For a more personal version of my Peace Corps experience: here are all the mass emails I sent out during my 27 months in Benin, as well as during the application process beforehand, from my trip to Portland, and then from my trip to Morocco after Benin, before coming home.

All the way back in 2007

December 8, 2007

Hello all,

Happy Holidays! I'm halfway through the Peace Corps application process. I got recommended for doing agriculture in SSAfrica, so I'm excited about that and I hope I get it. Next week is my last week at the veggie farm in upstate NY and I'm packing my car and driving to Portland, OR. I'm looking forward to the adventure and getting away from being outside all day in the 30-degree weather!

Application Phase

January 12, 2008

Hello Everyone!

I just wanted to send out a note saying I made it, after a long, arduous journey of many miles, to Portland! I want to thank everyone who I stayed with on the way. It was a great help and it was awesome seeing everyone and reconnecting.

I'm excited about being here for the next 6-9 months before, hopefully, the Peace Corps gives me an assignment in Africa. I'll be looking for a waitressing job and planning many weekend adventures in the mean time. There's so much to see in this part of the country; I'm really looking forward to living here.

Come visit!

-Diane

I Got In!

May 12, 2008

Hello!

I just wanted to take a sec and let you all know that I got my acceptance into the Peace Corps today! I'm going to Benin as agriculture volunteer, technically as a "Community Natural Resource Advisor", whatever that may end up being. Sadly, this means that I'm going to be leaving Portland June 1st to take my road trip back to NY and spend time with family and packing until I leave on July 1st.

Yikes!

Diane

First Trip to Bembereke

August 25, 2008

Hi All,

I've been here in Benin two months now but it still feels like I just got here a week ago. Maybe I'm just pacing myself mentally for the next 2 years, but I have been spending lots of time in class and home stay bubbles. Except for this last weekend when I got to go visit my future post in Bembereke.

The bus ride there wasn't bad. It took about 10 hours but the PC was able to send us on a Greyhound type charter bus instead of a little 9 or 15 seater, so it was comfortable. They tell us to take food and water in case we break down on the road but it's not really necessary because the bus stops every now and then for toilet and food breaks. Vendors come in swarms for any stopped vehicle, so it's good. I was able to entertain myself by reading, listening to the music the bus driver plays in surround sound, playing with babies and just watching "the moving picture show" that is Benin right outside my window.

Bembereke is more than half way North in the country but it is still really green, at least during the rainy season. It's on a gentle hill and it's neighborhoods stretch out from the highway that leads from the coast to Niger. There is electricity, piped water and a market every Thursday. The population is split Muslim and Christian with Voudoun mixed in between the 25,000 odd inhabitants.

I'm excited about the many pros of my post. It's large enough that people speak French and I could easily spend all of my time with environmental education in the schools and doing teaches with different women's or farmer's groups if I can't find anything else to do. PC sets us up with a work partner/supervisor who I traveled with up here and showed me around town, greeting all the officials, ordering furniture from the carpenter for my house, etc. I really like her. The NGO that is sponsoring me focuses mainly on reforestation.

My house is a little 3-bedroom apartment in a row of others in a gated concession. The only disappointment is the lack of a yard for gardening or composting because it's all concrete, but maybe somebody will let me use their field.

I got a cell phone finally. My number is XX.XX.XX.XX. To call from the US put in 011 + Country code 229 + the number. I've been told by other volunteers that it may take 50 rings before I actually pick up. I'm not sure how often I'll be using the Internet from now on but I've enjoyed all the letters I've received. Send more! Check my blog for updates, my current address and a link to my picasa pics.

Other than that, write me with any questions because I’m sure some of the stuff I say may be a little cryptic and I’m not sure what you’re interested in hearing about. I'm happy, healthy, and looking forward to the swearing in celebrations and then moving to post.

Love and hugs,

Diane

New At Post

September 29, 2008

Hello All!

I'm doing well here in Benin. I think it's been about three weeks at post and I was able to steal myself away to the big city for the day to go to the bank and cyber. I really like post. I've made some friends, spend an inordinately long, but happy, amount of time doing housework, take long walks around town, read, and enjoy. I've written some real letters but I'm waiting to get some mail with US stamps in them to send them, though Dad, I did send you one letter a few days ago in the Beninese post. I want to write to more people but didn't bring their addresses with me, so if you think you're in that category and would like to receive a letter please send me your address. My address is on the blog. I've had a lot of alone time in which I've been thinking about you'll back in the States, sending warm thoughts.

I think that's all for now.

Love,

DIane

Halloween

October 31, 2008

Hello All,

I hope everyone is well. I made it down to Parakou for a Halloween party and a volunteer meeting the next day. Things are going really well here at post. The French is coming along, bit by bit.

More excitingly, I got a new little kitten! It has already fattened up in the short time I've had it and loves to play, or just run wild around the house. To eliminate the chances of it becoming diseased or someone's dinner I'm keeping it an indoor cat. Moussu is the local word for cat so I call it either that or Minu, and it will actually come.

Bembèrèkè keeps on changing, going through different phases. When I first got here it was in Ramadan mode, now it's in the back to school season. Before it was the rainy season, now it's the short warm period that ushers in the cool dry Harmatan winds. Harvest time has started, marked by huge tractor trailers rolling through town, kicking us dust from the red dirt road, overloaded with corn, and soon with cotton. I'm thankful for these seasons for breaking up the two year's I have here and I have to remind myself, lest I forget, of how they are passing in the US.

The other night I went to the hospital to visit my friend's friend in the maternity ward. It was very different from what you would find in the US: common rooms, food supplied by relatives, very little protection from germs or babynappers, beds and mats spilling out into the hallways, etc. I saw some cute premature triplets, covered in woolen bonnets and blankets in the heat and humidity. I was also given a lesson by the expectant mother on how God makes womankind suffer through childbirth, with details that would shock the general public (or maybe just me).

My PC supervisor recently paid me a visit. It was a nice reminder that I'm not just floating adrift here, but anchored to an organization that is in effect the US government. I was reminded of this by the big air conditioned SUV that drove us visiting around town, by the fancy new motto helmet I got that finally made it off the boat in Cotonou, by the fabulous chocolates he gave me as a parting gift, and most of all by the Pepsi, in a can, chilled, that he bought for me. Normally one drinks Coke in a bottle, which is made here and tastes like it, but Pepsi in a can is imported and tastes just like it does in the good old US of A. It was a fine day.

I have a lot of free reading time now and the PC library is vast, so I'm in luck. I also spend a lot of time learning to cook the local fare, usually with the help of a Beninese friend. In turn, I've been teaching them how to make banana bread and cookies and pancakes. So much food is so different here it's hard to describe and it's made with ingredients that I doubt I could find in the US. People here are always surprised when I tell them that this or that doesn't exist in the US, or that the yam or eggplant of Africa is so different from those in the US that they have no business bearing the same name. Also, I found some speakers for my CD player in the old volunteer pile so I have the added entertainment of competing with my neighbors for who can contribute the most to local noise pollution levels. (Just kidding, almost.)

I made the acquaintance of a missionary couple here. They treated me to a night of American style food and English conversation. They've been here 18 years now so they had a lot to tell me about the town and the culture in general. It will be nice getting to know them over the 2 years.

Mmm, besides that I've been having outfits made in the local fabric, (and then replacing the zippers when they break), hanging out with my neighbors, going on runs and walks, awaiting the US elections, reading Le Petit Price in French, and generally keeping myself entertained and out of trouble.

All my Best, all my Love,

Diane

P.S. I'm sending bunches of letters today through PC Express. Hopefully they will be there after 3 weeks.

Bembereke Happiness

December 12, 2008

Hey All,

I've only been at post for a few months now but I've embraced it as my new home and can't imagine being anywhere else. I get the occasional cravings for random US indulgent food but I've also acquired a new taste for powdered milk and instant coffee, the cheesy tasting fresh milk and the African version of mashed potatoes.

I've made more friends and consequently the amount of traffic in and out of my front door has increased. People like to call on each other a lot here and I enjoy the company.

It's the dry season now with cold nights and hot days, though I'm told in Jan. the days will be cold too. I'm going to Porto Novo for 2 weeks in December for more training and then I have to figure out what volunteer is hosting Christmas this year and how to get there. (Though now I'm thinking of doing this orphanage tour over Christmas and the days preceding, giving out gifts to kids as part of a PC organized project.) I just celebrated Thanksgiving at home with a few phone calls from the US and by making rice and beans with fish with my friend.

That night we went to her Grandma's house and found out her uncle had died in a motto accident. The African way of grieving is much different from ours. The whole courtyard was full of family members crying and moaning, rocking back and forth and pacing about. It was quite affecting seeing people expressing their grief so openly and bodily, and a little haunting too as I sat in the dark, with my eyes closed, just listening. Eventually the elders calmed the younger ones down by stern talkings-to, but still the mourning would continue all throughout the night.

My work partner returned to Bembereke and so my days are starting to be shaped around actual work now. I'm going to start environmental clubs at three area high schools, advise a women's gardening group and possibly do something about recycling with another women's group. I'm excited about all the possibilities. At one of the high schools I went from class to class with the vice principle and my work partner, introducing myself and the idea of the club. It was very encouraging to see them take an interest in it, and even when the younger classes were laughing at my French they were doing so in a friendly way.

A new cyber café opened in my town but so far I've avoided it. I'm not ready yet to open up Pandora's box of unlimited Internet access just yet because I'm afraid I would spend too much time there and start to miss home too much.

But, other than that I've been keeping myself busy learning how to navigate the rocky streets by moonlight, keeping the red caked-on dust off my feet, watching my cat play atop my mosquito net like it was a trapeze, seeing how long I can let my hair grow out, talking first year German with my neighbor girls, learning how to peel the top layer of skin off an orange with a razor so you can squeeze and drink the juice out of it, making my own peanut butter, and keeping the ashes from nearby brush fires swept out of my courtyard. I'm really happy here!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

Diane

Porto Novo Training

December 11, 2008

Hello,

I left all my hand written materials that I was going to type in email and blog when I got to Cotonou on accident in Porto Novo so I'm just going to write a quick email while I get a chance now. I'm in PN for the training session for 2 weeks and its been going really well.

Seeing everybody again is really great. I think the village people have more interesting stories then me since my town is more modern. It's harder for me at least to see the cultural aspects that are so different from life in America the way the villagers get to see them every day. I don't know- things like voodoo or old men constantly asking you to be their 3rd wife, or learning how to cook with only onions and spicy peppers for sale in the market- all these things I don't have. But at any rate I'm sure my experiences are really different, especially compared to life in the US, it's just I'm so used to them I can't see.

Anyway, I'm in Cotonu to see the doctors, or I was because I already saw him. There was a problem with my foot- it was swelling and I couldn't bend it upwards and it makes me walk a little limpy, but since last night the swellings been going down on its own and im walking more normal and the doctor could bend it so nothings broken or anything so he thinks it will just get better on its own. I don't know what I did to it, but... Since I'm in Porto Novo anyway, which is just 20 mins away, we're just going to leave it and if it gets worse I can come back and see him. It's kind of silly because it's like as soon as I came here it got better on its own so it's like I wasted a trip, but he said it was good I came anyway.

We're staying in this agricultural production training site in PN where we actually had some classes during the first three months, but now seeing it as a guest of the hotel is a totally different experience. We have AC rooms and conference rooms, hot water showers, CNN, comfy mattresses. We get feed great with Porto Novo bread, (which I've decided is the best bread in Benin, every locality having their own kind) with real butter and mango jam, salads and desserts like crepes and yogurt, and soy milk! and so many great things. PC is totally spoiling us for these trainings. All our work partners are down here for one week and we've been doing project design exercises which have been more like sessions on how to get along and produce work through a cross-cultural setting. It mainly results in headaches and frustration for most involved but we're learning a lot and reconcile over a beer afterwards, haha.

I'm getting to see more and more how PC functions. I think it is hard having both an American way of doing things and a Beninese way in the same organization. Things are done in contradictions some times; there is never a clear line of communication. All the information given to us seems two sided, like it was meant to pacify any kind of person or situation. PC seems more and more just what you yourself make out of it- just like life in general I suppose. Self directed learning.

Watching the news every night now without having been connected for months it rather frightening. It's like seeing all these problems discussed from their middle instead of their beginnings, so I only half know what's happening. It's like the world is falling apart or something, and the way the media is anyway they make it seem flashier and scarier than it really is. Jeez. We get old economists and stuff at the workstation in Parakou but by the time I get them I don't feel like reading about 2 months ago. Except for Obama stuff. Every time I see him now on TV or something I can't believe that he is our President, like the possibility seems to good, or to strange to be true.

Well, the shuttle's leaving soon, I think. Love you all,

Diane

Working/ Social

March 23, 2009

Dear All,

Hello! I hope everyone is in good health and spirits. It’s been about 3 months since I last emailed, and I’ve found my life has subtly shifted, (as it always does), in that time. I’ll try to fill you in on the details:

I left Cotonou in mid-January after Christmas and New Year’s and doctor’s activities were finished (a full recovery for those following). I got a free ride up North in the Peace Corps monthly shuttle, which ended up being a net tour of the country as I passed through the NW, center and far N on my way to post. When I left it was just the beginning of dry season but by the time I got back it was in full force, giving the land a burnt, desolated aspect. It seemed a little forlorn at first but now I find beauty in the austerity all the same.

I got a beautiful reception by my town upon returning. Everyone was excited to see me after having been gone for so long, to the point of hugs and laughs and multiple dinner invitations. I didn’t realize I knew so many people until it took me 2 days to go around greeting everybody! It felt good speaking the little local language I know again, as the language is such a part of the identity of the people and place, and thus ingrained in my sense of belonging here.

In the last three months I’ve had the chance to visit some of the other volunteers at their posts, to help them with their projects and giving myself a chance to see more rural and northern posts than my own. Benin definitely holds a lot of diversity in its little boarders.

I also accompanied a work partner with my ONG on a two-day, back-road motorcycle tour of different locals within our national forest. There are several classified forests within Benin and it is with these that my ONG does all its work. Most of it entails assisting the local populations of the villages that are located inside the forest in how to have diverse economic activities instead of clear-cutting the forest to grow cotton or corn. It’s a difficult relationship people have with conservation and the need to live here, and the NGO tries to get them to respect the forest and at the same time make money, through activities like market gardening and beekeeping.

Anyway, it was really beautiful and relaxing driving around the heart of the forest. The trees reached heights and densities I don’t often see here and our route was perfumed with the pungent smell of the fruit of the cashew trees and dotted with bits of fallen cotton stuck to the thorn bushes.

My work has gotten rolling a little in this time. One of my environmental clubs at the high school has had a handful of meetings and two more clubs are forming slowly at other schools. One activity we’ve done so far was to go on a hike of the classified forest with my NGO work partner and 2 foresters. About 75 kids showed up and they asked really interesting questions. I think they learned a lot about the forest and its protection, considering before many didn’t even realize this protected resource was right in their backyards.

I’ve also started working with one women’s gardening group, with 2 other groups in the works, one of which sweeps the market and neighborhoods and the other that produces food products from yams. My French tutor invited my to their weekly teacher’s planning meetings for English so I help them correct the grammar on their tests and give feedback on methodology by observing them teach. I’ve been a guest speaker too to test the kids’ listening comprehension and to tell them a little bit about America and the benefits of learning English. (Now, if only during the Q&A time they were more interested in learning about our cultural differences rather than if I have a husband and what my phone number is, but hey, kids will be kids.)

Socially, the elections in the US were big news, and now everyone’s favorite small talk item with me is Barack Obama. They are hopeful too about the changes he will make and what it represents for someone whose father is African to be in the White House. Also, now is the time of year where all the voodoo activities which are usually hidden come out in the open and are celebrated. We had a 3 day ceremony for the voodoo apprentices’ graduation, with lots of singing and dancing. In exchange for letting me take pictures they made me dance a little too! Voodoo here is basically calling upon spirits to cure people or bless them (and it’s a good excuse to party!).

Another weekend we had a diocese-wide pilgrimage hosted by my town. There were 3 days of prayers and talks, sketches and music, all culminating in a 3 hour mass on Sunday. The President, Yayi Boni, even made a special appearance, saying a prayer and sitting just 5 feet away from me! (He is on a tour of the North announcing a future extension of the train lines all the way to the boarder of Niger.)

In other news, the Belgians have invaded Bembereke! About 75 troops arrived at our military training center in February and are staying until April. They are assisting the Beninese in building training courses and a helicopter pad and a primary school, just for good measure. It’s kind of weird seeing all these white people roaming around town, in their short shorts and especially at the bars with their “dates”, some who are still high school age, but I’ve made friends with three of them and it’s been fun showing them around the market and having them taste the local food and spirits. Supposedly, in April, 400 American troops are coming, which will be craziness.

Also, I’ve spent some time visiting one of the town’s water pumps, observing “pump politics” and just watching the rhythm of the girls jumping up and down on the foot pump. It’s under a tree and a good place to sit and write, though if I stay long enough I attract such a crowd of little kids watching me that they get distracting and I either have to play with them or leave. Another activity I’ve been doing is sitting with the women who break rocks into pebbles to sell as a construction material. They dig large pieces of stone up from the nearby mountain and transport them on their heads to sites along the highway where they work in groups to break them up. I’ve spent some time doing this, and while the rocks are relatively “soft” and fractious, it’s still hard and repetitive for them to be doing day in and day out.

In household news, I’ve accepted that dust is just part of life here and I’ve found help in doing my weekly laundry, so that frees me up a bit. My cat has become mostly an outdoor cat, making it happier and fatter, as I realized that my concerns for it staying out were probably just thin veils for my possessiveness of it. Some yellow song birds have started nesting in my coconut tree and it seems to be the season for baby goats and pigs, because the little things are everywhere. I’ve also been keeping busy going on morning jogs, doing sewing projects, making drinks with hibiscus, lemongrass, chicory and ginger, and reading War and Peace. We had our first rain storm last week, breaking the dry season. Now it will rain for a few weeks, go dry again for a month and then the rainy season will start. It was amazing seeing rain clouds again and it brought the temperatures down quite a bit. But the best part was watching this group of kids running around, naked in the rain, celebrating the occasion, so full of simple joy.

I hope this email gave you a good glimpse into my life for the last three months. Write me back and let me know how you’re doing!

All my best,

Diane

P.S. I think my cat is pregnant.

Arbor Day 2009

July 6, 2009

Dear All,

Greetings from Benin! I hope this letter finds you well. It’s been a while since I last wrote- March I think, right before I went to Mali and Burkina Faso. A lot has happened since then! I passed the year mark of my arrival here on the 4th of July. It feels short and long at the same time as I reflect on what I’m meant to be doing here. (15 more months to go!) I spent my 24th birthday well at post, baking myself a cake, talking to some people from home and having dinner with friends. Time flies, no?

To start where I left off: the vacation was fun. Visiting a neighboring country during your Peace Corps service is done so frequently that it’s like some sort of right of passage. Based on the travel conditions in Mali and Burkina I’d say it was a painful one at that. It’s hot, it’s dry- read all about it on my blog.

After I came back and until June 5th I was busy planning an Earth Day event (la Journée International de l’Environnement) with my school environmental club. It went splendidly, even if in getting there I had some near nervous-breakdown moments as I learned how things get done here (so many details fixed just at the last minute). The students dreamed big and transformed my idea of planting trees at the school into a whole day-long extravaganza.

I was really proud of their dedication as they ran around town with me, making and changing plans with the myriad bureaucrats and townspeople involved in organizing and executing the event. We had 75 T-shirts made, ordered a band and catered lunch for 100, gave 2 radio interviews, invited the mayor, wrote slogans and made posters for the parade and negotiated with the foresters to give us 75 tree saplings. At the school we labored ahead of time to dig the holes for where the trees would go and build fences to protect them from the healthy free-range goat population in town. We also did a lot of fundraising, including a drive at the high school where all the students pitched in their dimes and quarters to help us, which was really heartening. The total cost of the day was surprisingly high, at $400, but thankfully we were also able to get money from the PC, the mayor’s office and my local partner NGO.

On the 5th we gathered early in the morning to the sound of drums beating at the high school to start our parade. We marched to the Town Hall, about 200 strong, where the mayor gave us a benediction. On returning to the school we planted the 75 trees along the edge of the grounds, with the design of creating a “living fence”. After that the local foresters gave us a formation on natural resource management and the value of trees, in which kids were given tree saplings to take home if they showed good participation. We then braked for lunch (because in Africa if you want people to participate in your activity you have to feed them) and then took the afternoon “repose” until 3.

In the afternoon a nurse came and gave us a family planning/ HIV/AIDS session, (because keeping people healthy is part of keeping the environment healthy), followed by me leading a game with the 3 other PC volunteers who came to help me and the students which involved playing “hot potato” with condoms blown up like balloons. We then wrapped up the day with a soccer match.

This was my first big project and I couldn’t have been happier with how it went. The club should be really motivated now for next year, when I hope to install several new projects. For the rest of the summer I’ll be focusing on the women’s gardening group and having a weekly English club for those students stuck bored in town during vacation. There are also various PC events over the summer, like training the new arrivals in Porto Novo for 2 weeks. Also, I worked on one girl’s camp and am now at another summer camp. The one I’m doing now is just a day camp for high schoolers in Kandi to get extra English lessons and follow either health or environmental sessions, which is where I come in.

The other camp was a week-long girl’s sleep-over camp in Parakou. All the volunteers in the region chose a few girls to bring and the camp’s activities focused on girls’ empowerment. I think they learned a lot and that the lesions were particularly necessary and useful. Just for the girls to have had a chance to travel, meet new friends and escape their daily chores was a blessing but they also gained practical knowledge and life skills that will help them protect themselves from all the snares that stand in the way of success here. I was very encouraged by the way they grew throughout the week and by the promise they hold for the future.

In other news, no, I wasn’t just imagining it, my cat really was pregnant. She gave birth about 5 weeks ago to a single kitten. I got to witness the event, which I found both slightly horrifying yet miraculous. The kitten more closely resembled an alien hamster during its first two weeks of life but now it has beautiful blue/grey eyes and is learning to walk and play. I plan on giving it eventually to my Beninese Grandma.

I finished reading War and Peace, which I would highly recommend to all sensitive souls with lots of time on their hands. At my church they read The Gospel in different local languages and lately I’ve been involved in presenting it in English (as there is a small Nigerian attendance). My first time was actually at Pentecost, on my birthday, to a packed church of 500+! I’m really enjoying it so far, as I’m more involved now in the church community. I’ve seen two sets of foreign military characters here at our camp in the last few months. At first it was the boozing, womanizing Belgians followed by the Americans, (most of who just got back from Afghanistan or Iraq and were too on edge to leave the camp to do either of the first two things.) The Belgians were here for a few months so I got to make friends with a few of them but the Americans were only here a few weeks so I only got a chance to chat with a few of them. Their Tennessee mountain accents transported me back to America though, as well as the Pop Tarts they gave me! I also met a few Swiss girls, who have since left, but they worked at the hospital and introduced me to another American there who will be here for another 8 months, so that should be fun.

What else?...the weather: We’ve entered the rainy season but it’s just been pouring once a week so far, with each successive day in between getting hotter and hotter. With that people have started planting next year’s crops. Waiting for the rains to break we ran out of basic produce, like tomatoes and okra, but now they’re back, along with oranges from the South. The mangos are sadly finished. I was getting a little tired of the food here so I started experimenting more at home, making okra curries, kettle corn and home-made yogurt. Next, I want to learn to make the local cheese. (Another good thing about cooking at home is there is less of a chance of getting amebas, which I am currently on medication for.)

I’m still taking French lessons, going on jogs and exploring the local countryside, avoiding the local cyber café (because romanticism dies hard) and going to water the trees at the high school with some students. I’d love to hear your news, whether in a one-line email or a 5-page letter. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

All my Best,

Diane

Trip to Niger

October 5,, 2009

Hello All,

Greetings from sunny Benin! It’s been a while since I gave an update- lots has happened! I late August/ early November I returned to our old training site, Porto Novo, but this time not as a wide-eyed newbie but a sage volunteer trainer (or something like that). The new batch of environmental volunteers is really great- experienced and motivated, so it was fun working with them. I really enjoyed being back in the place where I took my first Beninese steps. The city made such an impression on me before so it was nice to revisit the sites and memories. I also hadn’t realized how habituated I am to things here and how much I’ve learned this last year until I heard the trainees’ comments and perspectives on life here.

In late September a Peace Corps friend and I went on vacation to Niger! It was really enjoyable. The people are so friendly and open there, even more than in Benin, which made the whole experience multitudes better. Compared to Mali, Niger hasn’t really seen that much tourism, which worked to our benefit really. (You have already heard my opinion about how tourism changes a place and its people.) What Niger does have a lot of is PC volunteers, which worked doubly to our advantage. People were very aware of the positive presence of PC in their country so we were welcomed everywhere as friends.

PC Niger volunteers are always saying how hard they have it in the desert and tiny villages and how spoiled PC Benin is- with our forests, fresh produce and towns, and after having visited I can scoff no more- I have to agree with them. Niger is “au village”. They are so much poorer than Benin is. Famine still exists there, all the HDI indicators are among the lowest in the world, and number of people actually fluent in French is low.

Despite all that the richness of the culture stood out and the wonderful landscapes and wildlife made the trip worth it. Maybe what I write about my trip will inspire you to go visit! Getting there, we took a bus all the way to Niamey in one day, stopping at customs along the lush Niger River boarder. In Niamey we stayed at the PC volunteers’ hostile for five nights or so and explored the city and surrounding villages.

Niamey is a really nice city- much calmer than Cotonou. They have French and American Cultural Centers, Artisan Centers, a museum with a zoo, good restaurants and stores, a huge dry goods market and a vibrant food market. Our first morning we went to this delightful place that comes closest to resembling a Panera, with a bakery, coffee counter and soups, salads and sandwiches. (I got a chocolate croissant and espresso!) It was interesting seeing how the food is different in Niger versus Benin. It’s hard to describe but the sauces are different because the produce found there is different. For example, they have lots of potatoes, the leaves of the moringa tree and huge squashes. The staple is millet whereas ours is corn, so their starches are different too. They are swimming in dates and drink lots of strong green tea. People invited us to drink tea with them often- something they do all throughout the day. The method of preparing it is very pretty to watch, them frothing the tea up by poring it back and forth between two glasses.

One of the day trips we took was to visit a busy market town which sees vendors coming from all different neighboring countries and hosts a large animal market. While we didn’t experience the same excitement of a live auction market like one finds often in the Middle East, we were happy enough just hanging around the camels.

The next day-trip we took was to see the last herd of wild giraffes in West Africa. It was a really cool experience because we got a guide to walk us into the bush a few K until we spotted the herd, their heads sticking out from the foliage, calmly gazing at us as we slowly approached. The herd was about 20 strong and we spent an hour just sitting or following them around, observing. It’s so amazing that these creatures even exist!

That afternoon we traveled to a different town that bordered the Niger River. We spent the dusk hours cruising the river by wooden canoe in search of hippos. The river was wide and lush because we came at the end of the rainy season. Unfortunately, that made the hippos’ feeding ground larger, so they were harder to spot. It was relaxing, just being on the river though, seeing the kids bathing, the women washing clothes, passing villages and gardens with scarecrows to deter the hippos, and watching the birds and our guide navigating the river, in the Venetian fashion.

We slept overnight at a hotel situated on a bird-viewing island and the next morning sampled the local mode of transportation to get back to the highway to catch a bush taxi: donkey. My saddle kept on slipping down so I rode most of the way with just an extra pair of pants separating me from the donkey’s backbone, but it was still worth it just for the experience.

The next day we took a trip to a local agricultural research center. It was an international organization that gets tons of UN funding to find out how to produce crops efficiently for this climate and soil type. Then they share their research with farmers, all the way in Benin even. It seemed to be affecting positive change and was very encouraging and beneficial to see. That afternoon we hit the American Cultural Center to watch an old favorite, The Apartment, which was in French with French subtitles, which I found strange, considering the name of the place we were watching it in.

The next morning we woke up before the break of day and boarded our bus for our 14 hour voyage to Agadez. Agadez is on the frontier of the desert and is even farther up north than the famed Timbuktu. The people there, the Taureg, are of Berber origin and look more Arab than SSAfrican. They are mostly nomadic herders but others have settled into Agadez and further south too. On the ride up it was interesting seeing all these watering holes formed from the rains and the grassy plains dotted with herd of goats or packs of camels. Eventually the paved road stopped and our view became muddled as we were surrounded in a cloud of dust.

Agadez has a feel to it like a frontier town in the Wild West, if you can imagine. The people were really nice and our hotel was conveniently situated in Old Town so we could easily walk to the main mosque, market and Sultan’s Palace. We were there for the end of Ramadan so we got to see how they celebrated too. The Friday before the breaking of the 30-day fast a huge crowd gathered at the historic mud-constructed mosque for the afternoon prayer. There were so many people, both inside and out, lining the streets and filling the storefronts. The feeling of community that Islam creates was really apparent.

Saturday night was the breaking of the fast but the real celebrating didn’t get started until Sunday. We went to the Sultan’s Palace in the morning and night to see the crowds gathered around the drummers and flute players, dancing occasionally. It was mostly little kids there, who swarmed us foreigners until they were dispersed by a tight-lipped old man with a horse whip. People said in the old days the celebration was bigger, with the Sultan riding in on his horse, horse races, and young men and women gathered in their finery at the square to publicly meet their affianced for the first time. (I’ve noticed that in Benin they say the cultural activities and celebrations were manifested with more pizzazz in the past as well, which is disappointing.)

The next day we rode off on camelback to a neighboring Taureg settlement about 7 K away. Our guide dressed us up in robes and turbans, partly for the effect and partly to shield us from the sun (and curious eyes). It was really relaxing riding the camel, my feet resting on the crook of its long neck for balance. What an experience! When we got to the camp they gave us tea and cheese, which is formed into a hard thin square and tastes more like Western cheese than what we have in Benin. We were also served camel’s milk, which wasn’t good really; it tasted like sour ricotta cheese. (But, in Zinder we would eat camel steak, which is delicious and tender, like rabbit.)

The families were really hospitable and happy to have us as guests. The girls braided my hair in Taureg fashion and gave me an outfit to wear, because we had a party to go to! Someone had passed away, plus they were still celebrating the end of Ramadan, so people poured in from surrounding camps and we ate, had a camel race and all crowded into a tent to have a dance party. (Embarrassing video of me being chosen to dance in the circle is forthcoming.) It was such a nice day!

Our next destination was Zinder, the old capital of Niger. We spent a few days there and the most interesting part was the Old Town. Old Town was quite vast but we wandered around a lot of it, in part chasing kids around who were incessantly asking us for presents. We got to see some well preserved Hausa houses, (the region’s ethnic group), featuring mud walls, flat roofs, and colorful mosaics decorating the outside walls. There were all these large boulders around town too and they would build around them to integrate it into one side of their houses.

The last town we visited was Dogondoutchi, on the tourist map because of its large red-rock outcroppings. We toured the market there before climbing up one of the escarpments and found a man who made rubber stamps, and for 10 cents he would stamp your arm with a pretty motor oil pattern. He even had a Barack Obama stamp!

Well, (a word I still throw into my French conversations), that concludes my trip to Niger. Thanks to Jocylin for planning and facilitating such an enjoyable excursion!

It’s great being back in Bembèrèkè. I saw some tourists in our market my first Thursday back; I was so surprised! I could tell they were tourists and not people who worked in another part of Benin before talking to them because they looked so fresh. Being here a year I think has made me look a bit haggard, lol.

The school year is starting up and garden season is beginning as the hard rains cease, so my work calendar is about to fill up. The trees we planted for Arbor Day are growing well but the environmental club at the high school will have to repair the fences protecting them because the summer school kids took their angst out on them. Destruction seems to be a past-time here.

I’ll be continuing the environmental club at the high school as well as starting a girls’ and English club. (I just found out that the results of last year’s voluntary HIV/AIDS testing at the high school yielded, not accounting for false positives, a 3% infection rate, so that motivates me to work with the girls about sexual health.) I’m also giving environmental lessons to the 5th graders once a month at 7 of the local elementary schools. Also, once the rains stop, I’m going to work with the women building mud stoves. In August I planted about 100 moringa trees at the missionary’s school to do a project introducing the tree’s leaves as a nutritional supplement to a group at the hospital of HIV/AIDS infected persons. I then promptly left on vacation and prayed that the rainy season ended strong so they wouldn’t die. I came back to find they had germinated much better than I thought they would, leaving me with about 150 plants (as I had double seeded them). I’m excited about all my clubs and projects and hope that they work out well. It feels so much easier this year since I know my community, have found work partners and learned French, all of which not having made it hard the first year. Honestly, everyone says the 2nd year goes by really quickly, which I am and am not looking forward to.

Extras: My kitten grew up. I gave her away, to my Beninese Grandma, but in the time before that it was really informative seeing her develop and grow. My cat was an exemplary mother, almost every night catching small prey and depositing them, live, (including a bat one night), in my bedroom where I was sleeping with the kitten. I picked up a how-to yoga book a few months ago and have been working on that (inner serenity) from time to time. I’m also reading the Koran, in English, which isn’t really the Koran, but what can you do. In the US I had wanted the time to read it but I’m not sure I’ll make it all the way through; it’s like reading the Book of Job- but for 600 pages. I was invited to a missionary pot-luck one day and we had a small-bags-filled-with-water-balloon fight with the kids, which was fun. I’ve been trying new recipes, like delicious home-made granola, crêpes Suzette and couscous stuffed tomatoes. My friend was braiding my hair as I was wrote this, to look good for back-to-school. (She’s in her fourth month of pregnancy! I can’t wait to see the baby.) I’m looking forward to upcoming Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations in Benin, and after that… to my trip to the US!!! My awesome and loving Dad decided to fly me over for a little vacation in the end of January (22nd) / beginning of February (14th), so mark your calendars! I’ll be in upstate and DC so if you’ll be there too get in touch with me and I’d love to see you!

Well, that’s all for my so-called life at this moment. Check out my pictures (http://picasaweb.google.com/diane.albrecht/Niger#)!

All my love,

Diane

Christmas 2009

December 30, 2009

Merry Christmas! How is everyone doing? This Christmas I stayed in Bembèrèkè, my home-away-from-home. It was perfect! On Christmas Eve I went to a concert at the hospital where all these different choral groups performed in different local languages. My favorite part was this old man playing a small traditional guitar. Then for Christmas itself I spent the day visiting people and making dinner (and cake)e to share with my friend and her family.

It’s been a while since I’ve given an update! I had two Thanksgivings this year, I think to make up for doing nothing last year. I traveled to our regional PC houses and had a traditional dinner with lots of other volunteers who I haven’t seen in a long time. It was great! I’ll be spending New Year’s in Bembèrèkè this year.

In the last few months I’ve been keeping myself busy, mostly working in the elementary schools, giving lessons to fifth graders on the environment. I’ve also continued working in the high school with English clubs and trying to get my environmental club on its feet. We recently elected the President and all that, which I hope will mean they can better mobilize their fellow students to join the club this year. In the absence of the club, in order to protect and water the trees that we planted last year I’ve enlisted the help of several Earth Science teachers. They have assigned groups of their students to look after one tree each, as part of their semester’s grade, and because of this the trees are doing great! I was really happy with their participation, maybe even enough to think that if we plant trees again this June they stand a chance of surviving even after I’m gone.

I’ve started also working with a group of girls at a boarding house that is run by the Protestants in town. Once a month on a Saturday afternoon I come and give them a “lesson” on various themes. I built mud stoves with them once and taught them yoga the second time. For the rest of the year my plans include English lessons and more environmental-themed group activities. There are about 40 of them and it’s been really fun so far!

I recently took a trip north to help a fellow PC volunteer do a village-based tour guide training formation. After that we went on safari with his environmental club, which was a blast. We didn’t actually see too many animals, but we heard both elephants and lions at night, and we got to spend one afternoon, swimming in a cool river, which was maybe the highlight of my month! After that I took a short trip up to Karimama, which is the most northerly village in Benin, resting on the Niger River. It was actually like being in Niger again! The food, architecture, people, language, crops and animals all more closely resembled Niger than Benin. I got a tour of the river, (driven there by a cow-drawn wagon), lined by rice paddies and gardens, and we took a really pretty bike ride around the countryside.

Back at home, I’ve just been reading, cooking some more new things, (rice balls, puffed rice, granola, and peanut sauce for example), and constantly thinking about my trip to the US in January. (I’ll be in NY on the 23rd!) I’ve had a cold from the change to the cool Harmattan weather and all the leaves are starting to fall off the trees. It’s like how I imagine Christmas in California would feel. What else?...My cat jut gave birth again- this time to three little ones. Other than that, I think I’ve given you all my news.

Write back, Happy Holidays, all my love, and maybe I’ll see you next month!

-Diane

For a more personal version of my Peace Corps experience, here are all the mass emails I sent out during the 27 months in Benin as well as during the application process beforehand and my trip to Portland, and then from my trip to Morocco after Benin, before coming home.

All the way back in 2007

December 8, 2007

Hello all,

Happy Holidays! I'm halfway through the Peace Corps application process. I got recommended for doing agriculture in SSAfrica, so I'm excited about that and I hope I get it. Next week is my last week at the veggie farm in upstate NY and I'm packing my car and driving to Portland, OR. I'm looking forward to the adventure and getting away from being outside all day in the 30-degree weather!

Application Phase

January 12, 2008

Hello Everyone!

I just wanted to send out a note saying I made it, after a long, arduous journey of many miles, to Portland! I want to thank everyone who I stayed with on the way. It was a great help and it was awesome seeing everyone and reconnecting.

I'm excited about being here for the next 6-9 months before, hopefully, the Peace Corps gives me an assignment in Africa. I'll be looking for a waitressing job and planning many weekend adventures in the mean time. There's so much to see in this part of the country; I'm really looking forward to living here.

Come visit!

-Diane

I Got In!

May 12, 2008

Hello!

I just wanted to take a sec and let you all know that I got my acceptance into the Peace Corps today! I'm going to Benin as agriculture volunteer, technically as a "Community Natural Resource Advisor", whatever that may end up being. Sadly, this means that I'm going to be leaving Portland June 1st to take my road trip back to NY and spend time with family and packing until I leave on July 1st.

Yikes!

Diane

First Trip to Bembereke

August 25, 2008

Hi All,

I've been here in Benin two months now but it still feels like I just got here a week ago. Maybe I'm just pacing myself mentally for the next 2 years, but I have been spending lots of time in class and home stay bubbles. Except for this last weekend when I got to go visit my future post in Bembereke.

The bus ride there wasn't bad. It took about 10 hours but the PC was able to send us on a Greyhound type charter bus instead of a little 9 or 15 seater, so it was comfortable. They tell us to take food and water in case we break down on the road but it's not really necessary because the bus stops every now and then for toilet and food breaks. Vendors come in swarms for any stopped vehicle, so it's good. I was able to entertain myself by reading, listening to the music the bus driver plays in surround sound, playing with babies and just watching "the moving picture show" that is Benin right outside my window.

Bembereke is more than half way North in the country but it is still really green, at least during the rainy season. It's on a gentle hill and it's neighborhoods stretch out from the highway that leads from the coast to Niger. There is electricity, piped water and a market every Thursday. The population is split Muslim and Christian with Voudoun mixed in between the 25,000 odd inhabitants.

I'm excited about the many pros of my post. It's large enough that people speak French and I could easily spend all of my time with environmental education in the schools and doing teaches with different women's or farmer's groups if I can't find anything else to do. PC sets us up with a work partner/supervisor who I traveled with up here and showed me around town, greeting all the officials, ordering furniture from the carpenter for my house, etc. I really like her. The NGO that is sponsoring me focuses mainly on reforestation.

My house is a little 3-bedroom apartment in a row of others in a gated concession. The only disappointment is the lack of a yard for gardening or composting because it's all concrete, but maybe somebody will let me use their field.

I got a cell phone finally. My number is XX.XX.XX.XX. To call from the US put in 011 + Country code 229 + the number. I've been told by other volunteers that it may take 50 rings before I actually pick up. I'm not sure how often I'll be using the Internet from now on but I've enjoyed all the letters I've received. Send more! Check my blog for updates, my current address and a link to my picasa pics.

Other than that, write me with any questions because I’m sure some of the stuff I say may be a little cryptic and I’m not sure what you’re interested in hearing about. I'm happy, healthy, and looking forward to the swearing in celebrations and then moving to post.

Love and hugs,

Diane

New At Post

September 29, 2008

Hello All!

I'm doing well here in Benin. I think it's been about three weeks at post and I was able to steal myself away to the big city for the day to go to the bank and cyber. I really like post. I've made some friends, spend an inordinately long, but happy, amount of time doing housework, take long walks around town, read, and enjoy. I've written some real letters but I'm waiting to get some mail with US stamps in them to send them, though Dad, I did send you one letter a few days ago in the Beninese post. I want to write to more people but didn't bring their addresses with me, so if you think you're in that category and would like to receive a letter please send me your address. My address is on the blog. I've had a lot of alone time in which I've been thinking about you'll back in the States, sending warm thoughts.

I think that's all for now.

Love,

DIane

Halloween

October 31, 2008

Hello All,

I hope everyone is well. I made it down to Parakou for a Halloween party and a volunteer meeting the next day. Things are going really well here at post. The French is coming along, bit by bit.

More excitingly, I got a new little kitten! It has already fattened up in the short time I've had it and loves to play, or just run wild around the house. To eliminate the chances of it becoming diseased or someone's dinner I'm keeping it an indoor cat. Moussu is the local word for cat so I call it either that or Minu, and it will actually come.

Bembèrèkè keeps on changing, going through different phases. When I first got here it was in Ramadan mode, now it's in the back to school season. Before it was the rainy season, now it's the short warm period that ushers in the cool dry Harmatan winds. Harvest time has started, marked by huge tractor trailers rolling through town, kicking us dust from the red dirt road, overloaded with corn, and soon with cotton. I'm thankful for these seasons for breaking up the two year's I have here and I have to remind myself, lest I forget, of how they are passing in the US.

The other night I went to the hospital to visit my friend's friend in the maternity ward. It was very different from what you would find in the US: common rooms, food supplied by relatives, very little protection from germs or babynappers, beds and mats spilling out into the hallways, etc. I saw some cute premature triplets, covered in woolen bonnets and blankets in the heat and humidity. I was also given a lesson by the expectant mother on how God makes womankind suffer through childbirth, with details that would shock the general public (or maybe just me).

My PC supervisor recently paid me a visit. It was a nice reminder that I'm not just floating adrift here, but anchored to an organization that is in effect the US government. I was reminded of this by the big air conditioned SUV that drove us visiting around town, by the fancy new motto helmet I got that finally made it off the boat in Cotonou, by the fabulous chocolates he gave me as a parting gift, and most of all by the Pepsi, in a can, chilled, that he bought for me. Normally one drinks Coke in a bottle, which is made here and tastes like it, but Pepsi in a can is imported and tastes just like it does in the good old US of A. It was a fine day.

I have a lot of free reading time now and the PC library is vast, so I'm in luck. I also spend a lot of time learning to cook the local fare, usually with the help of a Beninese friend. In turn, I've been teaching them how to make banana bread and cookies and pancakes. So much food is so different here it's hard to describe and it's made with ingredients that I doubt I could find in the US. People here are always surprised when I tell them that this or that doesn't exist in the US, or that the yam or eggplant of Africa is so different from those in the US that they have no business bearing the same name. Also, I found some speakers for my CD player in the old volunteer pile so I have the added entertainment of competing with my neighbors for who can contribute the most to local noise pollution levels. (Just kidding, almost.)

I made the acquaintance of a missionary couple here. They treated me to a night of American style food and English conversation. They've been here 18 years now so they had a lot to tell me about the town and the culture in general. It will be nice getting to know them over the 2 years.

Mmm, besides that I've been having outfits made in the local fabric, (and then replacing the zippers when they break), hanging out with my neighbors, going on runs and walks, awaiting the US elections, reading Le Petit Price in French, and generally keeping myself entertained and out of trouble.

All my Best, all my Love,

Diane

P.S. I'm sending bunches of letters today through PC Express. Hopefully they will be there after 3 weeks.

Bembereke Happiness

December 12, 2008

Hey All,

I've only been at post for a few months now but I've embraced it as my new home and can't imagine being anywhere else. I get the occasional cravings for random US indulgent food but I've also acquired a new taste for powdered milk and instant coffee, the cheesy tasting fresh milk and the African version of mashed potatoes.

I've made more friends and consequently the amount of traffic in and out of my front door has increased. People like to call on each other a lot here and I enjoy the company.

It's the dry season now with cold nights and hot days, though I'm told in Jan. the days will be cold too. I'm going to Porto Novo for 2 weeks in December (I'm there now) for more training and then I have to figure out what volunteer is hosting Christmas this year and how to get there. (Though now I'm thinking of doing this orphanage tour over Christmas and the days preceding, giving out gifts to kids as part of a PC organized project.) I just celebrated Thanksgiving at home with a few phone calls from the US and by making rice and beans with fish with my friend.

That night we went to her Grandma's house and found out her uncle had died in a motto accident. The African way of grieving is much different from ours. The whole courtyard was full of family members crying and moaning, rocking back and forth and pacing about. It was quite affecting seeing people expressing their grief so openly and bodily, and a little haunting too as I sat in the dark, with my eyes closed, just listening. Eventually the elders calmed the younger ones down by stern talkings-to, but still the mourning would continue all throughout the night.

My work partner returned to Bembereke and so my days are starting to be shaped around actual work now. I'm going to start environmental clubs at three area high schools, advise a women's gardening group and possibly do something about recycling with another women's group. I'm excited about all the possibilities. At one of the high schools I went from class to class with the vice principle and my work partner, introducing myself and the idea of the club. It was very encouraging to see them take an interest in it, and even when the younger classes were laughing at my French they were doing so in a friendly way.

A new cyber café opened in my town but so far I've avoided it. I'm not ready yet to open up Pandora's box of unlimited Internet access just yet because I'm afraid I would spend too much time there and start to miss home too much.

But, other than that I've been keeping myself busy learning how to navigate the rocky streets by moonlight, keeping the red caked-on dust off my feet, watching my cat play atop my mosquito net like it was a trapeze, seeing how long I can let my hair grow out, talking first year German with my neighbor girls, learning how to peel the top layer of skin off an orange with a razor so you can squeeze and drink the juice out of it, making my own peanut butter, and keeping the ashes from nearby brush fires swept out of my courtyard. I'm really happy here!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

Diane

Porto Novo Training

December 11, 2008

Hello,

I left all my hand written materials that I was going to type in email and blog when I got to Cotonou on accident in Porto Novo so I'm just going to write a quick email while I get a chance now. I'm in PN for the training session for 2 weeks and its been going really well.

Seeing everybody again is really great. I think the village people have more interesting stories then me since my town is more modern. It's harder for me at least to see the cultural aspects that are so different from life in America the way the villagers get to see them every day. I don't know- things like voodoo or old men constantly asking you to be their 3rd wife, or learning how to cook with only onions and spicy peppers for sale in the market- all these things I don't have. But at any rate I'm sure my experiences are really different, especially compared to life in the US, it's just I'm so used to them I can't see.

Anyway, I'm in Cotonu to see the doctors, or I was because I already saw him. There was a problem with my foot- it was swelling and I couldn't bend it upwards and it makes me walk a little limpy, but since last night the swellings been going down on its own and im walking more normal and the doctor could bend it so nothings broken or anything so he thinks it will just get better on its own. I don't know what I did to it, but... Since I'm in Porto Novo anyway, which is just 20 mins away, we're just going to leave it and if it gets worse I can come back and see him. It's kind of silly because it's like as soon as I came here it got better on its own so it's like I wasted a trip, but he said it was good I came anyway.

We're staying in this agricultural production training site in PN where we actually had some classes during the first three months, but now seeing it as a guest of the hotel is a totally different experience. We have AC rooms and conference rooms, hot water showers, CNN, comfy mattresses. We get feed great with Porto Novo bread, (which I've decided is the best bread in Benin, every locality having their own kind) with real butter and mango jam, salads and desserts like crepes and yogurt, and soy milk! and so many great things. PC is totally spoiling us for these trainings. All our work partners are down here for one week and we've been doing project design exercises which have been more like sessions on how to get along and produce work through a cross-cultural setting. It mainly results in headaches and frustration for most involved but we're learning a lot and reconcile over a beer afterwards, haha.

I'm getting to see more and more how PC functions. I think it is hard having both an American way of doing things and a Beninese way in the same organization. Things are done in contradictions some times; there is never a clear line of communication. All the information given to us seems two sided, like it was meant to pacify any kind of person or situation. PC seems more and more just what you yourself make out of it- just like life in general I suppose. Self directed learning.

Watching the news every night now without having been connected for months it rather frightening. It's like seeing all these problems discussed from their middle instead of their beginnings, so I only half know what's happening. It's like the world is falling apart or something, and the way the media is anyway they make it seem flashier and scarier than it really is. Jeez. We get old economists and stuff at the workstation in Parakou but by the time I get them I don't feel like reading about 2 months ago. Except for Obama stuff. Every time I see him now on TV or something I can't believe that he is our President, like the possibility seems to good, or to strange to be true.

Well, the shuttle's leaving soon, I think. Love you all,

Diane

Working/ Social

March 23, 2009

Dear All,

Hello! I hope everyone is in good health and spirits. It’s been about 3 months since I last emailed, and I’ve found my life has subtly shifted, (as it always does), in that time. I’ll try to fill you in on the details:

I left Cotonou in mid-January after Christmas and New Year’s and doctor’s activities were finished (a full recovery for those following). I got a free ride up North in the Peace Corps monthly shuttle, which ended up being a net tour of the country as I passed through the NW, center and far N on my way to post. When I left it was just the beginning of dry season but by the time I got back it was in full force, giving the land a burnt, desolated aspect. It seemed a little forlorn at first but now I find beauty in the austerity all the same.

I got a beautiful reception by my town upon returning. Everyone was excited to see me after having been gone for so long, to the point of hugs and laughs and multiple dinner invitations. I didn’t realize I knew so many people until it took me 2 days to go around greeting everybody! It felt good speaking the little local language I know again, as the language is such a part of the identity of the people and place, and thus ingrained in my sense of belonging here.

In the last three months I’ve had the chance to visit some of the other volunteers at their posts, to help them with their projects and giving myself a chance to see more rural and northern posts than my own. Benin definitely holds a lot of diversity in its little boarders.

I also accompanied a work partner with my ONG on a two-day, back-road motorcycle tour of different locals within our national forest. There are several classified forests within Benin and it is with these that my ONG does all its work. Most of it entails assisting the local populations of the villages that are located inside the forest in how to have diverse economic activities instead of clear-cutting the forest to grow cotton or corn. It’s a difficult relationship people have with conservation and the need to live here, and the NGO tries to get them to respect the forest and at the same time make money, through activities like market gardening and beekeeping.

Anyway, it was really beautiful and relaxing driving around the heart of the forest. The trees reached heights and densities I don’t often see here and our route was perfumed with the pungent smell of the fruit of the cashew trees and dotted with bits of fallen cotton stuck to the thorn bushes.

My work has gotten rolling a little in this time. One of my environmental clubs at the high school has had a handful of meetings and two more clubs are forming slowly at other schools. One activity we’ve done so far was to go on a hike of the classified forest with my NGO work partner and 2 foresters. About 75 kids showed up and they asked really interesting questions. I think they learned a lot about the forest and its protection, considering before many didn’t even realize this protected resource was right in their backyards.

I’ve also started working with one women’s gardening group, with 2 other groups in the works, one of which sweeps the market and neighborhoods and the other that produces food products from yams. My French tutor invited my to their weekly teacher’s planning meetings for English so I help them correct the grammar on their tests and give feedback on methodology by observing them teach. I’ve been a guest speaker too to test the kids’ listening comprehension and to tell them a little bit about America and the benefits of learning English. (Now, if only during the Q&A time they were more interested in learning about our cultural differences rather than if I have a husband and what my phone number is, but hey, kids will be kids.)

Socially, the elections in the US were big news, and now everyone’s favorite small talk item with me is Barack Obama. They are hopeful too about the changes he will make and what it represents for someone whose father is African to be in the White House. Also, now is the time of year where all the voodoo activities which are usually hidden come out in the open and are celebrated. We had a 3 day ceremony for the voodoo apprentices’ graduation, with lots of singing and dancing. In exchange for letting me take pictures they made me dance a little too! Voodoo here is basically calling upon spirits to cure people or bless them (and it’s a good excuse to party!).

Another weekend we had a diocese-wide pilgrimage hosted by my town. There were 3 days of prayers and talks, sketches and music, all culminating in a 3 hour mass on Sunday. The President, Yayi Boni, even made a special appearance, saying a prayer and sitting just 5 feet away from me! (He is on a tour of the North announcing a future extension of the train lines all the way to the boarder of Niger.)

In other news, the Belgians have invaded Bembereke! About 75 troops arrived at our military training center in February and are staying until April. They are assisting the Beninese in building training courses and a helicopter pad and a primary school, just for good measure. It’s kind of weird seeing all these white people roaming around town, in their short shorts and especially at the bars with their “dates”, some who are still high school age, but I’ve made friends with three of them and it’s been fun showing them around the market and having them taste the local food and spirits. Supposedly, in April, 400 American troops are coming, which will be craziness.

Also, I’ve spent some time visiting one of the town’s water pumps, observing “pump politics” and just watching the rhythm of the girls jumping up and down on the foot pump. It’s under a tree and a good place to sit and write, though if I stay long enough I attract such a crowd of little kids watching me that they get distracting and I either have to play with them or leave. Another activity I’ve been doing is sitting with the women who break rocks into pebbles to sell as a construction material. They dig large pieces of stone up from the nearby mountain and transport them on their heads to sites along the highway where they work in groups to break them up. I’ve spent some time doing this, and while the rocks are relatively “soft” and fractious, it’s still hard and repetitive for them to be doing day in and day out.

In household news, I’ve accepted that dust is just part of life here and I’ve found help in doing my weekly laundry, so that frees me up a bit. My cat has become mostly an outdoor cat, making it happier and fatter, as I realized that my concerns for it staying out were probably just thin veils for my possessiveness of it. Some yellow song birds have started nesting in my coconut tree and it seems to be the season for baby goats and pigs, because the little things are everywhere. I’ve also been keeping busy going on morning jogs, doing sewing projects, making drinks with hibiscus, lemongrass, chicory and ginger, and reading War and Peace. We had our first rain storm last week, breaking the dry season. Now it will rain for a few weeks, go dry again for a month and then the rainy season will start. It was amazing seeing rain clouds again and it brought the temperatures down quite a bit. But the best part was watching this group of kids running around, naked in the rain, celebrating the occasion, so full of simple joy.

I hope this email gave you a good glimpse into my life for the last three months. Write me back and let me know how you’re doing!

All my best,

Diane

P.S. I think my cat is pregnant.

Arbor Day 2009

July 6, 2009

Dear All,

Greetings from Benin! I hope this letter finds you well. It’s been a while since I last wrote- March I think, right before I went to Mali and Burkina Faso. A lot has happened since then! I passed the year mark of my arrival here on the 4th of July. It feels short and long at the same time as I reflect on what I’m meant to be doing here. (15 more months to go!) I spent my 24th birthday well at post, baking myself a cake, talking to some people from home and having dinner with friends. Time flies, no?

To start where I left off: the vacation was fun. Visiting a neighboring country during your Peace Corps service is done so frequently that it’s like some sort of right of passage. Based on the travel conditions in Mali and Burkina I’d say it was a painful one at that. It’s hot, it’s dry- read all about it on my blog.

After I came back and until June 5th I was busy planning an Earth Day event (la Journée International de l’Environnement) with my school environmental club. It went splendidly, even if in getting there I had some near nervous-breakdown moments as I learned how things get done here (so many details fixed just at the last minute). The students dreamed big and transformed my idea of planting trees at the school into a whole day-long extravaganza.

I was really proud of their dedication as they ran around town with me, making and changing plans with the myriad bureaucrats and townspeople involved in organizing and executing the event. We had 75 T-shirts made, ordered a band and catered lunch for 100, gave 2 radio interviews, invited the mayor, wrote slogans and made posters for the parade and negotiated with the foresters to give us 75 tree saplings. At the school we labored ahead of time to dig the holes for where the trees would go and build fences to protect them from the healthy free-range goat population in town. We also did a lot of fundraising, including a drive at the high school where all the students pitched in their dimes and quarters to help us, which was really heartening. The total cost of the day was surprisingly high, at $400, but thankfully we were also able to get money from the PC, the mayor’s office and my local partner NGO.

On the 5th we gathered early in the morning to the sound of drums beating at the high school to start our parade. We marched to the Town Hall, about 200 strong, where the mayor gave us a benediction. On returning to the school we planted the 75 trees along the edge of the grounds, with the design of creating a “living fence”. After that the local foresters gave us a formation on natural resource management and the value of trees, in which kids were given tree saplings to take home if they showed good participation. We then braked for lunch (because in Africa if you want people to participate in your activity you have to feed them) and then took the afternoon “repose” until 3.

In the afternoon a nurse came and gave us a family planning/ HIV/AIDS session, (because keeping people healthy is part of keeping the environment healthy), followed by me leading a game with the 3 other PC volunteers who came to help me and the students which involved playing “hot potato” with condoms blown up like balloons. We then wrapped up the day with a soccer match.

This was my first big project and I couldn’t have been happier with how it went. The club should be really motivated now for next year, when I hope to install several new projects. For the rest of the summer I’ll be focusing on the women’s gardening group and having a weekly English club for those students stuck bored in town during vacation. There are also various PC events over the summer, like training the new arrivals in Porto Novo for 2 weeks. Also, I worked on one girl’s camp and am now at another summer camp. The one I’m doing now is just a day camp for high schoolers in Kandi to get extra English lessons and follow either health or environmental sessions, which is where I come in.

The other camp was a week-long girl’s sleep-over camp in Parakou. All the volunteers in the region chose a few girls to bring and the camp’s activities focused on girls’ empowerment. I think they learned a lot and that the lesions were particularly necessary and useful. Just for the girls to have had a chance to travel, meet new friends and escape their daily chores was a blessing but they also gained practical knowledge and life skills that will help them protect themselves from all the snares that stand in the way of success here. I was very encouraged by the way they grew throughout the week and by the promise they hold for the future.

In other news, no, I wasn’t just imagining it, my cat really was pregnant. She gave birth about 5 weeks ago to a single kitten. I got to witness the event, which I found both slightly horrifying yet miraculous. The kitten more closely resembled an alien hamster during its first two weeks of life but now it has beautiful blue/grey eyes and is learning to walk and play. I plan on giving it eventually to my Beninese Grandma.

I finished reading War and Peace, which I would highly recommend to all sensitive souls with lots of time on their hands. At my church they read The Gospel in different local languages and lately I’ve been involved in presenting it in English (as there is a small Nigerian attendance). My first time was actually at Pentecost, on my birthday, to a packed church of 500+! I’m really enjoying it so far, as I’m more involved now in the church community. I’ve seen two sets of foreign military characters here at our camp in the last few months. At first it was the boozing, womanizing Belgians followed by the gun-toting Americans, (most of who just got back from Afghanistan or Iraq and were too on edge to leave the camp to do either of the first two things.) The Belgians were here for a few months so I got to make friends with a few of them but the Americans were only here a few weeks so I only got a chance to chat with a few of them. Their Tennessee mountain accents transported me back to America though, as well as the Pop Tarts they gave me! I also met a few Swiss girls, who have since left, but they worked at the hospital and introduced me to another American there who will be here for another 8 months, so that should be fun.

What else?...the weather: We’ve entered the rainy season but it’s just been pouring once a week so far, with each successive day in between getting hotter and hotter. With that people have started planting next year’s crops. Waiting for the rains to break we ran out of basic produce, like tomatoes and okra, but now they’re back, along with oranges from the South. The mangos are sadly finished. I was getting a little tired of the food here so I started experimenting more at home, making okra curries, kettle corn and home-made yogurt. Next, I want to learn to make the local cheese. (Another good thing about cooking at home is there is less of a chance of getting amebas, which I am currently on medication for.)

I’m still taking French lessons, going on jogs and exploring the local countryside, avoiding the local cyber café (because romanticism dies hard) and going to water the trees at the high school with some students. I’d love to hear your news, whether in a one-line email or a 5-page letter. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

All my Best,

Diane

Trip to Niger

October 5,, 2009

Hello All,

Greetings from sunny Benin! It’s been a while since I gave an update- lots has happened! I late August/ early November I returned to our old training site, Porto Novo, but this time not as a wide-eyed newbie but a sage volunteer trainer (or something like that). The new batch of environmental volunteers is really great- experienced and motivated, so it was fun working with them. I really enjoyed being back in the place where I took my first Beninese steps. The city made such an impression on me before so it was nice to revisit the sites and memories. I also hadn’t realized how habituated I am to things here and how much I’ve learned this last year until I heard the trainees’ comments and perspectives on life here.

In late September a Peace Corps friend and I went on vacation to Niger! It was really enjoyable. The people are so friendly and open there, even more than in Benin, which made the whole experience multitudes better. Compared to Mali, Niger hasn’t really seen that much tourism, which worked to our benefit really. (You have already heard my opinion about how tourism changes a place and its people.) What Niger does have a lot of is PC volunteers, which worked doubly to our advantage. People were very aware of the positive presence of PC in their country so we were welcomed everywhere as friends.

PC Niger volunteers are always saying how hard they have it in the desert and tiny villages and how spoiled PC Benin is- with our forests, fresh produce and towns, and after having visited I can scoff no more- I have to agree with them. Niger is “au village”. They are so much poorer than Benin is. Famine still exists there, all the HDI indicators are among the lowest in the world, and number of people actually fluent in French is low.

Despite all that the richness of the culture stood out and the wonderful landscapes and wildlife made the trip worth it. Maybe what I write about my trip will inspire you to go visit! Getting there, we took a bus all the way to Niamey in one day, stopping at customs along the lush Niger River boarder. In Niamey we stayed at the PC volunteers’ hostile for five nights or so and explored the city and surrounding villages.

Niamey is a really nice city- much calmer than Cotonou. They have French and American Cultural Centers, Artisan Centers, a museum with a zoo, good restaurants and stores, a huge dry goods market and a vibrant food market. Our first morning we went to this delightful place that comes closest to resembling a Panera, with a bakery, coffee counter and soups, salads and sandwiches. (I got a chocolate croissant and espresso!) It was interesting seeing how the food is different in Niger versus Benin. It’s hard to describe but the sauces are different because the produce found there is different. For example, they have lots of potatoes, the leaves of the moringa tree and huge squashes. The staple is millet whereas ours is corn, so their starches are different too. They are swimming in dates and drink lots of strong green tea. People invited us to drink tea with them often- something they do all throughout the day. The method of preparing it is very pretty to watch, them frothing the tea up by poring it back and forth between two glasses.

One of the day trips we took was to visit a busy market town which sees vendors coming from all different neighboring countries and hosts a large animal market. While we didn’t experience the same excitement of a live auction market like one finds often in the Middle East, we were happy enough just hanging around the camels.

The next day-trip we took was to see the last herd of wild giraffes in West Africa. It was a really cool experience because we got a guide to walk us into the bush a few K until we spotted the herd, their heads sticking out from the foliage, calmly gazing at us as we slowly approached. The herd was about 20 strong and we spent an hour just sitting or following them around, observing. It’s so amazing that these creatures even exist!

That afternoon we traveled to a different town that bordered the Niger River. We spent the dusk hours cruising the river by wooden canoe in search of hippos. The river was wide and lush because we came at the end of the rainy season. Unfortunately, that made the hippos’ feeding ground larger, so they were harder to spot. It was relaxing, just being on the river though, seeing the kids bathing, the women washing clothes, passing villages and gardens with scarecrows to deter the hippos, and watching the birds and our guide navigating the river, in the Venetian fashion.

We slept overnight at a hotel situated on a bird-viewing island and the next morning sampled the local mode of transportation to get back to the highway to catch a bush taxi: donkey. My saddle kept on slipping down so I rode most of the way with just an extra pair of pants separating me from the donkey’s backbone, but it was still worth it just for the experience.

The next day we took a trip to a local agricultural research center. It was an international organization that gets tons of UN funding to find out how to produce crops efficiently for this climate and soil type. Then they share their research with farmers, all the way in Benin even. It seemed to be affecting positive change and was very encouraging and beneficial to see. That afternoon we hit the American Cultural Center to watch an old favorite, The Apartment, which was in French with French subtitles, which I found strange, considering the name of the place we were watching it in.

The next morning we woke up before the break of day and boarded our bus for our 14 hour voyage to Agadez. Agadez is on the frontier of the desert and is even farther up north than the famed Timbuktu. The people there, the Taureg, are of Berber origin and look more Arab than SSAfrican. They are mostly nomadic herders but others have settled into Agadez and further south too. On the ride up it was interesting seeing all these watering holes formed from the rains and the grassy plains dotted with herd of goats or packs of camels. Eventually the paved road stopped and our view became muddled as we were surrounded in a cloud of dust.

Agadez has a feel to it like a frontier town in the Wild West, if you can imagine. The people were really nice and our hotel was conveniently situated in Old Town so we could easily walk to the main mosque, market and Sultan’s Palace. We were there for the end of Ramadan so we got to see how they celebrated too. The Friday before the breaking of the 30-day fast a huge crowd gathered at the historic mud-constructed mosque for the afternoon prayer. There were so many people, both inside and out, lining the streets and filling the storefronts. The feeling of community that Islam creates was really apparent.

Saturday night was the breaking of the fast but the real celebrating didn’t get started until Sunday. We went to the Sultan’s Palace in the morning and night to see the crowds gathered around the drummers and flute players, dancing occasionally. It was mostly little kids there, who swarmed us foreigners until they were dispersed by a tight-lipped old man with a horse whip. People said in the old days the celebration was bigger, with the Sultan riding in on his horse, horse races, and young men and women gathered in their finery at the square to publicly meet their affianced for the first time. (I’ve noticed that in Benin they say the cultural activities and celebrations were manifested with more pizzazz in the past as well, which is disappointing.)

The next day we rode off on camelback to a neighboring Taureg settlement about 7 K away. Our guide dressed us up in robes and turbans, partly for the effect and partly to shield us from the sun (and curious eyes). It was really relaxing riding the camel, my feet resting on the crook of its long neck for balance. What an experience! When we got to the camp they gave us tea and cheese, which is formed into a hard thin square and tastes more like Western cheese than what we have in Benin. We were also served camel’s milk, which wasn’t good really; it tasted like sour ricotta cheese. (But, in Zinder we would eat camel steak, which is delicious and tender, like rabbit.)

The families were really hospitable and happy to have us as guests. The girls braided my hair in Taureg fashion and gave me an outfit to wear, because we had a party to go to! Someone had passed away, plus they were still celebrating the end of Ramadan, so people poured in from surrounding camps and we ate, had a camel race and all crowded into a tent to have a dance party. (Embarrassing video of me being chosen to dance in the circle is forthcoming.) It was such a nice day!

Our next destination was Zinder, the old capital of Niger. We spent a few days there and the most interesting part was the Old Town. Old Town was quite vast but we wandered around a lot of it, in part chasing kids around who were incessantly asking us for presents. We got to see some well preserved Hausa houses, (the region’s ethnic group), featuring mud walls, flat roofs, and colorful mosaics decorating the outside walls. There were all these large boulders around town too and they would build around them to integrate it into one side of their houses.

The last town we visited was Dogondoutchi, on the tourist map because of its large red-rock outcroppings. We toured the market there before climbing up one of the escarpments and found a man who made rubber stamps, and for 10 cents he would stamp your arm with a pretty motor oil pattern. He even had a Barack Obama stamp!

Well, (a word I still throw into my French conversations), that concludes my trip to Niger. Thanks to Jocylin for planning and facilitating such an enjoyable excursion!

It’s great being back in Bembèrèkè. I saw some tourists in our market my first Thursday back; I was so surprised! I could tell they were tourists and not people who worked in another part of Benin before talking to them because they looked so fresh. Being here a year I think has made me look a bit haggard, lol.

The school year is starting up and garden season is beginning as the hard rains cease, so my work calendar is about to fill up. The trees we planted for Arbor Day are growing well but the environmental club at the high school will have to repair the fences protecting them because the summer school kids took their angst out on them. Destruction seems to be a past-time here.

I’ll be continuing the environmental club at the high school as well as starting a girls’ and English club. (I just found out that the results of last year’s voluntary HIV/AIDS testing at the high school yielded, not accounting for false positives, a 3% infection rate, so that motivates me to work with the girls about sexual health.) I’m also giving environmental lessons to the 5th graders once a month at 7 of the local elementary schools. Also, once the rains stop, I’m going to work with the women building mud stoves. In August I planted about 100 moringa trees at the missionary’s school to do a project introducing the tree’s leaves as a nutritional supplement to a group at the hospital of HIV/AIDS infected persons. I then promptly left on vacation and prayed that the rainy season ended strong so they wouldn’t die. I came back to find they had germinated much better than I thought they would, leaving me with about 150 plants (as I had double seeded them). I’m excited about all my clubs and projects and hope that they work out well. It feels so much easier this year since I know my community, have found work partners and learned French, all of which not having made it hard the first year. Honestly, everyone says the 2nd year goes by really quickly, which I am and am not looking forward to.

Extras: My kitten grew up. I gave her away, to my Beninese Grandma, but in the time before that it was really informative seeing her develop and grow. My cat was an exemplary mother, almost every night catching small prey and depositing them, live, (including a bat one night), in my bedroom where I was sleeping with the kitten. I picked up a how-to yoga book a few months ago and have been working on that (inner serenity) from time to time. I’m also reading the Koran, in English, which isn’t really the Koran, but what can you do. In the US I had wanted the time to read it but I’m not sure I’ll make it all the way through; it’s like reading the Book of Job- but for 600 pages. I was invited to a missionary pot-luck one day and we had a small-bags-filled-with-water-balloon fight with the kids, which was fun. I’ve been trying new recipes, like delicious home-made granola, crêpes Suzette and couscous stuffed tomatoes. My friend was braiding my hair as I was wrote this, to look good for back-to-school. (She’s in her fourth month of pregnancy! I can’t wait to see the baby.) I’m looking forward to upcoming Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations in Benin, and after that… to my trip to the US!!! My awesome and loving Dad decided to fly me over for a little vacation in the end of January (22nd) / beginning of February (14th), so mark your calendars! I’ll be in upstate and DC so if you’ll be there too get in touch with me and I’d love to see you!

Well, that’s all for my so-called life at this moment. Check out my pictures (http://picasaweb.google.com/diane.albrecht/Niger#)!

All my love,

Diane

Christmas 2009

December 30, 2009

Merry Christmas! How is everyone doing? This Christmas I stayed in Bembèrèkè, my home-away-from-home. It was perfect! On Christmas Eve I went to a concert at the hospital where all these different choral groups performed in different local languages. My favorite part was this old man playing a small traditional guitar. Then for Christmas itself I spent the day visiting people and making dinner (and cake)e to share with my friend and her family.

It’s been a while since I’ve given an update! I had two Thanksgivings this year, I think to make up for doing nothing last year. I traveled to our regional PC houses and had a traditional dinner with lots of other volunteers who I haven’t seen in a long time. It was great! I’ll be spending New Year’s in Bembèrèkè this year.

In the last few months I’ve been keeping myself busy, mostly working in the elementary schools, giving lessons to fifth graders on the environment. I’ve also continued working in the high school with English clubs and trying to get my environmental club on its feet. We recently elected the President and all that, which I hope will mean they can better mobilize their fellow students to join the club this year. In the absence of the club, in order to protect and water the trees that we planted last year I’ve enlisted the help of several Earth Science teachers. They have assigned groups of their students to look after one tree each, as part of their semester’s grade, and because of this the trees are doing great! I was really happy with their participation, maybe even enough to think that if we plant trees again this June they stand a chance of surviving even after I’m gone.

I’ve started also working with a group of girls at a boarding house that is run by the Protestants in town. Once a month on a Saturday afternoon I come and give them a “lesson” on various themes. I built mud stoves with them once and taught them yoga the second time. For the rest of the year my plans include English lessons and more environmental-themed group activities. There are about 40 of them and it’s been really fun so far!

I recently took a trip north to help a fellow PC volunteer do a village-based tour guide training formation. After that we went on safari with his environmental club, which was a blast. We didn’t actually see too many animals, but we heard both elephants and lions at night, and we got to spend one afternoon, swimming in a cool river, which was maybe the highlight of my month! After that I took a short trip up to Karimama, which is the most northerly village in Benin, resting on the Niger River. It was actually like being in Niger again! The food, architecture, people, language, crops and animals all more closely resembled Niger than Benin. I got a tour of the river, (driven there by a cow-drawn wagon), lined by rice paddies and gardens, and we took a really pretty bike ride around the countryside.

Back at home, I’ve just been reading, cooking some more new things, (rice balls, puffed rice, granola, and peanut sauce for example), and constantly thinking about my trip to the US in January. (I’ll be in NY on the 23rd!) I’ve had a cold from the change to the cool Harmattan weather and all the leaves are starting to fall off the trees. It’s like how I imagine Christmas in California would feel. What else?...My cat jut gave birth again- this time to three little ones. Other than that, I think I’ve given you all my news.

Write back, Happy Holidays, all my love, and maybe I’ll see you next month!

-Diane

Camp GLOW Appeal

April 26, 2010

Hey Everyone,

How's it going? It's been many months since I've updated- I was partly avoiding the Internet in my "African village" mentality, and it's also partly because I had this whole email written out about my vacation to the US and life back in Benin, and all I've been up to- but, it got lost in the office in Cotonou, and then got rained on and drenched, and now the words bring back memories from so long ago I have no motivation to type them up. Anyway, all this is to apologize for not writing in so long because of what I'm about to do- which is, ask you for money.

Like last year, I'm participating in this Girl's Camp in Parakou in June. The camp brings together 60-odd girls around 13 or 15 years old for one week of camp, where we talk about women's empowerment, study habits, future career planning, computers, , etc., and have lots of fun in the typical camp way. The cost is around $5,500 and we've only raised about $1,000 so far. Here's the link to the PC website where you can read further about the project and decide whether you would like to contribute. I'm bringing four girls from my town to the camp who have been selected because of their hard work in school and positive attitudes. We're really hoping to have the project funded before the next two weeks are up, because afterwards it goes through a lot of red tape and takes some time for us to actually receive the funds in Benin.

I think this camp makes a difference in the lives of the girls, so if you've been looking for a way to support me, or Africans, feel free to contribute. I'd love to hear your well wishes, your news and updates on life as well. And I will get a proper email out one of these days, in the not too distant future.

--Diane

Back from the US

May 2, 2010

Hello,

How is everybody doing? I’ve been well, readjusting to life in Bembèrèkè after my vacation to the US, and living out my last few months in Benin until I leave in August.

After Benin I want to play tourist in Morocco, so I’ll fly there and spend a few weeks touring the cities and dessert villages. Then I want to take a boat strait to Barcelona, (we’ll see if that works out), see the city for a few days, and then move on to France. For October, November and part of December I’m going to be working on organic farms through this international partnership program called WWOOF. They host you for free and you provide these organic farms with labor in exchange. I’m really looking forward to it- the chance to be on a farm again, eating delicious French food, seeing the countryside, and trying to improve my accent and vocabulary. Maybe I’ll couch-serf in Paris for a week (?) I’m really interested in meeting the West African community that lives there, (maybe eating some Beninese food again!).

That’s a little bit about what I’ve been up to these past few months, and what I have in store for the months to come. On the home front, my cat is pregnant again, so that’s exciting. Also, I cut my hair really short- took off 14 inches to give to Locks of Love. It’s so light and breezy- great for the hot season, so that’s exciting too. I’m still happy and healthy, and would love to hear your news/ updates as well

Till then,

Diane

On Morocco

October 1, 2010

Dear All,

Hi! How are you? For me, it’s been a busy month and a half since I’ve left Benin. I flew to Morocco, spent a month there and then flew to France, where I stayed with some wine growers, whom I met through a friend, in Bordeaux. My new WWOOF job working at this artist's co-operative helping them out with eco-construction starts in a few days. It’s in a little village that boarders a forest outside of Nîmes, in the south.

I’ll let you know how the WWOOFing goes in another email but I wanted to use this one to describe my trip to Morocco. It was absolutely fantastic! I found Morocco to be somewhere between Benin and Europe. The villages were certainly villages- a little poor, a little backwards, a little unchanged by time- but I found them to still have more money, more commerce, more infrastructure, (and less despondency), than your typical Beninese village. I was surprised to find how many mid-sized, semi- prosperous cities there are in Morocco. I was even more surprised by how affluent and Westernised some sectors of the biggest cities are. My first night in Morocco, for example, I was in Rabat, the capital, eating sushi at a posh shopping center frequented by youth wearing the same high heels and skinny jeans that you would find in any big European city. I couldn’t believe the different worlds that I had been connected to that day by just a short plane ride.

On the trip I spent some time traveling alone, some time staying with friendly Peace Corps volunteers, and some time in the homes of Moroccan families whom I met among the way. Traveling was really easy and comfortable there, (compared to Benin I guess I should say). I had my choice of train, bus, mini-bus or car. My favorite was the mini-bus because those were the ones that take you to the really small villages, crammed in next to old crusty farmers, with the radio blaring either upbeat, shrill Berber music or verses of the Koran sung in Arabic. The road and train networks were excellent, invested in by the King’s government, (like the rural irrigation works, the biggest port in Africa and a new project to build the biggest solar energy plant in the world- according to what someone there told me- I didn’t check the facts).

I split my time evenly between the big cities (Rabat, Marrakech, Fès, Meknès, Tetouan), the smaller cities (Larache, Khenifra, Tinèrèr, Sefrou), and the villages (Agouim, Agouti, Zaoiat, Imilchil). I discovered the diversity of Morocco’s different regions, from the hot dessertified south, to the cold and barren High Atlas mountains, to the laid-back northern sea towns. I drove on a beautiful pass through a dramatically tall gorge, past fertile green river valleys cutting through rocky mountains, on a mountainous coastal road in the north that was akin to Oregon, (where I got to look out over the Straights of Gibraltar to wave hi to Spain), past an artificial lake created by a huge dam, surrounded by dry desert landscapes with cacti and houses built like how you find them in Arizona.

I saw olive groves on gentle hills that reminded me of Mediterranean Italy and fields of apple trees in the mountains that made me remember longingly upstate New York. I also found beautiful national monuments- shrines to the old kings decorated meticulously with hand painted tiles, carved ceilings and marble floors, modern and ancient mosques and towns that held the most amazing fresh produce and meat markets that my inner Beninese villager could imagine.

The food in Morocco was wonderful- well worth the trip in and of itself. It was Ramadan when I was there, (except for my last three days), the Muslim holy month of fasting, extended prayer and alms giving. This cut out some food options but added others that were seasonal specialties. No one can eat, drink or smoke from 4am to 7pm during Ramadan and as a result people tended to sleep in, not opening their shops until noon. They then stayed up all night, eating their three daily meals at 7, midnight and 3 in the morning, (working a little bit in between on the things they were too tired to do during the day). This threw off my sleeping and eating schedule as well, but it was worth the experience. I even tried fasting for two days when I was staying with a PCV. I was rewarded by breaking fast at night with her old host family in the meal called “f’tour”.

I ended up getting a lot of invitations to Moroccan’s houses for f’tour, as part of Ramadan is to extend hospitality to foreigners and people without family, etc., (and also because there are just lots of jobless young men on the streets who would get to practice their English and alleviate their boredom by inviting an American to dinner). I got to eat some of the best home-cooked food because of this. The f’tour meal usually consisted of dates (recommended by Mohammed to be the first thing to start the meal with), milk (with bananas, apples, avocado, etc. blended in), juice, coffee or tea (they drank a lot because the thirst part of fasting is harder than the hunger), various pastries (especially this sweet fried honey one called “shbekia”), bread of all sorts (filled with meat ("kefta") or vegetables, cooked like a panini, a pancake, chapati or thick naan), boiled eggs, and the Moroccan speciality, “harrira” (a home-made soup). I also got to taste some traditional "tajines", which are slow cooked stews of meat and vegetables that you scoop up with flat bread. Also, on my last day in Morocco, I ate a feast of home-made cous cous that was all that I had been waiting for to complete the epicurean experience. Other culinary delights included all the fresh local produce, fresh squeezed orange juice, European pastries and desserts, fresh figs (have you ever had one? So amazing compared to dried), blackberries that I hand picked on various country strolls and escargot that were sold from carts during these Ramadan nightly fairs that took place in the big cities all until the wee hours of the morning.

I really enjoyed the experience of traveling alone. I was cautiously nervous about it as I was leaving Benin but the people in Morocco were so open, kind, generous and genuine that I was well taken care of and never felt alone. Staying with PCVs who worked there was also an amazing way to see, and to try to understand the country, granting me access into their communities and listening to their well thought out and hard-earned perspectives of the country. The generosity that all these people showed me taught me a lesson about who I want to be that I hope I guard for the rest of my life.

I haven't written it all down, but I've certainly written enough! If you have questions or want to hear more I'd love to talk in person when I get back to the US for Christmas. Check out my new photos (http://picasaweb.google.com/diane.albrecht/Morocco#) in the mean time.

Love love love,

-Diane

My time as a Peace Corps Benin Volunteer is quickly approaching its end mark. Peace Corps assigned me to Benin, to work in the “environmental action” sector as a “community natural resource advisor”. After three months of training in cross-culture, language, and “technical skills” I landed in Bembèrèkè, set loose to turn over every stone, dust off every potential work opportunity shelf, and find some work to do, (to either benefit my community or to keep myself occupied for two years- you take your pick.) Throw in the PeaceCorp’s goal of us being cultural ambassadors between the two countries and that sums up my mission for my two-year stint here.

And it’s gone by smashingly. But, it’s all over now; as of yesterday I am officially a “returned Peace Corps volunteer”. My paperwork is in, (I can ride around Cotonou without a helmet now!), and my flight is leaving in less than 24 hours to go to Casablanca. Yesterday we had a little ceremony to officiate our RPCV status and it kind of felt like graduation. After two years here I feel like I’m leaving my comfortable Beninese nest and setting out to discover a whole wide world. I feel adventurous and trepidacious at the same time. Going on vacation alone to Morocco, Spain and France compounds these feelings but even if I were flying straight back to the US I would have some jitters about living again in a place that may not feel so familiar and homey at first. How much has changed since I left? Apparently everyone has iPhones now to obsessively tweet on; I don’t know what else.

My last few months in Bembèrèkè were incredible. I had finished with my classes at school by the end of June so I had most of July to just finish up a tree project I had started and then just relax in town, slowly packing up and spending lots of quality time with people, and the place itself. It was hard saying goodbye- harder than I thought. On my last morning in town my best friend and Beninese Grandma came to see me off and we had a tearful goodbye. I then spent the next few weeks moping around in Porto Novo, there to train the new volunteers but having most of my mind still in Bembèrèkè, trying to shake off a feeling that was most akin to abandonment. Who knows when or if I’ll ever come back?

Before that, for Arbor Day, my high school environment club had another tree planting event where we planted 25 mango trees at the school. The principle really wanted mango trees and we bought fancy ones from the closest big city so I’m pretty confident that they’ll survive over the summer and when I am gone. (I am being replaced by another volunteer too so that should be in the trees’ favor as well.) A week before I left my friends and I had a goodbye pick-nick on the hills behind our town. We had been talking about doing this for the last year and it was such a great day, such a great last memory of us all together. I had my last weekend in Parakou and my local NGO held a party for my going-away, which was really nice. In Bembèrèkè my high school had a party for me as well and the principle made such a touching speech about my impact there at the school and in the town. It was so validating.

Looking back over my two years here I feel really proud of the work that I ended up doing, especially the elementary school environmental education classes that I taught. Writing all my own lessons, figuring out how to communicate with the students and making the lessons relevant to their lives and culture, and just getting to spend time in and out of class with them was so rewarding. Even though I downplay this a lot, looking back at the end I do feel really proud of my Peace Corps service- my decision to join, my perseverance in sticking it out for two years and of creating my own work opportunities, of the friends I made and the lives I’ve impacted. I’m looking at all that I’ve learned and all the ways in which I’ve grown and feel ready to start the next chapter of my life with confidence and grace.

I wanted to describe some of the food here in Benin so I don’t forget…

“Patte”- flour boiled in water to form a solid block. Red patte is made with tomato sauce, white patte can be made from corn or manioc flour, black patte is made from dried yams. There is also rice paddies that we say is rice patte.

Wasa Wasa- “Africa couscous.” Made from dried yams, looks like grey couscous and would traditionally be served with macaroni and tofu.

Gari- made from dried yams, looks like cream of wheat before you put the water in. You can eat it like a cold or hot porridge, or make patte from it (Called pirone. They have BBQ pork places where they make gari patte from tomato sauce and pork grease and it’s so addictive).

Soy Cheese- Tofu- made locally everywhere, especially in the North.

Cheese (“Fromage”)- made from fresh cow’s milk boiled with a certain plant. Takes the form of a solid, creamy patty.

Milk- fresh cow’s milk would be brought into town by the Peuhles every day. People also drank the milk from the day before, which turned into curds and whey (lait caillé).

Sesame- these seeds would be ground up and added to sauce, giving the same effect that cream would.

Okra (“Gumbo”) and local plant leaves (Crin Crin)- boiled and made into a sauce to dip your patte in. Very sticky- beware.

Street Meat- grilled meat from vendors on the street, almost always from Niger.

“Gateau”- fried dough- could be sweet, made from beans, with fish pieces (paté), or fried up in shea butter oil.

Yams- fried, boiled, or pounded up into a mashed potato consistency.

Porridge (“Bouille”)- hot, made from corn (could be smooth, with balls or with chunks), millet or there’s something called furrah, which you mix with milk and it makes a delicious chalky grey cold porridge.

“Waké”- Rice and beans.

Frozen Treats- homemade yogurt, sweetened hibiscus juice (bissap), or CoolAid flavored icees, all sold on market days from girls carry a jug of them on their heads.

Galettes- (“Couli Couli”)- crushed peanuts formed into a pencil-thin roll, mixed with crushed hot peppers, then fried.

Toffee- homemade, from sweetened condensed or fresh Peuhle milk.

Corn- sold fresh on the cob at the beginning of the harvest season, either boiled or grilled.

Beninese Salad- made with a tiny amount of lettuce, lots of spaghetti, potatoes, green beans, tomato, boiled egg, avocado, onions, cucumber, carrots, sardines or liver, mayonnaise and vinaigrette. Also a “sans feuilles” version without the lettuce.

Beans- cooked and sold in the street. Either black eyed peas, white beans or chick peas (“Fanzoule”, my favorite).

Omelet Sandwiches- made at Cafeterias on the street.

Spaghetti/ Macaroni- They would make it with little chunks of meat or sardines and sometimes it would be like a baked ziti kind of flavor, but a lot spicier.

Bread- There is so much bread in Benin! Porto Novo has the best- it’s like a thick baguette, crispy on the outside and doughy on the inside. In Cotonou there is this really good thick sweet rolls and bread. In the villages people would build really big ovens and make home-made bread. In my town I could buy round bread, square bread, small dense rolls and baguettes.

Un peu de tous- On the street if you hit up a really happening food vendor you would have your choice of rice, gari, couscous, macaroni, patte, beans, fish, meat, cheese, soy, and anything else you could think of to mix and match. It was great!

Shea Butter- used as an oil to fry dough in or to cook rice and beans or in certain sauces.

The Holy Trinity- tomato, onion and hot pepper automatically went into pretty much any sauce that you’d find.

My “Look Back on This One Day” notes on the Bariba Language

Good Morning- I-kun-an-do Response- Alafia

How are you? Anna wesi?, I Bwan-do?

Good Afternoon- Be ka sohn sohn Response- Ooo

Good Evening- Be ka yo-ka

Welcome- Ka we-ru

Good Job- Ka som-bou-ru

How did you sleep? Anna ak-pana?

How’s work? Anna som-bou-ru?

Good Market- Be ka ya-bur-ou

It’s been a while- Be ka sohn yi-ru

OK- Toe

Hi- Fo

Careful- Gaf-ar-a

Thank You- Na-si-a-ra

See you later- N kwa n so-si

Goodbye- N kwa weru

See you tomorrow- N kwa-sia

Thanks be to God- Sa Gu-sa-no Ci-ar-a

I’m coming- Na way

Bon voyage- I sara ba-ni

Oh no you didn’t!- Anna!

Shoot-shoot- waihy-yay

25 fcfa- da no-bu

50 fcfa- da wo-kou-rou

100 fcfa- da yen-dou

1- tia

2- yirou

3- ita

The Various Names People in my Town would Call Me (with translations)

I loved Bembèrèkè, don’t get me wrong. And people loved me too, I think. They just had this cute little habit of calling me any and everything in the world. Lots of names were given out of respect and fondness, but some others had the slightest sound of mocking in them. A Zen level of acceptance made being called some of these things every day tolerable, but other names of endearment I’ll miss when I’m back in the US. Here’s the list- you be the judge.

Diane (pronounced in French, mind you)

Baturé (the local Bariba word for white person)

Ghanagie (light skinned princess)

N-Yon (first daughter- what the old men call me)

Bonna (second daughter- what the old women who actually know me call me)

Azara Baturé/ Baaru (Azara’s white person/ friend. She’s my best friend and they knew her first, so I’m know as her friend, which becomes the name people call me in Bariba)

Yovo (the Southern word for white person- because we have migrants in Bembèrèkè)

la Blanche (the French word for white-y)

Madame (Ma’am)

Maîtresse (primary school teacher, or “master”, if you take it literally)

Houndia (young girl)

mon Père (my father, because all the priests are white- to the kids, it doesn’t matter that I’m not male, the whiteness trumps this small matter)

ma Soeur (my sister- because we have white nuns too. It’s what the more refined kids will choose to call me)

Tsiani (a Bariba version of Diane)

Dinah (the Fon nick-name for Diane)

Ode to Bembèrèkè:

Les Cailloux

Mon Père/ Ma Soeur

Le Camp

“Gros Village”

La Colline/ “la Source”

Les Bariba – the language, the old people, the pagnas and bumbas, eating meat and ingame pilé, drinking beer, sodabee and chuuck, painting lions on the outside of their houses, doing henna, wearing veils, working in the fields, celebrating big funerals, secret voodoo, random drum circles, making gari or wasa wasa, loving milk and cheese

Les Mangiers

Chuuck

Le Marché

Les Cabris

Camions stuck on the hill before the Gendarmerie

Les Mosquées

The Cotton Factory

Benin, My Benin:

Beninese Salad

Facial Scars

Fon Music and Chicken Dancing

Gesticulating

Lion and Snake Drawings on Houses

Nonsina Radio Musical Interlude

“Pain Chaud”

Girls “Déplacing” Charbon

“Et le Bénin?”

Nod to Say Yes (Children)

Mango Poles

Men Washing their Faces

Gpa 6:30 am Saluer-ing

Henna

Boys in Eyeliner

Boumbas

Pagnes out to Dry

Being in a Taxi Together (Camaraderie)

Zemming at Night (Felling”Cool”)

Goats and Chickens on the Roof of Cars

Showering 3 Times a Day

Falsetto Singing

Drinking Water from a Sachet

Wearing Young/ Outlandish Jewelry

Singing/ Chicken Chatter of Girls at Home doing their Chores or Goofing Off

Not to Miss in Benin:

Lack of Sarcasm/ Irony

Bad Service (Tantis)

Being an Outsider/ Center of Attention. Having normal tasks questioned, even people being friendly tires me out

I recently went on vacation back to the US and I thought I’d take the time here to write about what I thought and felt after having returned to my homeland for a short time, with a new African perspective. The worlds are so different, and now I find myself in a no-man’s-land between the two, wishing to pick and choose what I like from the two cultures. I think I just love the people in Benin and my quality of life here- living in community, eating foods fresh from the market, being able to spend so much time outdoors, things like that. All of which I could find in America as well, plus, in America I won’t have all the annoyances that come from being a foreigner- not speaking the local language, not having the same quality conversations with like-minded people, being gawked at by hoards of children, etc.

When I was in the US often I asked myself to look at things as a Beninese would see them, to better capture how stark the differences are between our two countries. When I drove home from JFK I kept on marveling at the high-rise government housing complexes, the multitudes of overpasses and the density of the trees by the sides of the highway. The Beninese would think the government was treating people like animals, forcing them to live on top of each other in those complexes, we just built our first overpass in Cotonou last year and it’s a cause for celebration, pride and the subject of new calendars, and I found myself wondering why all those trees were so close to peoples’ houses and they hadn’t yet cut them down for firewood. The road was so smooth too, and all the cars so new. The trip from JFK to my home town would have taken twice as long in Benin with all the potholes on the narrow highway, driving along in our Peugeot 505s from the ‘80s, in the dust and hot sun.

The most amazing invention, I decided during my vacation, is hot, running water. It makes life so much easier when the first step of cooking or cleaning is provided to you automatically with the turn of a knob, (as opposed to drawing water from a well who knows how far away and then heating it with a wood fire, for which you had to chop down the tree yourself). With all that time and energy saved, no wonder we’re a more productive society. And don’t even get me started on the wonders of refrigeration. Our diets are so much healthier and more diversified because of it; we can eat practically anything on God’s green earth, and that is amazing.

I noticed I carried with me on vacation some Beninese attitudes, acting like them, being both friendlier and ruder. I would greet and chat up random people, but I was also quicker to anger, ruder to servers and more suspicious of males. I think in general though, considering how different the circumstances and conditions are between the two places, that I adapted rather quickly. I see both sets of living as “the real world”, and I think it demonstrates that the conditions of our lives may be different from most of those in Africa, but that it’s not necessarily the external realities of person’s life that matter, but our common spirit, our humanity, that equalizes us all- we just happen to have been born on different continents.

Also, vacationing in the US made me realize just how lucky I am. When I was peering into my closet and seeing how many clothes D.C. Diane had, that luck felt more overwhelming and guilt-ridden than fortunate, but, luck all the same. Now I’m back in Benin, realizing that being outdoors all the time and living without piped-in conveniences can make a person really dusty, hot and tired, adjusting slowly back to life here.

A week after I got back to Bembèrèkè my best friend gave birth to her first child, (at 25, which is a feat here), a handsome baby boy. Apparently they didn’t think the delicate foreigner could handle an African birth, so I was called the morning after. A week after that they had the Muslim baptism, shaving his head and getting blessed by the Imam at sunrise, giving him the name Shireefulai. The rest of the day we eat, drank and were merry.

I was lucky I came back to Benin while school was on vacation. Since I didn’t have to worry about teaching I spent lots of time re-adjusting to the heat, by napping. All the locals pitied me, pointing out how I left snowstorms in D.C. to arrive at the height of our hot season.

But, by now I’m back into the swing of things. For March my lesson at the elementary schools had to do with waste management, littering and recycling. I’m trying to get them to stop using so many plastic bags, and if they have to use them, to not throw them on the ground anywhere they please. I must admit, I felt a tad hypocritical, as a citizen of probably the most wasteful country in the world, teaching them the three Rs, telling them to reduce and reuse when they already consume so little compared to us, but, at least they didn’t seem to notice it.

I find while teaching here that instead of citing our common global responsibility to the shared health of the planet as a motivating factor of behavior change, (think Copenhagen Summit), instead, it works better to say environmental protection is beneficial to the locals themselves, as it promotes better health, makes their crops more sustainable, ensures their lives will be easier, (without deforestation or desertification), and could generate more tourist revenue. But even then it’s hard to get people to provide for their future instead of their immediate needs.

For the month of April my lesson was on biodiversity, where I talked about different ecosystems and species of plants and animals. For May I’m planning on doing something on extinction. It’s been really great teaching these 5th graders, and since the teachers here had a national strike for a month the school year got pushed back an extra month, so now I have time to have an extra lesson with all the classes. For my last lesson we’re going to use the compost we created in the beginning of the year and plant trees at the schools. The rainy season will start at the same time so we don’t have to worry about maintenance, plus it gives me somewhere to plant the trees from my backyard tree nursery that I’ve been cultivating.

My environmental club at the high school is operating well. Ever since we had the elections for president, etc. the students have been more active and involved in the club. (They just needed a little power to motivate them.) We’ve been planting flowers at the school, we had our second annual trip to the national forest in the hills behind town with the forester, and for Earth Day we built mud stoves in targeted houses throughout town. For Arbor Day in June we’re planning on planting more trees, this time mango trees, continuing the natural fence that we started bordering the school last year.

That's all for now!

I recently went on vacation back to the US and I thought I’d take the time here to write about what I thought and felt after having returned to my homeland for a short time, with a new African perspective. The worlds are so different, and now I find myself in a no-man’s-land between the two, wishing to pick and choose what I like from the two cultures. I think I just love the people in Benin and my quality of life here- living in community, eating foods fresh from the market, being able to spend so much time outdoors, things like that. All of which I could find in America as well, plus, in America I won’t have all the annoyances that come from being a foreigner- not speaking the local language, not having the same quality conversations with like-minded people, being gawked at by hoards of children, etc.

When I was in the US often I asked myself to look at things as a Beninese would see them, to better capture how stark the differences are between our two countries. When I drove home from JFK I kept on marveling at the high-rise government housing complexes, the multitudes of overpasses and the density of the trees by the sides of the highway. The Beninese would think the government was treating people like animals, forcing them to live on top of each other in those complexes, we just built our first overpass in Cotonou last year and it’s a cause for celebration, pride and the subject of new calendars, and I found myself wondering why all those trees were so close to peoples’ houses and they hadn’t yet cut them down for firewood. The road was so smooth too, and all the cars so new. The trip from JFK to my home town would have taken twice as long in Benin with all the potholes on the narrow highway, driving along in our Peugeot 505s from the ‘80s, in the dust and hot sun.

The most amazing invention, I decided during my vacation, is hot, running water. It makes life so much easier when the first step of cooking or cleaning is provided to you automatically with the turn of a knob, (as opposed to drawing water from a well who knows how far away and then heating it with a wood fire, for which you had to chop down the tree yourself). With all that time and energy saved, no wonder we’re a more productive society. And don’t even get me started on the wonders of refrigeration. Our diets are so much healthier and more diversified because of it; we can eat practically anything on God’s green earth, and that is amazing.

I noticed I carried with me on vacation some Beninese attitudes, acting like them, being both friendlier and ruder. I would greet and chat up random people, but I was also quicker to anger, ruder to servers and more suspicious of males. I think in general though, considering how different the circumstances and conditions are between the two places, that I adapted rather quickly. I see both sets of living as “the real world”, and I think it demonstrates that the conditions of our lives may be different from most of those in Africa, but that it’s not necessarily the external realities of person’s life that matter, but our common spirit, our humanity, that equalizes us all- we just happen to have been born on different continents.

Also, vacationing in the US made me realize just how lucky I am. When I was peering into my closet and seeing how many clothes D.C. Diane had, that luck felt more overwhelming and guilt-ridden than fortunate, but, luck all the same. Now I’m back in Benin, realizing that being outdoors all the time and living without piped-in conveniences can make a person really dusty, hot and tired, adjusting slowly back to life here.

A week after I got back to Bembèrèkè my best friend gave birth to her first child, (at 25, which is a feat here), a handsome baby boy. (Don’t worry Mel, I was nowhere near the delivery room. Apparently they didn’t think the delicate foreigner could handle an African birth, so I was called the morning after. A week after that they had the Muslim baptism, shaving his head and getting blessed by the Imam at sunrise, giving him the name Shireefulai. The rest of the day we eat, drank and were merry.

I was lucky I came back to Benin while school was on vacation. Since I didn’t have to worry about teaching I spent lots of time re-adjusting to the heat, by napping. All the locals pitied me, pointing out how I left snowstorms in D.C. to arrive at the height of our hot season.

But, by now I’m back into the swing of things. For March my lesson at the elementary schools had to do with waste management, littering and recycling. I’m trying to get them to stop using so many plastic bags, and if they have to use them, to not throw them on the ground anywhere they please. I must admit, I felt a tad hypocritical, as a citizen of probably the most wasteful country in the world, teaching them the three Rs, telling them to reduce and reuse when they already consume so little compared to us, but, at least they didn’t seem to notice it.

I find while teaching here that instead of citing our common global responsibility to the shared health of the planet as a motivating factor of behavior change, (think Copenhagen Summit), instead, it works better to say environmental protection is beneficial to the locals themselves, as it promotes better health, makes their crops more sustainable, ensures their lives will be easier, (without deforestation or desertification), and could generate more tourist revenue. But even then it’s hard to get people to provide for their future instead of their immediate needs.

For the month of April my lesson was on biodiversity, where I talked about different ecosystems and species of plants and animals. For May I’m planning on doing something on extinction. It’s been really great teaching these 5th graders, and since the teachers here had a national strike for a month the school year got pushed back an extra month, so now I have time to have an extra lesson with all the classes. For my last lesson we’re going to use the compost we created in the beginning of the year and plant trees at the schools. The rainy season will start at the same time so we don’t have to worry about maintenance, plus it gives me somewhere to plant the trees from my backyard tree nursery that I’ve been cultivating.

My environmental club at the high school is operating well. Ever since we had the elections for president, etc. the students have been more active and involved in the club. (They just needed a little power to motivate them.) We’ve been planting flowers at the school, we had our second annual trip to the national forest in the hills behind town with the forester, and for Earth Day we built mud stoves in targeted houses throughout town. For Arbor Day in June we’re planning on planting more trees, this time mango trees, continuing the natural fence that we started bordering the school last year.

That's all for now!

I’m writing this draft from a wildlife preserve in the north of Benin, Park W. We’re at a campsite right on the boarder between three countries- Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. In lieu of taking a normal safari I signed up to help my friend in the PC, (environment sector), to hold a park guide training conference that was caped by a two day excursion into the park with 20 of his environmental club students.

The volunteer’s little village is right at the entrance to the park, and this was a great opportunity for the kids to discover the animals in their own backyard. The park guide that went with us was great too, giving lessons to the kids about conservation of the flora and fauna. Listening to his lessons gave me good pointers on how I should continue going about teaching my environmental classes. After I while I’ve noticed little patterns emerging in how people are taught here about the environment- little catch phrases that are learned and repeated, different commonly held sensibilities- a collective consciousness that I hope to tap into in order to make what I teach them relevant- to come from their own frame of reference. One thing they did in closing one night was to recite short tales, like some modern oral history that has been passed down to the kids, as they rhythmically recited memorized stories. They were funny little moral fables and hearing them made me wish that we had more of an oral tradition in the US. I’m going to try to get kids to recite stories for me at the ends of my lessons in Bembèrèkè now!

As soon as we entered the park limits the forest became noticeably denser, the roads became cleaner, and it was great being in a habitat untouched by man- to see what the natural landscape of Benin would look like if so many trees weren’t cut down for fire wood. The park rangers had done some controlled burning, leaving charred patches of earth and grasses, out of which sprouted fresh green shoots. We continued along for a few hours on the way to the campsite, passing rivers and antelope, getting caked with red dust from our vantage point on top of the truck’s roof.

One afternoon we spotted a troupe of baboons from the road and got out to follow them. They had climbed these huge baobab trees to get to the fruit, which grows in a hard green pod, in which there are seeds surrounded by a powdery white substance. People can eat it too and as we sat in a circle having a lesson we snacked on the seeds, much like our furry friends before us. All around our clearing there were baobab trees, large and small, with no two alike. One was distinctly impressive, being actually two large trees that had grown fused together. Old baobabs are some of the largest trees in Africa. The bigger and older ones are the most beautiful, with their spidery, short branches, huge thick trunks and smooth grey bark, cracked and sagging, like the folds of an elephant’s skin.

At night we camped out, trying to stay warm in the cold, windy Harmattan weather. The next morning we crossed a cold, swift, but shallow river, to find ourselves on the other side, in Burkina Faso. We later walked over to Niger as well. I’m glad these kids got a chance to explore their “backyard”- and that I got to do it with them!

The beginning part of the week was occupied by a village tour guide workshop that my friend organized. We had four guides and six PC volunteers participating. It’s really a great idea that this Italian NGO is developing with the Beninese wildlife park authority, that is, to give tours of the villages on the periphery of the wildlife parks, so that they can find a source of income from the tourists. Instead of them just going from the big city directly to the park and out again, this project is developing tourist sites in the villages as well, giving them interesting things to see and do, as well as providing food and lodging. I think this kind of tourism is very good because you get to actually experience a place and its peoples at a closer, more real level. Plus, with part of the funds that they earn from the tours they are using them to do community projects, like building latrines and water pumps.

In the village that the PC volunteer lives in himself, Alfa Kora, they have developed a tour route that shows off the chief’s house, the public square, local cotton spinners and straw hat makers, as well as touring a Peuhl village and talking about the history of the locals, the Mokale. For the guide formation it was our task to go on the tour with them and critique their presentations. I’ve been on a fair amount of bad tours here in West Africa now and there is definitely a need to train guides on how to talk to tourists- how to engage them in the local milieu and get them to understand things that are so foreign. By the end of the three days we had gotten in lots of practice and I can say without bias that I think this tour route is the best I’ve seen in Benin!

Working in the elementary schools this year has shed light on a whole new face of Bembèrèkè for me. I’ve been giving environmental themed lessons to nine classes of 5th graders, one lesson a month per class. So far I’ve spoken on three themes: 1) an introduction to the environment and the problems plaguing it, 2) decomposition (where we also constructed compost piles), and 3) soil (highlighting desertification and erosion). I’m planning my January lesson on the environmental impact of burning brush fires.

I’m really lucky that I’m an American. We are raised with an understanding of the environment and an awareness of how we should protect it. Here, I’m just applying those sensibilities to my lessons and trying to get the kids to appreciate and preserve the natural world, as opposed to seeing nature just as a resource that man can exploit, cutting down every tree in sight. We don’t always practice what we preach in the US but at least there is a sense that we should. That sense of having an obligation to respect nature, the “should”, doesn’t really exist here. It’s certainly fashionable to give lip service to the protection of the environment to gain foreign grant money, but the concept still hasn’t seeped into the collective mentality.

Enter Peace Corps volunteer. And this is how I’ve come to see my role here, where I’ve found my niche. I pep myself up with the consoling thought that education lasts a lifetime.

Working in the schools is rewarding enough on its own, outside of supplying me answers to my existential inquiries. I’ve really been pleasantly surprised with the participation of the principles and teachers and the enthusiasm of the students. When the kids can recall what I taught them three months ago and when they respond to questions that require critical thinking and imagination, I rejoice. Sometimes it’s like pulling teeth getting correct answers out of them, but I prefer to attribute it to my clumsy French or my lack of energy that day instead. Since I give the same lesson nine times it invariably goes better after the first few tries, after I’ve got my lines down pat, gotten a sense of what questions the kids can reasonably be expected to answer, and even after finding ways to joke around with them. Each class has its own personality and so it never gets boring or seems repetitive.

There are so many cultural nuances in the schools here that I want to share with you. I can’t possibly describe it all, but what puts a smile on my face is:

-For gym class the kids walk, skip, and hop around the courtyard in a large circle, divided into different teams, symbolized by a colourful band tied around their foreheads. Chances are when I pass a school I’ll see this going on.

-When kids greet an adult they cross their arms and do a little one-legged bow, and when my students see me in town they say “Hello Teacher”, which warms my little heart (even if they are saying it as they chase behind me on my bike).

-To signal for recess they bang on any metal object they can hang from a tree in the courtyard, usually a hubcap. (It makes a more pleasant sound than the electrical bell in the High School.)

-The kids are taught new songs for each grade they pass into and their teachers usually ask them to sing for me, either at the beginning or end of my lesson. To celebrate a good answer I can ask the class to do this rhythmic clapping thing that I very cute.

-I also have this one class that always begs for a mini English lesson at the end of our session. They’ll start learning it next year in school but they’ve already picked some up from their older siblings and movies. Their enthusiasm s great!

The size of my classes varies from 22 to 79 students. I find it easiest to work in a class of about 50, actually, because it’s small enough to control but big enough to have a swath of kids who can easily answer my questions. It’s the fifth grade, but the age range of the students is quite large. There are some people who look to be 15 years old even, there either as a result of failing multiple times or by coming from a small village and not starting school until a late age.

There’s more I could prattle on about, but this is long enough, so I’ll leave you with the cutest thing: During my lesson about decomposition I was asking the kids how many years they think it would take for something like a plastic bottle or metal can to break down versus the time it takes food scraps or leaves to decompose, highlighting the difference between natural and man-made materials. So, I was asking them where man-made things come from, specifically plastic bags, and this one girl in one of my classes stands up and with a shy grin says that they come from chewing gum! It was so precious!

Howdy! The kids in my English clubs have been asking me to set them up with correspondents (pen pals) recently and I decided to make a “calling all correspondents” blog entry.

The kids are in high school, roughly between 15 and 21 years old. They can read more English than they can write, but that’s where we come in as their tutor (me) and their Pen Pals (you). The exchange can be anything from a one time back-and-forth to a life long friendship. I’ve already explained to them that this isn’t to ask you all for a one-way ticket to the US, and most of them have a genuine desire for international friendship and in improving their English. You can write to them either in French, English or Franglais. You can be young or old, my friend or a stranger, a lefty or a righty.

If you are interested you can mail me a letter, for the student, describing a little bit about yourself, your town, your job, your family, etc. Then I’ll have your address and we can write you back. I’ll be there until September 2010 so at least until then they have a reliable way of getting their letters to you. After that we can try to seek funding from the school or elsewhere, as stamps from Benin can get to be a little expensive for them. Also, when I leave, instead of sending the letters to me you’d be sending them to the high school- details we can work out together afterwards.

My address is:

Diane Albrecht

Corps de la Paix

BP 359

Parakou

BENIN

West Africa

Thanks, and happy writing!

Also- if you are open to email exchange please give me your email address. As there is an internet café in my town this could be a sustainable means of communication with them- as well as a way of improving their computer skills.

In late September a Peace Corps friend and I went on vacation to Niger! It was really enjoyable. The people are so friendly and open there, even more than in Benin, which made the whole experience multitudes better. Compared to Mali, Niger hasn’t really seen that much tourism, which worked to our benefit really. (You have already heard my opinion about how tourism changes a place and its people.) What Niger does have a lot of is PC volunteers, which worked doubly to our advantage. People were very aware of the positive presence of PC in their country so we were welcomed everywhere as friends. PC Niger volunteers are always saying how hard they have it in the desert and tiny villages and how spoiled PC Benin is- with our forests, fresh produce and towns, and after having visited I can scoff no more- I have to agree with them. Niger is “au village”. They are so much poorer than Benin is. Famine still exists there, all the HDI indicators are among the lowest in the world, and the number of people actually fluent in French is pretty low. Despite all that the richness of the culture stood out and the wonderful landscapes and wildlife made the trip worth it. Maybe what I write about my trip will inspire you to go visit! Getting there, we took a bus all the way to Niamey in one day, stopping at customs along the lush Niger River boarder. In Niamey we stayed at the PC volunteers’ hostile for five nights or so and explored the city and surrounding villages. Niamey is a really nice city- much calmer than Cotonou. They have French and American Cultural Centers, Artisan Centers, a museum with a zoo, good restaurants and stores, a huge dry goods market and a vibrant food market. Our first morning we went to this delightful place that comes closest to resembling a Paneras, with a bakery, coffee counter and soups, salads and sandwiches. (I got a chocolate croissant and espresso!) It was interesting seeing how the food is different in Niger versus Benin. It’s hard to describe but the sauces are different because the produce found there is different. For example, they have lots of potatoes, the leaves of the moringa tree and huge squashes. The staple is millet whereas ours is corn, so their starches are different too. They are swimming in dates and drink lots of strong green tea. People invited us to drink tea with them often- something they do all throughout the day. The method of preparing it is very pretty to watch, them frothing the tea up by poring it back and forth between two glasses. One of the day trips we took was to visit a busy market town which sees vendors coming from all different neighboring countries and hosts a large animal market. While we didn’t experience the same excitement of a live auction market like one finds often in the Middle East, we were happy enough just hanging around the camels. The next day-trip we took was to see the last herd of wild giraffes in West Africa. It was a really cool experience because we got a guide to walk us into the bush a few K until we spotted the herd, their heads sticking out from the foliage, calmly gazing at us as we slowly approached. The herd was about 20 strong and we spent an hour just sitting or following them around, observing. It’s so amazing that these creatures even exist! That afternoon we traveled to a different town that bordered the Niger River. We spent the dusk hours cruising the river by wooden canoe in search of hippos. The river was wide and lush because we came at the end of the rainy season. Unfortunately, that made the hippos’ feeding ground larger, so they were harder to spot. It was relaxing, just being on the river though, seeing the kids bathing, the women washing clothes, passing villages and gardens with scarecrows to deter the hippos, and watching the birds and our guide navigating the river, in the Venetian fashion.We slept overnight at a hotel situated on a bird-viewing island and the next morning sampled the local mode of transportation to get back to the highway to catch a bush taxi: donkey. My saddle kept on slipping down so I rode most of the way with just an extra pair of pants separating me from the donkey’s backbone, but it was still worth it just for the experience. The next day we took a trip to a local agricultural research center. It was an international organization that gets tons of UN funding to find out how to produce crops efficiently for this climate and soil type. Then they share their research with farmers, all the way in Benin even. It seemed to be affecting positive change and was very encouraging and beneficial to see. That afternoon we hit the American Cultural Center to watch an old favorite, The Apartment, which was in French with French subtitles, which I found strange, considering the name of the place we were watching it in. The next morning we woke up before the break of day and boarded our bus for our 14 hour voyage to Agadez. Agadez is on the frontier of the desert and is even farther up north than the famed Timbuktu. The people there, the Taureg, are of Berber origin and look more Arab than SSAfrican. They are mostly nomadic herders but others have settled into Agadez and further south too. On the ride up it was interesting seeing all these watering holes formed from the rains and the grassy plains dotted with herd of goats or packs of camels. Eventually the paved road stopped and our view became muddled as we were surrounded in a cloud of dust. Agadez has a feel to it like a frontier town in the Wild West, if you can imagine. The people were really nice and our hotel was conveniently situated in Old Town so we could easily walk to the main mosque, market and Sultan’s Palace. We were there for the end of Ramadan so we got to see how they celebrated too. The Friday before the breaking of the 30-day fast a huge crowd gathered at the historic mud-constructed mosque for the afternoon prayer. There were so many people, both inside and out, lining the streets and filling the storefronts. The feeling of community that Islam creates was really apparent. Saturday night was the breaking of the fast but the real celebrating didn’t get started until Sunday. We went to the Sultan’s Palace in the morning and night to see the crowds gathered around the drummers and flute players, dancing occasionally. It was mostly little kids there, who swarmed us foreigners until they were dispersed by a tight-lipped old man with a horse whip. People said in the old days the celebration was bigger, with the Sultan riding in on his horse, horse races, and young men and women gathered in their finery at the square to publically meet their affianced for the first time. (I’ve noticed that in Benin they say the cultural activities and celebrations were manifested with more pizzazz in the past as well, which is disappointing.) The next day we rode off on camelback to a neighboring Taureg settlement about 7 K away. Our guide dressed us up in robes and turbans, partly for the effect and partly to shield us from the sun (and curious eyes). It was really relaxing riding the camel, my feet resting on the crook of its long neck for balance. What an experience! When we got to the camp they gave us tea and cheese, which is formed into a hard thin square and tastes more like Western cheese than what we have in Benin. We were also served camel’s milk, which wasn’t good really; it tasted like sour ricotta cheese. (But, in Zinder we would eat camel steak, which is delicious and tender, like rabbit.) The families were really hospitable and happy to have us as guests. The girls braided my hair in Taureg fashion and gave me an outfit to wear, because we had a party to go to! Someone had passed away, plus they were still celebrating the end of Ramadan, so people poured in from surrounding camps and we ate, had a camel race and all crowded into a tent to have a dance party. (Embarrassing video of me being chosen to dance in the circle is forthcoming.) It was such a nice day! Our next destination was Zinder, the old capital of Niger. We spent a few days there and the most interesting part was the Old Town. Old Town was quite vast but we wandered around a lot of it, in part chasing kids around who were incessantly asking us for presents. We got to see some well preserved Hausa houses, (the region’s ethnic group), featuring mud walls, flat roofs, and colorful mosaics decorating the outside walls. There were all these large boulders around town too and they would build around them to integrate it into one side of their houses. The last town we visited was Dogondoutchi, on the tourist map because of its large red-rock outcroppings. We toured the market there before climbing up one of the escarpments and found a man who made rubber stamps, and for 10 cents he would stamp your arm with a pretty motor oil pattern. He even had a Barack Obama stamp! Well, (a word I still throw into my French conversations), that concludes my trip to Niger. Thanks to Jocylin for planning and facilitating such an enjoyable excursion! It’s great being back at post. I saw some tourists in our market my first Thursday back; I was so surprised! I could tell they were tourists and not people who worked in another part of Benin before talking to them because they looked so fresh. Being here a year I think has made me look a bit haggard, lol. The school year is starting up and garden season is beginning as the hard rains cease, so my work calendar is about to fill up. The trees we planted for Arbor Day are growing well but the environmental club at the high school will have to repair the fences protecting them because the summer school kids took their angst out on them. Destruction seems to be a past-time here. I’ll be continuing the environmental club at the high school as well as starting a girls’ and English club. (I just found out that the results of last year’s voluntary HIV/AIDS testing at the high school yielded, not accounting for false positives, a 3% infection rate, so that motivates me to work with the girls about sexual health.) I’m also giving environmental lessons to the 5th graders once a month at 7 of the local elementary schools. Also, once the rains stop, I’m going to work with the women building mud stoves. In August I planted about 100 moringa trees at the missionary’s school to do a project introducing the tree’s leaves as a nutritional supplement to a group at the hospital of HIV/AIDS infected persons. I then promptly left on vacation and prayed that the rainy season ended strong so they wouldn’t die. I came back to find they had germinated much better than I thought they would, leaving me with about 150 plants (as I had double seeded them). I’m excited about all my clubs and projects and hope that they work out well. It feels so much easier this year since I know my community, have found work partners and learned French, all of which not having made it hard the first year. Honestly, everyone says the 2nd year goes by really quickly, which I am and am not looking forward to. Extras: My kitten grew up. I gave her away, to my Beninese Grandma, but in the time before that it was really informative seeing her develop and grow. My cat was an exemplary mother, almost every night catching small prey and depositing them, live, (including a bat one night), in my bedroom where I was sleeping with the kitten. I picked up a how-to yoga book a few months ago and have been working on that (inner serenity) from time to time. I’m also reading the Koran, in English, which isn’t really the Koran, but what can you do. In the US I had wanted the time to read it but I’m not sure I’ll make it all the way through; it’s like reading the Book of Job- but for 600 pages. I was invited to a missionary pot-luck one day and we had a small-bags-filled-with-water-balloon fight with the kids, which was fun. And just recently one night the neighborhood held an impromptu drum circle/ dance party. Most of the dancers were old mamas, with their babies nestled on their backs, shaking their hips and acting out the songs. This is what happens when people don't have TV! These are the kinds of things that remind me of how lucky I am to be in Africa, experiencing life's beauty. I’ve been trying new recipes, like delicious home-made granola, crêpes Suzette and couscous stuffed tomatoes. My friend was braiding my hair as I was wrote this, to look good for back-to-school. (She’s in her fourth month of pregnancy! I can’t wait to see the baby!) I’m also looking forward to upcoming Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations in Benin. Well, that’s all for my so-called life at this moment. Thanks for reading!

Here I am "ecrasser-ing" some tomatoes for dinner. Every household in Benin has one of these tools. It's a big smooth rock or cement slab plus what I'm holding. This is used for myriad things, like onions, leaves for sauce, peanuts, ginger and hot peppers. It's a fun and pretty efficient alternative to a food processor.

On June 5th I planned an Earth Day event (la Journée International de l’Environnement) with my school environmental club. It went splendidly, even if in getting there I had some near nervous-breakdown moments as I learned how things get done here (so many details fixed just at the last minute). The students dreamed big and transformed my idea of planting trees at the school into a whole day-long extravaganza.

I was really proud of their dedication as they ran around town with me, making and changing plans with the myriad bureaucrats and townspeople involved in organizing and executing the event. We had 75 T-shirts made, ordered a band and catered lunch for 100, gave 2 radio interviews, invited the mayor, wrote slogans and made posters for the parade and negotiated with the foresters to give us 75 tree saplings. At the school we labored ahead of time to dig the holes for where the trees would go and build fences to protect them from the healthy free-range goat population in town. We also did a lot of fundraising, including a drive at the high school where all the students pitched in their dimes and quarters to help us, which was really heartening. The total cost of the day was surprisingly high, at $400, but thankfully we were also able to get money from the PC, the mayor’s office and my local partner NGO.

On the 5th we gathered early in the morning to the sound of drums beating at the high school to start our parade. We marched to the Town Hall, about 200 strong, where the mayor gave us a benediction. On returning to the school we planted the 75 trees along the edge of the grounds, with the design of creating a “living fence”. After that the local foresters gave us a formation on natural resource management and the value of trees, in which kids were given tree saplings to take home if they showed good participation. We then braked for lunch (because in Africa if you want people to participate in your activity you have to feed them) and then took the afternoon “repose” until 3.

In the afternoon a nurse came and gave us a family planning/ HIV/AIDS session, (because keeping people healthy is part of keeping the environment healthy), followed by me leading a game with the 3 other PC volunteers who came to help me and the students which involved playing “hot potato” with condoms blown up like balloons. We then wrapped up the day with a soccer match.

This was my first big project and I couldn’t have been happier with how it went. The club should be really motivated now for next year, when I hope to install several new projects. For the rest of the summer I’ll be focusing on the women’s gardening group and having a weekly English club for those students stuck bored in town during vacation. There are also various PC events over the summer, like training the new arrivals in Porto Novo for 2 weeks. Also, I worked on one girl’s camp and am now at another summer camp. The one I’m doing now is just a day camp for high schoolers in Kandi to get extra English lessons and follow either health or environmental sessions, which is where I come in.

The other camp was a week-long girl’s sleep-over camp in Parakou. All the volunteers in the region chose a few girls to bring and the camp’s activities focused on girls’ empowerment. I think they learned a lot and that the lesions were particularly necessary and useful. Just for the girls to have had a chance to travel, meet new friends and escape their daily chores was a blessing but they also gained practical knowledge and life skills that will help them protect themselves from all the snares that stand in the way of success here. I was very encouraged by the way they grew throughout the week and by the promise they hold for the future. I still can’t get the camp’s song out of my head!

My friend got married recently and, unfortunately, I missed the ceremony because I was at a PC conference in Cotonou, but I did get to participate in something cool the following day.

They had a Muslim wedding spanning three days. The first night the bride got henna and slept at her Mom's house. The next day was a wedding at the mosque and then they had three parties at family's houses around town until the wee hours of the morning. Then the next day, the day I got to see, we got dressed up and the bride and her posse went around town, greeting her friends and family for the first time as a married woman. We must have spent six hours walking around town!

Then part of the tradition is walking her to her husband's house with all her stuff piled on our heads in a train behind her. I expected they would want to be alone, but it turns out newlyweds invite house guests with them for their first month. Privacy and personal space are definitely valued differently in the US! The groom's oldest brother stayed for him and I stayed over for two nights, (then I was replaced by a cousin), for her.

It's been funny observing them and thinking about love and marriage. She wasn't like some of the unlucky girls who get trapped and taken to her new husband's house by her family- she likes her husband and all and made this decision herself. It's just different from the way Americans think about it. Here, I think since there isn't so much an idea of the individual then there is a lesser sense of love and soul mates and as a result a marriage is a more practical matter. You certainly get a whole lot of presents when you get marries, just like in the US I suppose, but here it seems like more because they start with less. (This leads to my friend now possessing a huge armoir that holds dozens of sets of serving bowls, which she keeps on organizing and re-organizing like a shrine.)

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I went to Burkina Faso and Mali! It was a great vacation, a great chance to see some other corners of West Africa. Transportation is even rougher there than in Benin- the roads can be worse, they stick you in a 25 seater van and departures are few and far between, since there is less of a population base to fill them. So, getting there was a struggle, but a scenic struggle non-the-less. We really didn't do anything in Burkina besides drive through it, but I was still able to pick up on a little, quand même. The land became so dry as we got further and further into the Sahel, with shorter and sparser trees dotting the landscape. The goats were so tall, compared to our dwarfish Beninese ones, so that you could almost mistake them for antelope bounding across the plains. Burkina has a good national water management system so I saw lots of little rivers and lakes along the road that were developed and allow for gardening. That's why, from a country much drier than Benin, we end up importing 80% of our tomatoes.

We stayed a few nights in Ouagadougou, the capital, the land of taxis instead of motorcycles, fresh strawberries, and the best lasagna in West Africa. People describe Ouaga as an oasis in the dessert, but, despite the culinary delights, I still prefer Cotonou for all its chaos and energy, its beaches and high rises, the traffic and over-stuffed markets.

From there we reached Mali, where I had somewhat of a rude awakening. I figured traveling would be a cinch since I know the language, culture, the prices of things, and what to expect. Mali, however, turned out to be hard to navigate sanely without getting scammed at every turn. Mali is probably the most touristy country in French West Africa and it has kind of ruined them (from what I saw). The government gives out tourist guide licences, which pretty much make people feel they have the right to bother you. They become the medium for dealing with the "outsiders" and the locals just kind of shut down and turn their noses up at you. If you ever had to deal with a "beach boy" and everyone else in turn thinking you are ridiculous for talking to him (or listening patiently to his pitch) then you know what I'm talking about. The guys who decide to be tour guides don't tend to be the most respected members of society and then everyone blames you for creating a demand for them.

Anywho, our goal in going to Mali was to check out a stretch of villages called Dogon Country, after the people who live there, either on or around a huge chain of escarpements in the south of Mali. The two days we spent hiking around, in the 110 degree weather, were definitely worth it. The Dogon people haven't modernized as much as most parts of Africa and so it was interesting to see their towns and learn about their history and culture. We saw houses dating back to the 14th century and other structures left by their predecessors from hundreds of years before that. The people built their houses into cliffs in this great escapement to be protected from their enemies. Later on as the populations grew and the fields stretched further away they settled in the valley. We climbed all the way up the escapement and saw one of the villages that still rests at the top. The view of the valley stretching out before us was breathtaking.

In ancient times this area was a forest, complete with monkeys (I saw their skulls), and the ancient people were able to climb on vines to reach the tops of the cliffs. They dug caves in the cliff and left pots and things up there for their gods, which the Dogon are not able to reach anymore, leading to the legend that they were magical people who could fly.

A lot of the cultural things that we saw were traditions that have been changed a little to suit tourists' tastes. Which isn't to say the traditions aren't authentic currently, just that they are kept separate from us. For example, the kola nut is an important tool of communication and gifting and they have adapted this to tourism by us giving them out like candy to every old person we run across as a "thank you" for letting us traipse around your village and take pictures. Then there are traditional cloths, one that is woven and painted with mud in different shades and another that is dyed with indigo. The cloth for the locals is made in geometric patterns and from local indigo, while the cloth for the tourists have maps of Africa and animals and stuff on them, or are made from dye from China. It makes sense that things should be hidden from us, considering Africans are generally less open than Westerners, (and the fact that whites decades ago pilfered all their true gems, like the carved wooden doors of the old cliff houses), but it still made me feel like a removed tourist.

In Mali I also really wanted to see Djenné, the site of the world's largest mud mosque. I think Lonely Planet got a little carried away in its romantic description of it and the bustling market at its gates but it was impressive anyhow. It was fun seeing the market and tasting all the food that is slightly different, like the bread or juice, from Benin. The city itself is on an island in the Niger river and is ancient looking, with interesting architecture, from carved wooden windows to grand mud buildings.

Another city we stayed in was Mopti. This was an interesting town, being situated on the Niger river, (giving the board of tourism licence to dub it "the Venice of Mali"). Walking through Old Town and trying the porridge that tasted like gingerbread and the fried dough that was like a pancake was fun, as was camping on the hotel's roof at night.

It was nice returning to Benin though, where we did a little more tourism. People always tell me the NW is so much prettier than the NE, and I thought it was just regional pride, until I saw it for myself. Up there it was really green and mountainous. We were able to go swimming in waterfalls and we went to this little town on the boarder of Togo to hike and camp in a "tata samba", the region's local style of house. (See Picasa pics http://picasaweb.google.com/diane.albrecht/VacationBeninMaliBurkinaFaso.) We also went to Abomey in the south to see the royal palace compound of the Fon kingdom that existed pre-colonization.

They were the most powerful group of people before the French came to current-day Benin and they still dominate the government and government appointed positions. We also went to an archaeological site where dugout caves were found that the Fon had built to hide in and orchestrate surprise attacks from on their enemies during their wars with neighbors. Staying at a volunteer's house that night, she took us to a voudoun ceremony. It put the voudun activities I've seen in my Northern town to shame. They had a whole troupe of dancers, wearing elaborate costumes of stiff straw or cloth skirts and shell necklaces draped all over their bodies, performing a really high energy dance, accompanied by a five man band. The village didn't have electricity so the only thing lighting the fête was the light from the cameraman, and when he would pan the white people attentively watching the activities, the dancers would be left in the dark. It was a fascinating night and it gave me a little regional envy. (Well, at least we have mangoes.)

In Cotonou we stopped by The Zinzou Foundation to see their latest exhibit. This one was called "Collectors and their Collections" and it compiled Beninese art patrons' pieces of African art. It was really exciting and interesting seeing important art work and artifacts, some even dating from before Jesus Christ, in Africa itself instead of in a museum in the US or Europe to where they had been transferred/ stolen. The collectors wrote little blurbs about their art pieces and their mission to guard these works and show them in Africa to inspire the next generation about their rich cultural heritage. It was another great show at the Zinzou.

That's all my news for now. Till next time!

Hey all. It’s been a busy 3 months since coming back to post from the holidays in the South. It was good to get back to my town at last. I was treated like a minor celebrity, returning to her hometown. I didn’t realize how much people liked me! Or how many people I knew, when it came time to go around and greet everybody. On the drive up I could see just how much had changed with the onset of the dry season on the 6 weeks I was gone. The North I left and the North I came back to were like day and night. By January the land just looked so devastated. Most of the leaves had fallen off the trees, exposing vast stretches of dry and burnt land. Those leaves left of the trees were coated in a layer of fine dust, giving the whole landscape a feeling of wasted lifelessness. At least that was how I felt at first, being a little shocked at the change in the home I left. But now I find a beauty in the austerity all of its own. Can you imagine 6 months of no rain?

Something that brightens the landscape is all the little clumps of cotton that litter the dirt and stick to the thorn bushes on the sides of the road. Cotton was in season in January and the harvests come from the North to processing plants mid-country in huge open-top tractor trailers. The cotton sticks together in strips and is covered by a tarp but still loose pieces escape and dot the landscape, like fallen snow. (This eventually gets dirty, like slush in the US.)

I actually got a chance to go to a cotton factory. There is a private cotton association that buys from the farmers, processes the cotton, and then sends it to the port in Cotonou, mostly to be shipped to China. The trucks drive down to these plants and have to wait weeks or months for their turn to unload. Little temporary towns develop to service the drivers, with women from the nearby villages coming to sell food and soap and local millet beer.

The trucks drive up to the factory, the tarp is taken off the load and a huge pipe vacuums up all the cotton to the inside, at the same time sifting out rocks and debris. From there the cotton is cleaned and de-grained, then compressed and wrapped in plastic bales and stacked, waiting to be taken down South. It sounds boring now that I write it but at the time I was impressed to be seeing such a large and well functioning mechanized factory in Benin- one that is run for and by the Beninese, making them real profits and helping their development. Cotton can’t go on forever though, considering how it and all the chemicals that are used for it destroy the land. My region had its cotton hay-day, which lasted about 15 years. Everyone talks about how they used to have money because of it, but then the soil got so worn out that it couldn’t support the crops anymore and production shifter further up North. At least the sheer profitability of cotton has been an impetus for the government to improve the roads connecting the North and South, building new ones and repairing old ones. From all the aid money Benin receives for this I think it’s safe to say we have some of the best roads in West Africa.

The grains and scrap cotton are used to make (rock-hard) pillows and mattresses by locals, the cotton on the roadside is collected and spun by hand by old women, and oil is extracted from the seeds by another association. Thus, cotton is a ubiquitous and creatively exploited resource for Benin.

I started working with a women’s gardening collective in a village north of me. They want technical advice as well as help formalizing the structure of their organization. Right now we’re still in the introductory phase where I’m learning how they presently work and we are developing strategies for the future. It’s a slow process. Take for example one day I arrived at our weekly meeting without my work partner so we had to look for the chief to be my translator, and then we spent and hour arguing about whether we should have the meeting at all since my colleague and half of the women weren’t present, and then we spent the next hour filling out the attendance form. But, as our meetings progress from week to week and we become more familiar with each other and the routine things are getting better.

That day I rode my bike the 12K to get there. I felt pretty hardcore, passing tractor trailers and getting there in about 30 minutes, but then I was sobered by the knowledge that getting there was mostly downhill, as I slowly made my way back home. I really enjoy working with the women. The meetings always end in song, and sometimes dance. None of them really speak French but that’s where my colleague comes in. One morning they treated me to breakfast of mashed yams with a side of bush rat and they gave me bunches of lettuce to bring home with me. I think I can do some good work with them in the time I have left here.

Another work related activity I did was going on a two day tour of our local classified forest with my work partner. We took his motorcycle on large dirt roads and tiny cattle paths, visiting a total of 7 villages. The purpose of the trip was to monitor the changes to the forest caused by brush fires and migratory cattle herders. We also checked up on people doing small enterprise projects that our NGO wishes to promote, like bee-keeping and a women’s group that produces food products from yams. There is the hope that the income generated from these small enterprises will deter people from having to make their living clear-cutting the forest to plant crops such as cotton or corn.

After independence the government set up a system of national classified forests, the management of which is a complicated issue. Some of it is performed by governmental foresters but most of the conservation efforts are made by national NGOs. Both the government and the NGOs get massive amounts of donor money to fund these efforts, which can be a blessing and a curse. But in a country where private property is almost non-existent and people have minimal contact with the national government the idea of sections of land being partitioned off to rest untouched for some intangible goal of conservation and combating global climate change I a hard one. Even when people know deforestation leads to desertification and, in the long-term, the loss of productive land, it’s still hard to sacrifice the short-term needs of gathering fire wood and cultivating cash or subsistence crops. Sometimes I wonder about the morality of the West demanding conservation in return for aid money, considering our own path to industrialization and current consumption levels, but then I also see that the desert is coming and people do indeed have an economic interest in protecting their natural resources.

The foresters have a reputation for taking bribes to allow farming within the forest and for forbidding hunting while they are the most enthusiastic hunters themselves, but the ones who I’ve had contact with are actually hard workers, who are informed about their work and involved in its execution in their designated regions. The same thing can be said for Beninese NGOs- that they are mired in bureaucracy and inefficiency and play the system to get donor money, but from my experience with my partner NGO they employ interested, hard-working specialists and perform a job that the government itself is too ineffective to administer. Granted, the way things operate here is different from in the US, (aka more bureaucratic), but these NGOs know more about their local needs and work styles than international NGOs that come in and try to change everything in a flash, and that is why they should be supported. When I accompany my colleagues to the villages in the forest I can see how their knowledge of the people, place and language do more for affecting change than anything else.

On a side note, the other day I fell and jammed my finger on the door frame and it got bent in two different directions than it was supposed to be. Now at first I was scared because I thought it may be broken, but then I remembered I have free health care here and there is the North’s best hospital right down the road, so actually it would be a better situation than the $1,000, eight stitches fiasco of ’07, but then it snapped back into place on its own, so all the better. I hope someday soon in America we won’t have to be more scared of the hospital bill than our actual health when we injure ourselves.

In January there was a three day voodoo celebration in my town, which was awesome. Here in the Muslim North voodoo is more hidden than in the South but once a year a few voodoo stalls emerge in the market and there is this “graduation” ceremony where the sage releases her apprentices. The ceremony starts by women bringing wood from the nearby forest in giant calabash bowls on their heads to a circle where the crowd awaits them and the musicians are playing their traditional drums and string instruments. They form a circle and are in a trance at this point until an aid comes and shows them where to lay the wood and “wakes” them up by bending one shoulder back, and then the other (which they demonstrated on me too personally. It’s a good stretch!). (Here in the video you can see the musicians beating on calabas bowls, like the ones on top of the women's heads as they bring in the supplies for the ceremony.)

After this they have these two women dressed as men dancing with two other women, going back and forth in front of the musicians. This is supposed to show some sort of symbolic marriage or cooperation between the women and the spirits from what I could gather. Then the crowd shows their appreciation of the dancers by giving them small pieces of money. There is another part where all the elder members of the crowd throw coins into the bowl sin front of the musicians, or students, or fetish objects.

It was really exciting seeing this sort of event in my own town, compared to the voodoo celebrations in Ouidah where I felt like more of an outsider or tourist. I was able to sit back, bland in, (except the one time they made me dance, badly, with them), and watch the same people who I see at mass or headed to the mosque everyday dancing and celebrating. Voodoo has been a part of life here for so mush longer than Western religions, so there is a lot of syncretism, or people following two religions simultaneously.

Another cultural activity I went to is an annual celebration in a town called Nikki for all the territory where the Bariba people live, which includes my town, North-eastern Benin and North-western Nigeria. The fête is called Ganni. In all the localities of “Bariba Land” there are traditional chiefs who meet in Nikki once a year to greet the king of the region. This is accompanied by a lot of pomp and tens of thousands of people gather to watch.

A symbol of Bariba royalty is the horse. Each prince (chief) has his own horse and all of them (maybe 75 in total) paraded the town before going to this arena where the king awaits them. They perform tricks on their horses like charging the crowd and turning around at the last moment, rearing and prancing the horse back (exhilarating for me, sitting in the front row).

The horses are decorated to the 9s as well as the princes, who wear whites or embroidered robes and turbans (which was surprising at first because I’ve never seen a Bariba wearing one). At another point big 12 foot long brass horns were brought out and they would play before each prince who comes up and gives gifts of cloth or money before prostrating themselves before the king. Another interesting point is when they brought in two dead goats for the king, parading them around, with the announcer saying they had the “right” to take these goats they found on the street, which really someone owns, because this is the celebration and they are royalty, and that’s just the way it is. Because of this, during holidays people hide their best animals inside the house!

The whole kingship is mostly ceremonial at this point in time, and almost anyone important or old that I meet can claim a legitimacy for the “crown” but on occasion, at least once a year, they get together and talk about any regional issues there may be. The Bariba are around the third largest ethnic group in Benin. While me being a white tourist, plus 2,000 CFA, gained me a good seat at the ceremony, this is also a celebration that many locals get to travel to and see, adding to their sense of pride in their culture.

On another note, in the 1920s there was a rebellion in the North against the French, which was successful for a period of time and led by a man named Bio Guerra. Now, in edition to having heard a pop song commemorating him one too many times, I’ve searched my town’s hill for the imprint of his horse’s hoof from when it bounded here in one leap from the town 45 km away, and just recently I was taken to go see his tomb. It’s an unlabelled plot covered with stones that you wouldn’t know what it was unless you were from that village. The man who showed it to us has also been collecting spear heads, bullet shells and hand held metal daggers with reversed points to grab on to any organs found when pulled out, which he has found left in the ground as he’s been farming. I don’t know if this resumé of my involvement vis à vis Bio Guerra is of any interest, but he’s kind of a big deal here so I felt compelled to write something.

On to more people who are “kind of a big deal”: the Peuhl. These are semi-nomadic cow and sheep herders whose people stretch from Senegal to Nigeria. They are also called the Fula or Fulani, or the “punk rockers of Benin”, according to a fellow volunteer. I’ve wanted to write something on them for a while but they have been stopped by the seeming complexity of trying to describe a group so diverse and in many ways impenetrable to outsiders. But, I want to try anyway because they are captivating.

In some sense the Peuhl are the richest people around- the ones you see ride into town for market day on their motorcycles and spend their money drinking all day- because they own the cattle, an expensive commodity. But in another sense they are like the farmer in the US, who sure, has lots of money invested in his crops, but come harvest time makes a slim profit. They have the worst literacy rates and mortality rates. Though they are the predominant group you can find at the hospital because they can afford the service, it often does them no good because they wait so long before coming into town. They live in settlements of basic round mud houses in family compounds on the outskirts of town. The women come everyday, walking great distances, to sell their milk and whey and cheese. The little boys are the herders, out in the countryside with their shortwave radios, slingshots and water bottles attached on a string. Most of the Peuhl are Muslim.

The Peuhl are beautiful. You always know when you see them, though in each little region they have small distinctions. The women are very ornate while the men have a somewhat simple style all their own that seems to say, yup, I’m a badass. I’ll just try to describe the Peuhl I see in my locality:

Starting with the women- they are the only ones you’ll see walking around town barefoot and in just a pagne- a 2 meter piece of cloth that is wrapped around them. These are the adolescents selling milk. Then there are the women who get their cloth tailored in a very “little town on the prairie” fashion, with puffed sleeves and lace fringe. They buy cloth in similar color schemes of blue and green and white and wear what my friend calls a “country” headscarf, from which two shoulder-length columns of wrapped wire, wound around the hair, will come down in front of the ears. On their arms they’ll wear dozens of simple metal bracelets and around their necks are cords and cords of blue and white beads. They have facial tattoos in geometric patterns and put dots of hot pink, purple, blue, etc. nail polish on their noses and cheeks. Awesome.

As for the men while you can find the adolescents with their nail polish and blue and white beads, the older ones looks more austere in their monochromatic tunics (mostly blue and purple and green) and skinny pants. They prefer this soft plastic, Coverse-esque shoe and could be wearing either a straw hat or a woolen cap with ear flaps (not necessarily depending on the weather). Some cut their hair in a cone shape and all have water bottles and long swords strapped to their backs. (I have yet to find out what they do with those.) They also have the facial tattoos and sometimes wear silver coin necklaces and white framed sunglasses. Awesome.

Their babies are cute too. Most of the time naked, with voodoo charms, necklaces and growth beads wrapped around them. They are also decorated with black eye liner and nail polish dots of the face. Awesome.

From where do country herders get so much style?

So, this is what I mean when I say giant mortar and pestle. People make all kinds of food in this, including the beloved yam pilé. In this video the woman is pounding dried pods of rice to remove the outer husk.

A few volunteers from The Gambia were here visiting and it was really interesting comparing and contrasting our countries and subsequently our Peace Corps experiences. The Gambia is a tiny English speaking country that stretches North and South a few kilometers along a river, cutting right into the middle of Senegal. The story goes the British sailed down this river and wherever their cannonballs could reach, that became the new country’s boarder in the middle of French territory.

I thought Benin was poor but no offense, Gambia sounded destitute by comparison. Modernization really hasn’t reached the country compared to the levels it has in Benin. The volunteers live in villages populated in the tens or hundreds, composed of mud and thatch round huts with no electricity or running water. They live with a host family in their compound and assume a role in its hierarchy. Their capital has dirt roads and only one traffic light, compared to Cotonou which has bypasses and freeways and Christmas lights. The modernization of Benin is a really recent thing, in the last 5-10 years, but at least we had the population to support these changes, to buy these new things, whereas The Gambia is so small, with such small villages that it kind of gets left behind. What incentive is there for someone to try and open a new bus line, or put in cell towers if there isn’t enough customers to make it profitable?

It was very enlightening seeing Benin through the strangers’ eyes and made me excited to do some traveling of my own!

January 10th is a national voodoo holiday here in Benin. There are celebrations all over the country but one of the biggest ones, and the touristiest, takes place in Ouidah. I went to this one with a few other volunteers and it was really fun. It was surprisingly well organized, all events taking place on the beautiful beach front. There were so many spectators there. Usually a few circles of people would form around different groups of dancers. It was stunning the dichotomy of people joyously taking part in this national heritage festival in the same spot where there is a huge memorial commemorating the millions of slaves who marched to their captivity on this same beach. Their culture is so rich and the people are so strong.

The Zambeto, mentioned in a previous entry, were there in their brightly colored haystack costumes twirling around and lurching into the crowd, scattering us all happily to the sides in mock fear. There was a man doing Chinese-style acrobats 30 feet in the air, suspended from two poles. We saw little kids in ruffly, brightly-colored costumes with plastic masks dancing for the officials in their bleacher section. There were dancers who were wearing hay skirts and had white powder smeared on their faces and chests. There were other dancers who wore a yellow liquid and would occasionally break liquor bottles over their heads and cut their arms and torso slightly with a knife, bleeding all over and dancing at the same time. I don’t know why they do this- they just get excited, pleasure in the pain, etc. It was all safely done, with women cleaning up the glass afterwards and the crowds were well controlled.

I went with two volunteers from The Gambia and they were telling me how unique this festival and this dancing is to Benin. They said they don’t have a voodoo or traditional religions culture in The Gambia at all because Islam has wiped it out. Along with it they lost a culture of dance that I thought existed everywhere in Africa. Other people were showing me the dance moves that are specifically Beninese, like incorporating all your body parts into the dance, flapping your arms and moving your shoulders and hips up and down while clapping your knees together and moving down towards the ground all at once. I can’t do it. The festival was full of tourists but people were open to us taking pictures and seemed proud to showcase their culture. People come from all over the world just to see this festival. Tourism can bring the bad along with the good but in Ouidah I think it’s struck a good balance.

This is a Zambeto/ "guardian of the night" twirling around, occasionally running after parts of the crowd to give us some excitement. A spirit is housed under there that appears to bring blessings for the New Year.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4020180239580283807&hl=enI took this riding on the back of a moto taxi today. I thought a video might be able to show you'll better a typical side street of an outdoor market. This one has stores on the left and right, mostly of cloth that people buy by the yard to make clothing out of. The streets around the market are like this and the market itself is composed of little wooden-beamed and tin-roofed stalls that form a maze you can wander in and out of. If you get deep enough inside it becomes like this little microcosm of a neighborhood- kids running around, people laughing with their neighbors, eating, what have you. The markets in Cotonou are amazing. This one in particular is called "dead yovo" market, which means dead white-y, which at first I thought was just a name us volunteers gave it because it has all this second hand clothing in it, but then I was talking to someone who said in his town they have a market like this that in the local language is called "someone just died". So, is this another example of how our (human kinds') minds have certain symbols or expressions in their subconscious that exist regardless of cultural upbringing?...

I took a day trip to Possotomè to see another volunteer the other day. It’s always fun to explore other people’s posts and different localities of Benin and see how they are different from my neck of the woods. Possotomè is famous for its natural springs. They have a bottling factory there that uses this fresh ground water and sells it to the whole country. The locals also have unlimited access to the water. There are two locations where the water is piped to where people can fill up their buckets, do their laundry and take showers. The water comes out naturally warm so the later activity is especially utilized, though mostly only men have the privilege of public showering.

Possotomè also is a tourist destination because it rests on a beautiful lake. The lake is very shallow and people traverse it in flat bottom canoes, propelled by lancing a stick into the bottom marsh. There is lots of fishing, (over-fishing), and crabbing too. Throughout the whole town one can find thick white sea shells in the sandy dirt, perhaps evidence of a larger pre-historic lake.

The town reminded me of how different the South is from the North. The South is so tropical, with palm trees and water everywhere, people eating fish and fruits and vegetables, everything is green, there are no mosques and one stumbles across a fetish/voodoo object every two feet. Whereas the North is dry and dusty, predominately Muslim, and traditional religions are still practiced but more in secret. The diet is different, with less fruit and more goat and the staple food is yams instead of corn. The towns are more spread out and the people are a lot calmer than the boisterous Southerners.

My friend and I went to go visit a local traditional healer, who is a master in his field. There are many different ways to use the fetish/voodoo objects- one is to communicate with them to heal people’s bodies and minds, which is what this particular man says he has an uncanny skill at. There are other people who use fetishes to grant people luck or their wishes, or anything positive, and then there is another group of people, sorcerers, who use the fetishes to cast harm or death on somebody. This particular man said he could cure basically anything except AIDS and that the hospitals in Cotonou call him in sometimes for his services. He mixes plants and things to make tisanes and pomades, which the fetish communicates to him in his dreams. There are different fetishes concerning different sicknesses and he has all these scattered throughout his housing compound and surrounding area. He was a real animated and friendly character who believes in his work and it was very interesting talking to him.

Voodoo culture also has this manifestation called the Zambeto. The Zambeto, or Guardian of the Night, or the Haystack People, are these people/forces who also loosely get their power/validation from the fetish objects. They protect the town against both spiritual and physical harm. (Concerning the physical protection there is a group of people who do periodic nightly patrols, watching out for criminals or just charging people a tax for being out late at night. This is the group that women aren’t allowed to see, ever, with serious consequences.) I was able to catch a bit of a ceremony that was for blessing the town for the New Year to come. There were drums and cow bells going and everyone dancing in a circle surrounded by a large crowd. And then out come the Zambeto. They look like 10 foot tall, brightly colored haystacks, with horns or some kind of decoration on the tops. They have a circumference on the bottom of like 10 feet and they are always twirling around and dancing and moving all their haystack outfit at once, to give people the impression that no person is underneath- just the fetish spirit. I missed this part so I don’t know but there is one point of the ceremony where the hay dress is parted and the whole crowd sees that there is nothing inside the costume. It was a lot of energetic fun.

Since I had stuck around to see the Zambeto celebration later than I had planned, coming back from Possotomè to Cotonou I had to fight for space on a taxi already full with holiday traffic, people returning to work and coming back from vacation for school on Monday. Riding in bumper to bumper smoggy traffic is no fun, especially when one is already nervous about the dangers of catching a moto taxi at night. But, I got to see Cotonou alive at night, with it’s bright Christmas lights on the highway lampposts and the flashing signs for the 24 hour cyber cafés. Then, I reached one of the milestones of every PC volunteer’s service- my taxi broke down. Without any explanation, because people are used to this, we get out, pay slightly less than we would have, and catch another taxi that will take us the next 5 miles to the big market taxi stand. I got back fine. It was an all together terrific day trip.

New Year’s Eve was really fun this year. Welcome 2009! The Beninese don’t really start to party until 11:30 PM but then the whole next day is a big celebration. I went to an American volunteer’s house so we had a nice dinner and drinks at her house and then went to a bar around midnight. We made fried fish with a pineapple chutney, fried plantains and rice. We had to ride motos to the bar because her town is too small to have a proper one. Her town was really cute. It’s like what one stereotypically thinks of when one calls Africa to mind. All the houses with their rusted tin roofs were crawling up this hillside and in the other direction is a huge lakefront with palm trees and canoes at dock.

We had to take motos to the bar and just sitting in the back and rushing through the clean-smelling country air was great. (I’ve been in Cotonou for too long.) When we got to the bar all the tables had been pushed aside to make a dance floor. It was mostly teen boys and it kind of made me think of Dirty Dancing the way they were all shirtless and swaying their hips and just really free in the moment. West African dancing is really interesting to watch. People move their bodies in ways I don’t think I ever could.

We didn’t get served until after midnight because the waitresses were too busy dancing, but we made a delayed toast for the New Year and headed back for some much needed sleep.

I went to the Zinsou Foundation, this little art gallery in Cotonou the other day. (http://cotonou-ca-bouge.net/La-Fondation-Zinsou.html). It was really nice and modern, with a café, AC, huge windows and private tour guides. It was a pleasant find. The theme for the current exhibit is Benin: 2059. It was really interesting to see the artist’s conceptions of their future. The foundation itself is kind of interesting too. It’s totally private and is funded mostly by the founding patron. Artists here don’t have the luxury of making their art and then looking for a buyer or museum or it because they don’t have the money for the up-front costs. Instead, the museum comes up with a concept for the next exhibit and then pitches it to different artists in their repertoire. The artists then make sketches of what they would like to do and those are used by the foundation to pick which artists to commission. Then they are given money for their supplies. A lot of the artists were European trained and they all came from Benin.

Some artists felt the modernization of Benin is a wonderful opportunity for the nation while others felt like Benin is loosing its culture and would rather revert back to older ways. One artist’s piece was about food security and how lots of people are coming to the big cities to be moto-taxi drivers. This in turn means the fields aren’t being cultivated and Benin will have to import more and more of its food and depending more on the crazy world markets. (Benin already imports a non-healthy amount of rice.) Another artist in the “we need to go back to our roots” camp made a translucent glowing little RJD2 sculpture that represented a national protector fetish/god. In making it clothed in modern materials she was saying that the future and the past can be synchronized. A third artist constructed a house built out of plastic gas containers so that it would float, because in 2059 Cotonou will be surrounded by ocean because of the erosion of the beaches. (Sand is taken as a construction material en masse.)

Other artists showed the future in an almost unrealistically modern and bright way that it would have been taken for sarcasm in America- but the Beninese don’t do sarcasm. Like if Cotonou is going to be under water, it won’t really matter because we’ll have huge skyscrapers and floating taxis and built up highways. Benin will be chosen to house the seat of the all-African Union that will be formed and pollution won’t be a problem because everyone can afford gas masks and the cars will be equipped with fog vision radars that will show you a clear picture of the road on your dashboard monitor. Cotonou will be just like NYC, people will eat hamburgers and salad and Freedom Fries just like Americans, Benin will win the World Cup and the population will become obese- which means you are healthy because you have enough to eat. These were all represented in the various positive-future-view artists’ pieces. In some ways these were more depressing than the pessimists because they were saying that in order to develop Benin has to become just like the West. I was inspiring on the other hand by how much they thought could really change and progress in the next 50 years.

Some of the art was not as subtle as European/American modern art can be. I think in part it’s because the artists have to work with the materials that are available to them. It’s like the symbolism and abstractionism didn’t work on the same level that it would in the West. It was just more obvious, like in the floating house piece one walks in and sees a mattress with a mosquito net, meaning there will be more malaria due to the city standing on water. There was another piece where one half of the table was a paved road and the other half was red dirt, and on the paved road there were toy racing cars and an ice cream truck and fancy motos, and on the dirt side there were all these white soft-bodied dolls, the kind with the plastic heads, that were smeared in black. The youthfulness of the toy cars made me think that the artist was in a way making a farce out of modernity and the dolls, the way they were positioned, made me think they were tragic and struggling. But then the tour guide told me that they were just smeared black because they were supposed to be Beninese and that the toy cars were really serious. It didn’t seem bizarre to them that an ice cream truck toy from the 90’s could look misplaced in this piece because they don’t have the same associations with it as I do. Images mean something different to a Beninese than to an American depending on our cultural context. So, an interesting part of the gallery was seeing how the Beninese and Americans view and represent things differently and how cultural our hopes and dreams for the future can be.

How to safely ask a stranger for directions in an unfamiliar city:

A. Ask someone who is elderly

B. Ask the person you find who most resembles you. You are more likely to attain the sympathies of someone who looks like you.

C. Ask someone who is working and could not leave his/her job to follow you (like a clerk behind a counter).

This was on a card for one of those games where you have to pick the right answer. I thought it was funny how it exhibits an underlying predjudice of the unknown and foreign when I try to image using this advice here to get around.

Last Sunday I found a Nigerian English mass at the candy cane striped cathedral in Cotonou and it was really exciting to hear some Christmas carols in my native tongue. I prefer the singing style of the Nigerians as well. The men sing in deep resonate voices instead of the falsetto the Beninese use. The Nigerians are so bawler here. They come for business and their money goes far here. You can always tell who they are by their clothes and a certain swagger, or style. When I went to put my money in the collection box I was surprised to find it full of all Nigerian money! Another example of how they live in Benin, but apart.

I went to the largest outdoor market in Cotonou today- and it was crazy! It was so crowded, so many little lanes to pass through, lots of cars and motos and push carts to dodge, amazing produce that I can’t get in the desertified North, and just lots of good, random, stuff.

The other day I went to the same market but to the voodoo section. It was huge! and smelled like a barn. One section was all of dried plants and tree bark and things to use in traditional medicine, another section was for the accessories people use to perform the voodoo rites and another for the fetish/god objects themselves. Tables full of dried heads of all origins- dogs, monkeys, crocodiles, two huge hippo heads, horses, ducks, etc. There were blue and green dead sparrows, horse tail whips, metal embellished axes and other objects, shells, beads, hooves, horns, dried turtles, live rats and fish, leopard skins, etc. Everything has it’s particular purpose.

The fetish objects/gods were kept separate and the vendor passed them to us in a cloth so we wouldn’t be touching them directly. I still need to find out who can make these and how and when the fetish spirit enters them. They told us that they are used by certain traditional healers as something that blesses their work but they also said many households will have one in the South and anyone can supplicate it.

To take pictures in the market we had to pay and I wondered by some kids’ automatic monetary demands whether they make more money from the tourists than actual customers. At least I didn’t see any buyers. I wonder what it would be like to grow up in the voodoo market.

For Christmas this year I went to an expat’s dinner party with a mix of PC staff, former PC volunteers who now work at the aid organization Catholic Relief Services, and Africans of various nationalities. It was a really interesting group. I was able to talk to the former volunteers about their transition from PC to grad school to working in Africa again and how they saw West Africa change when we compared my service with theirs. Infrastructures, notably cell phones and bus lines, have risen up, countries have started wars (Cote d’Ivoire) and ended them (Liberia), and pollution is on the rise. It was really interesting seeing the African perspective on war, politics, and peace.

I feel like whenever something bad happens in Africa the US media covers it in a way suggesting the event is just another chink in the hopeless chain of events leading to the self-combustion of the continent. There is nothing to be done to “save” it because the problems are always grand and systematic and generalized- tribal fighting, big-man democracy, poverty. Until the media starts covering events here in a more nuanced way, and getting their stories from African reporters who know the culture and history and politics themselves, one can’t blame the American public for not being more informed about these issues. Like with the recent cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe CNN showed the mass graves and people drinking standing water and talked about how dictatorial Mugabe is but they didn’t go into how one relates to the other like how Mugabe doesn’t let foreign NGOs into the country to provide money to local NGOs, who already know how to educate people about proper health and sanitation that could have prevented this. Maybe I’m just being overly critical- because I’m in the habit or something- but I do think that the media stigmatizes the continent.

But, dinner was amazing. NGO workers have it really good here. They can fashion their life in a way that makes it possible to almost forget the fact that they are living in Africa. Ok, I’m being negative again, but the ACed SUVs, the private schools, the consumption, and just in general living high above the average Beninese person. I had to ask myself though, what would I do differently if I were in their position? Why should they feel guilty about what they have? Maybe PC emphasizes so much integrating into your community and living like the people that it’s a shock when I see our admin staff doing the opposite. But, as I said, dinner was amazing. Turkey, baked mac’n’cheese, red wine, cheesecake, dark chocolate brownies and good-goodness. It was a nice Christmas.

40th Anniversary Song and Dance (check out our matching "tissue" outfits.)

Kids singing for Santa Claus (wearing a scary mask) at an orphange party in Porto Novo.

Women's march against violence and forced marriage. Short little something because my batteries died.

The Beninese can be very formal when it comes to ceremonies. I saw a military formation graduation that exemplified this.

Huge tents were set up for the guests, inside which were folding chairs for the masses and huge cushioned lounge chairs for the important people, like the mayors and chiefs and police captains, etc. Hundreds of graduates were standing opposite us in formation, under the hot sun, for hours. The radio and TV stations and photographers were there, always an obtrusive presence at these things in the way they block the crowd's view of the speakers and are always doing close-ups of audience members.

There seems to be a trend of inviting an important person and then having them not show up. The military band was supposed to usher in the Sect. of the Military but instead the Camp's commander gave a long-winded speech following the formula of starting by thanking so-and-so important persons for coming, etc. After that we sang the national anthem and the formations marched past, with flag bearers and baton twirling and everything.

I actually think the military does good work here. They have a volunteer corps like Americorps, they train peacekeepers for the African Union and they have 2 really good boys and girls high schools that are merit based and free.

I went to another event that was for violence against women and girls (wife beating, forced marriages, etc.). It was put on by a Beninese NGO in partnership with USAID. (It's amazing how many projects I see with the US or UN stamp on it.) We had a town hall style meeting where the mayor and the NGO worker spoke and then opened up the floor to the women and men in the audience who could speak on their personal views of how to deal with this issue. I wish I understood more, but since it was in local language I amused myself the same way I suppose a baby would - by looking at all the shiny distractions of the womens' brightly patterned clothes and headscarfs.

They had a local singer come and sing about wife beating and solutions. It was a really good way to engage the crowd. The quality of Bariba singing is very unique. It's hard to describe, but I love it- the high tonality and the way it sounds like a story set to music, accompanied by a goat skin drum.

After the meeting they marched around town, singing and waving signs, stopping chez the chief's and the police and ending with a party at the mayor's. The police chief gave a heart-warming, though probably false, speech about how he personally is involved in sensibilizing people about this issue (and he would never ever take a bribe to turn a deaf ear to a report of abuse).

But, the day was a success. It gave me ideas on how to organize my own march for the environment.

I spent another day in the fields chez moi. This time we harvested mill, or sorghum (? I don't even know if this cereal exists in the US). I went with a whole family this time, from the baby to the grandparents, with the kids having to walk a few K to get there and the adults taking motos.

Mill is really pretty, actually. The grains are small and round and colored red, beige and green. The stalks they grow on are like 10 feet tall so we first kind of had to break them in half and then use knifes to cut off the grain heads. At home these will dry and then get beaten to remove the seeds, which are then pounded into powder in a huge mortar and turned into porridge.

The day was hot and dry and everyone was half-saying "see how we suffer in Africa", but it was fun all the same.

My post is good in that it is surrounded by beautiful nature. The other day I went on a bike ride that reminded me I was alive. The sun was setting over my right shoulder as the white moon rose over my left. I was riding down a little dirt path surrounded by tall wheat grass with white and pink tufts and everything was shaded by a pink glow. My path was intersected by a line of ants and I heard a small brush fire crackling in the distance before I saw it ad later felt its heat as I rode by. Enchanting Africa.

I got to go out to a friend's corn field the other day to help with the harvest. It felt so good to get my hands in the dirt again. The three of us took a moto a ways out of town on a sandy dirt road that turned into a path the further we went. We passed deep cuts in the road in which before the dry season came we had waded in water up to our knees. The corn had already been plucked from their stalks and shelled by a team of workers who had been camping out in the fields when we got there so our work consisted of dumping buckets of corn into a machine that removes the kernels, sifting them and depositing them into 100 kilo bags. It took a while to convince them that I, a white woman, was capable of doing the work but by the end of the day they were ready to believe that I had actually worked on a farm in the US. It's hard describing to them agriculture in the US because of the diversity of size and level of mechanization of the farms. It seems hard to definitively say anything about the US because of our great size, diversity and levels of disparity.

For lunch at the fields we had rice and beans with a spicy sauce that was cooked in shea butter. It's amazing how many uses shea butter, or buerre de karité, has here. It's used as cooking oil, as lamp oil, for making body soap and laundry soap, lotion and chapstick, and probably other things I'm not yet aware of.

Because of the size of my town there is a good mixture of traditional and modern influences. I went to visit my friend's grandmother with her the other night and seeing them together got me thinking about it. Her grandma, sitting in a room lit by a shea butter lamp, old and shrivelled skin wrapped in her cloths and headwrap, eating patte, wearing a traditional medicine charm, speaking to me only in Bariba, in the middle of her housing compound which was lit only by dinner fires, atop which mothers stirred their sauces while swatting at the nearest kid running around her, looking for pre-dinner scraps.

All this compared to my friend in her jean skirt and Chinese lip gloss, who after only going to school until 8th grade still speaks French as well as many local languages of Benin and other countries she's lived in, including some Nigerian English. Who at the age of 25 still hasn't married, who makes her own living, and who enjoys going out for a beer with me.

I know my grandparents lives were very different from mine when they were growing up but that's harder to see than the difference between the generations here because people in the US generally change and modernize with time while here it is possible not to change if you don't want to. Modernization isn't such an oppressive force. People have so many choices here. You can dress in Western or traditional clothing, you can listen to Western or traditional music, you can buy plastic or calabash bowls, you can use chemical based soap or locally made soap, you can eat modern food or traditional food, etc. It seems most people don't choose one way or the other, but they mix the two to form a beautiful pattern of living.

-Ce n’est pas grave- It’s not a big deal: people are laid back here, taking things in stride.

-Vienne manger- come eat: Before you eat anything you offer some to whoever is around you. The reponse is usually merci, meaning no thank you. People never say the word no, just merce and ça va.

-Bonne assis- good sitting: If you pass someone on the road who is not working, this is how you greet them.

-Bonne travaille- good work: The greeting for if someone is doing any kind of work or labor expending activity.

-Essance est cher- gas is expensive: The prices are going up here too and this is what venders or taxis tell you when you are bargaining the price of something.

-Tantie- auntie: What little kids call women or what one calls the waitress or street food vendor, unless they are appreciably older, in which case its mama.

-Tu est la?- are you there?: Slang greeting, mostly for when you walk into a room someone is already occupying, or to replace bonne assis.

-On est la- one is there: I’ll be here, like after the first person says see you later.

-Tu as fait un peu?- Have you done a little?: How was your day? Calm, ou bien tu as fait beaucoup? or busy ?

-Et la fatique d’heir?- and the fatigue from yesterday?: People are always saying this, especially if you just got back from a trip out of town.

-ça fait deux jours- it’s been 2 days: People are always keeping track of how long its been since they last saw me.

-La bas- over there: The US when “I’m” talking about how things are back home.

For any Stagiers 21 reading this: bien integeré; ce n’est pas bon; vrai vrai; tous les temps, tous les jours; je blog, je blog; jet ça; par rapport; du courage.

“When in doubt, sweep”- Deborah, PCV: I often think of this piece of advice. Merci.

I’ve developed a love/hate relationship with French. I love it for its quirks and difficulties because hopefully once I master them I will feel accomplished, but those same things for now frustrate me to no end. I love the way the Beninese use French- their accents and local expressions add an interesting element to the language. Oftentimes, a phrase exists in the local language and then gets adapted into French usage, though some quirks are French French. Most notably for me is the use of the word “one» to refer to you, him:her, us, them and even I. Like, one has done that already (I), or will one come tomorrow? (you), or one has cut the electricity (them, i.e. the power company). A certain politeness is found in the ambiguity or anonymity of this word but it also seems to connote a slight lack of responsibility.

Learning the local language has been enjoyable. Language and culture are linked so learning one has taught me the other. Everyone encourages me to learn the greetings and small phrases, which are quite numerous and situational. I love the little expressions like “koo koo” to show shock or disbelief, or the clicking of one’s tongue on the roof of the mouth with the lips closed to show disapproval. “Oh” means yes here so I have to learn to replace it with an uh huh, which sounds more like eh hueeeeh.

The town has multiple names for me, depending on who I’m talking to. All the old men call me something like oniogn, which means 1st born daughter, some of the more polite kids call me gan a gee (princess), the more rambunctious ones call me bhatulé (white person), the kids I actually know call me tanti (aunti), a group of corner vendors decided to call me bonna (second born daughter), or else I’m called Madame or Mademoiselle. I’m hardly ever called by my actual name. I miss the way it sounds coming from an American’s lips.

Language, language, language has been the focus of my stay so far.

People really have to work for their food here. All the dishes are really labour intensive to make, and that’s after carrying the ingredients on the top of your head from the market or cultivating them yourself. For instance, to make pate one has to take corn kernels, dry them in the sun, pound them into flour, then stir the powder into boiling water as it gets more and more concrete-esque. To make the sauce one has to wash, cut, then grind the ingredients between one flat and one curved stone, and then boil them for a prolonged period of time over a charcoal fire that needs constant fanning. And I don’t even want to get into meat preparation. I feel really grateful when people here share their food with me.

Ramadan

Well, Ramadan has come and gone. I won’t miss being woken up in the 4 to 6 AM range by the sounds of people pounding yams in their 3 foot tall mortars, preparing the before dawn meal to fortify them for the day of fasting ahead. I think that would in turn wake up the goats, whose sharp bleating sounded more like the scream of a child at that hour, followed by the roosters, etc.

I got my hand hennaed for the holiday after the end of Ramadan. People here put on the normal orange color, but then coat it in black, often on the feet or one of the hands. So now the tips of my left hand look like I’ve dipped them in an oil well, but I like it all the same. Now my fingernails will serve as time counters as the nails grow out the color.

While Ramadan focused mainly on fasting, the day after was all about feasting. People gift food to their neighbours, friends, and relatives or to the children who come door to door, in a similar fashion to Halloween, looking for either food or small change. I felt good about my small offering of garlic green beans to my new Grandma, a woman who always is feeding me, in part I suspect because she think I can’t take care of myself yet.

It was a god holiday. The whole town was in a jovial spirit, alive with celebration, with all the young siblings in their matching outfits and all the adults in their finest, mostly white attire. I can’t wait to see what Christmas is like.

Salon

I spend a not insubstantial amount of time at my friend’s hair salon, studying French and soaking up the local culture. The salon is a place where you can really let your hair down; all the women are so free with each other. Meals are shared, friends and relatives visit, napping on the coach is encouraged, breastfeeding and general baby needs are attended to in a casual yet efficient manner, vendors pop in selling bananas, peanuts or frozen ice treats. It’s like an all-inclusive resort, but one that you can find on any given corner throughout Benin.

Placement

I am really content in my town. I was open to any sort of post, but now that I’m here I can’t imagine that anywhere else would suit me better. How readily I accept Fate’s designs. Or maybe someone is keeping an eye out for me.

Before joining PC I was worried I would be posted somewhere where I couldn’t receive the Eucharist, or go to any church at all, and what would happen to my young faith after two years in “the wilderness”? But now I happily find myself in a town with two catholic churches, three different orders of nuns and brothers (what’s the word in English?), missionaries and daily mass. C’est Bon.

School

School’s in session now and the town has transformed a little. There are kids visible everywhere, partly due to an influx of those coming from the neighbouring communities, like the group of 6 or 7 girls that moved into my concession. The first week back for the students is spent cleaning up the school grounds and playing games. Before 7th grade school is free but after that the parents have to pay and everyone wears a khaki uniform. New economic life has come to the town, similar to the back-to-school spending frenzy of the US, but this one takes the shape of cookie and candy stands, a new lunch dish prepared by the street food mamas and men walking around with stacks of khaki on their heads and piles of book bags on their arms to sell. At church now they choral the kids to the front sides to fit them in and for the congregation to marvel at their cuteness. C’est Bon.

The Power is out, the heat of the day is soon to be washed away in the nightly thunder storm, I've just finished my dinner of saffron rice with a leafy greens and okra sauce, and it is now that I feel like communing with others. As I sit by lantern light on the straw mat and write this, I wish that you could all be here to experience for yourselves what I am going to try and relate: that is, my new milieu.

I don't have anything grand to say about my new town since I've only been here a few weeks, but there are some little facets of my life here that make for a colorful blog entry: I step out my front door, pass the well and the piles of wood for cooking, exit the front gate and see a pile of branches from a felled tree that by day's end the goats will have stripped bare; greet the old men resting from their Ramadan fast, lying or sitting on the roots of a giant tree that have pushed above ground, in the local language and with the appropriate bow; notice the big sky, white clouds and green tree tops; pass the boys playing their Foosball game , in a constant rotation, all the sunlit hours of everyday; respond to the constant greeting "welcome" that I receive; pick up my clothes at the tailor's, who is flagged by her apprentices, working on their Depression Era Singers; buy fresh milk from the beaded necklaced, silver braceleted, facial tattooed, colorfully dressed girls of the trans-national herder tribe, the Peuhle; and await dusk on my street corner, that has such a feel of regularity and community in the melange of buying and selling, relaxing and talking, eating and passing the time.

I am in a romantic mood now but I must be a little critical of my presentation of my life in a small town in Africa. It wouldn't do to write about the mundane or plain aspects of things here, so I find in my descriptions precisely that which I am fundamentally against: the "Otherization" of Africa. Take my word for it, life is very much normal here. Things are very different from in the US, but life is very normal, and in many ways, the same.

Goodbye Porto Novo. I'm leaving my 2 month training site tomorrow for the great unknown. Allow we some sentimentality as I try to capture the city. It was described to me by my host brother as the bush, and it is in fact the bush-y-est capital city I've ever seen. Downtown has its paved roads, outdoors markets, government buildings, large mosques and churches and voodoo temple as well as supermarkets, bars and clubs, but besides for that small part of the inner city one finds dirt roads, grass, banana, mango and coconut trees, as well as free range chickens, goats, cows and swine. It radiates a calm normalcy. It isn't dirty, crime-ridden or crowded they way some other LDC's capitals are. Though life is still city life here, different from most of the country, as I am reminded by the 1 year volunteers who are astonished by our group's familiarity with indoor plumbing and toilet paper, chocolate, and receiving gifts from our home stay families like cell phones and fancy traditional outfits. Just by the fact that our sisters go to school and everyone in the family actually speaks French. A part of me is glad that training was in Porto Novo because I would never know the city otherwise but the other part of me feels unprepared for how different my life will be at post. I'll also go from having a tightly-packed training schedule with constant supervision to having never ending free time by myself. Most people's fears about the first 3 months at post revolve around being bored, lonely and purposeless, kind of wandering around town trying to make friends and a routine, set up house and survive. I am genuinely looking forward to it. I know each new day I'll find some thing or experience that will remind me of the mysterious beauty that the earth, humanity and living life in the present possess, and that will be enough for me.

I went on my post visit last weekend! PC sets each volunteer up with a host agency like the mayor's office or an NGO and assigns him or her a work partner/supervisor. All the counterparts came to Porto Novo for a conference and to meet us and take us up to post. I'm glad I didn't have to figure out travel on my own so soon in the game.

In exchange for having a free American for 2 years the NGO pays our rent, which is nice. My house is in a little row connected to 3 others in a concession (English word?). I hope there's kids and friendly people to talk to and that my landlord lets me get a cat.

A major activity of the visit was to go around greeting all the town officials and group heads with my homologue and tell them who I am and what I'll be doing there for the next two years. It was kind of intimidating having him introduce me as an environmental specialist and tick off a long list of projects that I may do, such as mud stoves, gardening, tree nurseries, agro-business, plastic bags recycling, environmental education and clubs, natural insecticides and nutrition. There were lots of officials, from the town mayor to each to each neighborhood's chief to both kinds of police forces to all the people in local departments of agriculture and forestry, and then lots more. School isn't in session now so I'll have to wait to meet the principles.

In my first three months of post not much is expected of me other than make contacts, gather information, and survive. I'm really looking forward to it!

- I saw someone wearing a knock-off Obama campaign T-shirt. It made me happy and want one of my own!

-The biggest bill here is the 10,000 CFA note, worth approximetely $20 USD.

-The hills are full of granite here and there are a few places around town that are like mini quarries. I usually see old mamas pounding the stones into smaller and smaller piles with their simple hammers. It seems like a really hard way to make a living.

- I don't know the spelling but in French the stagiers (trainees) were always saying je blog, je blog, which means I'm kidding, and now, every time I blog, I'll think of stage (training) and smile.

-In our last week of classes we were taught some local language of whatever post we're going to, but we were taught in French, and I thought it waspretty cool that I could do that.

-I've gotten comfortable riding the motorcycle taxis but the next step for becoming bien intigré will be learning to carry crazy random things on my head while riding like I see so often, like a basket full of live chickens.

-People just call it like it is here in terms of addressing others? It's a little too blunt to use people's names so they'll say hey you blank person (old, big, young, foreign) instead. I try to remind myself that it's a normal greeting when people address me as the later all the time to cut down on the annoyance this sometimes brings.

-There are all kinds of cool ways to greet someone here. If someone visits your house you present them with a full glass of water, of which they take a polite sip. You always greet with a handshake, which here is livened up by forming a snap together at the end. It's what all the cool kids do. The kids do a little side bow bend to show respect, which everyone does for elders too. People press their cheeks together twice, mostly women, in greeting. There is no hugging. It is disrespectful to look your superior in the eyes during the greeting and you can't be the first one to initiate the handshake. The greetings can last 5 minutes while you ask about the day, the family, the work, the fatigue from the previous day, the health of the other person, etc. C'est bon.

-I was going to write a longer entry about this but I don't want to come off as a patronizing cultural anthropologist so I'll just say a little something here. People here for the most part practice some form of traditional medicine or healing, ranging from making their own tissanes of boiled bark or leaves to traveling to see the famous bone setter for fractures to seeing a local healer who consults her fetish object for permission to heal bodily or mental illness. And they all work for the most part, in some way or another. Anyone can tell you their personal success story. And I think it's because people believe it will work. Mind over matter. We've all heard about the scientific study where people are given sugar pills without knowing and get better. In the West, Western medicine works because people have faith in it, and here the same applies. I hear some sceptics but I'm not saying things like surgery don't work, I'm just saying that recovery from surgery depends on the spirit, and so forth.

-They still have town criers here and in the big cities that means a car with a megaphone and speaker system hooked up driving around like in Blues Brothers.

-Lots of the trees here outside of official buildings, etc. have their lower trunks painted white. People think it looks clean and neat.

-Unroasted peanuts are prolific here; they taste really different, but good.

-On TV at night there is this 20 minute section devoted to death announcements, past and present, with monk chants in the background and a little bio written out. It's nice.

-Back in the day people would buy their market goods and put them in woven baskets and carry them home on their heads. But now, people use plastic sachets. It is a huge environmental problem because they are littered everywhere: in the fields, in the streams, everywhere. They are here permanently. We visited this one NGO that helps this problem and has even been recognized by the UN for what they do.They gather used bags, wash them, cut and loop and make string out of them and then crochet them into goods. Purses mostly. I bought a cute little black and blue striped coin purse. The NGO is totally self-sustained so it needed the money. The best thing is that they go to villages and teach people how to do this themselves so they can generate income and help the environment simultaneously.

-Most people here in the city don't have fridges or freezers but they do have access to stores/ people that do. When my family wants to buy ice they go to their neighbor's house and pick up some clear sachets of block ice. The informal economy is quite convenient.

-The culture of gifting here is interesting. When someone travels it is important to bring back a small gift for one's family, neighbors, maybe co-workers, etc. This could be something small like the bread or fruit of the region that one visited. It's nice.

-Benin was once called "the Cuba of Africa" because the government was Marxist for 30 years. Fun fact.

-The power structure here is very hierarchical and affects the way people interact with each other, including within the family. In my family there is a four year old who I really like and is really cute and only speaks the local language. I can't tell whose kid he is but if he is a distant relative it would explain how he gets treated. People here, in general, expect a lot of children, in the amount of housework and tasks they are given, especially if they are employed as the house boy or girl or are a distant relative. Occasionally, they are treated as whipping posts, in the same way dogs are here, which makes me sad when I hear my little friend being wailed on. I can't say anything to my family so I say it here and risk leaving you a bad impression of the Beninese.

-Baby cows are really cute. Goats too. and puppies. There are lots on my route to school.

-Larium dreams are a nightly occurrence and don't exactly help my traveler's fragile emotional state. The emotions in these dreams are so piercing. They stay with me after I wake up and I'm left wondering if these things are really what I think in my subconscious and feel kind of like a bad person for even imagining them. I try to just blame it on the drugs...

-Everyone talks about the emotional roller coaster that is the PC experience over the next two years but some days my highs and lows fluctuate on an hourly basis. I'm more irritable but I can also become happy from and wonder at the smallest things, like baby cows or an expedition to the fan milk store to split a 2 litre bucket of chocolate ice cream that tasted amazing, akin to the little cups they would give us at school.

-There are two dry seasons and two wet seasons here in the south on Benin. The seasons run life. Did you know that eggs are a seasonal product? An interesting tidbit is that if an old person dies during the rainy season they will put off the funeral for a month or two until the dry season when they can have a big party.

-There is a traditional cure here for everything. In my backyard my family has been boiling up some specific bark to use the water to wash the newborn baby in. It's to give him strength and protection against mosquitoes/malaria.

-The Beninese have a saying about how the wise keep guard of their knowledge because it is precious, so it may be hard for me as a Yovo (foreigner) to discover and benefit from local knowledge at my post for my projects, but we'll see.

A few weeks ago we went on an excursion to a town called Ouidah and I've been wanting to blog about it. Ouidah was an old port town in the Kingdom of Benin that was the exit point for most slaves out of West Africa. Ouidah's kings were experienced in the slave trade from inter-tribal warfare before the Europeans got there but on a minute scale compared to the millions who were forced to cross the Atlantic. The kings profited greatly from the trade of peoples from the hinterland but the cost to the Europeans was minuscule. I saw some of the beads and metal pieces that were used to buy other's freedom. Maybe half of the people didn't survive the voyage across the Atlantic in the cramped, disease infested ships. People were tied down, given no food or water or toilet. (I know you know this already but it's fresh in my mind.)

We went to a museum in the old European fort that displayed and facilitated the discussion of these things but I learned the most from the monuments that were erected out in the town. There was this one tree that the shackled slaves were forced to walk around seven times to forget their old lives in Africa, to make them better workers in America. The Europeans learned about this tree that was used for the same purpose by the kings on Benin and adopted the practice, resting on their assumptions about the superstitions and beliefs of the Africans.

We also went to "Africa's Wailing Wall", which is a monument commemorating the site of a mass grave in which people were put who were deemed too unhealthy to whether the voyage. It was very sobering standing there in the spot where this holocaust took place. Next we drove down this road through the marshy wetland to the beach. The contrast was clear in my mind between the happy memories associated with beaches and what this particular beach meant. I was seeing the same sand and sky that for millions was the last tactile reality of Africa, their home, that they would experience.

There is a structure erected at the beach called The Point of No Return. On the façade facing the ocean there are slaves pictured leaving, and on the other side they are shown coming back, representing the people's spiritual return to Africa after death. There are so many terrible effects and repercussions of slavery in the US, Benin and worldwide that it can dampen the message of hope this is supposed to give. The economic underdevelopment of Africa, references to "the dark continent", current aid practices and development work, racism ans classicism in the US, to name a few. Benin was given a one-time grant for the establishment of all these monuments but the space is not managed in the same way that it would be in the US. For example, there are people living right next to the monuments so tat it seems you are in their backyard or neighborhood while you are there, selling stuff,etc. In the US they would be forced out but here they have nowhere else to go, and I'd rather see the reality of their poverty than have them displaced for the sake of tourism.

Slavery is just one of those things that I learned about in school and saw the movie Amistad and thought I got but being there and the emotions it provoked in me made me realize that I'll never really get it, how we can do this to each other. If you ever get a chance, go to a concentration camp or the beaches of Normandy or see all the white crosses in Arlington cemetery or the warehouses of split skulls from the Rwandan genocide or anywhere where you can fell the effects of hate, intolerance, fear, greed and ignorance. Go and pray to God for humanity's sake and help make "never again" a reality.

(This entry maybe hasn't been as clear or heartfelt or factual as I wished it to be but I hope it hasn't been deeply offensive to anyone in any way.)

Here are some pictures from my tech. visit to the Collins. It's mid-country and very pretty, very lush in the rainy season.

I went on a four day "technical" visit recently. Seven of us went to visit a volunteer at post in the middle of the country (south of where I'll be). It was very green and hilly there with lots of trees. We went hiking a few times and the views of the valley and other rocky peaks was breathtaking. It actually felt i little cold there, especially at night.

The volunteer organized a dance for us on the last night. To get the village drummers to come and play all we had to do was supply them with cigarettes and bottles of the local palm alcohol, (which goes down pretty smooth). It was also independence day and everyone was feeling festive so we got a good crowd.

Around 10 PM we joined the drum circle under a mango tree. There were 3 drummers, one cowbell, and lots of people on vocals and dancing. We took turns dancing in the middle of the circle in the local fashion, which closely mimics the moves of a chicken. Much to do with flapping arms and vibrating legs and squatting down down down. It was fun and proof that I will dance if everyone else looks just as ridiculous as I do. If the crowd likes the way you dance someone presses a coin to your forehead. Maybe, like the ridiculous old town drunk who was there, I'll earn one next time.

P.S. Today I took a walk to a recommended bakery and got a little raisin bread roll that was amazing!

I love markets. There is one by my house which is really great. Big, bustling, smelly organized chaos. Little piles of tiny tomatoes, fried food, girls running a stand where you can bring the live chicken that you bought next door and they will slaughter, pluck and prepare for you, all for the low low price of .50 cents. A traveling magician/storyteller complete with a wooden dummy entertaining young and old, woven shallow baskets full of blue crabs, grilled fish and live fish, kittens, puppies, hot peppers, ginger, jars of amazing honey and spicy oil derived from the seed of a local tree, lore dried "nuts" from a local tree unlike anything I've seen before (I thought at first my host Dad was just tricking me into eating a bug), etc. When I think about it, these markets are way cooler than the ones I saw in Kenya. Plus, they have all the voodoo supplies that one might need. Dried bats anyone?

I give the food here a thumb's up. They eat this thing called patte (p-o-t), which is like ugali from East Africa if anyone remembers me talking about it. Try this at home- just boil water and stir in corn flour until it thickens to a glob. There are lots of different kinds of patte too. Patte noir made with smoked dried yams, patte rouge with tomatoes, yam pilé made with yams and tastes like mashed potatoes, and patte from dried ground cassava.

There are lots of local greens here that people make sauces out of that look like something you would find in a random field somewhere stateside, but they're good. Other sauces are made from okra, tomato, fish, crab, etc. and all have spicy peppers ground in. They also have cous cous, spaghetti, rice, etc. Here in the south we also eat lots of grilled fish, which is served whole and tastes amazing.

There are also lots of strange tropical fruits like lycheé and breadfruit that taste like martian food. People turn oranges into juice boxes here because the insides are so tough, so one just cuts the top off and squeezes it and sucks out the juice. Another culinary delight are frozen treats called Fan Milk. One tastes like vanilla frosting, one like Sunny-D, and there is a yogurt flavored one with vitamins that they give to babies, ect.

The food is going to be different once I get to post up North. Milk is being looked forward to.

Biking in Benin is awesome! We are given mountain bikes to get around in country and I was pretty excited to get to use one. Then I got here and experienced all the obstacles that make the 15 min. ride to school 4 times a day more tiring than exciting. Pot holes are big deals here, especially after a night's rain (and we're just entering the rainy season). When it hasn't rained the sandy dirt doesn't get compacted, making entire stretches of road fell like I'm peddling through quicksand (which is hard to keep your balance in). Add to that having to watch out for cars, motos, pedestrians and baby goats, while trying to shut out the Yovo Yovo/Bon soir/ça va/merçi song that groups of children, and sometimes adults, sing out to me and you have a glimpse into an hour out of my day here. (I actually do like biking here, it's just an interesting experience.)

I've actually gotten good at traveling on the main (paved) road since I last wrote, so instead of sand and water I just have to contend with traffic, and they're not going to run over a Yovo. It's better on the main road after sunset too because my chances of falling into a big wet muddy trash pile go from 75% to zero.

-4AM- Larium dream interrupted by the call to prayer, coming either from the small mosque a stone's throw away or the large mosque down the other road, I can't tell. (There are lots of churches here too, including the Christian Celeste's, which were started by this guy from Wisconsin, apparently, but they don't make noise in the mornings.) Accompanied by the howling of the neighbor's dog(s), who are agitated by the sound and howl every time, five times a day.

-Wake up under mosquito net

-Brush teeth with pre-boiled water.

-Ride bike a few blocks blurry eyed to the nearest boulangerie to buy a loaf of bread, which here is French baguette style, if a little wider. Greeted by the same woman who comes out to my bike saying "hot, hot", referring to the bread, because she knows I don't understand any other French.

-Breakfast of bread with local honey, Nescafe with powdered milk, and a banana or orange.

-7:40- Leave for school on bike.

-8-12:30- school (2 classes)

-ride bike home.

-Greet Grandma

- eat lunch

- take bucket shower

- boil or filter water

- do a little laundry

- Sweep the dirt/sand out of my room

- bike to school

- take 2 more classes

- Stay after school for French tutoring or to grab a beer.

- bike home at 7 or 8.

- greet Grandma

- take second shower

- eat dinner

- Play Uno with my host father, play with the baby, watch a movie (the Exorcist dubbed in French)/ TV (African news channel where they have to speak in a Parisian accent, Mexican soap operas Beninese music videos/ bootleg Nigerian music video DVDs of Shakira or Celine Dion, or be tutored by my host father for half an hour in French.

- Go to bed.

- Hear my host father and his friend go over calculus problems on a chalkboard in the living room with more TV/music in the background.

- Think about how sweaty I am.

- Put in my earplugs.

- Fall asleep

I'm tired most of my days. The French is coming along petit petit. I spent 2 hours on Sunday getting my hair braided. Total cost: $1.50 USD. Hot, humid, rain every day (rainy season). Rain on tin roof so loud at school classes suspended. I see my reflection in the mirror maybe once a week. I don't where a watch. Life is good.

I got my post assignment! I'm going to the North, in a region called the Borgou, to a small town. I don't really know any details about post except I may be working under the direction of the mayor's office, I may be the first volunteer to open that post, or the first one in a long time, and my role as an environmental community advisor is going to be pretty self-directed. I'm really looking forward to going!

I could be working on a myriad of things at post but for now I'll just discuss some of Benin's environmental problems. A big one is pollution. Benin isn't very industrial so it's biggest polluters come from the environmental sector. Out of all the cars, buses and lorries, the worst polluter is the motorcycles. Motos are the primary means of transportation here. They are for private use and are also the most common taxi. Some villages are only reached by moto, which is why Benin is the only country where volunteers can ride them.

The fumes from the motos are pretty bad, causing people to ride around with handkerchiefs around their noses in the big cities. Part of the problem is that moto exhaust is unregulated. A bigger part of the problem is the dirty Nigerian gas that is smuggled across the boarder and sold at roadside stands. Also, the motos are old here and many of the exhaust pipes have been haphazardly refabricated.

Another problem is desertification. The Sahel is creeping into Northern Benin. In the dry season in the North everything gets a good coating of sand. A contributing factor is deforestation. People cook with charcoal. Erosion and soil degradation also fit into the problem. Chemicals banned in the US are used in massive amounts in the North to grow cash crops like cotton.

Another problem is the relationship between the Beninese and the environment. People are always late here, time moves more slowly, because there is always tomorrow. The same thinking exists about the environment. There isn't much planning for the future because people live in the present. Natural resources are just used up until the point of exhaustion. Pollution isn't seen as a problem for the future but just for how it affects life now. This is slowly changing and that's why it's the government's and PC's #1 priority right now to educate. (I've been here three weeks only so take this generalization with a grain of salt.)

Now, I know I can find something that I can work on for the next 2 years.

I've really enjoyed my time here so far in the short length it's been since I left Philly. I can't wait until I know the country like the back of my hand but, in the meantime, I've been experiencing all the wonders and follies of being a stranger in a foreign land (including using this French keyboard.)

Some Background on Benin: Benin is a small country about the size of Penn., with a population of 8 million, to the West of Nigeria. Benin is a francophone country and has been stable since decolonization, which is why no one has really heard of it before. Benin also, I think, is # 13 out of the world's poorest nations. Benin gets its name from the Kingdom of Benin, known for its art, as the birthplace of voodoo and for being active in the slave trade. Yayi Boni is the current president and he had a PC volunteer in his town growing up and now he really supports us being here. I'm hoping he comes to our swearing in ceremony. The capital of Benin is Porto Novo, which is where I am for 9 weeks of training. We spent a few days in Cotonou at first, which is the bustling business center of Benin. They have kind of an Albany/NYC thing going on. Cotonou makes Porto Novo feel like a sleepy town. Cotonou is where all the bad crime is, where all the bad pollution from all the motorcycle taxis running on dirty smuggled Nigerian oil is, where the beach is an unsafe place even during the day, where one can actually find milk and deodorant, and where the PC office is located (on a road that becomes the prostitute district at night). I'm glad we're in Porto Novo. There is about 60 of us doing environment, health, small business and teaching English. We all live with host families and see each other on Tuesdays. Every other day I just go to school with the other environment people (15 of us). We're all living with well-to-do families and mine is really nice. I have a small family with a Dad (25 yr.), a Mom (20yr.) and a baby (1 yr tomorrow). We live in a gated compound with the extended family of some aunts and uncles, a 67 yr old Grandma, and some sisters/cousins and a few other babies. There are two houses, four bedrooms, two porches, one outdoor covered area for cooking, three little charcoal portable stoves, two shower stalls, one latrine, one toilet, one water spout, two clothes lines and lots of colorful lizards that run around in the same abundance as squirrels in the US. (Side note- for some reason the national football team is called the squirrels, les ecruells, even though they don't exist here.)