Boubulle is the biggest dog in the neighborhood. He is a thoroughbred, a chief, an alpha among the small, ruff-nosed mutts of my post in Natitingou, Benin. He physically stands about a foot taller than any of the other dogs I've seen in Benen, and his demeanor leaves nothing to chance. I once saw a zemidjan (taxi-moto) hit a smaller dog on the street near my house. The dog let out a shrill cry as it shot out from beneath the motorcycle's front tire and continued yelping as it limped feebly to the shade of a mango tree near the road. Within seconds, ten other snarl-snouted dogs had surrounded the motorcycle driver as he lifted his moto from the cracked tarmac and brushed the dust from the fall out of his shirt and trousers. It took a moment before he realized that the feverously barking dogs were on all sides, like a group of leather-coated gangsters surrounding a messenger before they beat him for information. The driver climbed aboard his motorcycle and kicked the bike into gear. He revved the engine twice, made a small adjustment to the motor with his hand, and sped out of the wildly yapping pack of revenge-rowdy canines just as Boubulle charged into the group. The other dogs, all immediately dwarf in size and prowess, seemed to halt their outrage for a moment, as if waiting for their recently arrived leader, Boubulle, to give them a command, to summon them to war. Boubulle stood growling in center of the street, like a fighter too enraged to take action. The other dogs dispersed with the onset of incoming traffic on the roads, but Boubulle held his ground. He lifted his head to the air, gave one fearless howl, and began pacing up and down the street like some crazed UFC fighter luring support from the crowd and intimidating his opponent. The other dogs stood with me on the side of road, watching Boubulle's outrageous display of emotion. He continued to bark at passing motorcyclists for several minutes, before finally retiring to the sidewalk, and resting with his eyes on the road. Though Boubulle is technically owned by my neighbor / landlord, his alliance clearly do not rest with man. He's the type of dog that knows that he's a dog. Much like a feminist takes pride in being a woman, Boubulle takes pride in being a dog. When I first arrived at my post in Natitingou, nearly two years ago, Boubulle gave me absolutely no respect. His lack of trust in me was astounding. He refused to let me near any of the kids in the neighborhood, often standing between them and me with his teeth showing and his wolverine-like mane standing on end. He'd burst through the screen door of my home when I fried guinea-fowl eggs before work in the morning, and he'd bark and charge at me when I arrived home from work in the evening. Because of Boubulle, many of the other dogs in the neighborhood became wary of my presence. Despite Boubulle, his owner slowly became my best friend at post, and the dog's comportment toward me began to change. Though he stopped barking at me, the children of his owner were still off limits. It took almost a year before he allowed me near any of them without his immediate supervision and control. About the same time, Boubulle began taking me under his wing. He followed me to the market, walking from table to table with me like a bodyguard as I purchased tomatoes, onions, and peppers. He rested beneath my table while I dined at with the mamas selling rice and beans near my house. As a friend of his owner, Boubulle felt obligated to protect me, but he still bit my hand several times when I tried to touch him. No one could really touch him. He was off limits to strangers, a loner by choice and a fighter by obligation. It didn't anger me that after living next to him for eighteen months I still couldn't pet him from time to time, because I knew that I wasn't the only one. It wasn't until the day of my two year anniversary in Benin that Boubulle and I made a major breakthrough. Sometime around three in the morning, when my Mephaquin-induced insomnia became too much to bear, I called Boubulle's owner to see if he was still awake. I walked the twenty feet between our two homes and sat down at a table outside. While still alone, waiting for my friend to step from the confines of his home, I felt a weight softly rest itself on my thigh, as if someone had lightly placed a sweater over my legs. I didn't think to look down. I knew the feeling all too well. In my sleep-deprived state, I put my hand down on the dog's head in my lap. It was Boubulle. He let out a sigh of relief as I stroked his ears back and caressed his neck. He stayed there until his owner came out of his home. I'd made many friends at post in Natitingou. I'd taught environmental sciences courses to kids and staged many successful community projects, but it wasn't until that very moment, at three in the morning on the two year anniversary of my arrival in Benin that I realized that I'd truly been accepted by my community.

Boubulle is the biggest dog in the neighborhood. He is a thoroughbred, a chief, an alpha among the small, ruff-nosed mutts of my post in Natitingou, Benin. He physically stands about a foot taller than any of the other dogs I've seen in Benen, and his demeanor leaves nothing to chance.

I once saw a zemidjan (taxi-moto) hit a smaller dog on the street near my house. The dog let out a shrill cry as it shot out from beneath the motorcycle's front tire and continued yelping as it limped feebly to the shade of a mango tree near the road. Within seconds, ten other snarl-snouted dogs had surrounded the motorcycle driver as he lifted his moto from the cracked tarmac and brushed the dust from the fall out of his shirt and trousers. It took a moment before he realized that the feverously barking dogs were on all sides, like a group of leather-coated gangsters surrounding a messenger before they beat him for information.

The driver climbed aboard his motorcycle and kicked the bike into gear. He revved the engine twice, made a small adjustment to the motor with his hand, and sped out of the wildly yapping pack of revenge-rowdy canines just as Boubulle charged into the group. The other dogs, all immediately dwarf in size and prowess, seemed to halt their outrage for a moment, as if waiting for their recently arrived leader, Boubulle, to give them a command, to summon them to war.

Boubulle stood growling in center of the street, like a fighter too enraged to take action. The other dogs dispersed with the onset of incoming traffic on the roads, but Boubulle held his ground. He lifted his head to the air, gave one fearless howl, and began pacing up and down the street like some crazed UFC fighter luring support from the crowd and intimidating his opponent.

The other dogs stood with me on the side of road, watching Boubulle's outrageous display of emotion. He continued to bark at passing motorcyclists for several minutes, before finally retiring to the sidewalk, and resting with his eyes on the road.

Though Boubulle is technically owned by my neighbor / landlord, his alliance clearly do not rest with man. He's the type of dog that knows that he's a dog. Much like a feminist takes pride in being a woman, Boubulle takes pride in being a dog.

When I first arrived at my post in Natitingou, nearly two years ago, Boubulle gave me absolutely no respect. His lack of trust in me was astounding. He refused to let me near any of the kids in the neighborhood, often standing between them and me with his teeth showing and his wolverine-like mane standing on end.

He'd burst through the screen door of my home when I fried guinea-fowl eggs before work in the morning, and he'd bark and charge at me when I arrived home from work in the evening. Because of Boubulle, many of the other dogs in the neightborhood became wary of my presence.

Despite Boubulle, his owner slowly became my best friend at post, and the dog's comportment toward me began to change. Though he stopped barking at me, the children of his owner were still off limits. It took almost a year before he allowed me near any of them without his immediate supervision and control.

About the same time, Boubulle began taking me under his wing. He followed me to the market, walking from table to table with me like a body guard as I purchased tomatoes, onions, and peppers. He rested beneath my table while I dined at with the mamas selling rice and beans near my house. As a friend of his owner, Boubulle felt obligated to protect me, but he still bit my hand several times when I tried to touch him.

No one could really touch him. He was off limits to strangers, a loner by choice and a fighter by obligation. It didn't anger me that after living next to him for eighteen months I still couldn't pet him from time to time, because I knew that I wasn't the only one.

It wasn't until the day of my two year anniversary in Benin that Boubulle and I made a major breakthrough. Sometime around three in the morning, when my Mephaquin-induced insomnia became too much to bear, I called Boubulle's owner to see if he was still awake. I walked the twenty feet between our two homes and sat down at a table outside. While still alone, waiting for my friend to step from the confines of his home, I felt a weight softly rest itself on my thigh, as if someone had lightly placed a sweater over my legs. I didn't think to look down. I knew the feeling all too well.

In my sleep-deprived state, I put my hand down on the dog's head in my lap. It was Boubulle. He let out a sigh of relief as I stroked his ears back and caressed his neck. He stayed there until his owner came out of his home.

I'd made many friends at post in Natitingou. I'd taught environmental sciences courses to kids and staged many successful community projects, but it wasn't until that very moment, at three in the morning on the two year anniversary of my arrival in Benin that I realized that I'd truly been accepted by my community.

Most astronomers would disagree, but this twenty-something year old Peace Corps Pilgrim has discovered the truth – that Earth actually revolves around Nigeria. The fact is understandably confusing. Our astronomical umbrella is comfortable. Many don't see the need to shake the scientific world to its frail, whitewashed knees. These are the facts: the first starry-eyed Europeans to step foot on the African continent had no idea what they had discovered, and truthfully, the depth of their discoveries didn't become completely evident until recent years. They had no idea of the powers that lay just east of the Dahomey Gap. Nigeria is the birthplace of a force stronger than our sun. It's the epicenter of a wave that blasts through Benin and continues westward to the coast, where I imagine that all the extra rip-off Calvin Cling cologne, Sonye DVD players, and Ray and Ben sunglasses are burned in a massive beachfront pyre, where the ashes are then dumped directly into the Atlantic Ocean. Obama Gear is perhaps one of the greatest of Benin's Nigerian imports. Obama's name and picture can be seen on everything from belt buckles to underwear, sandals to flashlights, traditional fabrics to album covers. His popularity is immense. People throughout Benin have given their businesses names like Obama Coiffure, Obama Couturier, Obama Pret-a-Porter, etc... Much like a plant that uses the sun to produce chlorophyll, factories in Benin have taken their Nigeria-based Obama-nacity to create something beautiful. Sobebra, Benin's sole beer producer, recently released a brand new brew. Obama Beer is an American style lager whose label proudly ports the slogan Oui, Nous Pouvons, which is French for Yes, We Can.

Peace Corps volunteers posted in South America generally become socialists or, at the very least, develop socialist tendencies during their service. Any PCV can tell you that. Likewise, they say that volunteers posted in Asia become Buddhists, and that the poor, malnourished volunteers posted in West Africa usually develop drinking problems. These aren't racio-geographical stereotypes. They're facts that have become evident over the 50 years that Peace Corps has been in service.

Through my travels to other West African countries, it's become clear that the residents of no other West African nation consume more alcohol than the Beninois. By this rationale, the Beninois must then be in the running for most per-capita alcohol consumption worldwide (and as the majority of that alcohol is both fabricated and consumed in muggy, fly-clouded, mud-huts, official statistics are unknown).

What we do know, is that most cultures develop constraints that keep their people from drinking each other under the table. The Beninois have not. Pregnant women dance drunkenly at bars and cabarets. Newborns are given millet beer before they can walk, and taxi-drivers mix sodabi (palm liquor) with instant Nescafe to wake them at sunrise.

For a long time, I believed that the Beninois' drinking habits were inhibiting their work, their ability to make sound decisions and to develop into a nation free from international aid. But I was wrong. The time has finally come. Development has hit Natitingou at last.

The city is in the grip of Independence Day preparations. On August 1st 2011, Benin will celebrate its 51st anniversary of freedom, and Nati was chosen to host the national party. The president will be in town with all of his minstrels and cronies, and the people of Nati are busy glorifying their ville for the world to see.

The government of Benin gave the city 22 milliards CFA (equivalent to approximately 11 million American dollars) to repair the city's desperate needs. The people of Nati went straight to work, beginning with the most prevalent of problems: the trees. They were everywhere. You couldn't walk a block without having one of them obstructing the sun's pestilent rays. Thankfully, the workers have cut them all down. Well, not all of them, but most of them anywhere near any of the roads, including hundreds of century-old, colonially-planted Neem trees outside the Mayor's office's and around the churches and mosques in town. Indeed, the problem is solved.

The workers are paving a few roads, installing Astroturf on the city's main soccer field, constructing a glamorous water fountain at the Mayor's office, and building a three-story presidential grandstand to block visitor's view of the largest, most-dilapidated elementary school in the city.

It's almost ready. The buvettes are stocked with cold beer. So ching-ching (cheers) in celebration...for beer, Benin, and....

Not everyone in Benin is convinced that Osama Bin Laden is dead. The American government’s refusal to release photos of the corpse has left many Beninois Muslims and Christians together on the fence.

As a rule, the Beninois don’t believe anything that they (or their brother) did not see with their own eyes. Fantastical gris-gris sorcery-lore circulates through their conversations on a daily basis. Without guidelines to filter their beliefs, gullibility would lead them to believe in men who turn sand into couscous, and eat glass bottles without shedding a drop of blood.

It is for this reason that the TV news stations in Benin are required to show images of everything they report. Their coverage of the degenerate, the grotesque, and the unbelievable is beyond thorough. Their journalists are demanded to rise above the international norms of reporting.

The news station ORTB recently ran a segment about a man living in Ouida (the voodoo capital of Benin). The man had been arrested for killing albinos and selling their body parts to gris-gris chiefs for ceremonial purposes. The more valuable pieces of the albinos had already been sold, but as anyone in the albino-body-part business can tell you, there are some albino parts that simply will not sell.

The man had buried the remaining, unusable, parts beneath the floor of his home, and because journalistic integrity is such a high demand in Benin, the news crew showed video footage of the albino excavation that led to several albino arms, feet, and heads splayed out in the man’s front yard.

Let’s take a step back to examine the situation. Would you really believe a video like that? If the answer to this question is “not without an interview,” then you’re thinking is level. The media segment concluded with an interview with the handcuffed murderer. A freshly severed albino head was held behind him as he explained; “I did it for the money.”

There is no reason to spend 13 hours (from Natitingou to Cotonou) on a Benin Routes Bus. Benin Routes is undisputedly the worst bus company in Benin. They are known for having windshields that are held in place with nothing but scotch tape, seats whose cushions have been completely stripped down to the their metal bones, and engines that tend to burst into flames in traffic.

On top of all this, Benin Routes now has a new accident to add to their resume. It happened last week when their bus couldn't make it beyond the city limits of Natitingou before bowling over a mud home on the side of the road.

The morning had gotten off to a rough start when the bus' engine had refused to turn over. The bus driver asked all the passengers to get up from their seats and descend from the bus. With agonizingly slow steps, the male passengers began pushing the bus toward a hill where it would be able to pick up enough speed to start the engine.

The bus arrived at the hill and started rolling on its own, but when the driver turned the key, he found that the problem had not been with the ignition at all. The engine still refused to start. He pumped the breaks, but with the engine cut, the break pedal produced no results.

Normally, in situations like this (if situations like this were to arise normally), the driver would simply pull the emergency break. But let's keep in mind that this was a Benin Routes bus. Of course, there was no emergency break.

The bus continued to pick up speed as it rolled down into a T-intersection in the middle of a neighborhood. The bus driver turned away from the corn-filled clearing that would have safely led the bus off the road, and turned directly toward the tin-roofed mud home of an old man who was sleeping inside. The bus crashed through the home, remarkably leaving the old man completely unscathed, and came to a rest against a mango tree in the middle of a concession.

The front of the bus was brutally smashed from its collision with the house and the mango tree. It lay dormant in the family's yard until noon, when Benin Routes officials came to pick it up. They taped a new windshield to its battered front, fixed the engine, and sent it back down to Cotonou with a busload of new passengers the next morning.

A few months ago, my grandmother wrote a snail-mail letter to Villanova University. In the letter, she informed the Athletic Department of some of the work that I’ve done in Benin, and included a few photos of projects that I’ve created at post. She also inserted a note about how my post in Natitingou is the home/birthplace of Villanova basketball’s center Mouphtaou Yarou, and she asked the University to make a donation to the upcoming boys basketball camp that I’ve spent the past few months organizing.

I was ecstatic when Villanova responded to my grandmother’s letter with an email to my address. They promised to send me some promotional materials and gifts for the participants of the camp. I was happy with this response, and didn’t expect the connection to grow any deeper.

I spent last week working in Cotonou, the economic capital of Benin, a city of nearly one million people. The trip marked only the third or fourth time in my service that I’d gone down to the crowded, foul city, but I was happy to see some of my Peace Corps Volunteer friends after many months in the North. A group of us had gone out to eat after work, when my PCV friend Charlie called my phone.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m at Bon Pasteur,” I told him.

“Come across the street to the Chwarma place,” he said hurriedly.

I walked across the moto-congested street and met Charlie outside. “So this is what happened,” he explained. “I was standing out here on the sidewalk, waiting for Mirana (his wife), when this massive Beninois guy approached me. The guy was huge, and he asked me in English, perfect English, where I was from. When I told him that I was an American, he told me that he is a student at Villanova.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

Charlie pointed into the restaurant to a man that hardly fit into the chair where he was seated. I walked inside and approached the table. The giant stood up to greet me. My six-foot frame was instantly dwarfed as he tilted his head to the side so as not make contact with the ceiling.

“I’m a Peace Corps volunteer,” I told him. “I live in Natitingou.”

He smiled. “It’s you,” he said, surprised. “Your grandmother sent us a letter.” He started laughing lightly at the thought. “I saw a picture of you,” he told me. “Have you gotten the package that we sent?”

I told him that I had not received the package, but expected it to arrive at any time. We continued chatting for awhile about my grandmother, and I tried to calculate the amount coincidences that had gone into this random meeting: there I was, talking about my grandmother with the giant West African who Sports Illustrated had aptly named “The Big Beninois.”

He wished me good luck with my basketball camp and told me to thank my grandmother for sending the letter. “Watch out for us next season,” he said. “We’ll be back.”

General Mathieu Kerekou was raised in a small village outside of Natitingou, Benin. He joined the Beninois army at a young age and quickly climbed the ranks. By 1972, he found himself in a position of power – leading foot soldiers into the capital in a coup d'etat that overthrew the existing government. For the next 19 years, he ruled the Republic of Benin (then known as the Kingdom of Dahomey) as dictator. While in power, he made close ties with the Soviet Union, and constructed national infrastructure from the ground up. Dirty Marxist oppressor. I've heard of these people before. Don't say that. I'll say what I please. Just keep reading. The fall of the USSR in the early 90’s forced Kerekou to rethink his governing practices. All Red AID funding was cut, and Kerekou was forced to ditch the socialist system that he'd praised for so many years. He converted the country to capitalism. What's that you say? A communist accepting a free market? Impossible. No. It's true. About the same time, Kerekou also reexamined his own role as a governing figure. Without force or warning, he stepped down from his dictatorship and told the people of Benin that they would soon become a voting nation, a true democracy. What's this? A dictator stepping down? And no violence? Yes. That's right. You're lying. Dictators are evil. And Commies are scum. Maybe that's NOT always true. But all my life I've been told that it couldn't happen. Believe it. Benin's first democratic election took place in 1991. Kerekou was no longer interested in leading Benin, and therefore did not campaign for the Presidential seat. The Beninois elected Nicephore Soglo. Soglo lasted just one five-year term before the Beninois became impatient with his ways. As the new elections approached, several political parties convinced Kerekou, the retired dictator, to campaign for president. Why would these oppressed people elect their former oppressor? Maybe they weren't oppressed. Maybe they liked him. I don't believe that. Well, it's the truth. Kerekou easily won the majority vote and was sworn in as the second president of Benin. After a five-year term, Kerekou was again convinced to campaign. As in his first election, the opposition did not stand a chance. A strong majority vote easily fell into Kerekou's lap. After his second term, he stepped down from power for the second time in his life and swore in the new president Yayi Boni. This was five years ago. I assume that most Americans do not know that Benin recently held, and successfully orchestrated a peaceful election on March 13th. With very little violence or political squabbling, the American press printed few articles heralding the triumph of Benin's political stability. C'est la vie. Oui. Malheureusement c'est vrai. Though the majority of the population voted to reelect Yayi to a second term, many Beninois countryman called on Kerekou again during the campaigns. The Beninois constitution, however, states that no president can stay in office for longer than two terms. Kerekou was forced to decline. Indeed, the Beninois have made something very odd of their former dictator. People talk of him as one may talk of a deity. They say that he is like a chameleon, changing all the time. No one ever knows what to expect of him or where he will be spotted next. I've been told that as child, Kerekou spent one year living and learning with the famous West African water goddess, Maami Waatah. The Beninois insist on the validity of Kerekou's telekinetic powers. On national television, he once announced the place and date of his own death. So clairvoyant chameleons make great dictators? ...........(silence) You're impossible. I'm just kidding. This is all very interesting. No. I get it. I'll stop.

My new thermometer tracks heat up to 125 degrees Fahrenheit. By 10:30 each morning, the temperature soars beyond the thermometer's reach and I begin to fear that the sun will break it like the sun did to my last thermometer. I move it out of the sun. It reads 110 degrees in the shade. The wind is still. The humidity gathers strength. Sweat pours out of everything that breathes.

My Beninois friend Anthony tells me that the difference between Heaven and Hell is cold water. "It's always the hot season in Hell," he told me. "You search for water all day, but all the refrigerators are broken. All the water is warm."

Never in my life has cold water meant as much to me as it does now. We've been living the same torrid nightmare for almost one month. I sweat myself to sleep and wake each morning because it is too hot to sleep any longer. Eight liters of water a day is not enough to keep me hydrated, yet I physically can not drink any more.

I'd mentally prepared for this hot season by telling myself that I'd done it before and that I could easily do it again. The heat was bearable until I awoke last Sunday morning, sweating through the sheets as usual. The morning sun gave the room a warm glow, but I couldn't make out any of the shapes or figures that constitute the furniture of my bedroom.

My vision was cloudy and narrow. I stood and walked to the mirror on my wall. The area around my eyes was red and swollen. My eyelids were distended to the point where they appeared to be shut, and my eyelashes were covered with a green, viscous liquid. I washed my face quickly and ran to my neighbor's house.

"It looks like Bettille gave you her pink-eye," Mama Bettille said of her four year old daughter. "She's had it for a few days." I walked back to my house, scratched the itch out of my eyes, and continued sweating.

Some people are amazed by human's ability to assimilate new lifestyles and environments. I'm not one of these people. It's more a lack of memory, a subconscious act of forgetting, that allows us to reevaluate and accept the difficult situations around us. We simply forget what life was like before.

I'll admit that I've forgotten quite a bit. I still recall, however, how easy it is to procure pink-eye medication in the States. I remember that every house has a refrigerator, and that the fridge never breaks. The water inside is always cold.

I'm writing this blog at 9:30 AM. The temperature is 117 degrees Fahrenheit and climbing. Both of my eyes itch with pink-eye, and I'm contemplating the ten minute walk to the nearest boutique where I can buy a bottle of cold water, just as long as the refrigerator still works.

FESTIVAL SUR LE NIGERA five day music festival featuring West Africa's finest acts. Sunset from our room on the river boat behind the stage.

The stage on the Niger River, vacant in the morning.

Drinking tea with Mohammad and the Touaregs of Timbuktu. DOGON COUNTRYThree days of hiking through cliff villages on the edge of the desert. A Dogon home. Cliff villages in the overhang.

The direct route from Mopti, Mali to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso is closed off to Peace Corps Volunteers because of Al Qaeda-related security issues. The journey between these two cities normally takes about five hours in an air-conditioned bus. Going around the forbidden zone, which is what a group of fellow volunteers and I had to do, took nearly four days in overcrowded, goat-laden taxis. We'd already been traveling for nearly two weeks. The majority of that time had been spent in Segou, Mali. Each year the town of Segou transforms from a quiet Sahelian fishing community on the Niger River to the locale of Festival Sur le Niger, West Africa's largest music festival. For five days, West Africa's biggest musical acts (including Amadou & Mariam, Oumar Koita, and Femi Kuti) gather on the banks of the Niger River to celebrate the richness of Malian music, culture, and dance. We passed the majority of our time in Segou drinking tea with a group of Touaregs, who were equally as interested to learn about Americans as we were to learn about them. This particular group of Touaregs hailed from a tiny, salt-mining village 850 kilometers north of the city that westerner's have long-deemed the end of the world: Timbuktu. Their village is unable to grow vegetables, fruit, and water is extremely difficult to find. Their entire livelihood is based solely on the trade of salt and their exquisite silver jewelry. They taught us to how to correctly wrap turbans (thank you American tax payers), and convinced us to purchase some of their silver. They showed us how to play their traditional gourd instruments, and were pleased to hear that a major car company (Volkswagen) had created an automobile bearing their name. After the music festival, we bused up to Mopti, another small city on the banks of the Niger, about an hour south of Timbuktu. From there, we met our guide that was to take us through Dogon Country, a group of villages built into the side of a 120 kilometer escarpment on the edge of the Sahara Desert. Much of this extremely arid region lives entirely without governmental aid. They build their own schools and houses out of stones, and have created an impressive economy based on vast onion plantations that are irrigated by hand-dug pits that dive deep into Earth's crust. After three days in Dogon, we went back up to Mopti to retrieve the things we'd left behind. From Mopti, we flagged down a bus and began our four day journey around the forbidden Al Qaeda-filled zone. The bus that took us from Mopti was filled to capacity. The air-conditioning was broken, and the windows did not open. A thick, pugnacious stench leapt from the buckets of raw meat that filled the isles, and it seemed as if the bus driver stopped every twenty minutes to allow someone to get out, find Mecca, and kneel down to pray. We arrived in the town of San sometime around midnight with no place to go. We'd been unable to contact any Malian Peace Corps volunteers in the area for travel advice, so we decided to trust our blind instincts to get us over the border and into Burkina Faso. After about a half hour of arguing prices with a taxi driver, we convinced him to take us to the border for the price we wanted. He assured us that there were taxis waiting on the other side at all hours of the night, and that we'd have no problem making it to the city of Bobo, Burkina Faso by daybreak. We paid him the fare and took off into the night. Sometime around three in the morning, we stopped in a town whose name I do not know. We waited for thirty minutes in the car, thinking that the driver had simply stepped out to get a coffee, before we realized that he had found a group of friends by the side of the road and had begun playing a game of cards. He refused to take us any further. As in San, we found ourselves once again lost in a strange town in the middle-of-nowhere, Mali. Fearing what would happen to us if we stayed on the streets overnight, we were forced to negotiate with another taxi man. He reaffirmed that there would be plenty of empty taxis waiting for us on the other side of the border, and after much shouting and screaming agreed to take us for the remainder of the price that the first taxi driver still owed us. We arrived at the man's taxi to find that the car he'd promised was no more than a rolling metal platform with an engine attached. The walls were crudely fashioned from scrap metal, and a series of wooden benches had been soldered to the floor as seats. We held our bags close, and left the town. Sometime around four in the morning, we pulled to a stop at a bonfire near the side of the road. The air was foggy and think with smoke, making the shifting shapes around the fire even more ominous in the moonless night. A Malian National Guardsman approached the car to inform us that we were about to enter a stretch of forest that was notoriously littered with bandits and thieves. Night travel was often forbidden and never advised. After a heated discussion with our taxi driver, the guard decided to let us pass. Three other National Guards arose from around the fire. They held AK 47s close to their chests as they climbed in through the door of our makeshift automobile. The sat down silently on the benches and waited for the car to begin moving. A forth armed National Guard took off in front of our taxi on a motorcycle, escorting us through the dangerous zone. We continued with the guards for nearly an hour before the car broke down. I'd been sleeping, and had awoken when the car came to a stop on the side of the road. Suddenly there was pitch black all around. The lights in the car were cut. We listened patiently to nothing but the sound of the driver rattling in the engine, and the Guards switching off the safety of their guns as they squirmed nervously in their seats. We waited. Everyone was wide awake, waiting for something to happen, anything to break the stale insanity of the darkness and the heavy, frustrated panting of the National Guards. I waited for the bandits to swarm the car at any time. I don't recall how long we sat there. It seemed like hours before the driver was able to regulate the engine troubles and keep moving. We continued on through the forest, dropped the National Guards off on the other side, and kept driving. At 5 AM, we came to a stop in a small town. The driver refused to continue any further. He told us that another taxi would come to pick us up at 5:30 AM to take us the remaining 30 kilometers to the border. He left us on the side of the road. The sun rose, hot and heavy. We waited. The first taxi didn't pass until noon. The driver refused to take us. He said that it would take too long to cross the border if he had foreigners on board. We offered him more money and he allowed us to squeeze into the back few seats, where live angry goats were strewn about the floor. We crossed the border into Burkina Faso with our feet resting on the backs of infuriated, wailing livestalk. Goat urine leaked through the concave, rusted roof from the goats tied to the top of the car. We arrived in Bobo in the late afternoon, and purchased tickets on a bus that was leaving for Ouagadougou at midnight. We arrived in Ouagadougou at 6 AM, and arranged to ride back to Benin on the soonest taxi, which wasn't scheduled to leave until at 3 AM the next morning. Aside from being barred entrance back into Benin because of the lack of proof of my Yellow Fever vaccination, the ten hour taxi ride back into Benin was rather uneventful. When slept, totally exhausted most of the way. I'm back in Natitingou now, and have never happier to be back home in Benin.

I was drinking a beer, when the parade stormed through town. Motorcycle horns chorused in a jumbled mix of excitement, and the drivers popped wheelies through the opposite lane and swerved over the sidewalks, stopping motorists and pedestrians alike. The presidential elections in Benin are coming quickly. With less a week left to campaign, candidates are anxiously scouring the countryside for undecided voters. Political T-shirts, posters, and hats dominate the outdoor markets. The streets are adorned with pictures of each person’s choice. Many of the ideas and slogans of the potential presidents seem to mimic what we see in western world. They’d pass as solid platforms in the States. Others, however, are quite different. The US Government keeps Peace Corps volunteers from showing any form of political expression and/or from participating in any political rallies. They do this for safety and security reasons, and I agree that these rules are in the volunteer’s best interests. It is for this reason that I will not mention the name of any of the candidates on this page. I would, however, like to give an unattached, blank example that demonstrates the core differences between American and Beninois political campaigns: Like I said, I was drinking a beer with a work partner when the parade passed by the bar. The people marching had three different prefabricated signs in support of their candidate. The first sign read; La Réponse. The second sign read: La Solution. Both of these first two signs would pass in any American presidential campaign. They did not catch me by surprise. The third sign, however, was something entirely different. It read; Les Secrets du Baobab. I can’t say whether I support or negate this candidate’s ideas. All I can say is that this slogan is noteworthy. Baobab trees don’t even grow in States.

The exact origins of the word "Sharfed" are unclear. It's derived from a combination of the words "Shit" and "Barfed," and is used by Peace Corps Benin volunteers to describe instances when the body rejects all of its contents from all possible orifices, i.e. when someone shits and barfs at the same time. As odd as the sharf phenomena may sound, it is an everyday risk and the occasional reality of most volunteers living in West Africa. American bowels were simply not created to digest this food. I celebrated New Years in my friend's village, north of Nati near the Burkina Faso border. It's a small village with no electricity, but plenty of friendly people to keep you entertained. We drank tchouk, feasted on guinee fowl, and laughed 2011 into the record books. The next morning, my friend and I were lucky enough to find a ride straight back to Natitingou in a private car. The driver was a priest, and said that as long as we didn't mind stopping to visit a few people en route, he'd love to have our company. Our first stop was at a bar that had celebrated its grand opening the night before. While chatting with the owner, we asked the priest if we could buy him a beer, expecting a man of his holy nature to opt for the dryer side of driving. We were sorely mistaken. After three beers, the priest was ready to leave. We were in the car for no more than ten minutes before the priest pulled to the side of the road again. "You'll have to excuse me," he told us. "But I need to stop." We found ourselves at another bar, sitting with the priest and one of his friends for nearly an hour. Over this span of time, the priest ordered three more rounds for everyone at the table. I felt a slight rumble in my stomach as we left the bar and climbed into the car again. Subtle pangs pulled through my midsection as the car started moving. "This will be the last stop," the priest told us after about 30 minutes of driving. We were greeted in the street by a man with a wide grin and slender build. He led us into his home, where a meal was waiting for us at the table. Ceremonious sodabi shots were taken before the feast, and the man insisted that we follow him to yet another bar when the meal was finished. Amidst the confusion, the priest disappeared from the bar. Twenty minutes later, he returned with a bag full of grilled dog meat. He laid it on the table, and everyone dug in. A wiser man than I once said that there is a point in every man's life when he becomes conscious of the humble absurdity of his own existence. The weight of this moment in the bar – drunk, eating dog with a catholic priest in West Africa – came crashing down. We made it back to Nati sometime just after dark. My stomach twisted and turned violently in the backseat. Sweat gathered beneath my arms. I prayed that the car would find each dip in the road a little more shallow, and that somehow my house would be just little closer. The priest slowly pulled the car in front my house and casually walked to the trunk to unload my backpack and motorcycle helmet. His movements were painfully slow. My stomach was about to erupt. I quickly thanked the priest and ran toward my home. I made it halfway into my front yard, before my steps were cut to a sudden stop. The ten meters between me and my home was too far to stride. I dropped my bag in the dirt, and ducked behind a tree. The explosion was catastrophic, ripping through me like a hurricane rips through a palm grove on Gulf Coast. I shivered as my insides splayed themselves over the dry ground. And then, something different happened. The pooping didn't stop. An unusually caustic gargle rumbled up my throat. Hot, frothy vomit shot out against the bark of the tree. My body expunged itself freely from both ends, sharfing out any idea or concept that I held dear. The blast lasted for several agonizing seconds. Then. Everything was calm. I stood up, collected my bag and helmet, and walked to the house. I greeted my Beninoise family, and wished them a Happy New Year.

I met Max in Octobre of 2009. He worked as my private French tutor in Nati for several months. Once my command of the French language warranted no further intense study, we moved on to Dendi, a dialect of one of the main West African trade languages.

We worked diligently on linguistics for close to one year, before he became to busy to continue his work as my personal tutor. Over that time, we became quite close.

Max currently works as a high school French teacher in Natitingou. He has a wife and a four year old son.

Many people in the United States ask me how they can help West Africa. It's hard to give them a straight answer. Thick government corruption (and even thicker non-government corruption) makes it difficult for donated money to reach the everyday working people for whom it is targeted. Most of the money is swallowed-up by public officials and wealthy executives. It doesn't make it to the people in need.

If anyone reading this blog is looking for a way to support real West African development, this is the opportunity for you. About one month ago, Max's first novel hit bookstores throughout France and across francophone West Africa.

He is one of my best friends in Natitingou, and the support of this book is of the utmost importance to his professional career. Interested parties can order a copy of the book here:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp%3Fnavig%3Dcatalogue%26obj%3Dlivre%26no%3D32024&ei=zRsKTdyuJsT38AarqbyfAQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsurvivre%2Bavec%2Bdes%2Bbourreaux%26hl%3Den%26prmd%3Div

There are two types of snakes in Benin. There are snakes that the Beninois talk about for hours: those that grow to 120 meters in length, eat children, live for four hundred years, and have voodoo fetishes constructed in their memory. And then, there are the snakes that actually exist. I saw my first West African snake about one year ago. I was in a taxi, headed into one of the now flooded lake regions of the south, when a man stepped out of the shoulder high grass and onto the road in front of our car. A recently slain boa constrictor was draped over his shoulders like a bourgeois fur, dangling to the ground on each side. I'm yet to taste snake steak, but I hear its quite good. A friend of mine is currently searching for a hunter who will sell us boa or python meat from the bush. The Department of Wildlife tells me that 32-foot rock pythons live in the hills that surround Natitingou. I've been fortunate enough not to encounter any of them on my outdoor endeavors. My face-time is limited to three snake encounters, which all occurred during the initial construction of our moringa plantation. The first two were both foot-long vipers. Though their venom can land a powerful sting, the vipers posed no real threat. The men I was working with cornered and killed them with machetes. There was lots of yelling, but no one panicked. The third snake surprised us. We were waist deep in weeds and grass, whacking with machetes and hoes to clear space for our trees, when the snake's head popped up from the grass just a few meters away. Its wide, poised head studied us for a moment, while its tongue tasted the wind. "Cracheur!" one of the men yelled. I didn't know what that word meant at the time, but I knew without a doubt that the snake was a cobra. Three men ran at it with their machetes held high, slashing into the thick overgrowth whenever they caught a glimpse of its scales. It cut quickly through the dense bramble and bush grass, and slipped through a gap in the back fence. The men sauntered back and continued hacking at the grass as if nothing had happened. I waited for one of them to say something, but everyone was silent. We finished clearing the field and left as the sun was low on the ridge. No one mentioned the cobra that had gotten away. When I got home, I flipped through my English-French dictionary and found the word that the men had yelled when they'd seen the cobra. "Cracheur," they'd shouted. I didn't understand why they hadn't said "cobra." It's the same word in both English and French. I found that "cracheur" is a derivative of the verb "cracher," which means "to spit" in English. A "cracheur" is someone or something that spits. Further research in my Northern Benin Field Guide told me that spitting cobras exist in the Natitingou hills. The spitting cobras blind their victims before attacking, and can do so from up to ten meters away with remarkable accuracy. Suddenly all the ridiculous snake-lore the Beninois had told me shimmered in a new light. If there are snakes that can launch venomous missiles at their prey, there certainly could exist snakes that grow to 120 meters long, or live for four hundred years. I now garden with sunglasses over my eyes. There is always a machete nearby.

I’d assumed that a former-communist nation would play zone D. I’d assumed incorrectly.

Benin survived communist rule through the early nineties, beyond the fall of the USSR and the cancellation of all Red Aid in Africa. Their help-all beliefs bound them politically as a nation, but failed to transcend into the realm of sport.

I play basketball three times a week with a group of guys, ages 18-25. Most of them have spent too much time on the soccer field, and not enough time practicing their jump shot, but a select few could hold court in any state or nation that I’ve seen.

Every evening, after the sun has dipped behind the ridge that looms over the basketball court like a parent over its child, when I walk away from the dribbling and the shouts, perplexed notions swirl through my head—Benin is a nation that would never let a man go hungry. They would never leave a mother on the streets, yet these same philanthropic people won’t step into the lane to stop an opposing player’s drive to the basket after he’s beaten his man. There isn’t even an element of help D on the basketball court. If your man beats you on the dribble, your teammates are quick to point and blame.

Defense in Benin is frustrating, but when the ball rests in your hands, the rim is only a simple crossover away. The lane is always empty. You can concentrate on your hands, to lay the tattered leather ball softly off the fast wooden backboard and through the net-less rim.

The ownership of animals in Benin is still a bit grey to me. Goats, chickens, and pigs are all wanderers of the open terrain. Keeping a dog on a lease, or letting a dog into your home, is a foreign idea that most Beninois can’t grasp.

Several months ago, while I was away from home, working in another city, my family gave my dog away. He was missing when I returned. I asked my sister; “Ou est Piment?”

She told me that he had ripped apart some couch cushions in their home: this was grounds for his expulsion. By the tone of her voice, I deduced that he had been given to a family that was going to eat him. I accepted his fate and never expected to see him again.

A few weeks ago, however, Piment returned home with his tail wagging and his brown hair slicked with grime. I told my sister that I’d assumed that Piment had been eaten when they’d given him away. She told me that they actually hadn’t “given” him away. They really just stopped feeding him. He’d left on his own free will.

“No one would have killed him,” she told me. “Even though he was a drifter and probably begged for food. It’s an unspoken rule; no one kills an animal they do not own.”

Despite this unspoken rule of animal possession, my family and I are currently hunting a retarded rooster that lives somewhere in the neighborhood. For over a week now, this rooster has come into our concession nightly. His labored, shrill call can be heard every ten to fifteen minutes throughout the night, as if he’s constantly expecting the sun’s warm red glow to creep over the horizon.

We don’t know what’s on this deranged rooster’s mind at 1:00 in the morning. His belly-aching moans awake us in a fury. We’ve incessantly searched for him and long for the day when we wake well rested. We’ll eat the stolen meat from his senseless little bones.

We took off our sandals and entered the concession. Cylindrical granite slabs where laid in a spiral formation, embedded in the red clay that rested between the cracked buildings of the man's home. Hundreds of pigeons swooped down from the tin roofs, pecking at one another for a cornel of corn or stale millet. Tattered Gris-Gris mobiles hung from the branches of the flowering mango tree that centered the open space between the small buildings.

Anthony had been telling me about his God for many months. Among many other stories, he'd told me about how his God had killed a lion using nothing but a hatchet and his bare hands, lived in a stream for three months straight, and was able to shoot airplanes out of sky with a single flick of his wrists. Anthony had told me that his God was a living man, and that this man was going to give me "la force," the strength to do anything.

I'd never met a living God before, and tried not to create an image of him during the four hour ride to the man’s village. Despite my attempts, I was not prepared for this "God" to stand no higher than 4 ft 6 inches tall, weigh somewhere around 75 pounds, or to have the weathered complexion of a man born in the 1834. He wore frayed burlap pants and a white collared shirt that was stained brown in the high traffic areas near the breast pocket, and along the collar, buttons, and sleeves.

The man showed us into his special sitting room. The air was sweatlodge-thick and flies covered the sticky floor. Four elders, all dressed similarly to the God, joined us. None of them spoke any French. Anthony had come along as my translator. He converted everything from Bariba to French, and back again.

As the God had demanded, we'd brought an all black chicken, and a bottle of sodabi (African moonshine), which we began drinking the moment it was removed from my sack. The God took some of the sodabi in a small glass. He grabbed the chicken by its fidgety legs, and disappeared into another private room. He was not seen again for nearly four hours.

I was ecstatic when he finally emerged. We'd all moved beneath the mango tree and had continued to drink sodabi. Most of the original elders had come and gone, and Anthony had passed out on a prayer mat in the shade. My abilities in Bariba were limited to "Good morning," and "How is your house?" Because of this, I'd been unable to field the barrage of interrogation that had come from the crowd of people that packed into the God’s small concession.

The God woke Anthony and took us into another private room. I'd been expecting a scarification ritual, expecting the old man to make small incisions with a razor blade on my shoulders and in the center of my back. Normally, during scarification, he would then rub a powerful ash into the open wounds. This would give me the specific powers that he had in mind, as well as a few black marks on the skin that I could say I received from an African Shaman.

This, however, was not how things passed. Instead of cutting me, he gave me a calabash full of ash, and half of the chicken I'd brought to him hours ago. He told me to cook the chicken in the ash, and to eat one small morsel each day for seven days. This chicken would give me the powers I desired.

Horseshit! I was pissed. We'd traveled four hours on a motorcycle, through The Bush in a rainstorm. The only reason I'd gone was because I wanted to have a good story to go along with a series of tiny scars on my shoulders. I could have gotten the cuts from an elder at home in Natitingou. This "God" of Anthony's had drunken my sodabi, eaten half my chicken, and collected a bowlful of ash he'd found in the fire.

I was blitzed and irritated when we climbed back on the moto a few moments later. I'd wasted an entire day. The sun had already set. We drove back in the darkness, dodging massive gauges in the mud road as best we could.

The cool night air licked at my cheeks. Fireflies glided discretely through the cornstalks that lined the thin road. I remembered that I'd really gone on the journey for a story, for a souvenir to store in my closet of recollection.

When we'd left Nati, early that morning in the rain, we'd come to a bridge that had been completely washed out. A group of Peul men had been pushing their herd of zebu through the twisting, chalky current. I'd hopped off the moto and waded through the waste deep water, completely surrounded by the colossal beasts. Their horns turned toward me as they moaned, searching for stable footing beneath the rippling water. We’d forded the river together; two hundred cattle and I in the morning light. We'd climbed back up the steep, slippery bank on the other side, and parted ways. The Peul men had herded them off the road and into The Bush. I'd gotten back on the moto and been taken away.

Jonny Tagali came into this world on the night of August 30th, 2010. He was born in the hospital in Tanguieta, Benin, a few rooms down from where his father, my friend Justin, rested in bed.

Justin's appendix had burst and been removed two weeks prior. The hospital stay had taken almost 100 pounds from his stalky frame and pulled the skin on his cheeks taut to the bones. It was a skeleton of the Justin I knew who entered the front room of my home with a dimple-rippling smile registered across his face.

"Je suis un pere encore," he told me.

I'd been expecting the baby for weeks. Mama Betille's belly had bulged to the point of imbalance. Her sub-five-foot frame teetered and swayed with each heavy stomp of her swollen feet and ankles. It was beautiful really; watching her stagger about the kitchen and yard, as if drunk on some voudun baby bravado.

"It's a boy," Justin told me. "Mama Betille had a boy." His face was gleaming.

"Fecilitations," I told him. "But you can't call her Mama Betille any longer. What's her new name?"

Another dimple-bursting smile lit through his cheeks. "Elle s'appelle Mama Jonny." (Pictured: Jonny Tagali and his mother)

A national newspaper in Burkina Faso (Benin’s northern neighbor) recently published an article stating that Peace Corps volunteers should not only be tolerated, but candidly accepted by the communities in which they live. The bulk of the text was in regards to recent rumors that Peace Corps volunteers work in conjunction with the CIA. The newspaper told West Africans to put down their biases and concerns; 'We all know they are CIA agents,' the article stated. 'We've known this all along. They are spies, but work for their communities at the same time. They do more good than bad and should therefore be accepted.'

So why is the CIA interested in a small group of villages, where there is no electricity or running water, where the homes are made mostly of mud and straw?

Answer: Because Benin est riche! Any Beninois will tell you. Forget mineral resources. Benin has fresh mangoes, shea butter, and yams!

The real question is why more international organizations haven't taken interest? Benin's cotton, gris-gris, and corn could reverse America's debt, and bring peace to the Middle East. Benin could end poverty in Cuba and feed frost bitten Siberians for the next hundred years. Why wouldn't the CIA, KGB, and AIF be interested in people that earn their living by breaking large rocks into smaller stones?

The group in front of us was comprised of ten men in traditional West African, villagois, clothing. Whittled cow bone-rattles were rapped around their ankles, feathers and pelts hung from their temples and arms, and their bare feet pounded the pavement at a feverish velocity. Their most impressive features, however, were the giant stuffed penises that hung from each of their loins. The men’s dance provoked the penises to swing up over their shoulders and then back down to where they just barely touched the ground. Their garb was impressive, and their penises were confoundedly large and agile, but they weren’t enough to gain the loudest cheers from the crowd that stood watching the parade.

The Tchouk Association had given Jennifer (a fellow American volunteer) and me their matching tissue to be worn in the procession. Forty Tchouk Mamas, Jennifer, and I marched proudly in uniform, with calabashes and tchouk hats in hand.

Of the sixty performance teams in the parade, the Tchouk Association was the only one that contained anyone with any European complexion. Hysterics erupted at every corner we passed. Men, woman, and children screamed with delight.

The traditional male dancers, and their large penises, were completely upstaged. The group of female traditional dancers behind us received no attention at all.

The parade of course was in celebration of Benin’s fiftieth year of independence. The Republic of Benin is now officially the third oldest country in West Africa.

Rain has finally arrived in full force. What started as a light shower once a week, a few months ago, has now progressed into a daily three o'clock thunderstorm that swells the mud walls of my home and makes rivers of the unpaved roads. Northern Benin is finally green again. Corn, yams, rice, sorghum, millet, tomatoes, carrots, and garlic now hide the soil that magically turned into sand just a few months ago. Gumbo and piment peppers are on the rise and papayas are finally turning from green to gold.

Beninoise cuisine is very simple. Pâte is the base of most meals. It's made by boiling corn or manioc flour until it congeals. This scalding paste is then served with a sauce that consists primarily of palm oil, a few tomatoes (or tomato paste during the dry season), onions, and piment peppers to taste. It is then piled onto a few plates from which everyone shares by eating with their hands. My family and I have eaten this exact meal twice a day for the past two months, as the aridity of the region inhibited all other crops from growing or being sold at the marché.

L'igname pile (my favorite Beninoise dish, a bit like mashed potatoes) is once again available on a daily basis. Acassa, which slightly resembles congealed Elmer's School Glue, in both texture and taste, can be eaten just about anywhere.

It's not that these foods are all that delicious, there just different from the same food we've been eating for so long.

In honor of our founding father's struggle for American independence, I threw a 4th of July party for my Beninoise family. A few volunteers and I made potato salad, pasta salad, baked beans, hot dogs, pie, and many other American standards that the Beninois had never tasted (Including fireworks and Jello-shots after dark).

Here are some photos

Bettille with a sparkler.

Mary had a little..........American Flag, Blueberry/Cherry Pie

Just like home!

My postmate, sporting a fine pair of Obama pants for the occasion.

A friend and I were walking down the street in Materi when we saw a enormous baobab tree. It was the largest either of us had ever seen, measuring somewhere between four and five meters across. A large open cavity ran vertically from its branches into the unseen depths of its trunk. We wanted to look inside.

Baobabs are sacred in Benin. They hold infinite wisdom, are sometimes directly equated with specific ancestral veins, and therefore are seldom tampered with. Knowing this, my friend and I were hesitant to climb into the branches to look into the gaping hole that seemed to run through its core.

Across the street, another baobab lay on its side. It was one of many along the road that had been recently cut in order to install electrical lines (Yes, Benin is chopping the base of its heritage, the tree that holds the roots of Beninois culture, and making way for electricity and development.)

Because the tree across the street had been so brutally hacked to the ground, we figured that no one would care if we climbed into the one before us. Carefully, I mounted the first few branches and peered down into the hole that ran three or four meters, through the center of the tree, to the ground. There was nothing but bat guano inside.

Behind me, a commotion had begun. "Il faut descendre!" a voice was shouting. I looked back. A man with shaky limbs was beckoning me back down to the ground. His eyes were grave and his voice was stern. I jumped down, but he kept shouting.

"You can't climb this tree! You don't know about this. What are you doing?" His voice was shrill and accusatory.

We explained that we were just curious. This enraged him further.

"This is a dangerous tree," he warned. "I know a man who stuck his hand down into that hole." He pointed up to where I'd been looking. "The tree closed around his arm and held him for sixteen hours. He prayed until it finally let go. He ran home and thanked God for saving him. Three days later, his family found him dead outside his home."

"You think the tree killed him?" my friend asked incredulously.

"There are things inside that you'd never believe," he told us, shaking a finger at me. His body swayed and his limbs trembled. His voice was full of both concern and contempt.

"So this is a fetishe?" my friend asked. (A fetishe is a Beninois place of voodoo)

He shook his head adamantly. "Absolutely not," he said. "I'm a Christian. I believe in God. I don't practice animism. This is just a dangerous tree."

We didn’t quite understand, but agreed with him. "I saw something inside," I said. A small crowd had gathered around us. They reeled back with my words.

"You saw something?" he asked critically.

"I don't know what it was, but I'm terrified," I told him. "I'll never go up in that tree again."

This bewildered him. He began calling more people over. "The white man said he saw something in the tree." He spoke as if this were reaffirming his side of an ongoing debate. He pointed at the man next to him. "He believes too," he told me. "He's seen it. Do you all hear that?" He looked around the circle that had gathered. "The white man saw it. He's scared." He pointed a finger in the air. "This proves it," he shouted. "We can't touch that tree. The stories are true."

It's hard to believe that people are still wiggling from the woodwork. The Beninois have an amazing ability to withhold surprisingly pertinent information. Last week, my friend Joseph told me that his son just received a mastor's degree in Business from UCONN. I've known Joseph for months. He was one of the first people I met when I first moved to Nati. I didn't even know that he had a son, nevermind a son that lives in the US. He could have easily slipped this info into any conversaiton; "Oh, by the way, I have a son that lives near you in the States." It didn't happen. There's no explanation. Things just don't come up.

The same can be said about possible community projects. New ideas are abound and proposals keep coming. I'm still working on developing a waste management program with City Hall. I translate texts and grants for a tourism company. I make energy-efficient mudstoves at tchouk cabarets. I graft mangoes and help with the cultivation of grapefruit, wild apple, and avocado trees at a tree nursery. I tutor two people in English, and just recently started a project with a group of HIV-positive men. We're planting moringa, which is a tree that holds a startling amount of chemical nutrients. Our main goal is boost the men's immune systems, but we should be able to produce enough to sell to international distributors in Cameroon and Mali.

"We're going to put a round copper ring inside a goat placenta and bury it in the ground for one week. After this, we'll take the ring out of the placenta and put it in sodabi" (a clear local moonshine made from the trunks of palm trees. Good sodabi tastes like bug spray and bites like gasoline. It's a Beninois favorite.) "The ring will sit in the sodabi until all of the alcohol has turned black. Next, we'll make a small inciscion on the palm of your right hand and the bottom of your right foot. Some of the sodabi will be poured into these open wounds. We'll drink the rest.

After the ritual complete, all bullets fired at you will be rendered useless. Knife blades will not be able to penetrate your skin." -My friend Anthony

Yes. He's finally decided to give me some of his gris gris magic. It's either goat placenta to stop bullets, or three small marks over the heart to allow me to freely jump from moving vehicles without harm.

After living nine months in the voodoo capital of the world, I think its about time I was given some supernatural powers.

Family relationships are difficult to define in Benin. Your aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, and brothers are all called by these respective titles, but many non-blood-related people are also given the same names. For example, someone that is from your village and is the same age is also your cousin. Someone from your village that is older than you is your aunt or your uncle. If these people are your friends, however, you say they are your brothers and your sisters. There is no line between blood and social relation.

The concession in which I live consists of three homes. Two houses are occupied by the eleven members of my friend Justin’s family, and the third house, which is by far the largest of the three, is occupied yours truly.

I’m still trying to figure out their exact family relation, but this is what I think so far: there is Justin (my friend/brother, who owns a popular bar in town), Justin’s two year old child Bettille (pronounced like Betty), his wife Mama de Bettille (when a woman has a child, she looses her name and simply becomes “mother of …whatever child is named”), Justin’s older brother Desiré, Desiré’s wife, Justin’s fifteen year old sister Chiwé, his twenty year old brother Subi, his twenty-three old brother Urbain, a girl of about twenty who I believe is Mama de Bettille’s sister named Tambuora, another girl named Nabienga whose relation remains a mystery but has the same distinct family facial characteristics, and finally Oumbuoum, Justin’s grandmother, Bettille’s great-grandmother. Her prehistoric stoop puts her somewhere around four hundred years old by my count. Even she has no idea how old she is.

All these people are of course augmented by the other random family members that come to stay with us for weeks at a time. There is another sister living in Burkina Faso, and two more in the southern city of Porto Novo. More family members live in a concession down the road, but I have no idea how they are truly related.

The mason’s jeans were already crusted with cement when he arrived in the morning. He wore one sandal. The other foot was bare.

It took seven months of begging and pleading to finally convince the family that I live with to stop pooping in the banana grove. They decided to build a latrine.

I plopped a panja chair beneath the shade of a guava tree and pretended to read David Sedaris, just so I could watch the action. Sometime around four, two men came up our path and asked for the mason. Before I could answer that he was around the corner, my teenage sister jumped in.

“There’s no mason here,” she told them; hardly looking up from the baby whose hair she was giving a coiffeur. I was amazed and bewildered.

“Is there a mason here?” the man asked again, making it clear that he indeed did know that there was a mason.

This time, my sister stopped what she was doing. She looked up at them. “A mason?” She seemed to struggle with the idea. I wanted to interject, to tell her: “Yes, the mason! The one that you and your sisters made lunch for. The one that I ate with. The one that asked you for water about five minutes ago. That mason!”

Instead, I remained tranquil and observed from afar.

“I think there’s a mason down the road,” she told them, pointing off in the distance. The two men looked at each other, and then walked away, perplexed and unfulfilled. Around the corner, the mason continued his work, ignorant of the situation at hand, and my sister went back to styling the baby’s hair as if nothing had happened.

Interactions like these are common in Benin. You ask someone a simple question, and expect a simple answer, but are given incoherently incorrect information in its place. Though almost everyone in Nati speaks French, it is the second language for all Beninois. Children learn French in school. In the household they speak Dendi, Bariba, Biali, Fon, Yoruba, Goun, Waama, Ditamari, or any of the other 50 local languages that are spoken in the tiny country of Benin. Many things are lost in translation, but often it is the rudimentary conversations like these that heed the most stifling results.

The sun-baked mountains roll like the waves of riches. It has rained just three times since December. The sandy roads have been browned into stone, and the cool breezes of Harmattan left with the January moon. I wake each morning to find that I have sweat through my matress. Temperatures rise into the 120's by noon. C'est l'Afrique.

"When do you think it will rain again?" I recently asked one of my workpartners.

"The rainy season has already started in small villages," he told me. "It wont start in Nati until all the circumcisions are done."

I gave him a confused look (probably the same look you, the reader, are now giving to your computer screen). "The rain is waiting," he continued. "All the circumcisions are done in the smaller villages. There are less people. You understand? It wont rain until everyone that needs to be cut is finished."

This, is Beninois logic. I deal with it daily: Women get breast cancer from infidelity. Laziness is a cause of AIDS. Eating a handful of fish eyes will allow you to see into the future (Which I regretfully have tried. It isn't true. I saw nothing). Grown women who eat dog will give birth to children with canine snouts. Water gods follow everyone (keep them hydrated).

The list goes on and on. C'est l'Afrique. I'm beginning to believe that one of my greatest accoplishments in this country will be that my Beninois friends know that Americans are not European.

I was sitting at a buvette with my friend Anthony when it first came up. We were talking about girls, and he told me that he liked French girls.

"I also like French girls," I told him.

"Yeah, but you're French," he said.

Anthony and I have been friends for about seven months now. "You know I'm American," I said. "I'm not French."

"Yeah," he began. "But look at the color of your skin. You're white. You're French."

"Not all white people are French," I told him. He looked confused. This is something that many Beninois have trouble understanding. "Togolais and Beninois are the same," I said in rebut. "So are the Nigerians." He immediately became flustered. The Beninois have a strong dislike for thier eastern neighbors.

"We are not the same. Nigerians are different," he demanded. "Why would you say we're the same?"

"Why do you think Americans are French?" I asked him.

"Because you have the same color skin," he said, annoyed.

"Don't the Nigerians have the same color skin as the Beninois?"

He smiled, completely dumbfounded. I had just blown his mind. Americans are not French, I could see him turning the idea in his head.

This, l'Afrique, is my gift to you.

I’ve always wondered how the king’s son spends his days. Apparently he goes fishing.

I met Illiasou last weekend, at the tail end of the “Water ‘N Wheels Atacora Bike Tour.” We volunteers had biked the four days prior, stopping in each little village we passed to talk about proper hand washing and water sanitation. In total, we held demonstrations in ten different locations, and spoke to around three thousand people. Illiasou was one of them.

The Beninois are very small people. Females are generally larger than males, yet most still top off around my shoulders and chin. Illiasou, however, is a giant. He hovers in the nosebleeds of the six foot seven range, and sways like a skyscraper when he walks. A loose, khaki shirt dangled from his long limbs like a wet sail over a windy deck. He greeted us in impeccable French, and offered all of us a drink at his bar, over-looking the thriving, mud-hut metropolis of Kouandé. Beers were served, and massive plates of pâte du riz and fish were brought to the table.

The day before, Illiasou had heard that a group of twelve Americans had been riding their bikes through northern Benin and were heading his way. He’d spent the entire day at a stream, yanking his line when he felt bites, filling his bucket with the sound of flap and flounder in hopes that we might pass his kingdom.

The diner was prepared before we arrived. We were starving and sun-sedated when he reeled us in. When asked why he liked fishing so much, he enlightened us with a story: He said that a fish’s best friend is water. When he pulls a fish from a stream, he takes it away from its friend. This is the reason that it flails when he puts it into his backpack. When he gets home, he puts the fish back in water where it is happy to be with its best friend again. Illiasou then brings the water to a boil, teaching the fish to always be weary of its friends. This obviously kills the fish, which is then served over rice. Humans put the fish in their mouths, where there is water. The fish is content once more.

When asked why he needed to kill the fish to teach it a lesson, he told us simply that he was the king’s son. If he didn’t do it, no one else would.

An angry lion on Safari in Parc Penjari.

A monkey.

Elephants.

An Elephant as we were leaving the parc

Tanougou Falls. We jumped from the top.

A night with Ricky, Leslie, Jennifer and the babies of Fo-Tanse

Thanksgiving in Benin.

The headlights coming toward me were far brighter than the meager lamp attached to the front of my bike. A thick dust enriched the air with an unbreathable fog, and a man stood on the side of the road with his arms raised, yelling something incomprehensible in French. Thinking back, now, he was probably yelling “Ditch!” or “Hey, watch out for the ditch!” or something like that.

I couldn’t see it. The headlights coming at me were too bright, and I was too dazed by the existence of a car, a true automobile, on a dark, terre rouge road.

I swerved to the outside of the man who still had his hands up and was still shouting. My front tire dove off the road. My body lunged over the handlebars. I rolled down a rocky embankment, and into the water. It took me a moment to gather myself. I was in a stream. I checked my wrists and elbows. They were scratched, but weren’t bleeding.

“Est-ce que tu es cava?” The man in the road asked as he climbed down and helped me up by the shoulder.

“Oui,” I told him. “I’m OK.” He lifted me, and as we clawed back up the ten foot drop I realized that I was clutching garbage for support. We were actually surrounded by it. I had somehow flipped over my handlebars and into one of the many illegal dumping sites that make my job at town hall so difficult.

People throw their trash everywhere. Rivers are preferred, as they carry the garbage far from its source, to some other village further downstream. Those without rivers near their home choose to burn their waste and dump the ashes in the road. I warn people of the health dangers of doing so, but the garbage system in Nati does not currently collect from all the neighborhoods. For many homes, their simply is no choice.

We are working to change this, but change is slow in developing countries. The Mayor recently purchased a new tractor to aid garbage collection, as well as a Toyota Rav 4. I was looking over the two new vehicles a few days ago when I noticed a sales sticker on the windshield of the Toyota. “Fenton Family Dealership – Keene, NH” it read. The mayor tells me that he bought the car from a used car dealer in Cotonou, Benin. I have no idea how a car from my neighbor’s car dealership in Keene, NH could ever have gotten to Natitingou, Benin.

.

There is a fine line between laughter and tears. I thought that the little girl's shouts were of joy and excitement. I was wrong.

Last week, I visited my friend Jennifer's village, Ganikperou. I began the 21 mile bike ride at sunrise. I made it just in time to catch her before she ran off to meet our friends Ricky and Leslie, a married couple from Georgia who live nearby. Jennifer's village is very small. There are no more than one thousand inhabitants, and very few people speak French.

Sometime in the early afternoon, we decided to go tchooking. (I've explained tchook in other entries. It's an alcohol made from fermented corn or millet, kind of tastes like hard apple cider, and is drunken in little, sweaty mud huts with old people that seldom have teeth.)

After tchooking for long enough to forget our troubles, Jennifer and I returned to her home to play with some of her neighbor's children. There are about twenty of them, all between the ages of two and twelve. They were sucking on green, unripe mangos, and wrestling in the dirt when we arrived. The smell of fresh grilled cashews filled the air, and we heard a shout from up above us. We looked up. A ten year old girl was climbing the mango tree, and had just scored another unripe fruit. She tossed it down to the excited kids around us. We tried to tell them that the mangoes would be better if they waited until they turned yellowish red, but they were too busy grappling one another for a bite to listen.

The girl in the tree let out a yelp when she saw Jennifer and I beneath her. Forgetting that white people like me are scary, I reached up and climbed into the tree. She giggled uncontrollably, screamed, and climbed higher. Her elation beckoned me to climb to the next branch. She advanced even higher and further out on a limb, still laughing hysterically. I reached out closer, as if to grab hold of her shirt, but she pulled away just as I lunged. Further out on the limb now, she bent her knees, as if to jump the twenty or so feet down to the ground. I told her to stop. She turned toward me.

It was then that I realized that her screams had not been hysterically joyous, but frantically terrified. Tears had made mud of the dust on her face. They dripped from her horrified chin, and a glob of petrified snot dripped from her nose.

She contemplated the ground again. Fearing she'd jump, I leapt down to the crowd below, and waited for her to climb down. She didn't. She stayed, cowering in the mango tree until Jennifer and I began to walk away.

I felt pretty terrible about the whole ordeal as I rode back to Natitingou the next morning. I teach environmental science classes to kids the same age in Nati. Those kids just think I'm weird, not a monster.

Generally, I wake around 8:00 to greet the nine people living in my concession. Not greeting everyone individually is culturally unacceptable. Usually a handshake and a quick conversation will do. You ask the person how they slept, how their house is, how their family is, if they are feeling better, if the fatigue they felt the night before is gone, how their job is going, etc...the questions go on and on. I've had single conversations like this last up to twenty minutes, though generally they last only a few minutes. Not taking time to greet everyone is a serious sign of disrespect with grave consequences. Greeting people is the most important thing done in this country. Most of the members of my concession speak French, but I usually greet them in their local language, Biali.

Around 8:30, I work in my garden and tree nursery. I have eleven vegetable beds, and am currently growing grapefruit trees, lemon trees, avocado trees, and moringa (l'arbre de la vie - the tree of life). Because I do not have running water in my home, I also use this time to get my daily buckets of water from the stream near my garden.

At 9:30, I walk to work at la mairie (City Hall), being careful all along to greet everyone I know. To the Muslims, I speak Dendi. Everyone else speaks French.

From 9:45 to 10:00 or 10:30, I greet everyone at the la mairie. From then until noon, I work on designing an efficient waste management system for this "city" of about 80,000. AIDS education, environmental science courses, a clean water bike tour, an engish spelling bee, and an erosion-prevention club at a local school are all projects on the horizon.

At noon, everyone in Benin takes a three hour "Repose." Spanish speaking counrties call this "Siesta." Everything closes. No one does anything. I usually cook lunch, play banjo, study French, buy food at the outdoor marche, or hang out with my neighbors.

From 3:00 to 5:00, I am working once again. After that, I hang out with Beninois friends, cook dinner, and watch West African football matches at local bars.

Thanksgiving has come and gone in Benin. The Beninois do not typically celebrate the European's first harvest in North America, but Thanksgiving does coincide with Tabaski, a Muslim holiday that stirs a party out of everyone in Benin, regardless of religion.

We volunteers, however, did have a Thanksgiving dinner that truly "couldn't be beat." There was no Arlo Guthrie on the radio, but there was football on TV. It wasn't the type of football that is played with the feet and round ball, what we call "soccer." No. This was actual, pure bread American football. I can't tell you the year or the significance of the game. It was a random Packers vs. Bears battle, mid-season I assume. Bret Favre was still sporting the Green Bay green. The DVD had simply been marked "Football Americain." We knew we couldn't go wrong.

Christoph, a fellow volunteer, and I killed, plucked, gutted, and cooked five guinea fowl for the occasion. Our Beninois friend, Usman helped us through each step, and supplied the sacrificial Muslim prayer: give the chicken a gulp of water, say something incomprehensible to the English ear, cut its throat, tie its neck back around its wings, and throw its body under a rock to fight off rigormortis (yes, chickens really do run around with their heads cut off).

Aside from knowing the meat, inside and out, Thanksgiving was a needed touch of America. There were mashed potatoes, candied yams, green beans, salad, cranberry sauce, guinea fowl, gravy, pecan pies (made with real Vermont maple syrup), apple pies, pumpkin pies, and a few vodka saturated watermelons.

We invited local Beninois friends to eat with us, and in turn, they invited us to their Tabaski parties the next day. It was quite the weekend to remember, and fit in perfectly with my rapid weight gain plan.

I've been eating two full meals every lunch and dinner for the past few weeks. Generally, I make myself lunch at noon, then eat with the family in my concession again at 1:30. I make dinner at 7:00, and eat with them again at 8:30. I lost over twenty pounds during the two months I lived with a family in Porto Novo. I've gained six pounds since moving out on my own, which still leaves me with a pitifully bony build, but its a step in the right direction.

Also, I've recently been told that the "Yovo Song," which was the topic of my last blog entry, was actually created by the first white missionaries to come to this country. I guess I have no reason to complain.

"It's just the color of your skin," she told me. I'd been reprimanding her grandchildren for calling me "YOVO," the term used for any and all white people in Benin.

Kids sing a song that is more widely known in this country than French, the national language. It's sort of Nanna-Nanna-Boo-Boo in rhythm and off-center in pitch and key. It goes like this; "Yovo, Yovo. Bonsoir. Cava bien. Merci." This is repeated until the throat is hoarse and dry. Everyone knows it, children and adults alike. I've been hearing it daily for the past four months, taunting me like a repetitive, unearned slap on the wrist. Damn it. I am white.

The more educated Beninois know that white people don't like constant fingers pointing and racist songs in the street. The majority, however, are not educated in this regard. Yovo's pay more for goods and services at the marche. We pay more for taxi and zemi rides. We pay more for food, more for clothing, more for beer. Children expect money and gifts from all the tourists. "I am not a tourist," I tell them each day. Adults expect money, free food and drink, though most people in Nati make more money than I.

On the bad days, like after a night of Mefloquine-induced insomnia or giardia-induced dehydration, I can't take it. The kids begin singing. They're the same kids I see every morning. I tell them to call me "Jonny" instead of "Yovo." I make them repeat my name. They do. I return home for lunch a few hours later. On route, the same kids are singing again; "Yovo, Yovo. Bonsoir..."

"Shut the fuck up!" I scream in English. They don't understand the words, but they feel the frustration, and stop................until the next time they see me.

On this particular morning, I was telling the same kids the same thing that I'd told them a hundred times before, to not call me "Yovo." My speech was interrupted by an elderly voice.

"Why are you talking to my grandchildren?" she asked me (in French obviously).

I explained to her that white people, even tourists do not like being called "Yovo." She didn't believe me.

"It's just a name for people with white skin," she said. I told her that I understood that, and was perturbed by it.

"In America," she began. "There's a name for people with black skin. Correct?"

"Yes," I told her. "And that name is racist." She didn't understand. I gave up. I'll try again tomorrow. All of Benin's little blips and quirks can get under the skin from time to time, no matter what the color.

Other than being on the bum end of a bad racists joke each morning, things are going quite well. I'm busy fighting urban pollution, erosion, and deforestation with my bent lingual sword.

Haramatan is upon us. Temperatures drop to the frigidity of sixty-five degrees at night. Grown men sport full down jackets, wool hats and leather gloves. The rain has ceased and fog clouds the hills. Literally. Beninois use the French word for "snow" to describe it, though it's actually just dust. It clogs the nostrils and lungs. The mountains on either side of Natitingou combust into flames each night. An orange glow clutters the sky, and I sweep the twisted chards of burnt cinder from the floor and window panes of my home.

The Beach of Ouidah

Me and My Homies

Swimming Hole Near Nati

We arrived at the waterfall three hours late. What was supposed to be a forty-five minute taxi ride had taken almost four times that. We took a winding, mud-poked, red clay road in lieu of the paved straightaway because of an auto accident that had occurred earlier that morning. An 18-wheeler had twisted out of control, tipped, and spilled oil over the concrete. Authorities feared that the road would combust in the heat of the early afternoon sun. Halfway down our degraded, detour, red road, the bush-taxi caught fire. Smoke billowed from beneath the seat cushions. It clouded the cockpit, burning retinas and lungs. All twenty passengers in the 14-seat van poured through the sliding door like pepper flakes from a shaker. By the time we arrived at the waterfall, Clayton and Cara (fellow PC Volunteers) had already left. The three German volunteers (with whom I'd traveled) and I swam in the curling ripples and shady current for a few hours before deciding to return back to Nati. We reached the main road and heard the screeching of tires. The same taxi that had taken us to the waterfall was stopping to pick us up on the way back. We got in. Again, people were packed lick matchsticks. Twenty people crammed into that dented, early 80's Peugeot passenger van. Everyone's hands were on everyone else's thighs. All heads pointed toward the windows, not for the view, but for a gasp of fresh air. The sun rolled quickly behind the hills, and the Germans and I tried to convince the driver that the road was safe for travel, that the threat of fire had ceased. We bickered for sometime with no avail. The van pulled off the paving, and into the bush. The first forty-five minutes went smoothly. On a straightaway, however, everything changed. Up ahead, a van had slid off the road and was stuck up to its radiator in mud. Rather than slow down at the site of this, our driver yanked at the gears and worked the pedals into a frenzy. We hit the mudslick at about 40 or 45 MPH, instantly spun sideways and up onto two wheels, clenching our teeth together and bracing for a rollover and tumble. We teetered for a moment, slid into a ditch and onto an embankment. I'd been thinking earlier that morning, about how weird and contorted my life had become. As the three German girls and I abandoned the wrecked taxi and began hitchhiking through the bush at sunset, I knew that things had gotten much weirder.

The cricket that lives in the shelves above my stove is ecstatically musical tonight. He’s rubbing his wings together and laughing at the sight he saw earlier in the day: a savagely cursing twenty-four year old, tracking feces with his feet across the living room floor, furious at the bunch of freshly picked bananas in hand.

Yes folks. It finally happened. There are no public bathrooms in this country. In fact, there are hardly private bathrooms at people’s homes. Grown men, women, and children alike show no shame in dropping their trousers or panjas or whatever and pooping by the side of the road. In this case, someone pooped in the banana grove near the stream behind my home.

The story goes like this: I’d been drinking this local beer-like beverage known as “chook” with a few Beninois friends who could speak the local language of the woman who sells it out of her sweaty, crowded mud hut on the countryside, just outside of town. We all drank a few coconut-rind bowlfuls, then hoped on motorcycles and rode back to my house. As we arrived, one of my neighbors was headed toward the banana grove with a machete in hand. Out of curiosity, I deposited my sneakers near my door, and followed. Once in the grove, he taught me how to tell when bananas are ready to be picked, and how to tell good bunches from better ones. He even let me wield the machete and cut a bunch for myself. I couldn’t have been more excited.

We made our way back toward the house, chatting about all sorts of banana related dishes and deserts. In my half drunken, fully elated stupor however, I idiotically stopped watching where I stepped. It was only a few moments before I felt a turgescent, warm liquid quibble with the space between my toes, and wrap itself over the veins in the top of my foot. The fresh, foul stench invaded my nostrils at once. I knew exactly what had happened.

…Other than that, things are going really well here. There are equally as many ups as there are downs, but I try my best to focus on the positive and make jokes out of all the “shitty” situations I get myself into. My French improves daily, and I recently found a French teacher at a local high school who is willing to aid in my learning. Hopefully, I will never again tell a work partner that “I am a bicycle” (Je suis un velo), when I try to let him know that I do not need a ride because “I have a bicycle” (J’ai un velo).

I’ve discovered the wonders of showering outdoors, in the open air / African sunlight, and some of the locals have begun to call me “Jonny, l’homme qui marche” (Jonny, the man who walks). At first, this confused me. The only interaction they’ve had with the name “Jonny” is through Johnny Walker Whiskey. Johnny Walker is the man who walks.

Tonight is my first night at post. Last Friday, I completed my two-month training and officially swore-in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. The event made national news (Gulfe TV and Canal 3) for several days, and featured yours truly plucking the banjo while my friends Rich and Doug played guitars and several other volunteers sang the Peace Corps anthem.

Things here at post are fantastic. I have a two bedroom house, situated in the most beautiful city in all of West Africa. Two mountains flank either side of the city’s rectangular form, and my home rests at the foot of the mountain to the east. Main Street is within walking distance, and a small stream runs coolly behind my home. Walnut, orange, palm, coconut, guava, mango, and banana trees all shade my backyard. I’ll be planting a garden there with my neighbors soon. I have electricity (most volunteers in country do not), a refrigerator, ceiling fans, a fully stocked kitchen and living room, and will have running water piped into my home soon (also something most volunteers do not have).

The first three months of Peace Corps service are spent working outside one’s host organization. My host organization is Le Mairie de Natitingou (The Mayor of Natitingou), but my first three months here will be spent simply living and interacting with my community. This is time allotted for one to learn the ins and outs of the place one lives. Peace Corps’ goal is to create sustainable projects that last long after the volunteer’s two year service is complete. These first three months will be used to form a program and plan for my work over the twenty-one months that proceed.

I visited my post two or three weeks ago, and managed to make a few friends that were all very excited to see me return for good. For lunch, I ate l’iame pile accompange de wagassi (a meal for which my region is renowned), and drank sugarcane Coca Colas with my friend Justin, who not only owns my home, but also one of the most popular buvettes (bars) in town.

A little boy shouted “Japonais” (Japanese) at me today as I rode by on my bicycle, and the strangest look I got all day was from a group of confused Indian men. This is a big change for me, considering I could not walk ten feet down any road during stage (training), without being shrouded by five to fifteen year olds who all chant “YOVO! YOVO!” (White! White!). It is truly a relief to escape the madness of southern Benin. People in the north are generally much more laid back and unassuming.

There are two other Peace Corps Volunteers living in Nati. There names are Alicia and Christopher, and we plan to hike the mountains nearby and visit all of the many waterfalls for which this region is famous.

Who wants to visit?

Most of the Mefloquine hallucinations have ceased. I was beginning to wonder which was worse: getting Malaria, or being woken each night by the freakish howlings of a woman drowning in the well outside my bedroom window.

Life here is slowly falling into place, though. Last week, my friend Tony and I taught our first environmental education class (in French) to about twenty students of varying ages. The class focused on the importance of recycling, the dietary value of fruit, and the basic steps of planting a tree. Each student planted an orange seed in a plastic sachet. When the trees are big enough, the students will transplant them in their family’s yard. It should take about seven years, but eventually they’ll have fresh fruit for their family.

My friend Ricky and I are now planning another class about pollination and the importance bees. It should be fun. I’m hoping to do lots of education at post, which I will be visiting for the first time next week.

Last night, I ate a huge plate of grilled rabbit (which is delicious), and we all drank far too much Sodabe (a clear liquor comparable to moonshine) at a party for my friend Regan‘s birthday. I returned to my family around 22:00 (10:00 pm), which is profoundly late for a white person to be out of the house, and found that I could no longer comprehend French. I tried to hang out with them for about five minutes, but had to follow all of their questions with “Repitez, s’il vous plait.” (Repeat please). “Non. Je ne comprends pas.” (I don’t understand).

I saw a goat on the roof of my host family’s home last night. “Pourqoi est le mouton sur sa maison?” (Why is the goat on your roof?) I asked my brother.

His answer was simple; “Parce que il a monte l’escalier.” (Because he climbed the stairs.)

I’d found myself in a similar situation the weekend before. My brothers and I were pulling away from the house in a Peugot bush taxi, when a reddish, cone-snouted, fox-looking creature looked over us from the roof of our home. I asked my brother why a dog was on the roof; “Pourqoi le chien sur sa maison?”

His answer had been simple again; “Il y a Rambo,” (That’s Rambo) he said with a smile. I’d lived with the Dassi family for nearly three weeks. No one had ever mentioned the dog.

This is typical of life here in Benin: I have a seven year old brother named Elvis, and a friend near my age named Fidel. The biggest American superstars are Michael Jackson (who they don’t believe is dead), R. Kelly (whom they believe is the next Michael Jackson), and Celine Dion (who they don’t believe is not an American).

My host family consists of ten people, a dog, some goats, and about three hundred cockroaches. A beer in town costs a little more than one US dollar (500 CFA to be exact), and a sandwich or plate of fish, rice and beans typically costs around $0.50 US (200-300 CFA). Everyone plays soccer and cars are a rare site on most roads. Motorcycles are everywhere.

I am currently living in the capital of Benin, Porto Novo, which is home to around 300,000 people. In six weeks, when our training is complete, I’ll be moving to a city of similar size, named Natitingou. This is where I will be living and doing environmental work for the next two years.

As for now, my fifty or so fellow volunteers and I attend class from 8:00 to 16:30 (4:30). We study cross-cultural techniques and coping mechanisms, French and local languages (Goun and Waam), and technical job training. After class, we go to the nearest bouvette (bar) for a beer, then return to our respective homes to continue our struggle with the French and cultural oddities of West Africa.

Hello all,

Madagascar is amazing! I just ate four straight ice cream sandwiches...oh wait...this is isn't Mada at all....Hmmmm.

I wasn't planning on writing this after my departure. Then again, I wasn't planning on a lot of the things that have happened in the past 20 hours. I left Logan airport and landed in Philly, as planned,on Monday morning. Our first meeting started about an hour behind schedule, at 2:30. I snacked on Jolly Ranchers, drank ice water, and met the 30 people I was going to spend the next two years of my life with. It was all quite exciting. The Assistant Director of The Peace Corps began with a speach about good will and charity, concluding that, to her dismay, we were NOT getting on a flight to Madagascar the next morning. In fact, we'd all be flying back to our homes.

A mutinany errupted in Madagascar Monday morning. We were all in transit to Philly for our orientation. The army no longer supports the government or enforces any of its laws on the red continent. Peace Corps volunteers in the country already are being evacuated as we speak. None of us will ever be going to Madagascar as Peace Corps volunteers.

I've been offered a reassignment as a "Natural Resource Advisor" in Benin. Training doesn't begin until July 21st. I have ten days to give them an answer. I'll either accept or wait for another assignment. For now, I'm looking for a job. Anyone have any ideas?

Manahoana,

Welcome to my blog. As many of you know, and some are learning now for the first time, I am leaving for Madagascar this Monday, March 9th as a Peace Corps Agroforestry Volunteer. Our original leave date on Feb. 12th was pushed back due to violent politically fueled turmoil in the capital city, Antananarivo. This is where I will be staying for the next three months.

My journey begins with a flight from Boston to Philly on the ninth. I will spend the night there for Peace Corps orientation, and will meet the individuals with whom I'll be working with for the next two years. From there, we go to JFK and lift high above the clouds for seventeen straight hours to Johannesburg, South Africa. We'll spend the night in South Africa, and make way for Madagascar first thing in the morning.

Once in Mada, I will meet my host family. They'll speak no english. Whatever French/Malagasy vocal braid I can muster will be my only form of comunication upon arrival. They will house me for three months while I'll train for life alone in Malagasy culture. The Peace Corps will be giving us further language and job specific training during the day, and I'll spend mornings and nights with the fam. All comunication with the United States is prohibited during this time. "No news is good news," they say.

From then, I'll be placed in a more remote region of the country, and begin my two years of service. My home will have no electricity or running water. This is typical for the people of Madagascar. Hopefully, I'll be close enough to a major city that I'll be able to get internet access occasionally. By the time I'm able to write another entry, I'll be fluent in Malagasy and tropical farming. My fingers will be plucking the banjo smooth in heat of the Indian Ocean.

Veloma.