was almost too much. I think that my brain is finally starting to have time to process the death of my friend and the difficulty of living on my own through it, so it has been a bit difficult to sleep lately. I also think I was just plain old more tired during the school year, so I probably slept better then because of that. I am definitely glad that I am so busy for the rest of this summer! On Tuesday the 9th I took Fifa to Cotonou for the MercyShips free eye clinic. We left Lobogo just past seven and got to the clinic a bit before ten, but the clinic had already filled for the day and we were amongst a crowd of very upset Beninese people who didn't understand why they could not be let in. The man trying to explain it to them was a white man from New Zealand who didn't speak any French or Fon, and when he saw me he asked if I spoke French and could help him out. I did the best I could, but the people were being very stubborn and not listening, shouting “But look at my child!” Many of their children didn't seem to have any eye problems, but the prospect of a free exam (or free anything) is too much for a Beninese to pass up. Because I had helped him and spoke English (and, probably- however unfortunately- because I am white) the man said they would squeeze Fifa and I in. Even though I felt a bit guilty about this, I was happy that our 5 hours of traveling that day were not in vain. We sat through a long line that involved much cutting and fighting, since the Beninese don't really understand the concept of a line, and finally got to see the doctor, a British gentleman. After a quick look at her eyes, it was determined that they were mostly healthy other than a very small cataract, but her eyesight is so bad that she is more or less blind. They then referred me to the head optometrist (the British doctor kept scolding me for saying “eye doctor”) aboard the ship and told us to come back the following Monday. After that, Fifa and I took off to a hamburger joint for lunch, where upon ordering we were informed that they had neither hamburger meat nor french fries that day, so we headed to a different place, where they had both of those things. Fifa had never had/seen/heard of a hamburger before, and she thought it was hysterical how wide you have to open your mouth to eat one! Every time she tried to take a bite she started cracking up. I also had to show her how to use her first toilet! Afterwards, we went to get ice cream (again, something she had never heard of) and Fifa started gulping it down. She suddenly grasped her head and started saying “Angelina! I'm sick!! My head!” She had her first ice cream headache :) It was so much fun to treat her for the day. I even brought her to Headquarters where the staff promptly fell in love with her. The next day another TEFL volunteer came to my post to visit me! We had lunch at the floating restaurant in Possotome and then walked around my village. She is in the far north, so was floored at how green and lush and humid it is down here. (The north is very arid, borderline desert, and I seriously live in the middle of a jungle.) It rained over night and in the morning so we had a lazy morning making pancakes and reading the latest magazines she had from the States. (Seriously, send magazines. They are the BEST things to get here so we feel connected to home!) Rainy season is finally in full gear, and it rains every day, sometimes only briefly and sometimes around the clock. I have decided that I absolutely love when it rains over night, it makes me feel so cozy inside my house! It has cooled things down an unbelievable amount, it is now a full ten or twelve degrees cooler inside my house all the time than it was during hot season. The only downsides to rainy season are traveling (I have already gotten into tons of near-accidents on zems who go too fast in the mud) and the unavailability of dry sand for cat litter! Saturday the 13th was my neighbor's baptism and first communion, so I went to the mass for that and then there was a HUGE party in my concession with tons of fish, rice, chicken, collard greens, bissap, and beer! I stayed in party mode the next day which was Flag Day (hey, any excuse for a party, right?) and one of the volunteers near me threw a very American party where everything was fried: fish and chips, onion rings, mozzarella sticks (made with the local cheese), chili, and beer pong! It was delicious and a lot of fun, and tons of volunteers came, I think about twenty of us. The girl who threw it has an amazing house on the second story of a building over looking the lake- check out the pictures! The following day I had to take Fifa back to Cotonou to see the optometrist. We arrived on time but there had been some sort of mix up and the doctor was not there, but luckily we were able to schedule a time to see him that afternoon. This time I took Fifa to get her first pizza, and by her request we went to get ice cream again afterwards :) When we saw the optometrist that afternoon, he determined that she needs a huge prescription. He had some donated glasses that came somewhat close to what she needs, so she has a temporary pair right now (though they still don't help much since she has such poor vision). He told us to come back on July 20 when he will do a more thorough exam, and then order glasses for her through the ship so that it will be free of charge to us! He was a very nice man from Los Angeles, and he and his wife volunteer on the ship together. That night another TEFL volunteer came back to Lobogo with us, and we made an AWESOME salad with apples, chicken salad, raisins, and blue cheese, which we ate by candle light since there was a huge storm raging and the power was out. She then pulled Oreos out of her bag that she had gotten in a package! The next morning was very misty and cool, so we went on a long walk through my village. On Wednesday I visited the girls I am bringing to Camp GLOW to tell them what they should bring and when/where to meet on Sunday when we head to Porto Novo. I was nervous since I had not seen them for a month that they might have gone to Nigeria for the summer to work or something (most students do), but they were both there and are still really excited about the camp! It was quite perilous going back into the jungle where they live because of all the rain we've had, and we kept getting stuck, but my zem managed to maneuver through it. That night I heard form some family at home who are in town for my cousin Tim's graduation party- I can't believe I missed it! My whole family is going to the west coast of the state for a week, and I am really bummed I am missing it. I am SO looking forward to coming home: 6.5 weeks!!! I am already planning fun things to do and delicious meals to have, though I am mostly looking forward to simple things like air conditioning, hot water/showers/toilets, sleeping with a blanket, ice cubes... you get the idea :) Once again, I will be in Ann Arbor August 15- September 7, save for August 24-28 when I will be taking a vacation up north with my parents and a possible one night trip to NYC, so let me know if we can see each other! I am going to be pleasantly busy but want to see as many people as I can before I take off for another year. Before I go on, here is a list of pictures in this blog: the absurdly long green beans they grow in Africa, delicious eggplant Parmesan and mashed potatoes with veggie gravy I made, Fifa devouring a hamburger, a pizza, and ice cream, women preparing food for my neighbor's baptism party, beer pong and the view from Sara who had the Flag day party's house, our awesome salad, some of my favorite pictures of children I have taken so far, what bananas look like growing on the tree, and my dumb cat who thinks the litter box is also her bed. The movies are dancing/singing at the baptism mass and a huuuge earthworm crawling around behind my house during a rainstorm. On Saturday we finally had our end of the year staff meeting, and thank goodness it wasn't quite as painful as I had expected. I really mentally prepared myself for it! Of course, it was supposed to start at nine and didn't actually start until 10:30, although a decent number of people were there around nine. There were all the usual absurd formalities to get bogged down in, and then the director scolded us for a mediocre set of school-wide grades for the year. Of course, at this the teachers went crazy, blaming it all on the lazy students and their parents. It just kills me how people don't have a strong sense of responsibility sometimes. They start saying things like “only God can judge me as a teacher.” It was even evident when people came two and three hours late to the meeting- they immediately got mad and rattled off a billion excuses. Another frustration was how these meetings turn into a shouting match between our director and teachers. Everyone talks over everyone and our director literally loses his voice begging to be heard. Then real chaos broke out at the end when they brought out the food. No one listened to the directions that we were all to stay in our seats, and instead were literally knocking each other over and screaming to get at the food. I can tell I have trained myself to be patient though, as I was able to just shake my head at most of this, as opposed to the first meeting of the year when I was ready to rip my hair out. Here's a good story to wrap-up with: the other night, my cats were at the door wanting to come in. So I opened the door, and Baby runs in with something HUGE in her mouth. She drops it, and immediately a GIGANTIC bat starts flying around my house. We are talking one of those horror movie, three-foot wingspan guys- it is quite possible that Dracula himself was in my house. I immediately ran outside so I could watch safely behind the screen (thus no pictures :( ) and watched for ten minutes while my cats tortured the poor thing and gradually destroyed its wings, and finally ate it. I swear, who needs TV or internet when you have cats and big scary jungle creatures? Though I am now in Porto Novo for Camp GLOW, I will write a separate blog about that and post it next time I am in Cotonou on July 1. I really miss home lately, I think because the time is getting so close to when I get to come visit! Can you believe that in a week I will have been gone a full year?? Time really flies. I hope everyone is having a beautiful summer!

Here's a quick update since I am bored in Cotonou. Michelle and I's ravioli was sooo good last weekend, check out the pictures! It was a lot of work and pretty time consuming, but totally worth it. To top it off, we watched Forrest Gump during dinner :)

Then Sunday I headed to Azove to work with Jordan on Camp GLOW stuff. She gave me a lot of good information. It is going to be a lot of work to run this camp next year, but I am really looking forward to doing it. One of the possibilities for funding it is to start an online donation from people back at home, which I may consider doing. I will let you know!

This week at post has been pretty uneventful. I filled out my end of the year report for Peace Corps, and was pretty disappointed to see that just under half of my students "passed" (got an average of 10/20 or higher) English this year. Before you freak out like I did (I was holding back tears in front of my work partners), remember that this grade is based solely on 2 very difficult tests and one quiz, and also know that 50% is pretty high for an English class. I talked to my homologue and censeur about this and we discussed reasons for this and how I was feeling about it. I also had a good talk with my censeur on how I see we can do things better next year, namely the weekly staff meetings. He told me that he wanted me to follow my four classes on to next year, and I politely refused. I think he was surprised that I didn't just obey him, but I told him why I wanted a new batch of kids and explained that me being a volunteer gives me a little leverage in terms of what I want to do here. I also really wanted to teach the beginning levels again next year because I like giving the kids a strong foundation in English.

As I said, uneventful otherwise. I have been feeling better this week (seeing the doctors tomorrow to see if I got rid of the parasites, again), but I have been having trouble sleeping. I have been cooking a lot this week. This morning I had just made up pancake batter and put the first one on the griddle when my gas ran out! It was really sad and all the batter went to waste (except for the bit that my cats devoured).

Now I am in Cotonou turning in reports, work forms, seeing the doctors, etc. I realized that I landed in Benin exactly eleven months ago today! Anyway, I got two packages which was a nice surprise, and for dinner tonight I went to a place called DFC that serves- you'll love this- fried chicken! We got fried chicken and fries and soda, it was absurdly American and delicious. The restaurant even has a playplace out back! We didn't get to play in it, though :( I am heading back to Lobogo tomorrow but I think I will be back here on Monday or Tuesday to finally bring Fifa to see the eye doctor. Then later next week, I have a friend or two coming to visit which is exciting. So far, the summer has not been boring!

Here it is, almost June. School is finally 100% over (save for an end-of-the-year staff meeting which I am told might not happen until sometime in July...?) and I am officially on summer break. Only this break doesn't feel as magnificent a summer breaks used to feel: the new free time is only being added to an already substantial amount of it, and there are still plenty of projects and responsibilities I have to tend to over the summer. However, I am definitely glad to be done with grading, lesson planning, and rowdy students for a few months.

I had my last classes with my students on Tuesday and Wednesday, where I gave out final grades and gave prizes to the best students. It was a bittersweet occasion, some classes more sweet than bitter! I was happy to report that many students' grades had gone up from the first semester. Every one of my classes gave me a round of applause and asked if I could be their English teacher again next year. (Classes stay the same from year to year, although many changes are inevitable at is is common for students to be held back a year or transfer schools. I don't plan on following any of my classes to next year, though, as I want to start fresh with a group of kids so that I can use different teaching and discipline methods. I wish I could hand-pick a certain few students to keep, though!) I put together prizes from the various school supplies M. Vess' classes had sent me, and I even had enough to give every student a little something. In my two older classes the top three male and female students got notebooks and stickers while everyone else got a pen, and in my younger classes the top six got notebooks and crayons while each student got a pencil. I thought that these prizes would just be a nice gesture, thanking them for hard work in English throughout the year, and for the most part that's what they were. Most of my kids were extremely happy and grateful. A few students, however, got very angry that they “only got pens” and some even refused to take them. This was really frustrating because I know for a fact that nice, American pens are a really nice gift and that some families can barely even afford the crappy Nigerian brands they sell here, not to mention I was probably the only teacher giving out prizes to my classes at the end of the year. Other students who had done well but were not in the top three were upset that they didn't receive notebooks or stickers. I even had a few students come up to me saying that they were too poor to afford notebooks and I therefore needed to give them one. When I asked them how they got their notebooks for this year they simply giggled and said “please?” Afraid that I had made some cultural faux pas I went and asked my homologue if the prize-giving wasn't a good idea, and he just laughed and told me that the kids were being greedy and that the prizes were fine. Indeed, at the end of the year party the school gave lots of prizes to the top students in every class.

The end of the year party, called Cultural Day, was yesterday at the school. Students met very early in the morning in the market place and paraded throughout the village on their way to the school. They didn't have to wear their uniforms and were dressed to the nines, may sporting new hair weaves, hats, or gaudy jewelry. They had set up a few tents for everyone to crowd under, and the ceremony consisted of drawn-out speeches (shocker there), bizarre sing-along and dancing performances (another shock), comedy sketches where students imitated various teachers (both to my disappointment and to my relief they did not imitate me!), a long and not too informative talk on contraceptive methods, and finally prize-giving. I was pleased that some of the top students were girls and that the top boy and girl cinquième students were in my classes. I was even called up to give the awards for the top girls in every grade! This was somewhat awkward since all of the other award-givers had long speeches, so I, unprepared, clumsily mentioned something about how I love to see hard-working girls. The prizes were followed by beer and sandwiches for all the teachers, and I was amazed by how much these people could put away when it was free. I saw many teachers rapidly drink four beers and eat three sandwiches. I was even ridiculed for only taking one of each! The teachers then mostly headed home, and the students remained for an evening of games and dancing. (I am told that the end of the year party results in a huge number of unplanned pregnancies since everyone is dressed up, happy, dancing, and often intoxicated.)

I also FINALLY picked up all the donated books sent from home this week! My homologue and I went all the way to Bopa on Monday like the woman at the post office told us to... only to find her not there. Apparently she was at a meeting, all day. So, we came all the way back the next day and picked up three huge bags of books! When we got to the school and opened them, people were elated. The books are a great mix of levels and subjects, and people have already picked out their summer reading. Especially the other English teachers were excited. My director wanted to me to express his sincere thanks to everyone. Apparently Amanda's visit prompted her mom to get some books together to send, too! Funny anecdote: the first book lifted out of the bag was called "The Slave Ship". It looked like it was from the 1950s and had loin cloth-clad Africans on the front. Ha.

Other then finishing the school year, this week hasn't been so great. As soon as I got home from the cooking session last weekend (which was fantastic), I felt really sick and on Sunday I couldn't even leave my house due to a high fever and stomach pains. I have only felt so-so since then and have a sneaking suspicion that the anti-parasite meds didn't work for all three types that I had. It has also been freakishly hot, as in 93 degrees in my room by mid-morning. It didn't even usually get that hot during hot season! Nearly every day the sky turns black and the winds pick up and I get excited for the cooling rains, and then it briefly sprinkles and turns sunny again, barely cooling things down a degree or two. I even had a heat-scare with Belle this week when she somehow climbed her way up onto my tin roof at about 1pm and then started panicking because of how hot it was. She was running back and forth and hyperventilating, making a really weird noise. It took her a long time to calm down enough to figure that she could jump into my arms. Between the heat and the illness, I have slept terribly recently. I hope this mini hot season ends soon! I also finally switched cell phone networks so that I can get reception around the village and in my house, but I'm not too happy with the new company. First, the SIM card was supposed to come with a decent amount of credit on it and when I put it in my phone I found out that someone had already removed it. Everyone told me that the woman who sold it to me had sold me a bad card. When I went to ask her about it she just got really mad and then quiet and wouldn't look me in the eye, and offered no explanation or compensation. Then, I found out that phone credit expires much more quickly with this company, so I have to be careful about when I buy credit, and have to use it fairly quickly when I do. It is free to text and call other people on this network which is nice, but hardly anyone else is on it. It costs a fortune to call and text people on MTN, my old company. The final annoying thing: sometimes when someone from home calls, my phone rings and I see who is calling, only to answer it and get a busy signal. When I hang up it keeps ringing and giving me a busy signal, meaning the person calling thinks they are not getting through. I talked to other people who have this network and they say that unfortunately this just happens sometimes and it usually goes through by the second or third try. So if you are calling me and it doesn't go through the first time, wait a few minutes and try again! I had this problem a few times this week but was able to talk to Leah, Sarah, and Mitch! I also talked to my family on Memorial Day, extremely jealous of the very American BBQ they were having! It was so good talking to people after an almost 2-month hiatus! I now get full reception, even in my house :)

Today I am in Lokossa using the bank (thank goodness we finally got paid again, I was so poor!) and tonight Michelle and I are making homemade ravioli. Tomorrow, I am heading to my friend Jordan's post. Jordan is the one running Camp GLOW this year, and she is going to get all the documents to me and show me how things work so that I will be equipped to run it next year. I will be back in Lobogo on Monday, only to go to Cotonou sometime during the week next week to see the doctors (see if I got these pesky parasites taken care of) and turn in some forms. Oh, and get excited: I leave for my trip in ten weeks and one day :)

Oh my gosh, where to begin! Amanda and I had an absolutely fabulous time together. Here is a synopsis of our week!

She got here last Sunday night, and by some minor miracle her flight was not only not-late, but it was even a bit early! But of course, in true Beninese fashion, customs and baggage claim took forever. We ended up taking a free shuttle back to our hotel and having a really nice steak dinner right on the water. The hotel was much nicer than I was expecting it to be, and it was glorious to sleep in air conditioning/with a comforter. The pool was huge and you could see the beach from the deck.

The next day, I showed her around the Peace Corps Bureau and introduced her to Beninese food: we ate pounded yams and Fulani cheese with our hands! We then spent the afternoon checking out the artisan's center, where we were promptly devoured by mosquitoes and fought over by different artisans in their booths. Amanda ended up getting a ton of cool jewelry and I finally got a new silver ring to replace the one I lost a few months ago! It is really beautiful hand-stamped Tuareg silver. After going back to our hotel and reading/watching the fishermen out on the water, we met up with my post mate Christopher and his friend from Chicago for a nice Italian dinner: wine, carpaccio, pasta, and cheese! We then headed back to our hotel for draught beer and late-night hookah- very relaxing!

The next day the real adventure began as Amanda and I took a taxi and zemidjans to my village. The taxi was quite crowded and the moto ride was very long and the drivers went too fast, but Amanda did really well! Back in my village that night we just took it easy and played with my cats (Amanda fell in love with them immediately). For dinner we had wine and cheese, and RIGHT after we had stuffed ourselves and were preparing to go back inside, my neighbor brought out a huge plate of rice and eggs for us, which we had to eat some of or be perceived as unspeakably rude. So, Amanda got an immediate taste of bizarre Beninese hospitality!

We spent the next day relaxing and walking around Lobogo, meeting some of my friends there. I took her to my favorite breezy bar to have a drink and we got rice and beans for lunch! For dinner that night, we made homemade pizza with real mozzarella we had bought in Cotonou. While we were making it, my proprietor came to the door and asked if he and his friends could take us out for drinks later in the night, to which I had to say yes. When we went out, he promptly ordered Amanda and I tons of chicken and akassa (fermented corn paste), even though he knew we had just eaten an enormous dinner. Once again, we were obliged to eat some of the food. They then took us to see one of their friends, who explained that he wanted to marry me even though he already had a wife, because he wants to see the United States. The situation was really uncomfortable because I couldn't use my usual tactic of just being very forceful (and borderline mean if I have to be) to tell them that I am not interested because he was our host and my proprietors friend. Needless to say, Amanda got to witness some of the more bizarre and annoying aspects of Beninese culture that night.

The next day was market day in Lobogo, so we spent a long time taking that in and buying lots of pretty fabric for Amanda to take home. We also got the obligatory matching fabric and got matching dresses made out of it! It is always fun to have a guest and see them in awe of things like the market. Sometimes I forget how crazy and unique it truly is! Our gourmet eating for the week continued: for breakfast we made oatmeal chocolate chip pancakes (which were so awesome that we made them three more times during her stay!) and for dinner we did fried rice. (You folks at home probably laugh at how much I write about food, but this is stuff that you can either never get here or never would make just for yourself! When you live pretty consistently off of rice and beans, things like fried rice and pancakes are definitely gourmet :)

On Friday we took off for Grand Popo. On this taxi ride Amanda got a taste or drivers waiting around for an hour for absolutely no reason, and also music blasting so loud that we literally had to shout into each others' ears. Whatever craziness we encountered on the way there, our time on the beach totally made up for it! We spent several hours on the beach drinking cocktails, went back to the room and took glorious real showers, and then had a really nice dinner under the stars on the beach. The next day, we did it all again, only we had longer on the beach! It was so, so relaxing. Playing in the waves was super fun, but the next day I was sore because the undertow was so strong and we had to fight it the whole time! The only downside to our second day there came when we were trying to sleep that night. Whoever was in the room next to us had LOUD sex at least three times during the night, loud enough to wake us both out of a deep sleep and make us grumpy. The first time it was really funny and we couldn't stop laughing, but the other two times when we were awoken in the middle of the night were really obnoxious.

It turned out that our sleepless night was only the precursor to a not so good day. First, we get to breakfast, and were informed that they only had lunch, so we had to order heavy food first thing in the morning. Then, it turned out to be REALLY hot when we were walking around the town and looking at different artisans' shops, and Amanda was worried that she might faint from the heat. When we finally tried to get out of Grand Popo, we stood for an hour in the baking sun, not able to find a taxi, and finally decided to take motos out of the town. We found out the next day that right around the same time, two Caucasians on motos had been hit by a bus and killed, so that was pretty upsetting. Then, on our moto ride back to Lobogo, my zemidjan was going way too fast on these little jungle paths, and at one point we rounded a curve and ran straight into a muddy ditch, only to flip up and crash into the bushes nearby. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt, and I came away from the accident only with a very minor burn and some sore muscles. The way people drive here makes me furious! So, to make ourselves feel better we made our delicious pancakes, played lots of rummy, and went to bed!

Monday morning we walked to my school and I showed her around there, and then spent the afternoon at the breezy buvette. She read a book for work and I graded papers! Unfortunately, Amanda wasn't feeling so hot, so we just relaxed and played with my kitties for the rest of the night. On Tuesday we went to Possotome and checked out the two cool hotels there. While we were sitting waiting for our lunch at one of the hotels, a strong breeze came and the sky turned black, and Amanda excitedly waited to see her first African rain. Well, not only did she get a rain, but more or less a hurricane came over Possotome and the floating restaurant we were on, so we had to immediately rush to the one part of the restaurant where we would not get soaked. While we were sitting there (shivering!) waiting out the storm, a caravan of black armored SUVs pulls up and out step several men in suits and lots of security guards who also run to the small rain-proof corner Turns out that it was the Minister of Sports doing a tour or our commune, and he and his entourage ate lots of hors d'oeurves and drank a lot before promptly leaving the restaurant again! They gave us some of their food which was nice, since our orders got pushed aside when the important people showed up :) We also chatted for a while with the minister and the mayor of my commune. As a fitting ending to yet another bizarre day, my cats refused to come in at night and so I left them out all night for the first time, only to awaken at 6am to them running up and down my tin roof, crying to be let in. The power was also out all night, so Amanda and I baked cookies by candle and head lamp light!

Yesterday, after saying goodbye to everyone in my concession (Amanda really loved Fifa, who in turn adored her. Amanda is helping to pay for Fifas glasses this summer which is really great of her!) we headed back down to Cotonou, where we did some last minute shopping at the artisan's center and then had a nice dinner for one last hurrah before she took off! Unfortunately, our trip to the airport was kind of scary. First, the zems sent us mixed messages about pricing, who would take us, etc. Then, we stopped to get gas before the airport and my zem demanded money for gas, which is not unheard of but not common either. So, we hesitantly gave it to him and he said he would give us our change at the airport, even though I heavily protested this. As we continued to the airport, he started telling me that I was mean, and that since I was mean I should give him my helmet as a gift. Then, he told me that I was going to marry him. When I told him I was already married, he just kept screaming “Je m'en fou de ton mari!” (Translation: I don't give a f**k about your husband!) and said he would drop me off right then and there if I did not agree. When we finally got to the airport they dropped us off in a remote corner and speedily drove away before we could get our change. It was a really bad experience, although it could have been much worse had they tried to take Amanda's bags or something. I want to assure you that these occurrences are rare and I normally feel safe riding on zems, but last night definitely left a bad taste in my mouth. After that we said our goodbyes (she promised that she will come visit me in Ann Arbor when I am home this summer!) and I shared a zem back with Christopher since I was still shaken up from our bad zem ride. Having Amanda here was so awesome, and it has made me itch to have more visitors!! If you are interested please let me know!!

I am now hanging out in Cotonou until tomorrow, when I will head back to my region for a cooking session. The theme this time is breakfast! In the evening we are making breakfast burritos, yogurt parfaits with granola, and mimosas, and in the morning we are doing peanut butter banana french toast and chocolate chip pancakes! It should be a lot of fun. It will be back to the real world for me next week, when I have to finish grading finals and calculating year-end grades, and I have to sort the books that arrived from the US for our library! June will continue to be busy as I prepare for Camp GLOW (and prepare to take over the leadership of it for next year) and have a friend coming down from the north later in the month. I can't believe how fast time is flying; I leave for my big trip in two an a half months!

Last but not least, my stupid phone! The reception in my village is still out, so this weekend I will be getting a new phone number. I will get that number to you when I have it, although I don't think I will post it on my blog this time since some creepy people saw my old number and have called it wanting to meet me. You can always get it from my parents, too. It was been so frustrating not being able to hear from home for over five weeks!

Hope all is well at home and summer is starting out beautifully :)

And it is glorious. We ate STEAK, drank red wine, and slept in air conditioning with comforters. Amen.

Amanda comes in a couple of hours!!!! I am so stoked. With any luck the Air France flight from Paris won't be over an hour late as usual, and we can check into our hotel and have a nice dinner before it gets too late. Tomorrow we are going to explore Cotonou a bit and then meet up with my post-mate and his visiting friend (who also happens to be from Chicago, and on the same flight as Amanda going back home!) to have a nice evening of dinner and drinks. We will head to Lobogo on Tuesday, and also hit Grand Popo and Possotome while she is here. She leaves on the 20th, which gives us ten days together!

The rest of my weekend in Cotonou last week was relaxing, if not a bit boring. It always sounds so exciting to spend time in Cotonou/ the Bureau, where there are movies, air conditioning, internet, hot showers, and good food, but having a whole free day there is, quite frankly, boring. Jeremy and I had a nice dinner outside on the 2nd floor patio at Hai King, a Chinese restaurant. That night, I talked to lots of people from home since the cell network in Lobogo is STILL down. (I went to the cell phone company in Cotonou on Monday to complain, and they assured me that there were people working on it as we spoke... and six days later, it is still not working. The frustrating thing is, it works in a few spots in Lobogo, but not in my house/concession. I will be traveling a lot with Amanda so will not change networks right now, but if once she is gone it is still down, I will change.) On Monday, I saw the doctor, who informed me that not only do I have amoebas, but I have TWO other types of parasites living it up in my digestive tract right now. I am lucky I don't have more symptoms than I do (only occasional stomach pain and diarrhea), and am once again on a heavy regimen of antibiotics. Luckily, the doctor was nice to me about it, but I am worried that if I get parasites again, they could threaten me with medical separation or something like that. I am really frustrated that I keep getting sick. I am one of the few volunteers that ALWAYS filters and boils my water (if you saw my well, you would understand) and bleaches/boils my vegetables. I often cook for myself and occasionally eat street food. There are tons of volunteers who eat street food for every meal, yet I seem to get parasites more than they do. The doctors suggested bringing my own plates when I eat street food, since the plates there are often still wet with the far-from-sanitary water they wash them in. This makes me wonder: how many Beninese/developing country citizens have parasites? You don't really develop an immunity to them. I don't even drink the water, and I have already had parasites three times. They don't usually clear away on their own.

This week I proctored exams, and I had a lot of work to do since most of the teachers were still on strike. Many of the exams I proctored were four hours long, which meant four hours of sitting there doing nothing, making sure that the kids weren't cheating. Luckily, I had the oldest classes, so I didn't have to watch them too closely. Nest week are end-of-the-year finals. I got really mad when I saw the English exams for sixiéme and cinquiéme. We didn't get to write the exams together since they were on strike, so the head of the department wrote those exams. What made me so mad was that there was no thought put into vocabulary sophistication (beginning speakers are not going to understand words like “eldest” and “chieftain”) and logic in the text. Beninese curriculum mandates that every exam must be based off of a text, but the texts were so sophisticated and filled with errors that there was no way my beginners could have succeeded. Luckily, I intercepted the department head before these were printed and we edited the exams together. Next year, I am going to run for department head. This will entail me editing the exams that we will write together, and running weekly department meetings (they will actually start on time!)

Other than that, this has been a pretty low-key week. We had our first truly rainy day of the season (it pretty much rained straight from noon to midnight- I slept without a fan again!), and I spent it giving pedicures to the women in my concession and baking peanut butter chocolate chip cookies with Fifa and Mariam. Mariam is MUCH better at French now, so we can actually communicate and have a lot of fun together! I finished The Water is Wide (I still highly recommend this if you want a glimpse into my life as a teacher here, especially the frustrations with other teachers/school philosophy) and have now started Middlesex, which I have been wanting to read for a while.

The downside of the rain: the mud. Remember me saying that it was only a matter of time until I fell in the mud? Well, my time came this week. I had just locked my door and was heading out to wait for the zemidjan to take me to school, when I reallllly wiped out. We're taking a sliding five feet and getting my pants totally muddy. Luckily, only a couple of the women in my concession saw, and, mouths gaping, uttered the requisite “doucement”. So, I had to go back inside, wash off, and change my pants. I was late to school. It could have been a lot worse, though. I could have fallen in the market or, God forbid, at school.

Well, I have to get ready to pick Amanda up!!! I will be back on the internet in a week and half, and this time I should be posting pictures since Amanda is bringing my new digital camera! I will let you know if I get a new phone number.

I absolutely can't believe that I have been out of the United States for over ten months now. I know I am starting to sound like a broken record, but my goodness how time flies!

This week has had its share of ups and downs. I taught school for two days this week, and even that was quite a feat. Most of the professors were on strike, so many students didn't show up. (Of course, no one bothered to tell me about the strike ahead of time.) Then, Wednesday, there was a soccer match between Lobogo and the neighboring village of Bopa, and the students all had permission to skip school and go watch the game. Once again, nobody bothered to tell me about this ahead of time, and about 1/3 of my students showed up, even though it was the last class before finals/of the year! Then Thursday and Friday were national holidays, so... I am done teaching for the year...?!?!

Another fun school story this week: we had a staff meeting that consisted of our administration telling us what horrible teachers we all were, based on first semester grades. Apparently, there are some classes in which no students are getting over a 50%. When asked what we could do to improve our teaching, teachers began standing up and proclaiming that they are already doing everything they could possibly do, and that the problem is that the students are stupid and lazy. Needless to say, I lost it and stood up and gave small suggestions for improvement like not writing notes on the board and then going to sleep while the students copy, not taking 30 minute phone calls in the middle of class, etc. Of course, I was just laughed at, but the administration was really happy that I spoke up and I was proud of myself. It really made me realize some key differences between work and motivation philosophy between Beninese and Americans. They are always asking, "what's in it for me?" instead of "what is the stake for the children?" Of course, this meeting lasted a wholly unnecessary 2.5 hours. Sigh.

This week I also finalized my girls for Camp GLOW. My homologue and I went to see the family of the second girl I am taking. It wasn't as magical as the first night ride through the jungle, but still really beautiful. The next day we went back to the family of the first girl because they wanted us to see them during the day. The girl herself wasn't there, and her mother and family were off working in the market. So, it was the grandparents (realllly old, no teeth, insert various National-Geographic-elderly-African-people stereotypes here) and TONS of filthy kids rolling around in the dirt. This group (I say group because I am pretty sure there is more than one wife) of parents has fifteen children between the ages of 1 and 10, all on a farmer's living.

The highlight of the afternoon was the grandpa taking us out to one of his fields, cutting down a palm tree, and showing us how to drain it of its wine. So, we drank fresh palm wine straight out of the tree! It tasted like milky beer that was slightly sweet. He then showed us how he distills the wine to make this horrid moonshine. The water he cools the liquor through looks and smells like it hasn't been changed in twenty years, and the cotton the final product drips through looks like it's alive. Disgusting. Afterwards, Blaise and I went to Bopa to ask the mayor for funding for our transportation to Camp GLOW. He was so impressed that I only asked for the price of transportation and didn't try to get more money out of him that he gave us extra money for the girls to have to spend on themselves at the camp! They are going to be so excited!

As I mentioned earlier, Friday was Labor Day, a huge holiday in Benin. The different groups of laborers in Lobogo (tailors, zemidjan drivers, etc.) got matching fabric, and in the evening, the whole village was out drinking and dancing! I had no idea this holiday was going to be like this, and I had one of those "Peace Corps moments" where I had a few beers and danced to quintessentially West African music and danced Beninese style under the moonlight with other villagers. It was so much fun!

That day I also started a book called "The Water is Wide" by Pat Conroy, and let me tell you- if you are looking for an almost exact portrait of what I'm doing here, this book is it. The author was a volunteer teacher on a small island off the coast of South Carolina circa 1970. The people on the island barely speak English, don't have any concept of the outside world, he has limited resources, etc. I was laughing so hard throughout the whole beginning of the book because it is so spot-on. Please pick up this book!

I am now in Cotonou. Last night was our ex-pat fund raising fiesta, and it was a decent success. We ended up making about $2000 to be used entirely by volunteers doing small gender and development projects. The event was held in the backyard of an ex-pat's home under big tents. We had a live salsa band that was really good, and a catering company provided Mexican food! I worked drinks the whole night, which meant sticking my arms into VERY icy water every minute or two to get people a beer. In true Beninese style, we didn't have a bottle opener until about 30 minutes after the event had started. The crowd we had was an interesting mix: loud Americans, picky ex-pats refusing to drink without straws, etc. Definitely good entertainment! The auction that went along with the dinner was somewhat disappointing- I think the ex-pats were more interested in dinner and dancing. Many beautiful pieces donated by artists and artisans sold for quite a bit under what they should have. Oh well, we still had fun and made some good money!

I will be heading back to Lobogo tomorrow. I think I might have amoebas again :(, so I am going to see the doctors tomorrow morning. Amanda comes a week from today!!!! I am giddy! I am also really excited to get my new camera! This week I will just be proctoring practice exams at the school, so not much work to do. Finally, the cell phone network is STILL down in my village!! Keep trying to call, I am hoping they will fix it ASAP. If they have not fixed it by mid-May, I am going to have to switch providers and get a new phone number- such a pain in the butt. Happy May!

I can't believe that it was already ten months ago that I was rushing around getting ready to move halfway across the world and saying my goodbyes. It is almost May! (Amanda comes two weeks from Sunday!!!) This has been seeming really crazy to me lately, since the end of the school year is literally here. This coming week is my last week teaching for the year, and then we have two weeks of exams followed by grading and end-of-the-year meetings. While I am proud of getting through my first year teaching here and am looking forward to the summer break, I am disappointed by how not-far the English department got in the curriculum. I am even behind some of the other teachers, but I know that is because if a tough grammar point is not understood by the end of a lesson, I spend another lesson on it. Nonetheless, it is going to cause some headaches as we prepare for finals, since every student has to take the same exam, regardless of their teacher/spot in the curriculum.

I still have one of my four classes' midterms to grade, which I will do this weekend. I am still amazed at how long grading takes (and how it can make me grumpy when students don't do as well as I know they could). Many teachers poked fun at me for taking so long grading, but when I watch them grade they barely scan the paper and mark off for the slightest error. I also write in the correct answers on my students' papers so that they can learn from their mistakes when they are studying later.

Enough about school! Last weekend was great. Monica, Michelle and I made and awesome homemade minestrone soup and cornbread for dinner, and watched most of season four of Grey's Anatomy. A very cozy/homey night :) Then on Saturday Katie and John Mark came to Lobogo! They were amazed at just how different it is down here, and declared that I live in a “jungle paradise” and that my post was the favorite one they have visited! We walked around the village, went for some beers, and made an awesome salad for dinner. On Sunday we went to Possotome for a few hours of beach time (I got my first real sunburn since I have been here) and then came back to check out Lobogo's market on market day. Once again, they were blown away with everything you can find in my market and they each spent lots of money. We came home, made some fried rice, and watched Munich on Katie's laptop. The next morning we made some pancakes (second day in a row!) and they left for Cotonou. It was great having so many friends come to visit me over break! Like taking a vacation without having to travel anywhere :)

Speaking of burns, I got a really bad one by accidentally touching the exhaust pipe of a moto as I was getting on it. It is easy to do and quite frankly I am surprised that I hadn't done it before. It really hurt and left a nasty char mark, and it will definitely leave a substantial scar :(

It was fine going back to school, although one day my administration got testy with me when they asked if I believed in sorcery and I said no. They then proceeded to tell me that a sorcerer in Porto Novo had recently found a cure for AIDS and got upset when I bluntly said that that was not true. Conversations like these remind me how deep-seated beliefs such as these are in their culture. Honestly, I believe that if you believe in sorcery, then it exists for you, but if you don't, then it doesn't. I tried telling the administration this, and they just laughed at me.

This week, I got even more excited to come home this summer when I found out that David Hines Jr., a good friend of mine from the euphonium section of the marching band, was elected drum major for the 2009 season! I am so proud of him and am so happy that I will get to see his first game on September 5! I went to the tailor to check on progress on the U of M dress that I will be wearing to the game- it is great! He had made it a bit too big and is fixing it now, but I can tell it will be fabulous. He is also making me a purse and headband to go with it! The other dress that my tailor made me is adorable, but unfortunately too short to wear anywhere except maybe Cotonou. I keep telling myself that I will wear things made out of African fabric when I go home, but everyone keeps telling me that you realize when you get there that that is impossible. Too bad :( I also don't think I will ever again wear anything that shows above my knees- it is so scandalous here! There will definitely be some major culture shock when I get home.

I am in Cotonou today for our final meetings about Camp GLOW and the expatriate fund raising dinner and auction next weekend. Tonight Michelle and I are buying some beef from the butcher and making beef and broccoli (broccoli you can only find in Cotonou- I haven't had it since home!) at her place in Lokossa. If anyone at home wants to call, today or tomorrow is a good time to do it since I will be in cities- the cell phone network in my village had been down for a week now. Hopefully it will get fixed soon.

We had another swarm last night, and this time they made their way IN to my house, my mosquito net/bed, into my water, etc. It was horrifying, but my cats had a hayday.

Anyway, Monica has been at my post the past few days, and we have had lots of fun exploring the area. Yesterday we went to Possotome to chill by the lake and make an awesome veggie lasagna, and today we are in Lokossa to cook, bake, and watch movies with Michelle. Last night we also drank wine and went star gazing! I will never get over how beautiful the stars are here.

Katie and John Mark come tomorrow, and I start school again on Tuesday. Lots of work to do grading exams this week! I will be back on the computers in one week when I will be in Cotonou for a Camp GLOW meeting.