First Day of school @ Colombelles

While in France, my job is to be an English teacher assistant at middle schools. My time is split up between two schools, where I work 6 hour at each. My schools are in Ouistreham and in Colombelles. 

I get the feeling that Ouistreham is a fairly wealthy little town. And I think that is very well reflected in the students I have seen and the teachers and staff members I have met. Furthermore, my colleagues here have been SOooooo helpful and friendly! (more so than they ever were in Bénin!) I haven't yet actually started in Ouistreham, but visited earlier this week to meet the principal and other people.

Today was my first official day as an Assistant de langue at the middle school in Colombelles. All week long, when I told people in Ouistreham, that my other school is I. Colombelles, I got all kinds of looks of pity and concern. But people were quick to follow up the face with a some form of "but they CAN be very sweet kids." This worried me only slightly only because, come on, I taught English to kids in West Africa where I had on average, 50 students per class, and the kids could barely speak French! Their national language! I thought I was golden, I thought I was really well prepared, emotionally and physically.

Ha!

Don't get me wrong, today didn't go bad, and it was only my first day, but these kids made my Beninese students look intelligent and super well behaved!

I started out the morning with two 3ème classes, which is like the equivalent of 10th grade. and in the afternoon I had one 3ème and one 4ème (which is the equivalent of 9th grade). Maybe I am just used to young people/students show utmost respect for teachers...but these kids were all so chatty and lazy and unmotivated to do their work...with the exception of the 4ème class. They were really really smart and polite enough.

I guess I should add a little history about Colombelles that I learned the other day from my friend and colleague, Lynn (who is Scottish btw). Colombelles was a big steel mill/factory town up until 1993 (I think) when it shut down for good. I guess there was less of a demand of steel in the world and/or it could be produced cheaper elsewhere in the world. In addition, the workers and their families didn't own the houses in Colombelles. But after the factory shut down, the company offered and sold the houses for very cheap. After the factory shut down, there wasn't really any other kind of work, or not many other jobs. So, people went onto unemployment. It seems to me that people in France, are born in an area, grow up in that area, study at the university in that area, find a job in the area, retire and the die in the same area. Therefore, I guess there's not many options for these kids in Colombelles. In addition, they are the children of an entire generation that not only were/are unemployed, but didn't even benefit from the cheap land for sale!

These financial problems are covariants of all sorts of other problems that can arise in families.

I can see their way of thinking...why should I work hard at school, when I am just going to end up unemployed? What's the point? It's quite easy to see in them, I saw it in the brief hour I spent in each of the four classes I worked in today. Clearly some kids have major issues...but others, are very bright. They're just magnanimously lazy!

Needless to say, today utterly tuckered me out!

All-in-all, I look forward to this school year, no matter what God decides to throw my way! I can handle it! 

PS

My net book is out of commission due to low battery power. A colleague is going to search her house, high and low to find and lend me her plug adapter. If not, that is just one more thing I must buy.

hello from Ouistreham, France!

I feel as though I am starting to finally settle into this town.

I live in a really awesome 2br "flat." I was supposed to have a Brittish flatmate, but she decided she wanted to get her own place...

The apartment is huge! The kitchen alone is almost the size of my entire house in Benin! I have a "sitting" aka living room. The shower and toilet are in ech of their own separate rooms.

The windows all over this place are huge and let in a lot of light. On the flip side they also let out a lot of heat!

My Scottish friend and colleague, Lynn has lent me her TV...it's the "old" kind and I have to get a decoder,--also to be lent by someone :)

My arrival into the Caen region was somewhat of a shakeup! I had only written down the phone numbers of the principal (in Ouistreham), my colleague/friend Sandrine, and the school. So as soon as I lugg all my bags up the stairs I park myself next to the curb and call up Sandrine to tell her I have arrived and to come pick me up. (I was to stay with her my first night.)

Well, naturally, my SIM must have some kind of problem and when I called her number, the phone would not even ring! All I got was some kind of error message telling me that the number I tried was invalid, not registered to anyone. It was Saturday afternoon; 3pm when I arrived, so calling the school wasn't an option. So that left me to call the principal!

Mr. Leblanc, the principal, ended up calling a few people and in the end someone came to pick me up and dropped me off at Sandrine's house.

i am now officially an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer).

omigoshicantbelieveididit! two years. and now it's done. this chapter of my life is over.

well, i left Lokossa on Saturday. That morning i woke up super early and made my way to the orphanage to say bye around 8 and stayed till 9. leaving there was tough. especially at the end. Marcellin, the oldest kid and my buddy rounded up all the kids that were around and they just stood around me in a half circle. it was incredibly awkward. and i was fighting back the tears. finally after several moments of silence, i made a mini speech and ended with crying. then Marcellin said a bunch of thank yous and then no one else said anything. and then one of the Tatas came up to me told me to not cry and then started rubbing my arms. it was pretty chilly that morning as it had rained all night long. after Tata rubbed my arms for several moments, the small kids follwed suit and then i had like 10 pairs of hands rubbing me. it was needless to say a memorable moment.

it was around 10 o'clock when i got home and the kids soon started coming over. by the time the taxi arrived i had about 15 kids in my tiny little living room. the kids were just sitting around entertaining themselves with my playing cards and chatting away.

the taxi showed up probably arrived around 12:45pm. to be honest that is a little on the early side! hahaha. anyways, it was clear to me when the taxi arrived though i was inside because there was cloud of gloom that took over everyone. then there was a quick dash to grab all my baggage and take it out to the taxi to load up. around that point, a former colleague called me up to see when i was leaving and i said through a shaky, teary voice "the taxi is here!" and he was there within minutes.

soon enough the taxi was loaded and i HAD to say my final goodbyes to all my people. that was really hard. i started up the crying chain reaction. one by one my kids started crying or were as close as they will ever be to crying. and i went around to each person and gave them a most awkward hug. not awkward for me but for them. the Beninese do not hug. it's not a hugging culture.

the last thing was getting Rosie into the car. and it was a lot more difficult than i thought it would be! because it had rained all night, the ground was all muddy and gross. it took several minutes to get her in the car, but around an hour into our voyage, she had calmed down just a bit. but by getting her into the taxi she ended getting her muddy paws all over me. naturally the Beninese were horrified and wanted to grab me some water and a rag to clean myself off. but whatever, on we went.

and then we got to Cotonou and i began the process of doing COS (close of service) stuff. and for the past four days i have stayed at a hotel where theoretically they don't allow dogs. but i think they know how much money they get from PC and the guards looked the other way. i'd also like to think that my charming personality coerced them to allow Rosie to stay in a room where she'd be locked up whenever i wasn't there.

and there you go. time is really running out. i think the driver is taking us to the airport in about 45 minutes. so i am gonna cut it short here. besides, the rest is all a bunch of boring bureau stuff. minus the fact that our Acting Country Director implemented an awesome little "gong" ceremoney where they clang this town crier bell and anyone and everyone in the office is invited out to the front area to say a few words to the volunteers finishing their service. and once the volunteer says their words they clang the bell and POOF you're an RPCV (returned peace corps volunteer)!

there you go. wish me luck. i will now enter the readjustment zone.

saying bye is hard to do.

as i make my way to different friends' houses, i keep telling them and myself that i will see them once again in my last week before i leave for Cotonou. maybe it's some kind of defence mechanism so that i won't start bawling. but i am gonna have to face the truth very soon. i will have to start saying my final goodbyes. and that may be one of the top three hardest things i have had to do since leaving home once upon a time in 2008.

this afternoon, one of my very first friends in Lokossa stopped by to say thank you for all that i have done, for putting up with a different culture for two years, to say sorry and to excuse the actions of his fellow countrymen, etc, etc. it was all very sweet and very touching. i started crying. and i think i made him uncomfortable, hahaha, but i said excuse me and i think he got it. but i really couldn't help the tears. it got me thinking about how in this last week in Lokossa, i might be hearing a lot of these sweet words. and i am getting choked up just thinking about it.

it's amazing to me how much i have come to love benin. i knew that it was going to be tough leaving. but i don't think i knew just how difficult it was going to be until now.

my heart is slowly breaking into a million little pieces. but maybe that is a good thing because i am leaving them here with the people i have grown to love.

Seriously. Where did June go? I didn't post a single post during June!

Anyhow, I guess it was a busy month. The beginning of June we were still at school; wrapping things up; devoirs and grading devoirs. I had a couple of photo shoots with my kids, which was super fun and i have some good memories of that and pics to go with it. Then it was time for Camp GLOW!

Camp was a lot like last year; only I brought with me 5 girls: Volonté, Erbine, Adèle, Rose and Odile. Volonté is like my smartest and most put together student I have had these past two years. She's our schools pride and joy. Erbine and Adèle are sisters. Erbine is the smart and shy one; Adèle is less smart but outgoing and loves to dance. Rose was the shy girl of our group and the one who i think enjoyed herself the most. everytime i checked in with her; she spoke to me a mile a minute with the biggest smile on her face. And Odile was the girl who let me down. She was attached at the hip to Volonté and was anti-social and hardly participated. Booo! When camp was over; our chaffeur who brought us to Porto-Novo picked us up; and he wasn't even that late! On the way home; we made a pit stop at Erevan; the grande supermarché. It was an awesome experience for them i am sure; but for me as well to see a supermarket through the eyes of a true villager. Amazing!

At the moment, I am at my cyber. I came here to continue computer lessons with my favorite student. and now we are caught in the rain! can't walk home in the rain! i've taught him how to use microsoft word; paint, and the internet/gmail. because he's a smartie he has picked up on this whole computer thing quite quickly.

it's amazing to think that i only have 4 weeks or so left in Benin!

the newbies arrive tomorrow night! and i will be going to the bureau to do some work. and somewhat unfortunately, ALL 61 of them plus the trainers will be there too! yuck! but at the same time, i look forward to answering their questions and feeling like a know it all, which i am not.

Rosie is doing well. i am super pumped about bringing her home with me. i think she'll like america. though she won't be as free to run like the wind like she does here, on my road. but by that same token, she won't have people hurling humongo rocks at her. m-effers.

lastly, i am sad because my camera has kicked the bucket. it turns on but refuses to take pictures! so unless my friend lends me her camera, there will be no more benin pics for me or you!

We are on the cusp of rainy season!

This morning I awoke to a gray sky and it reminded me of home. Not too long after I woke up I watched as the clouds were moving swiftly across the sky. Moments later, the wind picked up and swirled leaves around on the ground that I just had cleaned yesterday. It was strong enough that it blew open my front gate, which I thought was firmly closed! And I could hear the quick patter and flop-flops of little feet running home, mixed in with the excited/nervous screaming of small people voices. And then slowly but surely came the rain. Single sounding fat drops that plopped against my tin roof. More and more drops fell and I retreated into the house and picked up a book, Angels and Demons and waited till the bulk of the storm had passed.

Then I decided I was hungry…and now I am in the process of making bagels. This will be my first ever batch of bagels. I will eat them with a packet of Lachs, (yes Lachs, not Lox; though I am fairly certain they are the same thing) that Catherine cadeau-ed me before she left. ***Thanks Catherine!*** I am currently waiting for the dough to double in size before making them into bagel shapes.

The rain this morning reminded me of a story. A couple weeks ago, Monday morning I was teaching my 6eme M3 class. It was just about 9 o’clock. I was quite irritated with some kids in class because they were causing me trouble and I was ready to cut out of class 20 minutes early. And as I was gathering my things together, I looked outside to see the blackest 9 o’clock sky I had ever seen! The humongous black cloud looked like it was ten feet off the ground and it was slowly making its way toward us. The air became quite chilly. The boys were pulling their arms into their sleeves and the girls were wrapping themselves up with the pieces of cloth they usually use to block the sun from their heads and faces. Everyone was rubbing their hands and arms to generate some heat. I felt nothing but bliss.

The big black cloud all heavy with rain made all the colors so bright and vivid! There is one particular type of bush that my school utilizes as a wall-perimeter around the school grounds. The flowers of this bush are a bright lemon yellow color. With the black monster as a background, I thought to myself that bush has never looked so green nor those flowers so yellow! How beautiful! And then moments later the wind was picking up. This was no little breeze. This was like hurricane wind, like The Wizard of Oz wind that picked up Dorothy and Toto and the Wicked Witch of the West. My students all at once ran to the other side of the room all the while screaming like four year old little girls. The rain was now pounding and the wind in full force. The roof in corner of the room where the teacher’s “desk” is, was lifting up! I for sure thought that the entire portion of the roof that covers our classroom was going to lift up. And it made such a terrible sound; quite the opposite lovely sound rain makes as it hits the tin roof. And then I found myself among my students huddled outside the classroom behind the safety of the wall. And I thought of myself as a mother hen huddled with her chicks caught in a rainstorm.

In other news, this past Thursday, I left the house perhaps a quarter to seven for my 7am class. I had let the dog out around 7:30am thinking that she would have come back before I left. But that dog is one clever little gal. She has a knack for knowing when I am in a hurry to leave. I figured she would be okay outside, running around, causing mischief while I was at school. I thought that I was out of her sight; and I hopped onto a zem. As we got to the highway, the zems waiting for customers all pointed behind us and said “eh, regarde…tchuku!” which translates to “hey, look…they dog!” Practically everyone in the neighborhood knows my dog and sometimes her name. I told the zem to stop. But most likely, he doesn’t know French and didn’t stop even though he saw that my dog was following us. JERK! I finally got him to stop after we were on the highway and Rosie was still following. She was a panting and looked a little disoriented (she’s never been to this part of the neighborhood) and a little excited and happy with herself. I managed to nab her and made the zem take us back to my house where I locked her in. Stupid dog! I ended up paying a little extra for my ride to school because of her.

And later in the morning, Basile, a kid from 6eme M3 who’s been absent from class recently came into my other class—6eme M2 to say hello. All of a sudden kids in M2 were all in an uproar of laughter as they told me to look at what Basile was wearing. Sure enough, I look down at his feet and he is wearing REAL wooden clogs! How in the world and where in the world did this kid get these shoes?!

Au Benin!

my favorite class.

class in a paillote. it's got a great breeze!

no powerpoints here. it looks like a chalkboard, but it's really some plywood painted black.

groupwork.

workin' on a wordsearch (that i made up myself)

not everyone likes to work together.

next to a cornfield.

building to the right is what my predecessor built. the building in the back is where the other 5eme classes are.

football (aka soccer field) on the other side. and latrines is what that little building in next to board is.

my bad ass bike

Rosie hiding in my closet.

up close.

i made this. mmmm, it was real good! watch out pagliacci's!

Be careful for what you wish for…because usually, it comes true!

You may recall that at the beginning of the school year, I was struggling and lost the battle to take a class that I had last year. And then my colleague who was their teacher had her baby, back in January/February…and I was able to take over her class. And it was super exciting at first.

And then the 18 hour work week was really starting to get to me; especially the waking up super early for the 7 am classes three times a week! Eeew! I know you all know that I am NOT a morning person; so this had been kinda like torture. And mix that with the SUPER hot days were having and you get one grumpy girl, also known as Michelle.

So, at our weekly English staff meetings I had been trying to figure out if Madame was going to come back…and it turns out she did! And she came back when she said she was! My standards have been lowered :-/ And as a result, I told the 5eme class (the non-favorite class) that I was letting them go, that they’d be getting their old teacher back…ahhh, the tears I caused! No, not really, but the majority were outspokenly opposed. Oh the little cuties…So I think it’s gonna be a smidge awkward as I make my way out to their class. 5m4 is in the paillote (sp?) classroom. A paillote is a nice-ish stick shack, flimsy, sometimes a thatched roof—we have tin roofs instead; thatched ones are cooler, and breezy! I wish we had paillotes back home. But I don’t think that the weather is very conducive to them.

I have to admit that I am starting to burn out. Every day is something new. And whether I plan it out or not, every day is a busy day. And that sucks, especially when I don’t have a car, the sun is punching you in the face, you sweat more than a fat man in a sauna, and there’s no time to take a nap.

Today was a market day. I met up with my post mate Nathaniel and Sarah to pick out même tissue = same fabric for our Mono (department) hoodies! We’ll be showing some solidarity at our COS conference, which is coming up sooner than I wish it would. I feel like there is much to do before then, and it’s getting in the way of what I need to do…but I am also looking forward to it a lot.

Peace Corps is putting us up in a really nice hotel with air conditioning, a nice pool, and WI-FI and CNN (satellite TV) in our rooms!!!!!!!!!!

That’s all for now. I am super tired and going to sleep.

PS

I finished up two books this week:

The Red Tent—A really good book about Jacob’s one and only daughter, Dinah. I highly recommend this book.

and

The Sex Lives of Cannibals—An entertaining travelogue about this guy and his fiancé who move to the Equitorial Pacific island nation, of Kiribati (did you know it’s pronounced “Keer-E-bas?”). It’s one of those cross-cultural books. It’s good, not as good as I heard it built up to be, but entertaining.

Yesterday I had an awesome adventure. (sorry, no photos)

My friend and colleague at another school, Romain, took me to visit his village, Agoué. This village is on the highway on the road to Togo. In fact, it’s only 2k away from the official border crossing. But, in reality it’s a tweener village. The Mono River is what separates Togo from Benin. And Agoué is nestled on a narrowish strip of land, probably less than 1k wide. The Atlantic Ocean is on one side and the Mono River is on the other.

I really wish that I had brought along my camera. But it’s hard to remember.

We left Lokossa around 8am and moto-ed all the way to Agoué. It didn’t take as nearly as long as I thought it would, probably an hour and fifteen minutes. However, my rear end couldn’t have been happier to get off the moto and walk around the rest of the day.

We visited Romain’s friend and parked his moto and my helmet at this house. Then we set off. We walked through a cemetery just meters away. And he showed me where his grandmother and uncle are buried. I later found out this cemetery was for the animists of the village. It is just out there, next to the beach, in the sand, not affiliated with any church.

We walked a little ways and found the beach. Houses are literally next to the shores of the water. The shoreline is probably less than 10 meters away! Romain remembers the water being a lot further away when he was a little boy 18 years ago. And we continued walking along the beach till we found someone who knew where his uncle and cousin lived. We sat and he chatted with his uncle; in Mina, a local language, of course and I didn’t understand a lick of words said. But I assumed they talked about what our plans for the day were.

After visiting his uncle, we went over to the Catholic mission. I think I was told that this is the oldest mission in Benin, it’s a little over 150 years old. And we walked in and looked around in the cemetery but couldn’t find Romain’s grandfather’s grave. I asked how deep the graves were and I think he said a couple meters deep. And to that I replied, that chez moi, people are buried 6 feet under (great show, btw) or about 3 meters. And here, they like to put a big, long cement or cement covered with tiles, block over the grave. Though, I am not sure if people are entombed in this cement chunk, or if it’s there as some kind of cover or marker. Also, the first president of Togo and his wife are buried in this cemetery. By the way, it was REALLY, really hot.

Lunch was next. And it was really hot and I was super hungry. So food and a cold drink were a great relief.

After lunch, we made our way towards the Mono River. As we were walking the sky was getting a bit darker and the wind was really picking up, blowing sand everywhere. I knew that it was going to rain. Houses here are built up off the ground; really high, actually. And this is to prevent the houses from getting flooded during the rainy season when the Mono rises. We stopped in at a couple of houses. The first was the house of his deceased grandmother, so I assumed the people still living there are his relatives. There was the cutest little girl there, who took to me like fly on honey. By the time we left (and we were there only 10 minutes or so) she was sitting in my lap, head on my shoulder. SO cute!!

And then we went over to Romain’s aunt’s house. Once we sat down, the rain started coming down. Not hard or anything, but more like Seattle rain, like when it rains continuously for an hour or so. So there we sat, for longer than I liked, but whatever. Only, it’s not fun to sit and listen to people speak a language you don’t understand. I felt like a child because here, people don’t really talk to children; they talk at them. So I just sat there, watching them talk. Every now and then they’d all glance at me, and I could tell they were talking something about me, but it never seemed negative, it usually doesn’t, so I didn’t and don’t mind too much.

When the rain finally let up, we walked to the river bank and stepped into a pirogue and a teenage boy ferried us across the river. On the other side, the boat stopped in the sand bank meters from the shore and the water looked gross and there were plants and I didn’t feel like walking in it. So Romain offered to carry me, piggy back to the shore. hahaha, thank god because I did not want to step in that part of the water. So now we were in Togo!

We meandered into the village. The purpose of going to Togo and the village of Agouégan was to go to Romain’s grandfather’s village and get/eat some coconuts. We walked through the empty market, where apparently nothing has changed in the past 18 years! The rain started up again and we sat and sat at an old lady’s house for a while till the rain stopped. She offered me/us something to drink, but I refused at first. And then she asked/told me that I was refusing her, so I broke down and accepted a drink. LionKiller. That’s what it’s called, it’s “sparkling lemonade” but tasted like a 7up. (My bladder was getting full.) Naturally conversation was in Mina, and again I just watched them talk.

As the rain slowed we continued to the more village-y part of town where, grandpére lived. And this was the most beautiful walk I’ve ever had. Walking out there, the scenery was gorgeous. It was everything I ever imagined a village in Africa to look like (minus some elephants :P). There were coconut palm trees every where, a red sand/dirt path, tall grass, wide open fields, etc. Since it had rained, it was easy to walk in the sand, and the air was filled with a clean Earthy, grassy smell. We finally arrived at the grandfather’s land. There were coconut palm trees 30+ feet high everywhere and plots of sprouting corn shoots underneath. In the back of this area was a little family compound with several little huts, all with thatched roofs, and one more modern building made of cement bricks and a tin roof. Children were all around, mostly inside because of the rain.

There was one coconut tree that wasn’t as tall as the rest, so Romain and his older cousin that was with us took down several young coconuts and we drank them (I really only had room for one), and there was hardly any meat in them, which was sad, cause I love eating the young, tender coconut meat from the green coconuts.

And then we were on our way back to the old lady’s house. And I immediately had to use her latrine. This time we didn’t stick around too long. Before we left, she insisted I take 10 coconuts back with me! 10! What am I gonna do with 10 coconuts?! I’ll have a few, but I think I am gonna have to gift people with the rest!

Crossing back into Benin was simple. We had to greet the gendarmes. Romain’s cousin told them we had made a visit to the champs (fields). And he made some funny comment about bringing Madame into the fields. I thought for a split second he was gonna give us trouble, but that was it. And there was a big pirogue ready to go back across the river. I rolled up my jeans, pulled off my flip-flops and had minor difficulty climbing into the boat. I really rocked it! Hahaha, but a helping hand let me in. And we were off.

And that’s it. That was my adventure. We got home just after dark. And once again my rear end was happy to be off the moto.

And I was super tired and chilled kinda to the bone because the air was crispy-ish because of the rain. So I boiled some water and took a hot bucket shower and went to sleep, without the fan I might add. Though it was turned on at 1 in the morning when it got too stuffy.

So all in all, it was an awesome day.

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Today was one of those classic Peace Corps “rollercoaster” days. And it was also one of the longest days of my life!

It all started with me waking up at 6:15 am (for the 3rd time this week) and laying in bed, thinking about how long the day would be. Needless to say I was hesitant to get out of bed. But I did, and put on my best Beninese outfit. A model. A form fitting top and a long skirt that hugs the butt and hips and flares out at the knees all the way down to the floor. It’s actually quite flattering, I think, for women’s bodies. But then again, I may have perma-Benin-goggles on. Kinda like beer-goggles, but Benin-goggles—because my sense of style is probably out of sync!

Then I was out the door and at school for my first of four classes. 7am to 8am. No biggie. Then came my 8am to 10am class. Right off the bat I gave them a quiz. That ate up nearly 45 minutes of our time. That meant nearly an hour left to teach. So I gave the kids a reading comprehension. There was a big text (16 sentences!), it’s called Earth and Pollution. I thought I would work on a little bit of pronunciation; so I wrote out the text on flashcards in pretty colored markers. They were very pleasing to the eye, and I thought that the kids would get a kick out of them, and the chance to read a text aloud to practice their reading skills. Well, I was wrong. They were complete little jerks and wouldn’t be quiet enough for me to hear the kids reading. So I angrily took back all the cards and made them answer questions on the text. This took up the rest of our time. Not to mention, at “10am” the Best English Students Awards awards ceremony was going to start. So I left and took a zem into town.

I was really hungry since I hadn’t had anything to eat. So when I got off the zem, I walked on over to CEG1 (College d’Enseigment General)= middle/highschool and grabbed a sandwich. 10am is when all schools have a 25 minute break so that kids can eat, and whatever before going back to class at 10:15 (the break starts at 9:50). So needless to say, I was battling kids to get something to eat. Usually, at my school, I send a kid to get me whatever it is that they have that I want to eat. Easy! But at CEG1 I had to wait in line and since I got there around 10, or a little after, all the good stuff was done!

Then I walked back over to the “Maison de Peuple” (The People’s House). It’s a big venue that is rented out to whoever wants it for various gatherings, ceremonies, etc. The Mayor of Lokossa, Mr Dakpe SOSSOU rented out the venue as a donation to the BESA competition. And I saw my other PCV buddies had arrived in Peace Corps’ newest vehicle with Brownie, our country director. I looked up and saw my bicycle! Yay! I was really happy, it has been waiting for me for nearly a month in Cotonou after being repaired. I asked Brownie right then if we could take the bike back to my place, and we did! Ahhh, I love riding around in PC vehicles (air conditioning!). And it’s such a novelty to be able to ride around in a nice vehicle, a SUV nonetheless, at post, where my transportation usually consists of riding a moto(rcycle), walking, or riding my bike. Or if I am going out of town—I am in a beat up 1970’s Peugot with no seatbelts. These cars have seriously gone to hell and back, I think. 95% or more of the time the speedometer is broken, the gas gauge, the radio is broke or flat out missing, the window spinner thingys are missing, etc, I could go on forever about these cars! It’s really amazing how they still run!!!!

So, yeah, I got my bike back and then we went back to the ceremony, which still hadn’t begun.

I dunno what time it actually started, but it did and it was awesome. Very entertaining, compared to last year. Everyone, well, the important people gave speeches. And when it was Brownie’s turn, she invited up all the kids and spoke directly to them. Oh, how they loved it! And so did I! All the big wigs talked and talked and most of it was good, but I loved how Brownie got the kids up to the podium with her to literally share the spotlight (on TV—two news stations showed up!) with the kids and interacted with them and really made it about them, the kids, the participants, the winners of the Best English Students Awards. Awesome. And before the general prize giving went under way, there was a special prize and RECOGNITION to a blind girl, who made it to the second round of BESA, but was beat out. But the organizers wanted to give recognition to this girl, who despite her handicap, is somehow the top English student of her commune, and at her school. I almost started crying it was so moving!

At the end of the ceremony, there are refreshments, but Brownie says that we are going to a restaurant. As I am literally climbing into the SUV, I see my girl from last year who was a finalist and winner this year. She’s there with her momma and papa and littlist brother. Perquiste is her name, and she wanted to introduce me to her mom! And I tell her mom congratualtions. And that her daughter is very bright. And told Perquiste to continue the great work. And then her mom tells Perquiste that her Madame was very pretty! And then I said hello to papa. And I congratulated him too. And he said “Non, c’est a cause de toi!” (No, it’s because of you!) Well, in reality this girl was very bright, I dunno how much I helped last year, but nonetheless, it made me feel 1000% awesome.

FINALLY around 1ish things wrapped up and Brownie and Maria, my APCD invited us all out to lunch at a nice restaurant, where I ate akassa (fermented, jello-y, sour-ish, molded, boiled corn mush—most, like 90% of volunteers do not like it, especially at first!) and rabbit! Yum rabbit!

And after lunch I was dropped off by Maria and the PC car! Yay!!

I finished prepping a lesson, in the 25 or so minutes I had before I had to leave for work. And then I get to school and walk into class. I pulled out a text I had written out on a big khaki piece of paper (the same paper I use to write quizzes on) and told the kids: QUIZ! And right then there were like 30 “eh?? Madame!”s. Ohhh, how I love joking with my children. It makes it all worth it! So I put up the text and tell them to all read it quietly. And then I begin circulating the room. And this is where the lowest point of my day comes in. I am standing in the back between the awesome group of girls and the awesome group of boys, when I look up and see an entire class running into the class next door. Moments later, Judith, a girl I had last year get to the door, looks me right in the eye and says in a loud and clear voice “BON SOIR YOVO!” UUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHH! I immediately storm out of my class and pull her out of hers and ask her what she said. And she said “Non, je juste vous saluez” (no, I was just saying hello.) And I send her off to the vice-principals office.

Omigod, that made me furious. I walked back to my class and almost started to cry. How could she say that to me? Her former teacher. And then I got to looking around at the my favorite class of students and thought about if that girl, Judith, could call me YOVO, what about these guys? And that really broke my heart. Words can’t fully express the pain of those words that cut my heart so deep. I must admit that I sulked in class for a good hour after that. But my favorite kids, 5M2, somehow found a way to make me smile again. I really, truly love that class.

After class, I had my little guy, Sylvain buy me water. When he came back I told him to tell his parents that we’re making plans to talk on Wednesday. I am going to tell them that I am paying for his education. I then turned to my favorite colleague and told her about the YOVO incident and she just shrugged her shoulders. And that was just as painful. It’s painful because they don’t understand how this YOVO word can be malicious and be used to mock me, and make me feel like crap.

The bell rang for the next class to start. But instead of walking straight to class, I stopped by the vice-principal’s. I wanted to make sure that Judith had paid him a visit, which she did. And she was punished and seriously talked to. But I still was upset and I let my v-p know. And he kinda, made me feel better after a little talk. He said that the Beninese love white people, (le peau bland) and that people essentially use it because they love us so much, that it’s a term of endearment. True, but I find that it’s endearing when it’s used by a toddler whose parents don’t speak French, nor know any better. But I guess, in essence, people really do get excited and happy to see me when I am near. Conversation drifted to other matters and I had to excuse myself to get to class.

Last class of the day! A sizeable chunk of kids were missing because they haven’t finished paying for school fees and were as a result, sent home and told not to come back till it’s paid. We did a reading comprehension here too, in 6eme. And it was awesome. There were pictures I redrew and colored to go along with the text. It was amazing how interested and interactive the kids were today. I have been working on calling the shyer kids to participate and it’s paying off. I have girls (and boys) who never said a single PEEP raising their hands, wanting to participate! It’s such an amazing feeling to have these kids turn around like this. It warms my heart.

So there you go. A rollercoaster ride. And I am glad that today is done. I am thankful for today. It will surely be one that sticks in my mind forever, but I am happy for tomorrow and look forward to what it will bring.

i got it! i got it! i got the job/position in France! I will be living and working as a English teacher's assistant in the region of Caen!

School starts October 5th. So that means I will need to leave Seattle, most likely, by mid/late September.

Yay! I am so happy!

As of last week my tank of gas that I use to cook ran out. And luck would have it that there are no gas tanks at the moment in Lokossa!

For an entire week I happily ate yummy Beninese food. But it got old. It was also annoying to go out for every single meal.

So yesterday I decided to buy a clay cooker thing and some charcoal and gas/lighter fluid. If I thought that I cooked like I was camping before…I was wrong. Cooking over an open flame is even camp-ier. It took a good 20 minutes or so for me to get the coals all lit yesterday, and a lot more “petrol” than I thought was necessary.

A student stopped by yesterday evening and I watched carefully as he re-lit the coals so that I could have a cup of Milo, hot chocolate.

And then this afternoon, it probably only took 10 minutes to get a really good flame going. Today I prepared a full meal: Curried Rice with Lentils and Fried Onions. This took about 1.5 times longer than usual because I only have the one flame/clay cooker, whereas with the stove I have two flames. So it was annoying that it took so long to prepare, but I am glad once again to be able to cook. The meal was delicious. And I am satisfied.

Yesterday morning I woke up around 7:30ish just before it started to rain. I quickly ran outside to grab my clothes that had not fully finished drying from the day before. And I just set them into a big pile on one of my chairs. Then in the evening after dinner, I decided to clean up a little, and started by folding my clothes. Well, about half way through I get to my orange tank top and this little black thing comes flying at me! It was a little lizard. Eeewww. I of course squealed like I a little girl and threw both on the ground. And then had quite a good laugh. I don’t know how many times I must say that you’d think that I would be used to these kind of happenings, but I don’t!

Along those same lines, as I was getting ready this morning to go to a make-up class (on Monday, we had a 5 HOUR meeting at school!!!!!! And I missed one class.) So as I am getting ready, I look to the foot of my bed, where my phones were sitting and see a dead roach lying on its back! EEEEWWWWWW! Once again, I squeal like a little girl. And this time I noticed that Rosie, who was still asleep/laying on the couch, jumped up immediately and went to see where the little creepy crawly was. She likes to chase lizards, mice, roaches, insects, spiders, etc (although she usually can’t catch the lizards or mice). And it was funny to me that Rosie has associated my squealing with a little gross creature. She’s a perfect Pavlov’s dog.

I have been so tired lately! I’m not entirely sure why. But everyday I wake up around the same time, between 6 and 7:30. Take a nap around noon for about an hour-ish. And am in bed no later than 10pm. I am such an old lady! And really it hasn’t been all that hot lately—so I can’t blame the heat. It’s the opposite, it’s been quite rainy lately, actually. Weird, since last year, I feel like the rains didn’t come until April or even May.

Speaking of being tired, it’s past my nap time.

I thought I had a couple more blog entries, but somehow they disappeared.

This afternoon was interesting for small reasons:

1—My zem down to the cyber, I noticed while discussing the price, had bright red finger and toe nails! There might have even been a fancy design on there too. And let me remind you that this was a young guy in his 20s probably.

2— I went to the cyber to copy down a recipe for lemon cake. Tomorrow (Wednesday March 3rd) is Mayo’s 4th birthday! And Angelina was on gchat, and I was telling her how we haven’t had a power outage for a while. And luck would have it that like 2 minutes later the power cut out!

3—So, since the power went out, I called up Dennis to find out what I needed for the cake. And I made my way down to the parc, aka little market. And in my search for lemons, I see this enormous mountain pile of fuzzy slippers! WTF? I literally stopped and stared for a minute.

Oh, the little things in life that make life interesting.

Last night I had a weird/stressful dream where I was back home and there was some kind of catastrophe and everyone was coming together, everyone was going home. Everyone was safe, but for some reason, Rosie was left in my dorm room, left all alone to fend for herself and there was no way I could go and fetch her. I think I am starting to feel guilty about leaving her here. I feel like she is going to spend the rest of her life waiting for me to come back. This makes me very sad. She has been an awesome companion for the last 11 months. Wow, I just realized that she is probably just about a year old! Happy birthday Rosie!

Speaking of birthdays, I already mentioned how it’s Mayo’s b-day tomorrow. He’s turning four! This past summer, when we became buddies, I kept asking him how old he was. And his response was “CI!” CI is the equivalent of kindergarten here. And the kids are supposed to start when they are five years old, but obviously some start earlier and some start later. It’s kinda the norm for everyone to lie about their age or simply not know it at all. So, I am finally glad to find out that my favorite little guy is four. As I said, I am making him a lemon cake. I hope that it turns out all right, and I hope that he likes it!

on the tata samba. the kid in blue is Boris.

dennis and melissa (climbing up to the grainery)

the sun is rising.

"BNS: quand voyager devient un plaisir"

ah bon?

this is the huge crack in the window you will read about...

this is the bus stop in Bohicon. it is madness. and this is dennis in front of our double decker bus!

Sylvain, a girl i dunno, Volonté, Léopold, and Rafatou. when i put the camera up to my face, Sylvain, normally a very happy-smiley kid, locked up into this position, i like to call "the Beninese" photo face. the others who are smiling, are not the norm. and Léopold, the little guy is in 6éme...he's on the small side, but in general they are all so little and cute!

goats/sheep are so fun to chase! she couldn't help herself =)

goats/sheep smell funny.

the world map is finished! these are the kids who helped out; from drawing lines, to taping up the outline, sketching the countries, painting the countries and erasing the pencil lines...they were a BIG help! especially Janvier, the boy in the red shirt and yellow shorts.

retreat!

me, Michel, Kantos, and Maman!

this is a lizard that Rosie somehow managed to trap in my house and kill. eewww, to think that i could have stepped on it!

this is a preying mantis that decided to die in my kitchen sink. the pen is to show how big they are.

this is when the power went out and i lit up all my candles. the mirror was a nice touch because it reflected the light around the room. the olny down side to candles, is that it adds a touch more of heat!

I am currently sitting at home trying to watch a movie. However, it started to rain about 5-10 minutes ago and that poses a problem. I have a tin roof. Also, when it rains here, it pours. The two do not make for good movie watching.

On the flip side, it is almost therapeutic for me to hear the rain fall. The smell of the rain also reminds me of home.

It’s funny that it’s been raining on and off the past couple of weeks. I thought there was some kind of pattern to the weather here. I thought that we were in the long, hot, dry season. But I am thinking that the weather is some kind of messed up from what I have read. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been dreadfully hot, but the rain is a nice touch and cools the earth down a few degrees.

I spent the last half of my February break from school up north in the city of Natitingou and a village called Boukoumbe. Boukoumbe is a beautiful place filled with trees, steep hills, etc. It sits right next to Togo. Boukoumbe is famous in Benin for its Tata Sambas. Tata Sambas are these traditional mud hut homes that people still build and live in to this day. It’s almost more than a mud hut. It’s like a two story mud house.

The Tata Samba and family we visited was not in the village of Boukoumbe, but a 2 hour hike out. I think our guide said it was 11 kilometers. On our way to the mud hut, it was about 3:30 in the afternoon and the sun was relentless. It was the hottest I have felt in a really long time. I had a water bottle in my backpack and every time we stopped to take a break from the heat, I pulled out my water and it was HOT! Like hot tap water. But I drank it anyways. And I was so hot and thirsty that the hot water was somewhat refreshing…it quenched my thirst.

Finally when we arrived at the place we were sat down on a mat and rested. Soon after twin baby boys were plopped into mine and Melissa’s arms: our husbands, lol. They were tiny! And so cute! And they were in matching outfits.

For dinner we were fed some spaghetti noodles with a very bland tomato sauce and an egg each. It took a while to get the food to us, so long we were wondering if we were still gonna be fed. But it arrived and we scarfed it down.

Dennis, Melissa and I slept on the roof of a Tata Samba. Though, it was difficult to fall asleep because the moon was nearly full and laying down, looking up was like staring straight into a 60 watt light bulb (but doesn’t burn your cornea like a light bulb).

Overall, the trip was fun and I had a good time. It’s interesting though, because I found a lot of similarities between Boukoumbe, mud hut and Dogon country. For multiple reasons I will not list out because I am lazy. Just know that they were comparable.

The travel to and from Natitingou is always an adventure in itself. And I will admit that I pray every time that I have to travel in this country; it’s dangerous. But I got home all in one piece! (Thanks God!)

I think I have like nine or 10 weeks of actual teaching left. Phew, time went by quick, eh?

Once again, it is the hot season. I think that I mention that it is hot here in Benin. But now, it’s seriously really, really hot. It’s the kind of hot there is no good relief from

It’s somewhat cool(er) in the mornings and in the evenings. I dread stepping out into the world anytime between the hours of 10am and 4ish pm. It’s just too much sun to handle. It is energy sucking heat. For example, yesterday I woke up at 7ish to go to make up some classes after sleeping for over eight hours. I held class from 8am to 10am. And then I walked home just like always, except that it’s now like 10x hotter. I ate a mango and then took a two hour nap. Upon waking up, I made some lunch and read for 20 minutes or so before falling asleep for another three hour nap. The power was out, so therefore my fan was not on. But doesn’t really make much of a difference because, who likes hot air being blown on an already overheated body?

I swear the temperature has got to be in the 90s, if not in the 100s.

Considering the circumstances, I have taken to sleeping outside in my little patio area. I have jimmy rigged a mosquito net up and brought out my other mattress. The difference in temperature between inside and outside the house is like day and night…haha. All day long the sun beats down on my little tin roof, pouring its nasty rays into my house where the heat gets trapped in the brick walls. It’s like living inside a pizza oven.

There were several moments yesterday, probably when the power was out (and so was the water), when I questioned myself about putting myself through the rest of the hot season (May-June). But if I survived last year, I am sure I can make it again.

Speaking of power outages, as of lately, they are happening quite frequently. I am fortunate enough to be in a large town where the power cuts are not as frequent as villages with electricity. Apparently, large towns and cities have privilege over small towns and villages. It turns out a certain country didn’t pay some electricity bills….or something like that.

i forgot that i had saved these next three posts onto my flash drive. but i just found them, so.....happy reading!

I can’t get enough of the kids at the Orpheneliat Providence. Our world map project took about months to do from start to finish. In that time I really got to know a good chunk of the older kids. I probably have mentioned Janvier before, but he was a HUGE help with the project. I can see him being some kind of great artist or something with the way he really just clung to the map and was there helping every step of the way. A lot of the kids just wanted to help out with the fun stuff, read, the painting.

I was going to miss working with the kids every weekend, so I decided to take on another project with them. I have decided to teach a portion of the kids how to use a computer. Last summer there was a volunteer girl who did some lessons with them. I am not sure how much they covered nor how many hours the kids logged. But I feel like I can use their previous experience to dive right in.

These computer lessons will be quite an interesting experience. Last year at Camp GLOW 99.9 percent of the girls had never touched a mouse before. And Kaili, another PCV, held a mini informatique (aka computer class) during one of our sessions. I think the girls had an hour or so overall. But it was real fun watching them struggle working with the mouse ie holding it up in the air, and pecking at the keyboards like chickens.

I went ahead and purchased 55 hours at the cyber. They art having a New Year’s sale and by purchasing 50 hours at 9000cfa, five hours are added free of charge. This comes out to be a total of 163.63cfa per hour. Previously the cheapest I had found was something like 20 hours for 3500…meaning it was 175cfa per hour. So I guess I got lucky! I talked to the lady who works there and told her how I am going to teach kids how to use the computer and that I wanted to split my 55 hours among two accounts. She looked at me real hesitantly for a moment and I realized that normally one can’t do that, but I guess I am charming or persuasive or just a plain old good client cause she allowed me to divide the hours up afterall. And just now I was thinking about how in teaching the kids how to use computers/the Internet I am making that many more clients. On top of all that, the cyber people are unlocking my account so that I can teach the kids in the “VIP” room where there are less computers, less noise, and a ceiling fan directly above!

I’m not sure exactly when we’ll start. I currently have a lot on my plate. But soon enough…

Today at the English department weekly meeting, I was informed that my homologue, Mme TOKOU will not be coming back to teach at CEG3 Lokossa. I feel for the kids who will be affected. I guess they won’t be taking the devoirs that are coming up at the end of the month. Her kids have essentially already fallen behind my students and it wouldn’t be fair. So I am composing the test for my 6eme kids. In addition, by some miracle, the other 5eme teachers are slightly ahead of me and to avoid complications I proposed that I could write the devoir for the 5eme kids as well. Writing the tests is really not that much work, but it is somewhat obnoxious. However, I would rather write AND type the tests myself in order to steer clear of and weirdly phrased items and typos. Today is Tuesday and we supposedly need to turn in the tests tomorrow. However, I told my colleagues that they would see the tests on Thursday morning. And then I will take them to the bureau this weekend to type them up and print them off.

I will be going to Cotonou this weekend to send off my good friend, Catherine. I am sad that Cat is leaving, but in the end I think she made the decision that is best for her. And it has made me contemplate about my time in Benin. I absolutely love this country and its people. Every time I have to leave Lokossa, I miss it a lot and grow that much more attached to my community, house, dog, students, neighbors, etc. I was thinking about how if I had to leave next weekend I would be a complete mess. I hardly think I will be ready to leave in August or September. My time here has passed by very quick. Sometimes when I am in the classroom, when I am wondering around, looking over students’ shoulders to check their work, I think about how I’ve grown as a teacher. About how fortunate I was to be chosen for this job, for my town, and for my students. Don’t get me wrong, there are many times when I want to rip out my hair, walk out the door, insult students, or send them off to be punished. But overall, this has been so much fun and so rewarding.

I constantly think about where my students will end up. How will having had me as a teacher affect them? Will it have made any difference at all? Do they even care about English? Do they notice anything different about me besides the obvious, ie how I respect them as adults, how I am always on time, I am fair in grading, I am fair to both sexes, we can joke, I am not a harsh punisher, I smile, I grade quizzes and tests in a timely fashion….? It always makes me and my heart smile when I hear adults talk of a former PCV that was somehow in their life. I wonder will I be that to my kids…

I remember back to my first few nights in Benin when I could hardly believe I was breathing in African air. I as terrified at the prospect of living on my own. Of teaching English to 70 children in a classroom with little to no resources/materials. Of having to take moto-taxis around as my main transportation. Of taking taxis where there are six passengers + driver—in what is normally a 5 person car! Of eating pounded corn mush with goopy, slimy, fishy sauce. Of being away from my family and friends for over two whole years. I was essentially jealous of the volunteers who had been here a year. And even more jealous of the volunteers on their way out. For they already knew everything. They had experience, and I had none.

Now I don’t know if I can go back to living with roommates. To driving around in my own car! With a seatbelt and one seat per person at that. To eating whatever I want, whenever I want. To not being able to buy yummy fried food snacks on every corner. To speaking English. To have everyone understand what I say…that is going to be very weird (I’ll have to start watching what I say). To being cold!

I find that my time left here is almost too little. I have accomplished a lot. It breaks my heart to think about leaving my community where I have worked so hard to integrate. I have so much to do in so little time.

But all things must change. Nothing stays the same. I will appreciate the time I have left here. I will continue to teach and to learn. And I will look forward to coming home and to new adventures.

PS…I just thought of this idea this weekend, but I want to take Janvier and maybe a couple of other kids with me to Cotonou so that they can visit the art museum. I don’t know that they know an art museum in Benin, exists! I think that Janvier and Marcellin would especially enjoy it.

Another week gone by.

This year I once again am only teaching 3 classes. Each class meets twice a week for “two hours” each time. I put two hours in quotes because it never adds up to two hours for multiple reasons: kids are late, the kids are disrupting class and I have to pause, someone comes in to give an announcement, the flag ceremony, it gets dark and we can’t see anymore, at the moment my in my 7am class we can’t really start till 7:15 cause it’s still somewhat dark out at 7am…etc.

I don’t know if I ever explained how the College General d’Enseigment (CEG) system works…well here goes, kinda. There are seven grade levels. They go by the French system here:

Beninese grade level=American equivalent

Sixieme (6eme)=7th grade

Cinquieme (5eme)=8th grade

Quatrieme (4eme) =9th grade

Troisieme (3eme)=10th grade

Seconde (2nde)=11th grade

Premier (1ere)=12th grade

Terminale (tle)=1st year of college

Last year I had two 6emes, M2 + M4 and one 5eme, M1. The M stands for nothing that I know of, but is put there after the grade level to distinguish which class it is. For example, last year there was five 6eme and I had M2 and M4. Of the three classes, I decided that M2 was my favorite class; so I followed them into their second year and have them again as 5emeM2.

I hate to admit that as a teacher I definitely have a favorite class and favorite students. And it makes me wonder if I was ever a favorite student of any of my teachers. And I wonder if I would like me as a student?

This year I strongly dislike this year’s 6emeM2. (Side note: I have taken to calling 6emeM2à 6eme-“impoli”. Haha, they are horrified every time I say it because calling someone “impolite” in this society is one of the worst insults there is. Perhaps it is because everyone is so chill and essentially polite, lighthearted, etc.) Anyways, these 6emeM2 kids are little shits. There are nearly 60 of them and about half the class is a mixture of bad behavior. I always leave their class and am in a miserable mood. So this past Thursday we were in the middle of revision because next week the students have devoirs, aka exams. And at the beginning of class I had somewhat of a little heart-to-heart with the trouble makers. I thought we had an understanding that they would begin to behave. I was wrong.

So I stopped what I was doing and quickly packed my bag, said “GOOODBYE!” and grabbed my bag and helmet. However, I didn’t even get halfway to the door when half the class surrounded me, begged and pleaded me not to go and grabbed at me and my things. So I let go of the stuff and they proceeded to go back to their seats. But then I once again grabbed my things and once again I was surrounded. I also looked at the doorway where there was a wall of the bigger/taller kids who were blocking my way. There was not a snowflake’s chance in hell that I was getting out of there, unless I threw some punches and elbowed kids! (Which I did not.) All the while, the other half of the class erupted in screams and laughter. It was quite a sight. And I couldn’t help but laugh. It probably didn’t help my cause. On top of it all, I was mortified at the fact that I had lost control of them. I don’t know how we got back to business, but we did and they were a little bit better behaved…but I may lose my mind with this class by the end of the year!!

I cannot believe that January is nearly complete. I feel that time is moving faster than ever. Does it ever slow down again? Here are some things that I am looking forward to in the coming months:

February

camp GLOW meeting, important breakfast at the ambassador's

March

Gender And Development weekend up north

April

find out if I got the job in France

May

COS (close of service) conference, Gender And Development dinner in Cotonou

June

end of the school year, Camp GLOW! (PLEASE donate =)

July

hmmm…the new group arrives on the 9th

August

hopefully coming home mid- to late in the month

September

home! (hopefully) leave for France, my birthday

Look at that…something for every month! That seems to make things go by quicker.

Once upon a time I remember feeling cold. Now, I don’t. Harmattan, once again lasted 3 days. And it was really only “chilly” on day two. And now, we enter the “chaleur.” This means I will be sweating gallons of sweat until…May. Cute, huh. On the flip side, my face has never been clearer, perhaps due to the Doxycycline (anti-malarial medication) or perhaps it’s due to the fact that my sweat glands are constantly excerised and don’t have the opportunity to be clogged.

I heard about the Haitian earthquake a couple weekends ago. I really don’t know any details whatsoever. I can only imagine that it is chaos over there. I hear that Haiti is poorer than Benin. Did you know that the people of Haiti descend from the Beninese? The Haitians are the children of slaves brought over from the kingdom of Dahomey…aka Benin.

This April I am going to the ancient capital of the Dahomey Kingdom, Abomey. The Dahomey kings were horrible, tyrants. They would have like 50 wives. And when they died they had their wives killed or buried alive…with them. Or maybe it was their slaves that that happened to. I forget what I heard. I guess I will find out in April. Also, the castle or whatever, is a mud-type structure that was mixed with blood and body parts. And the king’s throne is made of human skulls. I feel like I am going to be creeped out when I see this.

Apparently 8, 9 o’clock PM on a Sunday is a great time to have a birthday party. Nevermind that I (or they) have to wake up early tomorrow to start the work day.

This week is devoirs, once again. This means that the first semester is essentially over. That means I have almost less than half my school year left. This is exciting yet sad at the same time.

Today, I my little buddy, Janvier came over with his machete to chop away at the overgrown foliage in my terrace. I was hoping to have it trimmed so that a little light and a slight breeze could waft in, however, my neighbor chatted with Janvier too, and told him to chop away everything. I was a little hesitant, but I let him at it; only because I know that the flowers will grow back. It’s probably a good thing that this old flower tree/bush thing was thinned out. it might give it a little life back.

Initially I asked Janvier to come to do some trimming because yesterday we were sitting around and all of a sudden we catch a whiff of a horrible scent: a rotting little mouse corpse. I check all around my terrace for a possible hiding place for a little mouse carcass, but to no avail. I thought that maybe the little guy kicked the bucket up in the flowers. Janvier hacked away to find the smelly body. But again, no luck. The little stinker is still out there somewhere.

On that note, I don’t know how to put this, but I love that children in this society actually WORK for adults. I only briefly mentioned to Janvier to come chop the flowers away and the next day he shows up and does A LOT of work. Not only did he chop, he hauled away the brush and swept up afterward. And I didn’t even have to pay him. I did however, give him a couple of pens and a pencil for his devoirs. I didn’t want him getting the idea I would pay him.

It’s just amazing that kids almost enjoy working for adults, more so probably ones they respect.

Last Sunday, this kid rings the doorbell and when I answer the door I don’t recognize him. He’s obviously a student. But I have a moment of panic where I think, “oh gawd…who is this kid? Is he a student of mine from last year? This year? …and I don’t even recognize his face? I’m such a horrible teacher!” But it turns out he is not nor ever has been a student of mine. He tells me with a heavy heart about how he lost 3500cfa, aka a little less than ten dollars, to pay for his school contribution (school fee). He worked all summer to pay for his school fee and his “big brother” (probably a family friend) paid for the small remainder (3500cfa). But the week before, during the 10am break where the kids go get breakfast, he lost or was robbed of the 3500fca. And his “big brother” had him searching all day since 8am to replace the money. He got to my house around 7, 7:30. I was on the phone with my sister. To make a long story short, I gave him some money and told him he had to work it off by coming to do laundry for me four times. So far he has been really honest; he is tardy, but he arrives. Which leads me to believe that he was telling the truth. And it makes me feel good that I trusted my gut and decided to help him out. Normally, I would NEVER just hand out some money to any kid that knocked on my door. Tha’

BESA stands for Best English Students' Awards. It is an English competition for all grade levels in the Colleges (aka high schools). there are 3 rounds.

Round 1 takes the top three students from each grade level and eliminates students so that the top 3 from each commune are left. i think a commune is essentially like a district...or county...i'm not quite sure which, lol.

Round 2 is to eleminate students so that the top 3 students of each department are left. deparment is possibly the equivalent of a state.

Round 3 takes round 2's students and places them in ranking order. it is the oral competition round, where students answer a series of questions, read a text outloud, and then answer some more questions. pronunciation is heavily counted.

So today was round 1. there was an announcement posted at school giving the names for the qualifiying students and the date, time and place where students were to meet. it read something along the lines of names: blah; blah; blah. date/time: Saturday February 13th at 8am. place: CEG1.

so i get up early, get dressed, get pretty, make coffee and go to CEG3 (my school). i am a few minutes early and am annoyed to find out the guardian and the sign tell me to go to CEG 1, :/. so i get to CEG1 and see my favorite kid, Sylvain. he asks me where they are to take the test. i tell him i will ask. i then find out that everyone is to take their tests at their proper schools. BACK >:/ to CEG3 i go!! Fortunately, i see 3 students of our schools' at CEG3 (including Sylvain and my other girl and another student) and bring them back to CEG3 with me. i sorta felt like a momma chicken gathering all her little chickies, bringing them to another place.

we are minutes late, but all is well. yet, i see that one student of mine is missing and find myself upset at him because if he wasn't going to show up, then someone else could have taken his place! brat!

so the hour passes and the first cycle students are all done, time is up and out they go. i make them stand for a picture for me. -------i will post this later------------

then, like 5-10 minutes later the missing student arrives. the other proctor tells him it is too late! =( go home. since he is one of my boys; i go out to see him to find out why he was missing. it turns out he made the same mistake me and my other kids made, but didn't make it back to our school on time. i felt very, very sad for him and was extremely upset at the whole situation!!

so then everyone finishes and we go BACK, again to CEG1 to grade all 18 schools' papers. there are 3 students for every one of the 7 grade levels that composed! so there were a lot of tests to grade. it was very, very hectic at first. everyone had questions on how to hash out the points. there were a lot of questions and clarifications. but everyone soon fell into a groove and the grading got done. then the top three from each commune was chosen!

i stuck around till nearly 2 o'clock to find out the results. i was and still am on cloud 9 when i found out that 2 of my 3 babies made it to round 2 of BESA!

Volonté and Sylvain (placing 1st and 3rd, respectively) are my top 2 students in 5eme this year. and they were in my class last year too. i am sooooo, so, SO proud of them!

yay for my babies!

i have realised that that i regard my 5eme students are very much kids. i have 50-something kids and they are all 100 percent special to me.

this morning i had breakfast with our new ambassador, Mr. Ambassador Knight and the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Africa Affairs. he was on tour of some countries and was passing through Benin, where he had an extra few hours. His Excellency, Mr. Johnnie Carson is friends with our Ambassador and had us over for breakfast so that Ambassador Carson could have the opportunity to chat with Benin PCVs.

It was awesome. there was bacon, eggs, waffles, maple syrup, (good) honey, (good) yogurt, fruit salad, coffee and tea. it was buffet style and we then ate out in the garden. it was all very lovely. and i am glad that i was chosen to go. two people from each sector were chosen to attend.

then in the afternoon, i went back to the ambassador's to go for a swim!

what a delightful day!

in other news, students took their devoirs the week before last. the teachers at my school conveniently went on strike and i was called upon to proctor tests for the other classes. and every time that i must proctor for other classes i realize that much more how much i love my own students. and last week i told my students in 5eme how much i like being their teacher and how they are my favorite students. they then applauded at this =)

next weekend is the first round of BESA. BESA stands for Best English Students Awards. this is a three round competition in which students take 2 written and an oral test. i am not sure how many students are involved overall, but i had to choose the top three kids in each of my classes. they will then take the test. then as a commune, we will grade the tests together and the top three go onto compete at the department level. i have 3 very, very bright kids in my 5eme class and really, really hope that they will make it to the next round. i will update on this later.

hmmm, what else...we are now in the chaleur. this means that it gets really frickin' hot every day. it feels like the "sun is punching [you] in the back of the neck" according to Anglina.

ok. that's really it for now.

when it rains it pours! it rains cats and dogs. seriously...how do you think i got Rosie?

fluffballs! i love watching mama chickens with the babies. too cute.

this is the route i take home. pretty.

my favorite pumpkin :) i am jealous of kids cause they can run around naked and i can't.

Rosie and Nathaniel's dog, Nancy

Rosie taking a nap with her lion

can you find the toad?

Mayo being silly

encore. he's just too cute!

Mayo and my helmet

Mayo took a pic of me with my helmet. i think he has a future as a photographer...what do you think?

can you find the mouse? i like to think of him as my "Goodnight Moon" mouse :)

all i got for Christmas was a cankle! haha, after nearly 20 hours of travel.

dirty bird. this is me on the cleaner side of that trip. PS this is at the Burkina Faso-Mali border.

this was the van that took us to Mali. we climbed in and out of the damn thing at least 10 times. what a pain!

fyi. there ARE mosquitoes in the middle of the desert, aka in Ouagadougou. and i was their new year's eve meal.

world map, essentially done...the tape hasn't been pulled off yet.

clothes drying on the lawn

a view from the orphanage looking out over Lokossa

feelin' good!!

1) the kids and i are nearly finished with our world map!! wow...it seriously took WAAAAAAy longer than i thought it would take. all that is left to do is label and outline a few countries, smear on a layer of varnish...bought today--a wonderful experience altogether...and we'll be done! then we can peel off the masking tape =) i feel like there should be some kind of celebration ceremony for this. i am super happy to be done with the map; but also kind of sad. i have built up quite a relationship with the kids and mamans; plus they feed me good food. but i guess now that i feel a part of the family i will make the effort to stop by and do stuff with the kids.

2) i bought a double SIM phone yesterday! and it is awesome. you must understand i have been using a clunky, old, green/grey screen Nokia for the past year! now my phone holds 2 SIM cards, has a colour screen, takes pictures/video/sound, plays music and videos, there are some games but they suck; nothing will ever replace snake! i feel special now...but also guilty for spending so much on it. not that it was really expensive, 77 dollars, but that is enough money to buy A LOT of things here. but...whatever, it makes me happy.

3) i am nearly done with my application for a job in France! and i gotta say that i have done all i can do; and am waiting on a couple of things to come through :) France, here i come...in 9 months!

4) i bought a total of 55 hours at the cyber. it cost me an arm and a few fingers from the other arm, but it will be a reeeal long time till i have to buy more. that and the patron upgraded me for free, to the VIP room, where i am currently sitting under a powerful ceiling fan!

5) OMG, i almost forgot...Rosie is definitely preggo!! i'm gonna be a g-ma! i feel like this is a real live version of that hideous dog toy from the 90's: Puppy Surprise. "Surprise, surprise, puppy surprise...how many puppies are there inside?" not only how many...but what will they look like? who knocked her up?!

i think that's about all. but these days it's amazing to me how the little things really make my day! i hope that everyone is off to an excellent start this year and that things are all around good.

it's about 7-7.5 months or so till i come home.

PS

pretty, pretty please donate to our Camp GLOW. instructions to do so are in the previous post...just below here:

Donate to our girls' camp! It's an amazing opportunity for girls of southern Benin who would never otherwise participate in something like this. I have posted up pics from last year's camp. It was just an amazing experience to see how this camp truly changes the lives of so many girls. I would love if anyone could help us out. Even $5 helps =)

These are the instructions on how to do so...

1. go to www.peacecorps.gov and click on "Donations"

2. at this point, you can search by volunteer's last name, "Hurst", OR click on "view all volunteer projects" on the right side of the page

3. you can then search under "Benin" or "Michigan" (home state)

4. click on the Camp GLOW PCPP. They can then read a short description of the project, see how much of the total has been raised, and make a donation.

Remember, all donations are tax deductible!

about a week ago, Rosie's BFF, Brezil, aka Augustine's family's dog had it's throat slit in the middle of the night! poor little baby is still alive. but has a really ugly cut. i hope it doesn't get infected! poor thing.

i was starting to get comfortable letting Rosie out for a little while at a time, but i have gone back to being scared :( for the dogs in the neighborhood. mostly because there are several dozens of trucks that drive along my little (big-ish) dirt road to mine(?), quarry (?) little round, smooth rocks used for construction. and i am sure that dog dissappearances and throat slittings are because of these unfamiliar men. grrr.

it makes me appreciate that the fact that my neighbor essentially tortured Rosie by pouring some strong liquor/moonshine down her throat so that she growls and snaps at people who are of questionable character or try to nab her away.

Ça fait trois jours. that is a Beninese expression used in greetings when you haven't seen or heard from someone in a long time...not literally 3 days.

so how are my peeps back home? i think about y'all all the time. you even show up in my dreams, haha.

i hope everyone is well and looking forward to happy times with the holiday season approaching.

PS

just watched "Meet the Robinsons," which is funny cause one of my BFF is a robinson =)

anyways, one thing i got from that was: keep moving forward :)

i had to come to Cotonou Sunday for a mid-service exam yesterday. and i was done too late to head back to post yesterday afternoon. and then today, i was in no rush to get out.

Kyle got rid of the viruses on my computer! had i returned to post earlier than in an hour, they would not have been gotten rid of!

And i got a chance to talk to our new CD (country director). her name is Brownie Lee. and she's pretty awesome. she was in the first group to go to Togo once upon a time. it was just nice talking to her cause she totally understands eveything and the frustrations and concerns i had, as well as the happier moments i have here.

it's also nice to have a nice connection to the internet where i can also use my own computer. i take the opportunity to download songs =)

i can't believe it's already the middle of october! halloween is right around the corner. and then it's gonna be thanksgiving. then it's christmas and my Mali vacay. followed by new years, and the deadline for a job application i am looking into and then...jeeze...it's going by too fast!

This year is off to a great start! Especially in 6eme…I started out real firm and it’s awesome how well they are responding. I’ve got all 40 or so pairs of eyes on me and their ears listening to me as well. I made all the kids take out a sheet of paper and I went around to each kid and handwrote each of their names. It would have been easier and faster if I had eux meme fait ça, but it’s a whole lot easier on my eyes if I can read my own handwriting. Plus, I think it ensured my kids that I want to get to know each of them. It’s amazing how a little individual attention and a lot of French can do in the first days of school. Last year is going to look terrible in retrospect. But I also think that I wouldn’t be the teacher I am and will be, had it not been for all the suffering I went through last year as a teacher. =)

My 5eme kids on the other hand…I think 5eme kids will be 5eme kids and use the whole year to make trouble. I think that for the most part they treat the year to mess around and not be too studious. It’s a weird age. But it’s nice to walk into their classroom and know 85 percent of their names. And I also feel comfortable joking around with them right off the bat. Currently, as of today, I only have one of the two 6emes I had last year. The smaller and perhaps the better behaved class: 6m2 now 5m2. And about twice a day I have kids from my 6m4 class from last year come up to me and ask me why I don’t have them this year. I’ve buckled. I went to talk to the censeur (vice principal) to see if he can switch things around so that I can teach them again. They’re like my babies, and I feel horrible leaving them to another teacher. I wonder if teachers back home get that kind of attachment to their students. It’s early enough in the year to say that I am 75 percent sure that the censeur will make it happen. I’m just that special; though I wish I could claim a higher percentage.

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End of the first week!

Ahhh, I had such a blast this week. I have been reminded how cute and little the 6eme kids are at the beginning of the year! Oh how I wish they would stay that size! (It makes keeping them in line and the punishments that much easier!!)

And I’ve been lucky too. It sounds like most volunteers have barely picked up their employ du temps (aka schedules for the year). Not only did I pick up my schedule last week…but I have essentially been able to dive into my lessons. A lot of teachers at my school claim to not have started, déjà, because the kids don’t come to school. And then I talk to the students, and they say that their teachers don’t come to school…problematic, non? Well, I did not have that problem. I showed up to school this week, Monday morning at 7am and as a result, I had full classes by the end of the week. Word spreads fast.

In my 5eme class, there is a kid by the name of Sylvain. He is one of my top 5 favorites. He is however of the reasons why I sometimes hate teaching. Sure he’s hilarious and makes awesome jokes that make even me laugh. At times, I can hardly keep a strait face. For example, today I was teaching “adverbs of frequency” (ie always, sometimes never…) and then he said “ah, madame, ce n’est past huit heure…c’est “never?” (aka neuf heure). Haha, get it?

Anyways, he was strolling past my second class of the afternoon, and I walked out and called him by name. And he just took off running. It was quite hilarious and kinda cute. But I made him some back because I wanted to talk to him before class today, but he showed up a little late, on account of the rain. And then the kids were all busy copying down the hw assignment that I couldn’t talk to him after class. So anyways, I told him we need to talk before the next time we have class. (it’s delightful how—when hot-shot students, like Sylvain, get called out by teachers; they turn into humbled, cute, squishy little teddy bears.) I am going to tell Sylvain that I appreciate his sense of humor. It’s lively and he’s got some good jokes and it makes my job more fun. But he needs to know that there’s a time and place for his comedy routines. Sylvain is a really smart, bright, hard working kid, and I want to channel his actions/humor in a more positive direction…to see if I can work with him instead of just being another member of his audience.

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I think I am going to be really sad when I leave. Chances are that I won’t ever see my kids again. Not that I don’t want to, but with the way things work here…I just don’t think that it’s feasible. And that breaks my heart. Despite all the BS that I have to put up with sometimes, this place has captured my heart. And it’s going to suck to have to leave.

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Maybe I should do little biographies for y’all of my kids. A little blurb and a picture too. I’ll see what I can do…

This past Thursday I went to my school to pick up my schedule for the year. For now it looks like I am going to teach only 3 classes, again. I was hoping to teach 4, but we had to remove one because it would be like me teaching 7th, 8th, and 9th grade, I just want to stick to grades 7 and 8. so hopefully, the vice principle will add one more class to my schedule and I will keep busy. I feel like nothing is new any more for me and I have fallen into a routine and this year I need to keep busy with classes and other projects.

I believe I have mentioned that there is an orphanage a stone’s throw away from my house. I brought one of their girl’s (my student) to Camp GLOW…. Well, they have a big wall where my friend, Catherine and I are going to paint a big, huge world map. And then we have to paint all the names of all the countries on it too. We are going to have the older kids from the orphanage help paint. I don’t know how long it is going to take, but I am thinking we are going to start sometime in November because we have to do certain paperwork to get a little grant. And then we have to draw a big huge grid…there’s an actual manual on how to do this, and I don’t think that it’ll be too difficult. It’s been a secondary project for volunteers all over the world and I am totally falling into the cliché of that volunteer who painted a world map. Once we get started I will post up pics.

Speaking of pictures, I apologize for not posting many recently. Last year I broke the screen on my camera and I feel all awkward taking pictures like they used to do. People here are either big on having their pictures taken or seriously don’t want them taken. It’s disappointing to them when they rush to see how their portrait turned out and there’s a big crack and darkness with a few lines of reddish, blueish, whiteish color. And I have to explain how it broke and they can’t see the picture. And then it’s hard to be discreet about taking pictures when I have to hold the flashy camera up to my left eyeball and squint the right one…take a few seconds to adjust the focus and another second to take the pic. And then I never know if it’s gonna be any good. I feel like regular old 35mm cameras were good at doing their job. But now that we have those neat digital screens to view them right after being taken…I feel like without seeing them, they just don’t turn out as good as they used to—once upon a time. SO, all that to say that I just don’t really bother any more. That, and I had a professor once tell my class that when he goes on vacation, he doesn’t bother bringing a camera. All the memories are up in his head, not on some piece of paper.

today, technically. but classes won't really start until monday the 5th. and guess who has a 7am class? me! and this morning i had 4 classes, but i was gonna teach 3 different grade levels...aka too much work. so my censeur enlever-ed my 4eme class (9th grade) but i am okay with that because they were my worst class last year. so i am again stuck teaching only 3 classes. i am going to try and get a fourth class.

the other day i was really upset because my neighbor once again asked me for money to build her a building on their land so they could make some money. and that was really frustrating, but i forgot to bring my flashdrive and i am not as angry as before; so i guess it's good that i didn't post that blog. but it makes me wonder: if someone who has been friends with 2 PCVs and has gone to 2 Camp GLOWs ...if someone like that still doesn't understand that i am not here to line peoples' pockets with money...what hope is there for everyone else? wow, that totally sounds Debbie Downer, but i don't know how to express it any other way =(

back to the topic of school. i am really looking forward to this year. already i kinda know how things work. and showing up at school isn't gonna be all awkward like it was last year cause i déjà know the admin and the teachers (sadly, i don't know their names) and i know my students! and i also have my lesson plans from last year, therefore i know what went well and what didn't; therefore i am hoping that the lessons will be at least 50 percent better. (i don't know why 50 percent, but 50 percent it is.)

This year’s birthday was one of the best I’ve had. Pizza, beer, bar-lounge, dancing, champagne, tequila and a car ride home.

Swear-in was good. Lots of speeches were given. Food and drinks at the end. And this year I just jumped right in there and attacked, otherwise I’d be left with nothing. And then I left for home around 4ish with lots of goodies, including cheese!

My birthday meme was awesome. I woke up and it took me several moments to realize that it was really my birthday. Initially, I thought it was the next day. Hahaha, I guess that happens when you’re old, ha. When I read a text from a PCV I thought she had gotten the date wrong, so I double checked the calendar, oops! I started the day by doing some laundry, followed by cleaning of my house. Then it was a shower et après ça I made myself lunch/dinner. I sliced up the cheese and made me some nachos. Not macho ones or deluxe with all the toppings. Just regular tortilla chips with cheese and some salsa to dip them in…just like my mom made when I was little. Before I started to eat, I opened up my birthday cards from the fam and shed a tear for each of those cards. (I am even more of a cry baby these days, especially when it comes to hearing from my family.) Moving on, I put in The Breakfast Club and for dessert I ate some gummy candy I bought in the city and some Greek chocolate from Christopher and Weihow. Around 21:30 my dad called and I got to talk to him and Melissa and Nathan. Mom wasn’t home, but we reserved some minutes so that she could call me later. I went to bed around 22:30 and was reading in bed, finishing up The Time Traveler’s Wife (a VERY good book, btw). And mom called around 22:45 and we got to chit chat. Overall, it was a very nice, low-key birthday and I could not have asked for anything more.

Someone came over to my house this morning and installed some A/C! And while I was in town I picked up a down comforter and a feather bed. Boy, I think I am gonna have to get a humidifier so that I can slowly readjust to a non-humid environment. I am gonna continue sleeping under the mosquito net; I don’t wanna gamble getting malaria.

I think I might get high speed cable or DSL wireless internet installed too. It’s a little expensive, but whatever. My neighbor knows someone who knows someone who can install it for free and then I just have to pay it on a monthly basis…I just have to walk to their bureau and pay the bill, just like I do with my water and electric bill. It’s gonna be awesome. I hope that I manage to still get out of the house on a daily basis like I do now….haha.

The day after tomorrow the newbies are going to swear-in as volunteers! I am going into town tomorrow so that I can celebrate my birthday with my PC colleagues without having the whole swear-in thing cloud my day…even though my birthday is not till Sunday. We are going out for pizza (Pizza Hut!) and beer (PBR on tap!! We’re getting these beer bong type pitcher things. I see them there every time and this time I get to try it out!) followed by ice cream at this place that is kinda like Coldstone.

But what’s really cool is that I made friends with some expats who have a helicopter! So guess who gets to ride into Cotonou in a helicopter! ME!! I’ve always wanted to ride in a helicopter and wear those cool looking headphone thingys. By car it takes me like 2.5-3 hours to get to the bureau, but I’m thinking that I might make it in half that time! Woo-hoo!

School starts in like a week or something, I dunno. This summer has been so awesome and it’s been a lot busier than I thought it was going to be. So I can imagine that this school year is gonna go by even faster than the summer and faster than it did last year.

Today was so hot! I think that the hot season is right around the corner. Either that or the weather is all effed up because of global warming or something. The weather here is being abnormal compared to past years. Maybe we should blame it on El Nino. Whatever happened to him? Did he start behaving himself and that’s why we don’t blame him anymore?? It was so hot that after lunch today, my friend and I walked over to this cute little place and got happy hour drinks and sat under the trees in the cute backyard area. We felt like getting smoothies or root beer floats or something to cool down, but they close down for lunch and she had to get on her way…so we’ll go there next time.

And get this…they are opening up a Starbucks next to CEG1…it’s like the biggest high school in town and pretty much in the center of town. Mmmm, frappacinos (did I spell that right) are gonna be such a treat! Though no one really knows when they’re opening up. I miss those green straws!

Yesterday Angelina and Catherine came over and we hammered out a priliminary letter to a big, international NGO, PLAN Benin to get the ball rolling on Camp GLOW. PLAN has offices all over the world; google them if you like. Anyways, PLAN Benin funded our Camp GLOW last year, 100 percent. I am working with Angelina and Catherine in organizing 2010's annual Camp GLOW. It's gonna be a lot of work, but I know that it's gonna be one of the most worthwhile things I have ever done in my life!

The three of us also took the opportunity to plan a little more of our trip to Dogon Country in Mali this Christmas. We are doing a 4 day trek through the cliff villages and visiting the largest mud-structure in the world and will be camping out under the stars. We officially booked our guide Oumar, who apparently speaks English!

Also, yesterday I stopped by my school to say hello to the Administration. I chatted with my diréctrice for a while and then the censeur showed up and I requested to have/follow one of my classes from last year. It looks like I am going to have two 5eme classes. The other two classes are going to be either 6eme or 4eme...I am leaving it up to them to decide for me cause I could go either way. And I am going to have Fridays off and no 17-19h classes, and hopefully no 15-17 classes (it's WAY to h-o-t to teach 15-17). ((this is all 24 hour time)) It felt really nice just physically being at my school and reminds me how much I love my job here!

In other things, I am looking forward to going to Cotonou this Thursday. I am going out with my friends for an early dinner pizza lunch and beer and then perhaps on to some ice cream. On Friday, PSL-22 (the new trainees) are swearing-in as volunteers; it's going to be a good time all around. And then on Sunday I al going to open up the birthday cards my family sent me =)

I hope and will assume that everyone is doing awesome back home since it's been a while since it's been months since I have heard anything.

Rosie; these days

i really, REALLY want to bring Rosie back home with me, but i am also planning on going to France for 7 months next year, a little after i get back to teach some more English (mid september to be exact, if i get the job). So if you or anyone you know that i could trust with my precious would be willing to take care of her let me know! she's a super sweet dog and you don't even really have to buy her real dog food. leftovers work just fine...that's what i feed her here =) and i'm pretty certain that she's not gonna get much bigger.

and this is a picture of a goat that fell down a well thingy. it's not very deep maybe 8-10 feet deep. but the poor thing was down there for several hours and it was bleeting the whole time, and everytime i looked down it looked up at me and shut up. haha, stupid goat!

YAY for new jeans! I went to Lobogo the other day to visit Angelina who had been home for the past 3 weeks or so. I went there right after English Club in Zounbonou. (That town…I swear, no taxi driver ever understands what I’m trying to say…and have to repeat myself 5 or more times.) So anyways, I went to Lobogo and Angelina and I had a grand old time. We just sat and talked for a while before starting up dinner and she handed me my bonne choses from là bas. Mom sent me a new pair of jeans and a new pair of shoes! (I feel so American and normal wearing them!) And Angelina got me some goodies for me and Rosie! It was awesome and a little like x-mas. Then we went over to salué her neighbors whom I think may be a little obsessed with me. But it’s cool, it’s nice to be missed and feel the love from people.

The neighbors ended up buying us like 3 beers each, which ended up being a nice accompaniment to doing the 2000 piece puzzle of NYC Times Square that Angelina brought back. Yup, that’s what we do here for fun…puzzles, read books, crochet, watch movies, cook…kinda makes me feel like I’ve aged like 50 years, haha.

I was gonna leave the next day around 3-4ish, but I stayed another night cause I was so intent on finishing the puzzle, plus I decided that the dog would be okay for another day. My buddies Gaytón aka Gaga, Angél and/or Tangi feed her when I’m gone anyways. No harm done.

I had a really good time away from post.

I am now 9 days away from becoming officially old(er). PS—thanks mom, dad, and Melissa for the birthday cards! And Melissa, I promise I haven’t opened them up yet…I’ll do that on my birthday! It’s weird, I don’t feel like I am gonna be 25, Does one ever get to feel like their age? I feel like the only way that I know that I am getting older is because other people are growing up and moving forward in their lives.

I have found out that school is officially starting on October 1st, in hopes that everything will be said and done and ready to start classes on the 5th—the day I am set to do my mid-service exam. Cool. Whatever.

Today Ruth and I made pâte rouge. Ruth was a 5eme student of mine last year, and she comes over once in a while and we show each other how to cook. Rest assured that I don’t hang out with all my students because most are NOT trustworthy.)Pâte rouge is, in my opinion, the most delicious of the pâtes. I had to run back doen to the parc to buy some meat, which was probably a few days old. I found out today that they’ll slaughter another cow on Saturday morning. This leads me to believe that a cow is slaughtered not on a daily basis. But whatever, I got the rib section of the cow and it was quite tender. I may study up on parts/cuts of the cow and try to get a kilo of filet mignon for roughly 4 dollars. Or maybe a t-bone steak, or some other delicious cut. People here aren’t all that picky so I guess if I know my cow well enough, I can cook up something delicious.

Ugh, I am so scatter-brained. I hope that what I write here is somewhat comprehendible.

Oh and here is a little excerpt from Nine Hills to Nambonkaha by Sarah Erdman. It kind of explains how children are seen/treated all over West Africa.

Kids are the lowest rung in the well-entrenched “petit” system that rules West Africa. Basically, anyone younger or less important than you will double as your errand boy or girl without a complaint…I began my days doing everything myself, but quickly realized that [some things] are done far more efficiently by small children [ie running to buy an egg, lemon, tomato paste, etc from a little boutique, which is like a mini little shop]. There’s a certain beauty to the system: kids respect their elders wholeheartedly and often consider it an honor to serve them. They actually argue who gets to [carry my motorcycle helmet].

Children graduate to petit status around age four…Parental affection is all but curtailed. Kids are taught to consider themselves inferior until they grow up and can lord over a new flock of petits. Their pride is trampled upon so they don’t become too uppity…

-page 86-

Nine Hills was a fairly good book and illustrates what life is like here. Though we are in different sectors, she did health—I teach English. She lived in a small village where everyone probably knew her name—I live in a big town where all the people in my quartier don’t even know my name. She was probably a super volunteer—I am probably not. She lived without running water, electricity, shower, toilet, etc.—I do not. But it draws a good enough picture. I recommend you read it to get a better idea of what life in West Africa is like.

(i wrote this on friday but forgot my flashdrive at home so i couldn't ost it the other day when i was at the cyber)

Today was a good day, I guess, other than waking up WAY later than I wanted. After I woke up I got ready to meet my friend, Chinatsu by Supermarché Bel Air. Chinatsu is doing the Japenese version of Peace Corps, it’s called JICA…although I don’t know what it stands for. Anyways, we met up for some lunch of yam pilé at my favorite restaurant, Maquis Les Collines. It was a good meal and good conversation but when it came time to pay l’addition…the tanti was useless and we waited around forever for our reliquat (change). Finally I went back to the kitchen to talk to the head-tanti and patron to sort things out.

Then we walked back towards the parc and went our separate ways. I bought a ton of veggies from my ladies and then went home and hung out with my favorite person, Mayo, for a while. We played football with Rosie’s little football and I tried to teach him how to count to 5 in English. And it’s amazing really, how little kids (like really little, but already talking…say 3-4 years old) they have such a talent for picking up other languages. And by that I mean that getting Mayo to say things in English…he doesn’t have an accent! I gave him a few glasses of water (which I had mixed Propel into) and he sucked it all down. “C’est bon!” is what he told me after drinking the flavored water. What a cutie. I tell him I am going to take him home with me—là bas (in my bag). He giggles at the thought, but then refuses because he doesn’t want my dog to eat him. Hahaha. I guess he thinks I am just gonna take him to my house here (across the street from his) and there my dog, Rosie will eat him. Mayo, just like any other child/person in this country is terrified of dogs. Ha. The hard part about hanging out with my buddy is telling him to go home. I told him that I was tired/ needed to work/ his mom was calling him…so many excuses, but the kid wouldn’t budge. So finally, and this is horrible of me, I told him that he should ride his bike and that I would see him later or tomorrow. But I guess all he heard was “go get your bike.” So I go inside and he comes back with his bike and starts banging on my door, “tata……tata……tata” but if I answer he’ll never go away. Eventually his mom calls him and he goes home. Oh, Mayo. And before I forget, he has started to call me “Tata Yovo,” which is better than just plain Yovo, but oh well, we’ll work on it.

I just realized that today is the 8th anniversary of 9/11 and I really can’t believe that so much time has passed! My life wasn’t really all that impacted by it, but I can still remember the day pretty vividly.

School starts essentially 3 weeks from Monday. Although, I won’t be there for the first official day because that is when I am scheduled to go and do my mid-service exam. Not really looking forward to that…they are essentially going to check EVERYthing, and I’ll just leave it at that.

My 25th birthday is in 2 weeks and 1 day. The newbies swear-in in 2 weeks. Next week I am going to talk about holidays in America at English club, then visit Angelina whom I haven’t seen in a month.

And in November, Catherine and I are hopefully gonna start painting a world map on a wall at the orphanage by my house. There was a volunteer who was here from 2007-08 who did a lot of work at the orphanage and started to do a world map, but left town before she could really get started. Catherine and I will pick up where she left off, but not exactly cause Jennifer chose to paint the wall on the opposite side of the building, where essentially no one would see it. Part of me feels, oh, I dunno what the word is, for wanting to paint the wall everyone can see when they come to visit the orphanage. I guess I’ll post pics up once we start the work, but you’ll see what I mean.

Oh, and in just about a month, I will be able to apply to a teacher assistant position in France. It’s this deal set up by the French and Americans where someone like me or anyone with “two years of higher education” and “a proficiency in French” can apply to live and work (teaching English to elementary or secondary school kids) in France (or an overseas dept. of France: French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, or the Réunion—whatever that is!) for 7 or 9 months and be paid like $1,013 for 12 hours of work per week! What an amazing opportunity! Not to mention, it’ll give me about 7 or 9 more months to figure out what I want to do with my life. The program, I assume, starts Oct. 1st every year. So that would give me just enough time to relax and visit people. I figure my French will be at it’s best at this point in my life, and bottom line, why not?

That’s all for now, folks! À tout moment!

PS, if you get a chance and want to kill time, get your hands on a game called “Plants vs. Zombies.” It’s a GREAT time killer, super addicting, and super fun! Trust me :)

Tomorrow (September 8th) I am going to English club in Zoungbonou and will be talking about the Star Spangled Banner and the Pledge of Allegiance. And looking at the words to each and then the researching what it all means…it’s beautiful. America is awesome and I won’t see it for another year.

And I miss my family. I miss talking to my mom every night. I miss taking my sister on errands, shopping, etc. I miss driving. I miss fast internet in my own home. I miss feeling cold. I miss gummy bears. I miss pho. I miss my dog. I miss washing machines and dryers. I miss fast food, especially the drive-through part. I miss real grocery stores. I miss movie theaters. I miss cute boys with blonde hair and blue eyes. I miss all paved roads. I miss “one-person-per-seat” and the whole “click it or ticket” deal because that implies that one is obligated to wear a seatbelt. I miss the absence of HUGE cockroaches and mice in my house. I miss only having to speak English. I miss debit cards. I miss traffic lights. I miss left hand turn lanes. I miss coffee and Starbucks (on every corner). I miss Evergreen trees. I miss freeways. I miss (whole) rainy days and weeks (you would too, eventually)! I miss those days where it’s sunny and still freezing cold outside. I miss regular haircuts. I miss wearing make-up and cute clothes. I miss wearing high heels even though I hate them at the end of the night. I miss department stores.

I miss America.

I have started to workout. A while ago I downloaded the Couch-to-5k podcast…it’s a 9 week program to get people started in running. Anywho, I have started it several times and have never managed to get past week 5 or 6 for some reason or another. But tomorrow I start week 2! I have been running at the parc public…they fixed it up real nice for the fete and now the outside circle is like running around a track. And if I get out there early enough, there are no people there to watch the yovo run. In addition, I have just run out of both of my gas can thingys, so I am left to eat only fresh fruit: apples, pineapple, mango and salads. I hope that I can get ahold of a new gas tank, but if not, it can only help me in my quest to lose a little weight.

I went to Porto-Novo earlier this week to do the bake sale. I might have mentioned this in another blog, or to someone, I dunno… I ended up making a profit of 15500 CFA, which is about $34…doesn’t sound like a lot, but I doubled our current budget. It was really fun doing the bake sale—maybe not so much the actual baking because I was up until 3:45 in the morning. And I had only had 3ish hours of sleep the night before (more on that in a minute). But I hitched a ride on the Peace Corps shuttle and arrived at Songhai where Nathaniel made the announcement and soon I had a huge line of people wanting to buy brownies, cookies, key lime pie, and empanadas. In the end, I sold everything but a couple packs of cookies I was happy to eat so that they wouldn’t go to waste! And it was also nice going to Porto-Novo because I hadn’t really had an opportunity to meet the stagaires (thank you Maria for not choosing me) and we hung out a bit during the down time.

While I was in the bureau Monday, I had a chance to speak with Dr. Rufin. I haven’t been sleeping very well these past few months and turned into somewhat of an insomniac. Insomnia = no fun! So I ended up switching to Doxycycline.

So then I returned home Wednesday afternoon, around 2ish. And once I got home I reached into my bag and then I remembered, well I guess I remember not remembering to take my keys out of my locker at the bureau before I left for Porto-Novo! So yup, I came all the way home without my keys! But it ended up working out. I called my PCVL, Kaili and she got a hold of Kyle who was at the bureau and had my keys. Kyle then went over to the taxi station and sent my keys to with a chauffeur. In the meanwhile, I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do. I was sitting outside my gate brainstorming and trying to get a hold of Ellen, when a neighbor rolled by and offered to let me stay at his house. But I don’t really know the Papa, so I felt a little uncomfortable doing that. So I rang Thierry’s doorbell and he was home. Thierry is my neighbor who is kinda like an apt. manager. He hands out the water and electric bills, etc. Anyways, we’re buds and he let me stay with him. We chatted, watched TV, fed me…until I called the chauffeur and zemmed down to get my keys from the gare (taxi station). Ahhh…what a process! But at least I didn’t have to go all the way back to Cotonou. I really hope that this won’t happen again, but it kinda already has happened before. Except last time, I remembered that I forgot my keys before I hopped into the taxi!

I was gonna post this when I was at the cyber Friday evening, but I was having some issues with the computer and my account and the flashdrive…bottomline it just didn’t work out.

I was gonna zem home cause I am semi lazy and figure I would just run in the morning, but I decided that I would walk until I found some street food for the dog. But it turns out there wasn’t much out there except bouille (bwee). It’s like porridge and there a gazillion kinds of it and it’s delicious with a side fried doughballs. So I am walking at a fairly brisk pace so that people on the street don’t really have the opportunity to stop me and engage me in conversation. Then I am about halfway home when a bicycle pulls up next to me. I try to ignore it (it’s amazing the guard I have built myself). And then I hear a familiar “bon soir, Madame!” It’s Desiré, one of my favorite kids. (he’s the one who found me dog #3, carried my helmet home for me a bazillion times, helped me get my front gate key copied on a Sunday…this kid is awesome!) I often see him riding his bike around.

Anywho, we end up walking back together and along the way he tells me that one of his classmates died earlier this week! It was Eddy. I can’t exactly picture his face, but he was friends with Desiré and those boys. RIP Eddy. I guess he got sick or something. And he was throwing up, and that’s all I know. I don’t know how much more death I can take.

Yesterday a moto-taxi driver tried to get an extra 100 cfa from me. I took a moto-taxi from my friend Nathaniel’s village back to my place. His village is on a road kinda in-between two places and in the middle of no where. So this zemi (or zem, that’s what we call the moto-taxis) passed us on the way into the other village, Athieme…cause he was dropping someone off…but he is from my town (I can tell by the color shirts they have to wear)….so really if he was going out to this town to drop this lady off, and wasn’t really expecting to have a passenger for the ride back. But I needed to get home and there he was…so we agreed on a price, 400 cfa. And then as we are getting to my house, he says that the 400 cfa is not sufficient. And I hop off and I said that yes, 400 cfa is sufficient and hand him a 500 cfa coin and expect my 100 cfa change back. But he jokingly holds onto it. And I joke back with him and tell him that if he had not found me he would have lost out on the 400 cfa and that I was lucky/a gift and he should give me my money back. And he smiled and chuckled and gave me back my change. HAha! I won! Sometimes I love playing these little games. But oh man, when you’re not in the mood, or having a bad day, these games are the last thing you wanna deal with. And sometimes they aren’t very nice. But luckily all conditions were right and things went my way.

The rains have come!! That means cooler weather! Well, kinda, sometimes. It gets cooler for a little while after the rains, cause it cools everything down, and then it takes just a little while for the sun to come back out an heat things up. I love the rain and everything, but it gets really muddy! And they tend to cut out the electricity when the rains come. So sometimes it gets a little annoying, but it’s cool.

This afternoon a mason is coming over to patch up the hole they punched through in my bathroom and to make a hole or a few in my front area for the water to run out. The other night I was scared that my house might flood cause it was raining so hard and it was just coming down so fast. My front gate thing kinda gets in the way of the water getting out so, it just creeps up to my door. And plus, with the dog (they’re like cats and don’t like water)… I want her to have enough dry room on the patio. So, I am having a hole or few punched out.

That’s all for now.

this is the new pup. Rosey, eating a meal

consisting of rice and some dried up left

over fish parts: heads, tails and skin.

we were trying to watch a movie on my

laptop, and the dog was starting to bug

monica, it was too cute, so i had to

take a pic.

lizards like this are ALL over the

place. it makes me wonder why people

back home have these things as pets!?

Yovos are weird creatures, haha.

this is a neighbors house. they have

a mangoe tree: the tall, fat one.

and a papaya tree: the skinny one.

some goats and chickens. they are

everywhere. just like children.

this is what i see if i look to

my right, outside my front gate.

this is what i see if i look to

my left outside my front gate.

that is a church at the far end.

Yesterday a moto-taxi driver tried to get an extra 100 cfa from me. I took a moto-taxi from my friend Nathaniel’s village back to my place. His village is on a road kinda in-between two places and in the middle of no where. So this zemi (or zem, that’s what we call the moto-taxis) passed us on the way into the other village, Athieme…cause he was dropping someone off…but he is from my town (I can tell by the color shirts they have to wear)….so really if he was going out to this town to drop this lady off, and wasn’t really expecting to have a passenger for the ride back. But I needed to get home and there he was…so we agreed on a price, 400 cfa.

And then as we are getting to my house, he says that the 400 cfa is not sufficient. And I hop off and I said that yes, 400 cfa is sufficient and hand him a 500 cfa coin and expect my 100 cfa change back. But he jokingly holds onto it. And I joke back with him and tell him that if he had not found me he would have lost out on the 400 cfa and that I was lucky/a gift and he should give me my money back. And he smiled and chuckled and gave me back my change. HAha! I won! Sometimes I love playing these little games. But oh man, when you’re not in the mood, or having a bad day, these games are the last thing you wanna deal with. And sometimes they aren’t very nice. But luckily all conditions were right and things went my way.

The rains have come!! That means cooler weather! Well, kinda, sometimes. It gets cooler for a little while after the rains, cause it cools everything down, and then it takes just a little while for the sun to come back out an heat things up. I love the rain and everything, but it gets really muddy! And they tend to cut out the electricity when the rains come. So sometimes it gets a little annoying, but it’s cool.

This afternoon a mason is coming over to patch up the hole they punched through in my bathroom and to make a hole or a few in my front area for the water to run out. The other night I was scared that my house might flood cause it was raining so hard and it was just coming down so fast. My front gate thing kinda gets in the way of the water getting out so, it just creeps up to my door. And plus, with the dog (they’re like cats and don’t like water)… I want her to have enough dry room on the patio. So, I am having a hole or few punched out.

That’s all for now.

my heart is broken over my missing dog. he disappeared friday night while i was out to dinner with friends. when i got back home, he was no where to be found. i slept with the gate open that night and left out a big bowl of food and water in hopes that he would return in the middle of the night. but he didn't. and i cried a lot. i didn't bother trying to pretend i am not sad about it.

i biked around the neighborhood. and then i took a walk, asking anyone and everyone if they had seen a little black dog, with two collars...and i didn't find out much. but i did hear a lot of "he probably was stolen...and they'll probably eat him" or "if he was lost he would have returned by now." there wasn't much comfort by those who surround me. that made me really mad. and it was one of those moments where i thought (excuse my language) what the fuck am i doing here?!

needless to say, i was surprised to find any sympathy at all. my students all told me that he will be found. my neighbors were all angry that someone would steal a dog...how could they steal Marley?

i plzn on mzking an announcement tomorrow in my classes, in hopes that there are enough of them spread out around the area to get more eyes out looking for him.

that's all i have for now.

when you have a song stuck in your head, but then can't think of the name or the singer? and to makes things more fun, you don't know the words, so you can't google part of the lyrics...oh, and the song happens to be in Spanish? anyone? i have this song in my head and i can hum it every now and then, but there is no one here to help me out. i just hope i can remember it the next time i talk to my mom. she might be able to help me out.

today for, late lunch, we ate at the yam pilé place. and i think i have said before that the stuff is like mashed potatoes with a peanut sauce. so i was telling the other PCVs how weird it's gonna be on Thanksgiving when i get back and i have my girnormo plate of food in front of me and everyone is nice dressed and the table is pretty, blah, blah, blah, and i am gonna have the urge to eat my mashed potatoes with my hands as i dunks little mashed up balls of it into my gravy. and then i will think, where is the wagashi cheese? (did i ever mention how people, for the most part eat everything with their hands? maybe i didn't, but y'all probably figured so much anyway.)

i just finished reading eat, pray, love and it has inspired me to consider travling some more for a little while after i am done in Benin. perhaps indonesia/bali, thailand, europe, india, or australia even-maybe? but perhaps the smart thing to do would be to come back home and sqve my money. but you only live once, right?

oh, and before i forget. random and weird. but yesterday my filipino friend Ellen , who is married to a beninese man and has a 12ish year old kid, says that the beninese people have nice butts because their mothers form their babies' butts. i guess it would be hard to describe how/what she showed us (amber and i), but i don't think that it really needs explaining. haha. she said her son has a butt like he does because she had her sister-in-laws form her sons butt. hmmmmmm.........

3.26.09

Today is my half birthday. I am 24.5 years old.

I’m having one of those moments where I feel like I have a lot to say…but I will probably get distracted or side tracked and in the end will have only talked about a fraction of what it was I was gonna say. So here goes, and please excuse my randomness…

A lot of people have made plans for the summer. I don’t really have any. I think a majority of people are flying home for at least a couple of weeks. Or at least having visitors and then traveling around West Africa or Europe or something. Not my case. I don’t know if I am ready to come home yet, not even for a visit. For the next 18 or so months…Lokossa is my home. And traveling is a bitch. Also, I don’t know how I would fit in back home. Stupidly, I gave away most of everything that I owned. So I wouldn’t have any shampoo, conditioner, hair products, a good portion of my clothes, purses, etc. Not to mention I would have no money.

Peace Corps doesn’t give us substantial amounts of money…but for living in a developing country, I guess you could say we do pretty well. So I guess theoretically I could save money, maybe a few hundred dollars…but that doesn’t buy you much back home. And with that money here, I could do a lot, buy a lot, and go a lot of places. My three hour taxi ride from post to Cotonou (not sure how far that is in distance) costs me three dollars!

Yesterday I bought real butter! And I made cookies with it! Mmmm! They are sooooo good! And I bought bread just so that I could spread the butter on it to eat, plain. And then this afternoon, I made myself some scrambled eggs, yup, using the real butter, and it’s amazing to taste the yummy difference. However, the butter cost me nearly as much as a taxi ride to Cotonou!

I bought the dog a tennis ball yesterday. I stopped in at this little supermarket…think—one of those old fashioned shops the pioneers used to go to, kinda like a super mini Fred Meyer. I went to buy spaghetti noodles and tomato paste (to make lunch tomorrow for Ellen and Amber—my yovo friends!) And then as I look around to see what else they have, and what I may/could use, I see tennis balls! Weird! No one here plays tennis! I have never even seen a tennis court! Nor a racquet. But I thought that Marley may enjoy a tennis ball. And he did! At first he was confused as I bounced it. He saw it hit the ground and then looked around in puzzlement as he could not figure out where the ball had gone (as it bounced back up, and into my hand)! Hahahaha! I had a good laugh. And it took him a good few minutes to figure out that the thing bounces. And he’s pretty good about playing fetch. Though, I don’t think he purposefully brings it back to me. He just consequently likes to curl up and lay down on my feet. He is content so long as at least part of him, if not the majority of his body can cover my feet. Which would be cute and whatnot, were it not 85-90 degrees plus 100% humidity. THANK God for my fan. And my shower.

I have noticed that a number of large and disgusting, though sometimes cute, bugs make their way to the back area of my house. And then they get stuck. I have like an outdoor hallway between my bedroom and the kitchen or bathroom. I have found all sorts of things. My favorite has to be the preying manti. Did you know that they can change color? And their eyes are so cool. I find it hilarious how they look at you and put their arms up like they have a fighting chance against me if I somehow decide that would fight them. Ok, all that to say that usually, and I don’t know why, but a lot of these bugs, seem to be on their way to die. Yesterday as I was taking a shower I noticed a gi-normo moth. I ignore it. Usually they fly away. And then I had to wash a few things…which I do in the bathroom because there is a handy spicket there…and the moth had died right by the toilet. So what do I do? I put it in the toilet and try to flush the thing down. Bad idea, and I should have learned the first time (a while ago, there was a bg ugly cockroach that died near the bathroom and tried to flush him down) And in both cases (I should remember for the next time that…big ugly dead bugs float! And it’s nearly impossible to flush them down!

********(sorry if this next paragraph is long and confusing…basically, if you wanna skip it, go ahead, just know that 2 of MY students have made it to the second round of the English competition I am helping out with.)***********

So this English competition thing that I am doing…today I found out that 5 students from my CEG (middle/high school) have made it to the second round. They will compete with students from other, I guess, districts, to see who the three students from each grade level will make it to the third round. The first round…every school participating had 2 students from every grade level…a total of 14. The top, I dunno how many students from every school—their grades on the test were compared to everyone else in the district. So I think that there will be a total of 14 students representing our district of Lokossa…and they will compete against, 4 or 5 other districts. And five of our students made it! Including 2 of MINE! Yay! And one of them is one of my favortites: Urbain (aka “urban”, opposite of “rural”. People here are VERY creative in naming their kids sometimes.). He is such a little cutie. He is the class responsible (like a little teacher’s aide). And when I am teaching, he is always participating and if there are no students who know the answer, I can count on him to be sitting there patiently, with his hand raised before anyone else. And sometimes it’s funny cause I look at him and I tell him, “I know you know the answer, but I need to see if anyone else can get it, (plus, more than likely I have called on him 4-5 times already!) So I am VERY happy to see that he has made it to the 2nd round. I congratulated him today, and told him I would be at the 2nd round. And that he should study for it.

I have made tentative plans to travel to Mali this Christmas. I will be going to Dogon Country. And if possible, Timbuktu. And I really wanna go to Ghana.

I really [heart] my students. Today I went to school because the 6eme kids took their English test and I wanted to see if there were any errors on the test, and to take the tests home with me when they were done. And as I was waiting, some of the kids finished up and they came over to the teacher’s “pi-ote” aka where all the teachers hang out. And they were excited because they had finished their tests and asked me if this answer was correct and whatnot. And before I knew it a whole mob of them came up to me and the other teachers had to chase them away but they thought it was funny at the same time.

I’ll try to get some pictures of my class before the school year is up. But I am scared that if I take the camera to school, EVERYone will want me to take their picture and it could be, well, overwhelming. Hahaha, I can picture it now, and it makes me laugh.

i have become quite a cooker. i have made things i don't think i would even dream of making back home...for example: creamed "spinach," "spinach" frittata, pad thai, mango cake, lentil burgers, spanish rice and refried beans, etc, etc...and i make things i had no idea i would have been able to make including all of the above and also cookies, tuna casserole, macaroni and cheese, salads... (PS, i put spinach in quotes because i don't actually use spinach, rather i use a little leaf called "fotaytay," and when i cook it, it comes out tasting like spinach! and it's cheap, cheap, cheap too.

mmmmm, now i am hungry. i think i think about food way too much. so i will end this now and search for some food/lunch.

(note...i think i will start taking pictures of the foods that i make/eat. it doesn't always turn out looking pretty, but it sure tastes yummy! PS another note, i can find peanut butter here, and for the most part it's pretty good. but a couple weekends ago, i was at Angelina's place and she had some JIF pb and i scooped out a chunk to taste...and i had forgotten how delicious it was. hahaha, thinking about it makes me kinda laugh!)

Best English Student Awards. that is what i have been working on lately as a secondary project in addition to my main job teaching. and it's been more work than i thought, but also i feeel like it is going to be one of the most rewarding things i have done too. well, maybe not the most rewarding, but it will be up there. i was put in charge of writing the three tests for each grade level. it was a lot of work, and i had few other volunteers and i worked on them for hours! and there is still 2 more rounds of the test...but the prize giving ceremony will be sometime in April and i think that it will be fun. and my hard work will have paid off.

a pretty old picture. when mom got

home from Peru last year. back when

i still looked cute. i miss looking

cute. getting my hair cut, eyebrows

waxed, wearing a jacket, and jeans...

marley trying to inch his way closer

to me as a try to get him

to "stay" while i take his picture

cutest baby i have seen in a while, and

he didn't cry when his mother passed him

off to me in the taxi!

we sat down for some yam pilé. delicious,

pounded yam...to the consistency of mashed

potatoes, served with wagashi cheese and a

peanut sauce. and in the background you can

kinda see the 4 ladies at work. pounding

the yams in a rather large mortar and pestal

kind of thing.

i may have already posted this picture, but

here it is again. this is our group for the

safari. and here we are, technically in

Burkina Faso. we just waded across the river...

a very shallow part of the river.

marley and dirk. dirk used to be my dog, and

his name was potter. but here they are,

napping together. so cute. i was babysitting

dirk for the first week i had marley, so as a

result, marley never cried/howled at night

because dirk was there for company.

I am writing this at home…so I don’t know what people know about what happened last week because I have not been on the internet for several days.

I can’t believe it’s been one week since we have lost an amazing person and heaven gained an angel. Kate was a 2nd year TEFL volunteer. She worked all four weeks of our stage/training. She helped me out a lot with teaching and planning lessons, helped me with my French (which was horrific) and she helped me through a difficult and sad time when my best friend decided to go home. She was just such a wonderful person! And my words do not give her enough justice as to what kind of person she was.

I have been informed that the Beninese and American governments are working together in their investigation over Kate’s death. We haven’t been told a whole lot of details because they “don’t want to compromise the investigation.” Which is fine. I just hope that we eventually find out what happened…maybe not all the details. What we do know is that she was murdered last Wednesday. (jeeze, that was hard to type). They have 3 suspects in custody…but they are just suspects and they have not released their names. But they do have some sort of ties to Peace Corps. Which really creeps me out. And that’s really all I know.

This past Monday there was a memorial service which was beautiful. A bunch of people gave their testimonies on Kate and there were a couple of songs sung. And there was also a slideshow with a bunch of pictures of Kate and other PCVs from her past 18 months here accompanied by a soundtrack put together by her friends. There was not a single dry eye in the place by the time the ceremony was done.

And then we all waited around for our turns to write in her guest book thingy. And that took a while because everyone had so much to say about her.

I’ve been doing better than I thought, but who knows…I have become a little more weary of people and I am a little more scared at night. Last night was the first night I let Marley sleep in the house. Usually he sleeps out on the patio. But I slept better with him indoors last night. Oh, and the first day back to school, this past Wednesday was the hardest. I almost started crying when I told my students why I was absent from school for the past week. I felt that they should know the general idea of my absence. I think that they appreciate that I am always on time and that I don’t skip out on class just because I don’t feel like being there. But Wednesday and yesterday were indeed very difficult for me.

In other news, I bought a new mattress yesterday. It’s a lot better quality than the one I bought back in December. And I ended up buying my mattress (for a little more than I wanted to spend) but from my friend who owns the “africrap” store in town. And as we were chatting, she points to the corner, and on the floor is a little baby sleeping inside a mosquito tent net thingy…and she tells me that is “Michelle.” I am not certain, and a little too humble to ask whether or not the baby was named after me! Although I do remember Christine telling me she was going to name her next baby Michelle. But I had no idea she was pregnant! I just thought she was a bigger lady…like her mom. But she had the baby back in December. Little Michelle Jesus-est-la (Jesus is here/there(not sure which one)) is super cute.

And speaking of cute babies. On the taxi ride back to post on Tuesday, I was sitting in the back, back row of a “9 seater” car. Matt, Nathaniel and I were squished like sardines, but luckily Matt got out way before Nathaniel and I so we had a little more room. And because we are in the way back, back…the taxi driver usually doesn’t fill it back up once leaves it. So it was quite roomy. And there was a little baby in the car, who was the cutest thing I have seen in a while. And the mother passed him back to me. And the little tyke didn’t cry at all! And after a while of talking with the little guy and interacting with him he started babbling. It was soooooo cute.

And before I forget. There are about 100 volunteers in country right now. And just about everyone made it to the memorial service, maybe all but 5 or 6. So there was definitely not enough room at the bureau for us, and they have cut out our hotel room money, so we were told that there were American families (probably all Embassy workers) who opened up their doors to us volunteers. I stayed at Stephanie’s house with three other girls (one of whom is returning home as a result of this tragic incident). Stephanie was a volunteer in Ghana a while ago. She made us Mexi food. Tacos! With real taco shells!!! There was everything expect Spanish rice and sour cream!! It was sooooooooooooo good. And it was nice to be in a beautiful house with a big yard, air conditioning, a hot shower and access to breakfast food in the morning. I mixed 3 kinds of cereal together and used more milk than I really needed but it was good. And I had a cup of REAL coffee! And probably the best part was playing with the little girl. She was 3 years old and sooooooo excited that there were 4 volunteers to play with. We had a blast chatting with her and singing songs. We even taught her the hokey pokey. It was so much fun hanging out with a 3 year old American little girl. The kids here are cute and everything, but they don’t interact with adults in the same way. In fact they behave completely different and it’s hard to describe. But I will never forget little K-Kelly!

And we ate ice cream before dinner. Amazing.

Xoxo, and please keep Kate and her family in your thoughts and prayers!

Michelle

Once again it’s been a while since I have taken the time to write on my blog. Maybe it’s because I am used to life here and don’t find everything quite so shocking. So maybe that is a good thing, but bad for any one of you two people who actually read this.

We wrapped up our first semester just a couple of weeks ago. That means I am on the home stretch of this school year, and I can’t believe it. And really there is only like 7 or so weeks left of actual teaching left. That is because we have two devoirs (exams) left and each one takes a week. The first is two weeks away. The other is at the end of May. And we have like 2 weeks of break for Easter.

I wrote to Melissa yesterday and it was an interesting topic that I wrote her. She told me that nothing new happened and that everyday she does the same thing. To that I replied that I too do the same thing everyday. Probably not what she wanted to hear, but I think it’s just that. Everyone gets caught up in their lives that they lose perspective. For example, I could write novels on the weather alone. But, for the most part, I think I have stopped complaining, lol. Perhaps I have become desensitized to everyday life here. Don’t get me wrong, here and there, there are a bunch of things where I pause, and go “HUH??”

Anyways, when I get home I am contemplating giving up driving for riding a motorcycle. I know that the weather is not always optimal for a motorcycle, but perhaps I could get one and do what dad does and take it out on the nice days. I think I am just spoiled by getting to ride around on a motorcycle just about everyday. It’s sooooo much fun. Probably one of my favorite things about being in this country. And it’s funny too…in a lot of ways…because people use motorcycles here like you have no idea. First, the majority of people do not wear helmets. Bad idea considering the conditions of the road and how people drive…although I can’t remember if WA has a helmet law. I know that not all states require one. But I am leaning towards a yes for WA. And did you know that three people can fit on a motorcycle? It’s a little squishy, but ça-va. And I have even seen up to 4 or 5 people on one. Granted that would be a little child in front of the driver, the driver, the wife/mother of kids, a child between them, and/or perhaps a baby strapped on the mother’s back via pagne (aka a 2 meter piece of cloth that is the equivalent to the complete opposite of the bra when holding a baby). But I’m sure that I saw 5 people on one only once. 4 is usually the max. It’s kinda cute actually. Instead of the 4 door family sedan or station wagon, it’s the family moto.

Riding around on motos. I feel like such a yovo though, when we’re riding somewhere and the road gets a little bumpy and I have to reach down and hold onto the seat or the little bar thing on the back. The Beninese, man, I rarely see them doing that. I try to keep at least one arm free at all times in case I have to do the grab. But the Beninese, wow, they do not. I see them carrying all kinds of stuff. Chickens, big basins on top of their heads, etc, etc. they have such nice posture too. I hope that I can one day confidently and successfully ride a motorcycle without having to do the grab.

Back when we got training on how to ride on a zem…I remember Lizzy telling us it’s NOT okay to grab the zem. Do not grab around his waist. And I thought it was so awkward and uncomfortable to have to sit so intimately close to someone on such a little seat…it’s like the extreme opposite of the American personal bubble space…you know the one I am talking about. But now, I look forward to zemming. And the personal bubble space—on a zem…that doesn’t apply. And now, I wouldn’t dare hold someone around the waist while riding around. THAT would be awkward, for sure. So now I wonder, mostly because I can’t remember, do people riding on the backs of motorcycles back home grab the driver by the waist?

I look forward to sleeping on a comfortable bed in air conditioning tonight in our new bureau. Here’s to being cold tonight.

PS

I hate beeps. “Beeping” is what someone does when they want to talk to you. But most likely they do not have any credit on their phone. Pretty much everyone does the pay-as-you-go thing because I don’t even know if they have phone contracts…like back home. So anyways, beeping is extremely obnoxious. And I wish they wouldn’t. If you wanna talk to me, find the francs, or find me in town. Well, how about just finding the francs cause I hate it when people just show up. That’s probably another one of my biggest pet peeves. Pretty much anyone in the neighborhood knows where I live. And if they don’t they can just ask around and someone will tell them. I have let only a handful of Beninese people within my fortress, but not in the actual house….I have a little “terrace” in front of the living room. So people I don’t want coming in, but I don’t want to stand in the street with are allowed onto the terrace.

So that’s it for now. Not sure when the next post will be.

I have begun to meet the other yovos in town. I am soooooooooo glad that I decided to go to the beach for Valentine’s Day. It has really opened up relationships with other non-Beninese people.

Today, I was en train de walking home, and I get a phone call from Carla, the Canadian girl from Victoria. She asked if I was busy, and the answer was no, so I met up with her in town because she wanted to introduce me to an English speaking friend. I met Ellen, aka maman Kazuki…I forget her last name. But she’s this Filipino lady who opened up a school. And they just opened it up to 6eme last year, so now they are at the 5eme level as their highest level.

Carla is upon her last few days in Lokossa. And there is gonna be a little get together on Saturday for her, as a sort of going away party. I am crossing my fingers that their might be some Filipino food their, aka adobo, lumpias, or that rice noodley stuff!!

And it just sounds like there are all kinds of foreigners in Lokossa. And I can’t believe it’s taken me nearly 6 months to find them! Where have they been hiding? Or was it me that was hiding? Or do we just all have different schedules and never see each other? But at the same time…it’s kinda awkward to see another white person. I mean, what do you say? And how would you go about saying it? I can’t really describe the feeling…other than it’s slightly awkward for both parties.

About walking to school and back this morning, and then walking home from school this afternoon. and I was going to complain to my students who were walking home with me…but then I realized that the little people walk to and from school once or twice a day five days a week! And then it’s not like they go home and a snack is waiting for them. nope. Before school the kids usually will have to fetch water, do laundry, sweep the compound or house or both, and then they are off to school (by foot) and study for 4 hours. Then they walk home for lunch. And maybe they’ll do some more stuff around the house. And then they walk back to school. And study till 5 or 7 o’clock. And when they get home maybe they have to prepare dinner, or other chores or something…and then they study for a little before going to bed, and then they wake up at the crack of dawn to start the whole process over again the next day. And then on the weekends I will see my students walking around the neighborhood, not just hanging out or playing football, but with big things balanced on their heads because they are selling things…most likely food. oh, man.

I feel like such a lazy turd compared to the Beninese sometimes. Life back home may be a lot more fast paced, but somehow I think that we are (collectively) a lot more lazy. No, that’s not it…I am going to my fallback thing and just say that life is DIFFERENT.