Monday, September 27th: I walk along the dusty road as the sun is hitting its stride; 12 o’clock is near. I hear a motorcycle behind me and turn to see the familiar face of an English professor, Barnabé. He is a short, of medium stock, has a wide, large nose. His smile is grand, but his teeth can’t be seen until his smile reaches its full potential, revealing a gap in the front, or maybe it’s a chipped tooth. I have not talked to Barnabé since school ended in June. Finishing the usual greetings, he asks, “Are you ready for school next Monday?”

Monday, October 4th, I know it is the date given by the Education Ministry for the first day of school. Last year they said early September, only to move it to the first week of October. School started on the 14th of October. I make a comment to Barnabé, pointing to the obvious: We both know school won’t start until the Monday following the next.

Monday, October 4th: On principal, I wake up earlier for my morning run; I wash my bicycle and pump air into its tires (it has sat neglected since June); I take a shower; and I dress myself for school.

8:10 a.m.: I leave for school anxiously, wrapping my panya around my waist, as to cover my knees and shins while pedaling my bike. I am running late. When I was 11 years-old I left for softball practice an hour before it started. My dad’s opinion: “If you aren’t at least 15 minutes early, then you are already late” – we lived thirty minutes away, which meant we were always more than 15 minutes early. My dad was not raised in Benin, West Africa. Last Thursday a teachers’ meeting was scheduled for 8 a.m. I arrived at 8 a.m. We started at 9:30 a.m. On Friday I was invited to a ceremony, which started between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. I arrived at 2 p.m. I was promptly provided with a chair.

8:15 a.m.: I ride my bike along the semi-damp road. I see a motorcycle being driven. It’s Barnabé and he’s coming from the opposite direction of the school. Again the usual greetings are exchanged, and then he informs me he is going to a week-long information session required of all Beninese teachers. Classes will start next Monday.

8:20 a.m.: I make it to the entrance of the school and greet the surveillant (administrator in charge of disciplining students). He is taking down names of students who are cleaning the school yard. Now, when American students think of the first week of school they imagine paperwork – sign this, fill out these, read, sign, and return those, keep those, but don’t bring them back. When Beninese students think of the first week of school it’s images of brooms (brooms here are twigs collected and tied together) – sweep that, pull up those, sweep more, pick up these and those, move that to here and over there. It will continue this way until the following Monday.

8:25 a.m.: Already here, I park my bike and lock it to a tree; I greet the accountant and school director; I receive my schedule for the school year; I handle business regarding the new school building; and I return home.

Monday, October 11th: I will go to school – the first week having already passed by – and one more morning of sweeping will take place. By 5 p.m., (the time of my first class) school – the learning part of it – will have finally begun and continue on Tuesday.

I wouldn’t say Benin isn’t safe, but that doesn’t mean I don’t try to consistently hide how much money I am carrying on me, or that I don’t get nervous transporting my monthly salary from the bank. I have been known to be overly cautious, or as it is nicely put; responsible.

Saturday I set out for Natitingou, looking to collect part of the money for the school building project; an amount over 3,000,000 CFA (around $6,000).

A little under two hours later, having ridden a motorcycle the entire way, my arms were tingling, as I waited in line at the bank. I handed the cashier the check, well prepared for him to, well think I made an error in what I had written. I assured him that was the amount I wanted.

Typically I can get away with just my Peace Corps identification card to get money out, but I had hindsight and brought my passport with me this time as well, which the cashier nodded most assuredly he would need to take a look at.

Less than 10 minutes later I walked out of the bank with more money than I think I have ever had at any given moment. My trip wasn’t over of course; I don’t go to Natitingou everyday, so there was going to the market, visiting people, and eating French fries with a nice cold beer before making the trip back. The whole time while I did these things I guarded my purse, which no one but me knew what was really inside; the makings of a school building.

The money remained in my house for the weekend, as I waited for Monday to come and go to the director. I am not sure why in my mind I believe this money deserves body guards or anything fancy like that, but I am pretty sure anything would have been more regal than in my leather teaching bag, slung over my shoulder as I pedaled my way to school via my bicycle—I at least washed my bike before getting on it this morning.

After counting the money for my director, he called the contractor to come by the school, and asked the accountant to come into his office. For transparency on the schools behalf the money would be handed over to the contractor in front of my eyes.

The secondary school in Matéri has 22 classrooms already, which are typically broken up by buildings that have two to three classrooms. When you enter the school yard, a sign over head of the entrance, and eucalyptus trees everywhere, on the right is the administration building. It is a nice building with four offices, and a room for the professors to grade papers and to hold meetings.

The director’s office is at the far end of the building, the end further into the school’s campus. Inside he has a huge desk abound with papers that sits parallel to a window that looks out into the mountains around Matéri, and of course our friendly goats. There is a line of chairs along the wall across from the desk. This is where I sat, along with the contractor, and school’s accountant.

Affairs are handled here with the utmost professionalism, and what I mean is everyone is spoken to as if they were the most important person, even if that person is your best friend. You put up a façade of seriousness for the occasion. It is in this manner that our mini-meeting proceeded. Praise was given to all involved and then the contractor counted the money.

The thing that struck me is that today more than before I really felt like everyone involved this project really believed it was going to happen. I think it isn’t off to say many times money is promised and never turns up, and projects are started to never be completed.

The contractor looked at me after counting the money and told me he’d have the walls up in less than fifteen days. His voice registered something in me that made me understand he, like my director, would not be letting me down. They say they don’t want to let me down, but the way I look at it, it isn’t me. At the expense of sounding cheesy, it is also the supporters and donors, the teachers, the students, and the community.

The sun was setting as I settled in to watch “Harry Potter” on my computer, winding down from a day of training, followed by my daily run. Lying underneath my mosquito net I heard my phone ringing over the sound of wizardry entering my ear drums via headphones.

When I receive calls from the United States the number never registers, it always says Unknown. But for the most part it is a safe bet to say the Unknown is my mother.

“Guess what?” she says.

I hope she isn’t about to toy with me; I hope her excitement is about my project and not something else, I think to myself, selfishly.

“I just searched your project online to text you update on how much is left to be raised and a notice came up saying the project is fully funded.”

Now I was sitting up, looking out the window at the fading sunlight and I just couldn’t believe it. Just last Friday there was $7,000 left to be raised. Surely this was not true, and when it turned out to be so, I just couldn’t believe I had actually done it. Well, I correct myself, that we had actually done it, because I certainly wasn’t working alone. I couldn’t believe that a little over $14,000 had been raised in a five month period.

The next few days after confirming the project was funded and telling people in my village the news, something other than total joy and happiness started creeping into my psyche. Anxiety …

I had been so focused on raising the money that it never occurred to me how I would feel when I actually started implementing the project. Oh god, I thought, people have entrusted me with $14,000!

I am as responsible as they come, and perhaps that is why I started worrying. I just knew I didn’t want to let anyone down. This project has to be completed as clear-cut and quickly as possible.

In a way it was like the fundraising process all over again—the stories and tales of volunteers biting off more than they could chew, and leaving without funding their project. Only this time, other voices came to mind—“I knew a volunteer whose school tried pocketing the money” and “You know you wouldn’t get it completed before six months.”

My brother made an astute observation during a Super Bowl a couple years back. One of the teams playing had gone the whole season undefeated, and for that reason many fans were not rooting for them. He said, “Why do people not want others to have success?”

It is a pattern I have noticed recently, this indirect, or in some cases direct way of putting out into the world that things just won’t work out. I fall into the trap from time to time, like the first two months of fundraising when I let the thought of failure remain a constant figure in the back of my mind.

Back then it was my own faith and that of my family that guided me through the negativity. Fortunately now it is my director, the accountant, and the contractor who give me confidence. They are all very competent and serious individuals, who only want what is best for the school. Like me they take full responsibility for the project, and while I and all of those who donated essentially did not want to let the school and village of Matéri down, these people here don’t want to let all of those who donated, and myself down.

One of my favorite foods and one that is native to the northern part

of Benin is igname (yam) pilé. Imagine a potato on steroids and then

double the size, make the skin a little tougher and thicker and you

are close to imagining an igname. Now igname pilé takes this food that

looks like it was produced for the Jolly Green Giant, and smashes it

up like mashed potatoes—of course you remove the skin first, and

ignames are so dense you have to boil them for much longer than

potatoes to make them soft.

Mashed potatoes you’re thinking, imagining perhaps beaters plugged

into a socket, and stirring up the ignames in a giant bowl. Nope.

Unplug the beaters and put them away. Turn off all your lights and go

outside, and imagine a giant mortar—half my height—and with that

mortar, pestles the size of oars. They put the skinned and boiled

ignames into the mortar with some water and take the pestles to it.

Normally two people pilé taking turns raising and smashing the pestles

into the mortar to make the ignames soft and ready to eat.

For the past year I have seen woman and girls of all sizes piléing,

and until tonight I never dared to try my hand at it. I have to be

honest, my interest in piléing is because in passing, and jokingly, I

said I was going to try my hand at it, and to this I was challenged

that I couldn’t do it. My friend told me, with my missing knuckle on

my left hand and well let’s be honest my lack of doing any manual

labor I could not do it. “You’re going to break your hands and get

blisters,” I was told.

Tonight, as I saw them shaving the ignames and boiling the water, I

told my sister, Huguette, that I wanted to pilé, and of course they

were all for this—a few months ago I learned how to make pate to the

delight of everyone. I was nervous to pilé, because it always looks

like it would take great strength, and I worried I would tire after

one or two swings, but how I forgot I once played softball.

Now softball of course is nothing like piléing, however all those

years spent outside with my dad doing buckets and buckets full of

balls for batting practice certainly made my hands immune to

blisters—not to mention the added motivation of recalling being called

noodle arm until I was maybe 14 years old.

At first when I started it was amidst laughter, but as I refused to

stop with fatigue and improved in my aim, I proved myself worthy to

pilé another day.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t have preconceived notions and with

that expectations of the traditions I would find in Africa. I imagined

all night ceremonies, ceremonies for beliefs that others might have

thought should have been long tossed aside. I can not detail exactly

what I though I would see and hear, but I was excited at the prospects

of such occurrences.

One of my complaints about changes in Africa, not that I am an expert

by any means, but I sense a loss of traditions that as a Peace Corps

volunteer, whether we outwardly admit it or it is deep down inside of

us, want to see.

For the past few months I have taken to running in the morning, and on

my way back home I always stop by and talk to a Togolese woman and her

little boy Assiz, and sometimes her husband if he is there. Yesterday,

just as I was about to take leave, we could hear screams and yelling

from far behind her house. It isn’t the first time I have heard

peculiar noises coming from a group of people.

One of the first months I was here I heard chanting coming down the

road after darkness had already descended, and my sister, Petra, told

me it was a group of people singing to stop the rain, which in June is

welcomed, but by October becomes a disturbance, causing roofs to cave

in and crops to go bad. In addition to chants is of course drums,

which are almost always beating in the distance, in most instances

celebrating a persons death—the louder and more constant the drums the

older and more important the person.

So my Togolese friend turns to me and tells me to wait to watch the

people go by, and as they past by chanting not in sorrow they carried

over their heads a body, strapped to a gurney made of sticks, and

covered with white cloth, with just its feet left to touch the open

air.

Death in Benin seems to always be glaring you right in the face,

whether it is the killing of a chicken with your own hands so you can

eat, a baby guinea hen falling ill and dying, someone stealing your

goat and killing it, only to find it was pregnant, a dog becoming the

casualty of someone’s motorcycle, an infant dying of malaria, a

husband dying of AIDS, or if you are lucky making it to old age and

dying in a peaceful sleep. These situations are real and there is

something to be said for a culture that takes death as such a natural

process, like breathing, which it is, and celebrating it, and it is my

believe it has always been this way.

So I suppose while traditions now are accompanied with cold Coca-colas

and beers, and people with cameras, and their cell phones, or t-shirts

that say, “I Kissed Your Boyfriend,” I feel grateful that the

principles that have always guided old traditions still live on.

Balancing the overall shock that comes when you take a person, who has been living in an underdeveloped country, like Benin, for a year, and then putting them not only in the developed world, like the United States, but a Target no less, is a task that most Peace Corps volunteers face. But on my second trip to Target I think I handled myself well; making it out of the store in less than an hour, compared to the first four hour trip. Of course this was not without a slight pause in front of the back to school supplies section, which is a marvel paired with the dollar section at the front of the store.

Students in the United States are currently gearing up for back to school, obvious by the parents being followed by their whining children trying to distract them with things not necessarily on their list of supplies for the new school year. It isn't hard to spot when I used to be one of those kids, stocking up on spiral notebooks, three-ring binders, dividers, packs of blue, black, and red pens, a calculator, which if used to its full capacity I am certain could help you do quantum physics or nuclear fission, 6 packs of 100 sheets of lined notebook paper, highlighters, protractor, compass, colored pencils, markers, and of course a backpack to put all this stuff in for transport back and forth on the bus and from classroom to classroom. This doesn't even take into account back to school clothes shopping, which I would squirrel away money for from my summer job, and squander three times as fast when I was a teenager.

It is a stark contrast to what many of my students will be facing in Benin in another two months, when school starts in October, after students have helped finished working in the fields, providing them with the time to go back to school. At this point the students will go to the market and buy their cahiers (notebooks, which are half the size of American-type notebooks, and without the hard, plastic and cardboard fronts and backs). Then there is the standard metal box, which all students buy that has a compass and ruler, a pencil, and I believe one red and one blue pen, although those may have to be purchased separately. Most students don't have backpacks, and it is not rare to see paper bags that we, in the United States, give gifts in used to carry notebooks back and forth to school, and not on a bus, but by foot, and if you are lucky by bike. As for clothes, well all the students have to wear khaki uniforms, which may be bought new, but mostly are taken out, washed and mended for the new school year.

Now I have only considered the lists, not the costs of these lists. Huntington National Bank's Annual Backpack Index in Columbus, Ohio, provides and compares the amount spent to fill up a child's backpack here in the United States. For 2010 the statistics read as follows:

Elementary School: $472

Middle School: $535

High School: $998

As for clothes, one article from Louisiana reports that according to LSU AgCenter, the average family will spent a little over $600 for clothes, shoes, and electronics.

Those cahiers and the box of supplies in Benin equates to less than $10, which many students struggle to buy, and know they have to make last all school year. They can't lose a notebook, or fill one up too quickly. The one pencil they get is sharpened down to a nub, and since it doesn't have an eraser they use both sides of the pencil. Then there is the case of the missing chalk. If I leave little bits of chalk my students quickly take them, to use as white out at home, or in the case of younger students to eat for the calcium.

Finally there is one cost at least the students here in the United States don't have, which is paying to go to school. Education is free, provided by the government, but in Benin, the government doesn't even have the money to pay its teachers for months at a time. The students pay for their education. At Materi this price is equal to $25 (half the price of a pair of tennis shoes, maybe less), which is paid throughout the school year. This means not everyone is even going to school, especially girls, who may come from families whose parents don't believe in educating a girl, or choose to only use their money to pay for their brothers to go to school. For more statistics on the state of Benin's education visit here.

Big things happening today for Project Make Space! Including the publication of a blog through national organization, Share Our Strength.

Link: http://strength.org/blog/jenna_hall/building_change_fighting_hunger_in_africa/

Also the launch of our t-shirt fundraiser. Buy an American Apparel t-shirt with the Project Make Space logo for $20. All proceeds go toward funding the secondary school building project (Project Make Space). To place an advance order on your t-shirt visit Etsy.

Link: http://www.etsy.com/shop/projectmakespace

T-shirts will be available for shipping later this week.

I have been back in the States for over a week now, and between visiting family and friends, and getting sun-burned at the beach, I have been spending a large part of my time working to raise money for Project Make Space, also known as my Secondary School Building project. According to Peace Corps online Web site there is still $12,350 left to raise! Over the last week I have collected money from a few individuals and companies, which brings the total left to raise at $10,800! If you haven't donated already, please do so. If your mother, father, brother, sister, aunts, uncles, second cousins, dogs, or cats haven't donated, please do so. It is quick and it is easy, and just as little as $5 can go a long way. If you are thinking, "Yeah, hey I will do it later", then think about this:

In the time it could take you to donate $5 to building a secondary school in Benin you could do the following things ...

1. Brush your teeth (which can be done while donating)

2. Update your facebook status and stalk one person on facebook

3. Do 20 push-ups

4. Any number of staring off habits you have to avoid office work

5. Miss the commercial break for your favorite TV show

None of these take long or effort (except maybe push-ups) so go ahead click and donate. It takes 5 minutes.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=680-192

Before reading this, I warn you, if you don't want to be totally freaked out, grossed out, convinced that you never want to go to Africa, or another reason that no one should go to Africa, discontinue reading right now.

This story very easily has over shadowed the time when a bug flew in my eye during training, or when I broke my hand by merely walking--which has resulted in a bridge being built in my honor--or the weeks of heat rash, and poison-ivy like allergic reactions to mango skin that caused swelling of my lips.

A few weeks ago, upon returning home from watching Harry Potter the Prisoner of Azkaban in French with my French tutor and a professor from my school, with their daughter, I finally took a look at what had been annoying my left thigh for the majority of the evening--a bug bite. It looked like the typical bug bites I get here, red, raised, annoying and irritating, like a pimple.

A few days later as I am getting ready to take a shower and go to bed, when I walk by my hand mirror that I left sitting on my bed, and notice that the same bug bite has raised skin around it. It has been itching a little too, but I have learned to resist scratching per having heat rash for weeks on end, which is only made worse when scratched. After showering I show my Maman to get her opinion on this development, she has come accustomed to my overreactions to things they are so used to, and tells me it is just an abscess. I have had abscesses before and I am not convinced. I put some anti-itch stuff I find in my medical kit and hope it will be less inflamed in the morning.

The next day it looks about the same, but is more red. At the same time I have acquired a cold, which is not related to the abscess, but makes my life equally miserable. During the day I start having a fever, which I attribute to my cold at first, and then begin to wonder if it has to do with this mini-Mt. Vesuvius growing on my thigh. I keep applying some stuff to it, which alleviates the heat that has begun radiating from it, but nothing for its size.

By Sunday I grow concerned that I may have a staph infection on my hands, and opt to call the doctor, at the risk she will request I come down to Cotonou to see her and have it looked at. She knows I am far away and I can tell she wants me to start making the trip, but I try and successfully convince her to let me stay put, as I will be down in Cotonou in another two days anyways. She asks if I have a place to get antibiotics in my village, and I go to the health center in the village, and have the doctor there talk to her on the phone about what is happening on my leg. They give me antibiotics.

I start the antibiotics and try warm compresses to relieve the pressure on the infection, and while I start to feel better wake up at two hour intervals during the night with a fever.

The next day I head down to Natitingou, the infection is spreading still. I make the eight hour trip to Cotonou the following day, sitting next to my friend Clay, who very easily was suffering far more than I was from what we guessed to be malaria. I safeguard my leg, which hurts when I walk (as it has done for three days) and when a person just barely grasses against it.

I arrive and immediately go see the doctor and she suggests waiting to drain it until morning. I don't like the sound of this and ask that it be drained the same evening, because of how painful it has become. We take a look at it and she makes an opening she hopes will allow it to drain on its own during the night. She takes me off the antibiotics I was on, and puts me on a stronger dosage, and marks where the infection is on my leg, to tell if it spreads during the night.

The next day she starts to drain the infection, which has luckily started to decrease in size, if only a little. I have a high pain tolerance and I had a hard time enduring the doctor draining the infection. It made me think if the pain was comparable to giving birth that I would lose my will to want to have children. The doctor stopped and said I would have to return in the evening to have her drain it more.

Around 5:30 p.m. I head to the doctor's office and she begins the process again, of cleaning up the infection, examining its size, and then draining what she can. It is as she is draining that I notice something white, and ask if it is dried puss. She says no, and then gives me a scientific name, which I take to be the scientific word for puss, but then she continues explaining, and it becomes clear. A bug. In my skin. Eggs. What bug? A bug? Really? Died and caused infection. Suffocated. Tiny hole in leg.

As the doctor disposes of the larva, she explains again. A bug called, the tumbu fly, accidentally laid an egg in my skin, which died after I inadvertently suffocated with the cream I had put on it because I thought it was an abscess. When the larvae died it caused the volcano like infection on my leg.

After the dead larva was removed things started to improve immediately, and now all that remains is a small reddish, purple dot.

After a year in the Beninese school system, the following is a list of my most memorable teaching moments.

1. The joy and relieve on their faces when I returned from being sick and when I told them I'd be there teacher again next year.

2. Everytime I had to pause for a mini-lecture on behavior, only to have my students look at me with such a charming innocence that all I could do was smile back at them.

3. My most challenging class having 62 of the 64 students pass English class.

4. Learning that the words "swimming pool" said quickly isthe word for "f***ing" in local language.

5. Making my students sing and do the Hokey-Pokie for being late to class.

6. A first year English student unprompted pointing to a photo of Alicia Silverstone photo and saying, "She is my wife."

7. Students writing in English their future goals in English.

8. Teaching students "polite phrases" and having a student say: "Exx-squeeeze me."

9. Student accidently saying "It is a sh**" instead of "It is a shirt."

10. My students presenting and performing bands they created in class.

Cow head and body partsQueen size mattressTwo huge metal doorsThree or more goatsTwo or more pigsAn entire family of fiveTwo to three crates filled with glass bottles of soda and beersDozens of chickens and guinea hens tied to each other, tied to the handlesWooden chairs Something the size of hay bails holding fabric

It has been about two weeks since I finished with school. I have been involved in a smattering of end of the year things, meetings and practicing for a spelling bee two of my students are doing this weekend, but overall I have been mastering the art of vacationing.

In the States I was infamous for my inability to truly relax and vacation. I would take vacations only to try and plan every moment and or sneak in work at the same time. For my mom’s 50th birthday we all went to the beach for a weak. It was during the third day I finally checked email for work, which of course meant I put in an hour or so of work answering emails and writing up some things for people in the office. Last year during my best friends wedding we had a whole beach house for our bridal party and I managed to sneak in a lesson planning while driving to another part of the beach for the day. If I wasn’t working, I would planning what I wanted to do next or worrying about the hundreds of things I would have to do when I got finished with vacation, as if I actually were ever really on vacation.

Now, in Africa I feel I am learning the art of relaxing and of vacationing. Of course vacationing is used loosely here as living without air conditioning and other basic amenities might not be the normal persons idea of vacationing; in fact I dream of never taking a vacation again in which there are not lush giant white pillows and soft bedspreads so glorious one might think angels had made them. Yet relaxing is something that can be done because well really what else can you do without internet, television, a car, a million places and errands to run. Even if I have an errand, say buying phone credit, I can send one of the little kids in my concession to go do it for me.

I give myself, at the most one task a day to do, and normally if I don’t feel like doing it I don’t unless it is mandatory, say like tomorrows professors meeting. Otherwise I wake-up around 7 a.m. take a run down to the lake down the road, stop and talk to my Togolese friend and her son, who she wants me to take to the States with me. He is one year old. I come back shower, have breakfast waiting for me next door, or make some oatmeal myself. I have developed a fascination for taking the colored sprinkles used for decorating and putting them in the oatmeal turning it a red-ish pink. I might pick up a book to read. I have started tackling the Bible. Then I take a nap on a mat under a tree, or if it isn’t yet 11 a.m. in my house. Yesterday I poked around with Canterbury Tales, which by the way is far better and understandable than I remember it being in college. Admittedly though I feel like I skimmed it far more and college and I think that piece of literature fell into my hands during the period when I had mono and was half-asleep through most assignments.

Last week I started learning how to make Beninese food, which earned me great praise for simply stirring a giant wooden spoon. Go me! I also had a very close biological connection with a just killed chicken which I held while my sister cut it up for cooking; everything but the intestines. I can’t say I am as ashamed as I should be for picking up its head and making jokes with my sister about the chicken sleeping. For such a laborious day it is only natural that I go to bed around 9:30 or 10 p.m. I swear the more I do nothing the more tired I feel. Makes me wonder if we can ever really relax and vacation; I suppose all I can do is to keep trying.

A year ago, before even leaving Philadelphia, a Peace Corps representatives’ words of wisdom included things like being flexible, adaptable, and understanding. And then there was the phrase, which made us giggle like five year olds—you will become very comfortable quickly with discussing bowel movements.

Then there was the moment two weeks into training, where we are trained in MIF kits--how to poop into a cup, so Peace Corps doctors can determine what fun amoebas or parasites we have contracted. This uncomfortable explanation was made infinitely more uncomfortable by a six-foot Beninese man explaining the process while having a shit-eating grin on his face the entire time, as if he himself were going to burst into laughter at any moment.

But of course there is nothing like the first time in every Peace Corps volunteers service when they have to do the inevitable--actually make a MIF kit. Needless to say all of us are quite comfortable in discussing our bowel movements as predicted. But this is not what I want to talk about, what I want to talk about is how comfortable everyone in Benin is with not necessarily defecating in public, but urinating.

One of my most common complaints is how the Beninese pride themselves on appearance, even if they are poor, they always want to put their best forward, but they have no qualms with peeing and in some cases pooping freely out in the open, and in some cases in the field outside my Maman's house or right next to my house. I can't say that many days have gone by where I have not seen at the very least one man in the standard stand-up peeing stance. I repeat, the standard stand-up peeing stance.

It has come to my recent attention some new peeing stances for men, which perhaps I was purely just ignorant of before, because I am a woman and never felt compelled to ask.

I am sitting on my porch outside my house on market day, which I loath for the pure fact that it is urination and defecation central, as people refuse to pay the 25 FCFA to use the latrines conveniently located within the market. I am working on grading some papers, when I turn to my right and see a man approaching the neighboring concessions bathing area.

The bathing area is basically four cement walls not even high enough to hide from the waist up--needless to say this bathing area is used primarily by men--and a door opening. There is a hole in one of the corners inside the bathing areas, where the water drains from, and did I mention this bathing area is near one of the entrances to the market that is crowded with vendors and people coming and going.

So the man approaches the wall furthest from the market, which is backed by a corn field, which hasn't been planted yet. I know what is about to go down, but then I see the man go into a catcher's squat position, and proceed to pee in this manner. I think to myself, perhaps he is trying not to draw attention to himself, but think it has failed, because how weird is it that he is squatting to pee?

Again, I assumed perhaps this pee stance was something I was unfamiliar with because I am a woman, but then, not even a week later, I am taking a bus down to Cotonou, and we have made one of our typical bathroom stops in front of an open field. I look out the window and see a man making to do the same peeing squat position, but no, he takes a knee. You know, like you take for t-ball photos, or like when a person gets injured on the baseball field? But it doesn't end there, he takes a knee, and then kicks out is left leg as if he is stretching his groin after running a marathon. He then proceeds to pee.

I am baffled, and yes I know, this all probably sounds weird that I am witnessing and watching these things, but the thing is it was better than what was going on to the left of him--a big Maman, who gave up on being discrete and just let her huge butt come out of hiding from behind her skirt as she'd peed, and then gracefully returned to the bus.

In Elementary school I am sure I was taught the basics. What is the subject? What is the verb? Define a noun. I know in my first English course in college we learned about passive voice, articles, dangling modifiers. I was an English major. I have sat with editors telling me to use the present tense, avoid the past tense and present perfect. Don’t use passive voice. Take out all the extra articles. As a substitute it was mandatory I review parts of speech, enough said. Even with all this, it is only now that I am truly learning English Grammar.

Today I swore I heard brains exploding in my 4eme class, which is a class I picked up during the second semester here, because we were desperately short of English professors. I am not saying these students aren’t smart, but it is clear there have been many gaps in their learning of the English language. I once heard during a graduation ceremony speech that knowledge is what you remember after you have learned everything. I know these students have learned all the words written in the books here, but they haven’t remembered it; whether it is because they are lazy, illiterate, or their teachers didn’t explain it well, well there’s no way to know. Not that I can blame these poor kids, I mean I am just now learning the true meaning of English grammar and that is this: it would be very good friends with Jacques Derrida, more or less father of deconstruction, the theory which boils down to everything means nothing, more or less. So here I am faced with Derrida’s BFF, a native English speaker (myself), and 70 some Beninese students who speak French and Biali, with a smattering of other languages, teaching passive voice.

I didn’t even want to teach this lesson, because as far as I am concerned every English professor I had in college if they were in graves would be rolling over. “Don’t use passive voice,” they said. “Be direct, use active voice,” editors mumbled. Of course as you might imagine from my first paragraph I nodded politely at these comments, made a mental note, and I would read my work searching for passive voice, not knowing exactly what I was even looking for. Anyone who knows me knows I can’t hide confusion, so basically for those who know me, imagine me with that face staring at sentences trying to discern active voice from passive voice. This is probably why when I looked around from the board at my students faces, we both just looked at each other like this was the most ridiculous thing they have ever seen.

Learning passive voice requires one to know how to find a subject, a verb, and objects, but also knowing the difference between subject pronouns and object pronouns. Also you need to be able to identify tenses—present, present continuous, past, present perfect, future—and know the past participle for verbs, which for most is its verb base with ‘ed’, but of course there are all those irregular verbs, whose past tense is different than their past participle. After all this don’t forget all the conjugations for the verb “to be.” Did your brain just explode? Welcome to 4eme and to how I finally am learning English Grammar.

My best friend is a 3 year-old, but I swear she has done this before. Her name is Didi and if I have a child half as cool as her I will feel very lucky.

Didi is the granddaughter of my Maman. She arrived in Materi in January. She was dressed in a yellow dress made for wearing to church on Sundays. It was the evening and we were all inside watching the television when Maman arrived back from Cotonou. She set down cement sacks filled with goodies from the south, pineapples, oranges, carrots, and yams, and behind her peered Didi.

In the week that followed I didn't like Didi very much. She cried a lot. It was clear she had learned if she cried she got her way or at least something, usually cookies. One day I came home from school and she was having a real fit, over what I can't remember. Honestly, I don't think I actually found out, at the time of my arrival she had been crying so much she had forgotten really why. I couldn't take her crying and so I took her into her room and told her when she stopped crying she could come out. This of course only sent her into a huge rage, which was augmented by the other children peering into her window laughing at her. This went on for a half hour, and she never did stop crying really. Finally Sophie, my sister came and gave her a more Beninese punishment for crying--hitting her and telling her if she didn't stop crying, she gets it again. I was sure Didi probably wouldn't really like me, especially after my strange punishment.

I think I enticed Didi like you could entice any kid, with candy. She loved candy and soon was coming to my door asking, "Jamie? Donne-moi bon bon." One morning, I am not sure how she knew I was up or heard me, but I was in my bathroom area, when I heard her strong, yet child-like voice, "Jamie!" she said. "Oui Didi?" "Tu-fais quoi?" What are you doing? I said nothing--I was in the bathroom. She pressed are you pooping? She said, I laughed and said no. She paused are you peeing? I laughed some more and said no. Probably less than satisfied she bounced away, inevitably dodging her money bathing, which normally sends her into tears.

Didi doesn't like bathing and I am not sure why. The only time it is fun, if she gets to come over to my house to shower. I have a regular shower and the first time Didi saw this, her eyes immediately filled with fear, and I knew tears were quickly following. I quickly told her, we'd fill up the bucket and she'd have her normal shower. I try to distract her during bathing, because I know she doesn't like it. I will ask her about different things, and this is how our lessons in English started.

It is amazing the information small children can absorb into their brains. Didi speaks French extremely well for a three year old, and since living in Materi she has picked up Biali, the local language. I have taught her how to say, How are you? I'm fine, What is your name?, My name is Didi (she normally skips the 'is' part), along with various body parts. One afternoon recently, it was a Wednesday when the primary school kids don't have class, and Didi and a band of little kids were outside under my beloved shade tree. As I tried to drift in and out of a nap, I could here Didi teaching them all the English phrases she knew. Over and over again, "How are you?" and "I'm fine." She laughed with glee.

Didi can run. She runs everywhere if she can. One day she spent an hour marching and running, singing a song about exercise being good for your health. All while wearing an athletic band around her head that she had taken from Petra, my Maman's youngest. In an endless circle she marched, never growing tired of the song. Finally she lay down and past out within seconds, as is common for her to do.

Recently Didi went away for a week to see her mother, while my Maman was at an information session away from village. Didi loves my Maman, and when she isn't there, well Didi cries more than usual and is just in general more difficult to deal with. After a week, my Maman came back, and Didi again was wearing a dress made for church Sundays. As I went to greet Didi her eyes filled with tears and she just started crying and fleeing from me. I couldn't understand it. What was going on? My Maman explains, oh it's her emotions, she is too excited to see you and so she is crying. This went on for 15 minutes, at which point Didi made her way over to my house to see girls drawing on t-shirts, which she immediately wanted to also do. I handed her my shirt and we were best friends again.

Frequently Didi breaks friendship ties with me, but within the hour she is back to loving me again. She makes of wild tales and is so animated about everything that happens to her. The other day she told me her father was going to buy her a car, and then after five minutes decided a bike was better. She loves dancing and even though she runs when I try to tickle her, it is definitely a fake run. She consistently insists on eating what I eat, which includes what is now called "sauce de Jamie". Sometimes when I steal away to my house it is only a matter of time before her figure appears at the screen door with her nose pressed to it, demanding, "Jamie! Tu-fais quoi."

If you are smart you know not to say the three letter word to me--h-o-t.

My family and friends call me, and you know a conversation isn't complete without a weather report. "It's hot" they say. I just say, "Oh yeah?" as I sit on my porch baking in the sun, restraining to itch my heat rash that has consumed me for the better part of three weeks, and I am covered in baby powder, which seems to be the only relieve I can find. I look like Powder from that 90s movie, but I don't care.

I feel bad as my blog has been more or less neglected in comparison to previous months, but honestly it's the heat. In March and April I spent a lot of time traveling for training, but May I have been camped out in Materi. I haven't been as in touch with anyone and when asked about how things are going, all I can say is, "It's hot," followed by "I'm tired."

Yeah, I know, what did I expect when I moved to Africa. But think of it this way, it's like having a kid; everyone tells you its painful and you see it on movies, but you do it anyways and then when it is painful you want to rip the guy who did this to you's head off. So I fully am aware I came here voluntarily, knowing it would be hot, but there is no way to prepare for how hot it is, and yes I wouldn't mind ripping something. I have to cope though, which is why baby powder has become my best friend, along with trees, frequent and habitual cat naps, and showers.

Around 12 or 1 I eat lunch everyday, and just this act alone can send me into the transpiration equivalent of running a marathon in August. I don't even notice the sweat sometimes, until I feel a drop descending my calf like someone has flicked water on me suddenly. Typically after lunch, I lay under the giant tree just outside my concession. I want to hug this tree, because if there is even the slightest wind it catches it, showering me with coolness that only air-conditioning could beat.

I sleep a lot. I do the bare minimum to prepare my lesson plans and even then it is usually under my tree in between one of my naps. I don't ever get into a constant sleep as there is always something to wake me up--drums, children, music, students, crazy old man fascinated by the white girl who speaks local language even if it is just a handful of words. Sometimes getting to sleep is more of a challenge than staying a sleep. I have developed a strategy, in which I simply fan myself to sleep.

I shower a lot. Before the real heat set in I usually showered twice a day, sometimes three. Now anytime I move for five minutes I run to the shower. I am also happy to say I have a real shower now, which was installed right before I broke my hand, which was also when the heat started. I love showers. The only thing better would be my own personal baby pool, which I would most surely fill up every evening and sit in all the next day.

When it rained for the first time, I don't think I have ever loved rain more. The mere presences of a few droplets makes me smile with glee. Everyday now since the rain started I ask my Maman's son, Philippe if today it's going to rain. Like I can tell the weather at my parents house in Maryland, he knows the weather here. He knows I hate the heat, I am constantly saying it's going to kill me, and I think he wants to be able to tell me it is going to rain. So even if he looks up and its obvious it isn't going to rain, he humors me and thinks for a few seconds before letting me down. The heat shall prevail.

Sports have always played a major role in my life. I even have documented evidence; my first photo at age 6 for my t-ball team. Down on one knee I proudly wear my purple Vikings uniform. Back then we didn't have the standard white pants, which makes sense we were bunch of kids, so my mother had made me a matching tie-dye shirts and pants combo. I remember wearing that ensemble down quickly--there was no dirt on the field that went untouched. Now, many years later I have returned back to tie-dye.

It is common among volleyball teams to make tie-dye t-shirts together as a team building activity. When I was coaching my first volleyball team, a club me and one of my best friends started, we had a tie-dying party. So, the idea to do the same thing in Africa came naturally. And like in t-ball my mother came to the rescue. She set about buying t-shirts for the girls and while she could have just bought some regular tie-dying kit at Wal-Mart, she went through the process of ordering a kit from a company called Dharma Trading Company. She even called them to ask if they shipped to Benin. They did, but at the fear it might get lost she had it shipped to her first.

Following the volleyball tournament I had all the girls over to my house and we set to tie-dying. I couldn't explain what it was to them really, but they went along with the activity with vigor. Of course we had to work around the directions a little. For example, I can't control water temperature so I would have to boil water to mix in with the cool water from the pump.

We let the shirts sit in their dye for almost 24 hours, at the girls’ insistence that they sit. The next day on a Monday, four of the girls came over to help rinse off the dye so we could hang the shirts to dry. They were all wowed by the colors and how the shirts turned out. The four girls immediately started calling dibs on the shirts they wanted. Even the shirt we were sure was going to turn out not so great was pretty. Another sign that the shirts were a success is the girls wanting to sell them. Apparently south of our village a group of woman do tie-dying, and the girls eagerly pointed out these shirts were way better.

On Saturday the whole team returned and I set about demonstrating how they could use the fabric markers--also courtesy of my mother--to sign one another shirts and decorate the t-shirts. The girls acted cautiously at first, but after an hour they were all into it, so much that I couldn't get them to stop. They wrote messages to each other and spread "I love volleyball" across the shirts with hearts. Next year these shirts will serve as their practice t-shirts, and while I thought they might wear them outside of that, they have taken this notion seriously. These shirts are for volleyball only. It gives them something to look forward to next year and like my photo from t-ball, it gives them documented evidence for the future.

(See slideshow for pictures of the girls tie-dying)

I love volleyball and when I played in high school and college I loved it, but I don't think I was ever as motivated as the girls on my team here in Benin. Everytime I looked they were practicing playing this past week at a tournament that hosted teams from the Atakora-Donga Regions in Benin. They would wake-up and practice. They'd eat breakfast and practice. In the middle of the day, in the hot African sun, they would practice. It would be raining and they would practice. It is ashame they don't have the opportunity to do it more often back in village, where they are going to school, and when they aren't at school they are doing housework.

While practice is supposed to make perfect, my girls prior to coming to the tournament had significantly less practice than the other teams. We had started in February and practiced twice a week, but due to trainings I had were unable to practice during breaks and at other times. The other teams had been together for a year or so. I have to say though considering all this, my girls were able to hold their own.

The first match we had it was clear the girls were nervous. They didn't have their usual swagger they seem to carry naturally. Also the voice of our team at the start of the match was missing. She was out looking for the key to the classroom, where all the girls' things were, and no one could find her. Around the court were tons of people, heckling and cheering with each point. Like when I played volleyball, I couldn't stop talking to the girls, cheering them on and trying to remain calm. During the second game the voice of the team showed up. I didn't put her in right away. By the third game the girls settled down and won the game. Unfortunately we couldn't sustain for the fourth game and lost the match.

I was pleased with the girls' performance, but of course there were things that had gone a miss and after the usual post-game chat I made the girls get on the court and do lines. It has been my goal to discipline these girls and to take pride in themselves, if it is the last thing I do.

The next day we had our second match. If we won we stayed on for the semi-finals (there were only four teams total), but if we lost it was back up to Materi. The girls practiced as much as they could within the next 24 hours and we all were confident we could win this match. I was so certain, but as the game started slowly things fell out of place, and after three games we were done. I was happy to see the girls were upset with themselves--to me it meant the competitive streak had seeped into them and good--but I finally said to them that they should be proud of what they had done. I also pointed out to them that I am not sure I could have taken a group of girls from the States and done what I had done with them. They in two months with maybe a little over a dozen practices had made themselves volleyball players. They played without shoes, some of them, in the heat, on courts with rocks and dirt, with one volleyball, a basketball, and a soccer ball. So to steal some words from my favorite movie, while we didn't win the game, it was still good.

At 10:30 a.m. I am dropped off at the school, for our 11 a.m. departure. After five minutes the other coach calls me and tells me to go ahead back home; he will call me when they are ready. Two hours pass, I am not worried, I expected we wouldn’t leave on time, and finally a little after 1 p.m. I am told to come back. Of course, another hour passes before we actually leave the school—me, the other coach, and 20 students, including the 11 girls that form our volleyball team.

You can sense the excitement of the girls. This isn’t something that happens everyday for them; there are many students, who have never left the village, let alone get in a car. They squeal loudly as the driver turns roughly around to head out of the school gates, which prompts our director to warn the driver to be careful. We bump along the long dirt road, when not even ten minutes in we decide to stop in the first town, Tanguieta. The driver needs to change his clothes and the students are hungry; they don’t have any problem vocalizing discontent.

We eat quickly, paying for extra food we did not get, just because the Maman at the cafeteria, refused to go and count the plates. It is what it is. Leaving the cafeteria, the driver is no where to be found. Ten minutes pass, fifteen minutes pass, a half hour passes and we finally see him riding around town on a moto. He returns, and the other coach makes a joke about the driver having to go see his wife; it’s his way of telling the guy he shouldn’t have been gone so long.

Next on our trip is Natitingou, where I want to stop at the post office to see if I have packages, including possibly one with much needed volleyballs. Then we also need to get photos developed of each of the players to make identification cards for the tournament. Also there are three girls, who refused to eat in Tanguieta, but of course are still hungry. It is what it is. We arrive in Natitingou, a hour and half later. The photo place can’t make photos with my American camera, so we find out we must make another stop in Djougou. At the post office I am met with success, the volleyballs have arrived, thankfully as we forgot our lone volleyball at school. We are delayed once more though, as the three girls move slowly to find what they deem suitable food.

Djougou is another hour and half plus, which doesn’t include various stops at police checkpoints, where we must give money to keep going on our way. We arrive in Djougou, our destination Ouake, is less than an hour away.

Our stop in Djougou lasts at least three hours--or at least it felt like it. We must make copies of photos as I mentioned for the tournament. We find a place, but once again they can't take the card from my camera, but this other guy says he can. So we hop on some motos and go to his house. As I am doing this, I am thinking, never in America, never in America. After about five to ten minutes we get to his house. His wife is outside preparing dinner, and doesn't even make any face at the face that her husband has brought two strangers over. We go inside the guys house and it is like a regular old CVS set-up to make copies of photos. Yet, the copies take a while to make, and then we find out how expensive they are and we need like 30 some photos. After much debate we decide to make one copy and then go to another place to make copies. The night is coming and so I go back to the bus with the girls. We wait for another hour and half, and when I call the other teacher, he just tells me he is coming. The girls are growing impatient and so is our driver. I just tell them, it is what it is, and he is coming. He finally arrives after 9 p.m. and we all pile back in the bus for the last leg of our trip. An so after a seven hour plus trip, which should have been no more than four hours, we arrived in Ouake, a town near the border of Togo, Benin’s western neighbor.

In February, with the enthusiasm of my school’s director and consistent assistance from another member of the administration, I started C.E.G. Matéri’s first volleyball team. It was opened up to only girls, much to the chagrin of the male students, who insisted they too were jeune filles (young girls).

Initially, I set out to practice once a week. Free time is not a commodity for most girls in Benin, as they are responsible for cooking and cleaning at home, along with keeping up with their studies. We decided on Saturday mornings at 7 a.m. going for an hour and half. The second week in, after receiving a lecture on making sure they arrived on time, as we only practiced once a week, the girls approached me, “Madame Jamie, ‘What about practicing on Sunday?’.” I asked if this was instead of Saturday morning, but no they wanted to practice twice a week. So it was set, we’d start practicing twice a week, two hours each day. Of course I can’t think of a single time our practices didn’t run shorter than two and half hours, with the girls continuing to get some last passes in while we were taking things back to be locked up at the school.

I don’t think these girls give any second thoughts to the conditions they play in, meanwhile I have had to slowly accept them, which has sub sequentially left me with total admiration of these girls. We play outside, on a terrain that is basically hard ground, with tiny rocks everywhere. The girls fall on the ground without question or complaint, at the same time they are forced to move quickly to avoid falling all together.

In addition to the one volleyball the school had, I bought a volleyball, which quickly was deflated as the girls sky rocketed the ball everywhere and anywhere but the volleyball court. Then we resorted to using a basketball and two soccer balls, just so the girls could get repetition.

I couldn’t figure out how to run a practice at first, because I was used to having many volleyballs at my disposal. I also struggled to explain things in French. I knew this would be a challenge, but never realized how ingrained in my head volleyball lingo had become. As a result though, the girls have learned a little more English, evident by them saying “Mine,” sometimes, as opposed to “J’ai.” Thankfully with the help of another school administrator I survived and developed some new strategies on my own.

I had to leave behind the complex volleyball I had learned and go back to basics. This means just simply passing and setting, and despite protests underhand serving—next year they are all learning to overhand serve. I had to deal with the time eaten up by chasing balls. I finally resorted one day to taking the girls to the side of the school building and passing with the wall, making them get in ready position, throw the ball up, and passing, in a methodical, controlled process, that kept them focused. I also had to deal with how the other coach wanted to discipline the girls, by yelling and hitting. It was only a matter of time, until the other coach saw giving them running, having them hold the passing position, or doing push-ups worked more effectively. Then there has been the slower process of reprogramming these girls to pick one another up, instead of blasting each other for mistakes.

This all leads me up to today, which was the first day at a regional competition in Benin, where the first girls’ sports team ever from Matéri is participated.

It is an understatement to say I receive one to two advances from Beninese men each week. On some weeks this is incredibly infuriating, but for the most part it’s been interesting to develop different strategies to put these men off.

Strategy #1:

Me: I am married.

Beninese Man: Where is your husband?”

Me: He is in the United States.

Beninese Man: Do you want a Beninese husband?

FAILED

Strategy #2:

Me: I am married.

Beninese Man: Where is your husband?

Me: Oh, back in village.

Beninese Man: Do you have children?

Me: No.

Beninese Man: Do you want a Beninese husband?

FAILED

Strategy #3:

Beninese Man: So you are my wife, right?

Me: No.

Beninese Man: Yes, you are my wife.

Me: Well, I don’t sweep.

Beninese Man: That’s fine.

Me: I don’t want children.

Beninese Man: (thinking)

Me: I don’t cook either.

Beninese Man: (thinking)

Me: I also already have two husbands.

Beninese Man: That’s no good.

SUCCESS

Strategy #4:

Beninese Man: So you are going to take me to America with you?

Me: No.

Beninese Man: I will cook and clean.

Me: No.

Beninese Man: Why not? I want a white wife.

Me: Well, I am no good, but I will look for another white woman for you.

Beninese Man: OK

SUCCESS

Strategy #5:

Beninese Man: So, you are here?

Me: Yes.

Beninese Man: With whom?

Me: My friend.

Beninese Man: Do you have a husband?

Me: Yes.

Beninese Man: (leaves, only to return when he realizes “my friend” is not my husband) Does she have a husband?

Friend: Yes.

Beninese Man: Where is he?

Me: He is at home.

Beninese Man: Can I come visit you there?

Me: No.

Beninese Man: Why not?

Me: Because my husband is very jealous and he will hit you.

Beninese Man: Really? No, that’s not true.

Me: Yes. (I point to my broken hand) See my hand, he hit me and that’s why it’s broken.

Beninese Man: (laughing) No that’s not true.

Me: It is.

Beninese Man: Did you refuse to do something?

Me: Yes, I refused to cook.

Beninese Man: OK, well then he had reason.

SUCCESS

Strategy #6:

Me: (I pretend not to understand French)

Beninese Man: (After a minute or two gives up)

SUCCESS

Strategy #7:

Beninese Man: (approaches)

Me: Turn my head and just continue to look the other way incredibly pissed off until he leaves.

SUCCESS

My first week of classes I asked my students where I was from, and they said Spain, which I could not understand. Later I learned the there were Spanish nuns working with my villages Catholic church. Of course this doesn’t account for the countless people all over Benin who assume I am anything but American, or even if they get that right, then they think the United States is a part of Europe. Yet, my favorite misstep thus far happened a month ago.

It was a Saturday morning and I had finished coaching volleyball. Our electricity had been out for a couple weeks, so I had left my phone at someone’s house to get it charged. As I waiting for them to bring me my phone, a man wondered into the concession in search of Sodobe (imagine something like Everclear). It is not surprising for men to be drunk at 9 a.m. in the morning; in fact, I have seen men as early as 6 a.m. starting to drink. As the man is waiting for the Maman in the concession to pour him a shot, he asks if I am for him. The Maman explains I am hers, she got me in Porto-Novo. He accepts this answer, as if white people really are bought in Porto-Novo, or anywhere in Benin for that matter.

Five minutes go by and the man starts saying Madame, Madame, Madame Blanche. Literally, Mrs. White, as I am white. I turn to him and he says to me, “Are you American or are you Chinese?” He was not joking. I of course say I am Chinese, not avoiding a moment to amuse myself. He then asks if that means I know English, because you know Chinese people speak English. I say no, I don’t know any English. He questions me more, and I insist I don’t understand any English. He seems satisfied with my insistence and then proceeds to drink the shot that has finally been poured for him.

Each fall in Charles County, where I grew up we have an annual fair. The fair is like most fairs I imagine, full of rides that have been assembled and reassembled many times over, food meant to put you in some sort of diabetic shock or perhaps effectively clog your arties, and of course there are arts and crafts and produce. But what I remember most about the fair is the livestock section. You know full of chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, and rabbits. There were areas where you could pet these animals and some were just for show. For some of us in Charles County, mainly those of us who did not live on a farm, this was the once a year chance to see these animals. But now, every day is fair day in Benin, and I am always buying a ticket for the show.

We have weekly meetings at my school within our departments. To be frank I'd rather count the grains of sand in the Sahara desert than go to these meetings. Needless to say I don't feel guilty when I let my eyes wander. I think my favorite time was when three donkeys wondered into the school yard. They walked in what I felt was a perfect line, but that could be because the Beninese typically don't form lines for anything and therefore rarely see such uniformity. I literally sat for maybe ten minutes watching these donkeys march by and go to the water pump in the center of the school yard.

Wednesday evening I hear children yelling outside the concessions, not unusual. The voices get more animated, not necessarily angry, and even though I don't understand what they are saying (they are speaking local language) I can tell insults are being said. This prompts my Maman to go outside and see what is going on. She comes back a minute later and starts explaining what is happening in local language to the zemi driver who has come over. All I understand is that there is stealing and pigs involved. Turns out the pig is missing and the kids were trying to find it and the neighbors said they were trying to steal their pig. Then the next 15 minutes is spent finding the correct pig and coaxing back home.

Every night the young girl in my concession is in charge of trapping the chickens and putting them in their coop. I never thought two things about this, until one night I was on the phone with my mom and they shut the lights out and commotion was going on to catch one of the chickens. My mom asked what was going on, and I replied, "Oh they are just getting the chickens in for the night."

I love goats. There are goats everywhere in Materi and in Benin in general. They are what squirrels are to Maryland. My Maman had a goat this past winter and after I returned from Safari, my family told me the goat had been stolen. It has been returned, but whomever stole it had already killed it. My Maman was not home, but my older brother proceeded to launch a full out investigation to catch the culprit. He was successful and subsequently the three of us spent the whole next day at the police figuring out what to do. Eventually the man gave my Maman the money for the goat.

I was waiting for a taxi in the town near my village, when I see a taxi go by. It looks empty but as it passes I see it is filled with nothing but pigs. In to this end I have seen the following animals stacked on not just tops of cars, but motocyles and bicycles: chickens, goats, pigs, cows, and guinea hens. I guess there needs to be some way to move the fair along.

I wish someone could have got me breaking my hand on film and I couldn’t help but laugh at myself after I did it. It was 6:30 a.m. I had three or four hours of sleep and was off heading to catch an eight-hour bus ride down to the country’s commercial capital, Cotonou. Still dark outside, I know I won’t be able to find a zemi (moto) to get me to the bus, and so I am walking hurriedly to get there on time. I have managed to fit all my stuff for a week in one bag, but the bag is rather large, as is my purse. I carry my helmet in my left hand, with the visor open I wrap my hand through there to hold it.

For being so early and having so little sleep, my mind was racing over whether I had everything and all the things I needed to do this week and just in general the trip ahead of me. As I am going over this I consider how I should maybe get my cell phone out to use the flashlight, since I can’t see. I start digging around in my purse and it is at this moment I trip and fall, landing on my left hand, holding the helmet and then lay out flat, scrapping my right knee and my big toe.

I just start swearing at myself, mostly because I am in a hurry and I am slowing myself down, and then because I realize how much the fall hurt. I stand up and I think, "Hey, I think I just jammed some fingers." As I am walking I realize my right hand is bleeding. I should go back to the work station and clean myself up, but I veto the idea, not wanting to miss the bus and because I have a travel first aid kit with me.

So I sit on the bus for eight hours. My hand is killing me. I look at it and think it is just jammed and well it will be fine. I don’t move it and four hours into the trip I finally dig out something from my purse to take for the pain. When I make it to the work station I ice it, and figure if it still hurts in the morning I will go see the doctors.

In 24 years I have done many a things that could have caused me to break a bone, but of course it is tripping and falling that does it. The next day an x-ray shows it is broken and I have to wear a cast for six weeks, which happens to coincide with the same time of the hot season.

Today I am getting my cast off and it has an awful, worse than pungent smell to it. I have resolved to sleeping with my arm as far away from my face as possible. I am embarassed to be too close to anyone else for fear they may think it is me that smells. The doctors think the smell might be because I exposed it to water, my response: "If by water you mean sweat than yes it has been exposed to a lot of moisture."

It’s Saturday night. It is the first time in over a month I am able to sleep comfortably indoors and that there is electricity so I can have the simple joy of a fan. I have spent the last couple hours grading papers.

I was walking home today after my French lesson and as I reached down to adjust my bag, I was reminded of the beads under my skirt that are tied around my waist. The wind was blowing my skirt against my skin, as I strode, thinking how I was walking less like I used to and how one day I will win the ongoing battle of keeping my feet clean. Then it occurred to me; what have I become?

Sometimes the most exhausting part of my life as a volunteer is dealing with the life I used to have and comparing that to where I am now. The first day we were in Benin one of the staff members told us to be wary about keeping one foot in the States and one foot in Benin. If we were going to be volunteers we needed to be committed one hundred percent to Benin.

First, I can’t say there have been many things I have not committed to one hundred percent and second, I would vehemently argue with anyone who dares to challenge my commitment as a volunteer, and yet I constantly feel I am playing this game of hopscotch. I have not figured out the best way to explain this.

It would be selfish for me to believe nothing was going to change with me gone, and I knew that, but I never anticipated how the changes would make me feel. And it isn’t the changes alone, it is going on facebook and seeing everyone living a life I can’t relate to, but used to relate to, and will go back to. It isn’t that I look down on anyone and to some degree I am envious I don’t have that, but I also can’t imagine doing anything else and being anywhere else but here. In some ways I feel like I am getting left behind, while also being the one going ahead.

I tell my Maman that I have broken my hand on the phone and she is concerned. I tell it is fine and ask how my dog is doing. I am told he is making progress. When I arrive home on Sunday night, Beaugarde isn’t where I left him and he is not next door. My sister tells me he is out with my Maman. She arrives home a moto fifteen minutes later, without Beaugarde of course.

“Where is Beaugarde?” I say. “Oh Jamie, he is dead. I didn’t want to tell you with your hand and everything.” End of story, sort of.

Later my sister tells me he isn’t dead and that he wasn’t tied up and he wandered off and they couldn’t find him. The whole village was out looking for him, she tells me. Then later I tell this story to someone in my concession, when my aunt, she is nuts and grates on me, says that story isn’t true, but that Beaugarde hung himself on his leash. I talk to my post mate a couple days later and she tells me how bad of shape Beaugarde was when she saw him after I had left. I don’t know what happened to my dog. I would like to believe that maybe he knew he was going to die and wandered off somewhere to do so, but the realistic part of me thinks perhaps my Maman gave him away, which ultimately means here for eating. I haven’t even bothered to ask where his collar went and I have made it clear, I don’t want another dog.

When I was in kindergarten I was put in time out for singing too loud. I still attest to this day that I had in fact diminished my volume when the teacher asked and was wrongly punished. I felt this injustice as a five year old. My reaction: to cry. I cried the rest of the day at school, on the bus ride home, on the walk back home, under the dining room table.

In third grade I decided to call a teacher a bitch. Unfortunately I have always had a habit of speaking too loudly and at the same time not paying attention to my surroundings. The teacher heard me say this and punished me swiftly. I admit now looking back that it was a very cruel thing for me to say. I deserved the punishment. Of course I hate being in trouble though. My reaction: to cry.

On more than one occasion through out elementary school and middle school I would receive a poor grade. Now to me this met anything less than an A. Once I earned the highest grade in the whole class on an assignment most people failed. It was a B-. My reaction: to cry.

As a sophomore in high school I was fu**ing up royally during a volleyball match and my coach rightfully took me out of the game. I was so mad with myself and knowing she was equally disappointed made me even more upset. I went to the end of the bench and cried. At the sight of this, needless to say, I sat the rest of the game. My reaction: to cry more.

In college I received a C- on a paper. I think that was the first C I had every received on any paper in college. I was a junior. I went to see the teacher and figure out what I did wrong. She ripped each sentence to shreds. My reaction: to cry. Don’t worry she didn’t change my grade and she ended up being one of my favorite professors.

When I worked at National Geographic I was under a great deal of stress, as I was finishing up school at the same time. I wrote something and of course it wasn’t perfect. I blame shear exhaustion and maybe an unhealthy habit to be perfect, but as my boss sat and edited it, as she would anything I wrote I could feel it coming. I cried.

Two days ago the vet came over. Beaugarde was not any better. He was worse. I hadn’t slept very much and I knew I was leaving on Friday for a week. Not that my neighbors aren’t capable of taking care of my dog. I know Beaugarde gets slightly sad when I am gone. He shows his discontent by being disobedient when I get back. At the same time I questioned whether my neighbors would really want to hold Beaugarde up to go to the bathroom or heat up water and create a make shift warm compress for his legs.

The vet is just as puzzled as I am. He says he will think about it and then come back tomorrow. Then he says if he doesn’t get better after that I can just give him away and get a new dog. He might as well have just picked the dog off and hand him over to the meat venders, because that is what would happen. Here they kill dogs and eat them, and surely Beaugarde is no exception. My reaction to all this: to cry.

Unfortunately, in all these years, while I know it is not in my best interest to cry over such silly things I have gotten away with it. But I guess it is someone’s idea of a good joke that I am now living in a country, where it is totally UNACCEPTABLE to cry, especially over a dog—again dogs are food to many people here.

I try to hide in my house so no one knows I am crying, but at the vets insistence on just getting a new dog, one that is better, I can’t help myself.

My Maman comes to lecture me about crying. Saying I need to have courage and that everyone gets sick and that Beaugarde will get better. Il faut avoir patience. Then she says she is mad at me for crying is she is going to leave if I don’t stop. This of course makes me worse; I hate for people I care about to be mad at me. My reaction: to cry.

I take a bucket-shower and come into my room where Beaugarde is sitting. I lie next to him and cry some more. I want to get it all out before I show my face to Benin again. As I cry, Beaugarde crawls over to me the best he can and starts licking my face. He has been getting better ever since.

My house is on pause. I imagine this is what the home of someone whose husband is dying slowly of lung cancer and is laid up in a hospital looks like. I have floors that need to be cleaned, dust looms over everything—even sheets of paper need to be wiped down—and the floors are stained. It’s like I am waiting, like the woman with her husband, for the decision to finally come down so I can finally clean up and deal with the reality of it all. Of course there is always a glimmer of hope, represented in the ability to bring myself to wash the dishes.

It is as I have finished washing off a plastic plate in the green plastic basin and proceeding to clean it off once more in the clean water I have set aside in a clear bucket that I hear cries. I know he must be moving again, but leave the plate half submerged in water to make sure it is just that he has moved again, and not that he has gotten up, bumped into something and hurt himself.

I know I am like my mother—I say that with not the least bit of shame—and I did not need the separation of the Atlantic Ocean to discover this. However, this separation has led to a series of events that has shed new light, perhaps a small one to people with actual children, on what it’s like to be a mother.

It turns out Beaugarde did just shift again, but I feel it is my fault. He had fallen asleep under the illusion I was lying next to him, which originally had been the case. I had tried to fall asleep, having finished two books today in my dutiful stand-guard, and started a third. Restless though, I decided maybe I’d feel better if I bucket-showered and clean up the dishes.

Beaugarde start acting “strange” a week ago. I have been calling my mother on any inkling he might be sick. It is funny I worry more about the things that can happen to Beaugarde by living in Africa than I have ever considered for myself. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong exactly.

“His eyes are bugging out,” I said.

“What you mean?”

“Like a cartoon character.”

Since Beaugarde was little he has laid out on the ground in refusal when going on walks. He was doing this same thing, but he was doing it just when we’d walk from my house to my neighbors. Then on Friday it became clear. Beaugarde could not see well, it progressed quickly. He is now blind.

“Il ne voi pas,” I say to my neighbors.

“Il ne voi pas?” They don’t believe me, so I have to show them how he stumbles around into things as evidence of his malady.

I call the vet when I get home from school. He administers an antibiotic. He tells me to put some stuff in his eyes and suggests maybe he ate something outside—I have not let Beaugarde roam the village in three weeks; I have seen everything he has eaten. He did not charge me for the shot; I thought maybe he knows my dog might not make it or maybe he just doesn’t have the slightest idea what to do and is taking a stab in the dark. Beaugarde does not get better. His stomach started convulsing and he did not sleep at all Friday night; neither did I. During the day it is drawn to my attention that he can’t walk very well and not just because he can’t see. He reminds me of a cat my parents had briefly, called Chance. He couldn’t use his back legs, they just dragged behind him. Beaugarde isn’t dragging his feet, but he is tumbling a lot and when he falls it is always with a slight whine and he looks around knowing how vulnerable he has become.

Today is Sunday. He received another shot today and they think he is getting better. I am not so sure. I am hopeful because he still is wagging his tail, but I feel so sorry for him. He is so helpless. I have to pick him up and take him to go to the bathroom. I set him down in his usual spot and he tries to pee and falls down. He stays lying down until I pick him up so he stops pissing on himself. I can’t help but laugh a little. It is less funny though that he is afraid to go poop. I can tell he needs to because he is crying a little. He knows he can’t hold himself up to do the deed, so I hold him up myself.

Baby (Eat a Critter, Feel Its Wrath) by The Blow

Mango Pickle Down River by M.I.A.

Closer by Kings of Leon

C’mere by Interpol

1,2,3 Goodbye by Elvis Perkins

John Henry by U.S. Royalty

Blossom by Ryan Adams

Track 09 by Flying Machines

Heart in a Cage by Chris Thile

Cold Water by Damien Rice

Not Over Yet by Kevin Devine

How’s Forever Been Baby by Elvis Perkins

It is Tuesday at 7 p.m. I am hiding out in my bedroom, sitting on the floor—its funny I used to panic about having furniture and now that I have it I prefer the floor. The fan is blowing on my face, and next to me is reminiscence of my moment of serenity—a Coca-Cola and an empty wrapper that once held vanilla cookies with chocolate cream filling.

I used to never drink sodas. The only time you saw me with a Coke for that matter was if it was accompanied by Captain, Jack, or Malibu. I used to not even care if my drinks were cold or warm. I actually didn’t really like super cold drinks. Now I think I very well may turn into my college roommate who would pile her glass full of ice—maybe in another life she lived in Africa. I have constant cravings for cold drinks and drink more sodas than ever before and now I know how Fanta stays in business.

I never had a sweet tooth. I was always more a bread and potato chips kind of snacker. Everything here is like a carbohydrate, and salt and piment are the soul ingredients for flavor along with Maggi cubes, which are like bouyon cubes you use in soup. Last week though, at 10 p.m. one night, I sat on the floor licking the wrapper of a giant hershey’s bar. The bar had melted in transit, so I cut a small hole and sucked the chocolate out like it was one of those yogurt on the go things you can buy in the States. I had planned on saving the chocolate to make cookies, but couldn’t control myself.

So here I am six months into service and my moment of serenity is a soda and a small package of heavenly sweetness. I can not discern where these “Cream 4 Fun” cookies are manufactured. The box has English on it, but the cookies are labeled biscuits, which is the French word for cookie. Then the name of the company is Dukes, which sounds like some company in the Deep South, but the Web site name has India in it. I’d say these cookies are just as confused about things as I am.

And why am I hiding while I do this? Well because the cookies were expensive—by expensive I mean they are the equivalent of a dollar—and last time I bought them I didn’t get many because I shared them all. As for the Coke, normally when I buy a cold drink I get something for my Maman, but I wanted to sit and indulge myself. The fan, well that was just added for effect.

“Every volunteer comes into service and wants to do a building project,” another volunteer said. I was asking her about her experience with a construction project. The thing is when I joined Peace Corps, I wasn’t thinking about doing such a project. My dreams were on a smaller scale, starting a volleyball team, or writing a community newsletter.

Venturing into the world of PCPP (Peace Corps Partnership Program) only started when at a training session in November we were advised on the importance on doing things the community needed, not just what we think they wanted. “Each school has a development plan,” our assistant program country director told us, “So see what the school’s needs are first.”

My school’s director handed me a piece of paper with eight things listed—this was their development plan. I looked over the list and was disappointed. Most of the needs listed were not something that could be done easily. At the top of the list was “classrooms.”

I knew classroom space was an issue, as I have had to chase classes out my room many times, but didn’t realize just how short our school was on space: 33 classes, most with at least 70 students, one with nearly 100, and only 22 classrooms. It is a big enough obstacle students can’t stay for entire class periods because there isn’t electricity, or they can’t read the board because of its poor condition or from sun glare, or there aren’t enough books, if any at all.

It wasn’t until I was pedaling my bike home the day I received the development plan that I thought maybe I could help build a school building. I informed my director of my interest and gave him the responsibility of putting together a budget. I also ask that the school try to contribute 35%, not just the 25% that Peace Corps requires.

“Here is the budget,” says my director handing over a neatly typed document, detailed with amounts and prices. It is all in French. I can’t even remember how much I should pay for tomatoes at market, let alone the cost of a school building. I relied on my Maman to give me some insight. “C’est trop cher,” she said, “That is too expensive.”

My heart sank, not because I was worried I couldn’t raise the money, but because I had trusted my director to give me a good pricing on the project. Instead of getting mad at the idea that perhaps my director was taking advantage of the situation, I opened up my French-English dictionary and set to decoding the budget and blueprint.

Things have to be handled correctly here in Benin, or an opportunity will be lost to do something great. Respect is important and remaining calm equally so. I was nervous, but confident in my ability to discuss the budget with my director. I had calculated a price I thought was more reasonable, and would help the community meet my pre-conceived goal of 35%. I knew I couldn’t be pushy.

“Is it possible to negotiate the price down,” I said in a quiet, calm tone.

“Of course.”

“I want to do it for 10,000,000 CFA,” I aimed lower than what I actually wanted, which was closer to 11,000,000 CFA, “with the school still giving 4,000,000 CFA.”

“We can just make it two classrooms,” my director started in. I remained calm. I knew from my translation of blueprints there was no reason to jump to changing the project so quickly.

“Je voudrais faire le batiment avec trois salle,” I said, I would like to make a building with three classrooms.

He wasn’t budging on the issue, but he wasn’t being ornery either. I kept on.

“We can make it more simple; no terrace and make the windows different, have one blackboard, instead of two in each classroom.”

The director finally resolved to call the contractor; it was the only way to get a real answer—maybe my director has a hard time remember the prices of tomatoes at market too. The director didn’t give the contractor a price, just asked how low the price could go.

I knew when my director’s eyes lit up that we had received a better price. I was glad I had not given in easily.

“That is what we wanted.”

“10,500,000” he said, after hanging up the phone.

“Je suis contente. Je suis contente.” I am happy. I am happy.

Wednesday night was a major victory for me, but really only I could understand just how major it was. I was able to talk with my director, as a female, and negotiate my preconceived desire price, all in French. I did not compromise my reputation in my village, and furthermore I knew that when I asked for help from my family and friends back home, I wouldn’t be compromising my reputation with them either.

Saturday morning I could not fight my normal urge to catch an extra fifteen or so minutes of sleep; even though it was 6 a.m. and still dark outside. Bumbling around in the dark, using the flashlight on my cell phone as a guide I prepared for the first volleyball practice at my school. I was reminded of how many early mornings of my life have been spent getting ready for such practices.

I have been telling myself for weeks that I am going to start running each morning. When that never happened, I said, OK well how about yoga? I did that for two days. The lack of exercise is becoming noticeable. Not because I am gaining weight, but rather when I exert myself in the slightest I can feel in my muscles this dormant like state rebelling against me as they never would have in the past.

I bike to school and arrive a little after 6:30, practice starts at 7, but I want to have time to put up the net. The surveillant at the school, who is in charge of the soccer team, has agreed to meet me, but there is a miscommunication. He was at the school, but insisted that we take a run up the mountain, which is something he does with the director every Saturday (I have joined twice before). Apparently when I agreed to come early, this was why. I told him that I wanted to be ready when the girls arrived. Oh we will be done by 7:15 or so. I don't know how many laps I have run as a player and given as a coach for being late, let alone 15 minutes. I don't have much of a choice and so I go on the run.

When we get back the girls are waiting and we make our way to the volleyball court with two balls and the net. One ball I found the day before as I was leaving the tailors. I was shocked to have found it and bought it even though I know the guy asked way too much for it. After seeing the school's volleyball I had no other choice, that is the second volleyball.

I am running behind my planned out practice and opt to forgo putting up the net. We are going to be doing introductory stuff with passing mostly, so the net won't be necessary. I run five laps around the court with the girls. And by court, I mean what I guessed to be the parameters. The court is not sand, not pavement, just regular terrain, with some boulders and dried out grass patches--a breeding ground for injuries. There are two giant wooden poles stuck in the ground where you hang the net. I know that diving is not going to be a safe option, and my girls are going to have to learn to be fast.

I have the girls circle up, but of course I don't know the French phrase for this, so I just sort of point and tell girls where to stand. I go to stretch the arms first and quickly realize how foreign all of this is to these girls. They just giggle uncomfortably. I forgo trying to have them count outloud like we do in the States. The rest of the practice is spent learning passing form, some setting, and a little bit of hitting (just going through the motions).

It is difficult at first to get the girls to have a wide enough stance when they pass--many look pigeon toed. I keep asking them if that is comfortable and how they can't move like that. They laugh, but then next thing I turn around and a different girl is doing it. I don't have to tell to many of them to keep their butts down, and they laugh when I make reference to the "Yo-Yo-Yo" song, which has a video of cartoon women shaking their huge butts. I try to explain to them that you have to call for the ball. I teach them 'mine' after they fail to say anything in French. They start calling the ball, but when it isn't near them. They think they should yell mine if they want the ball. Finally, my sister comes in and explains in Biali, which helps. The only major breakthrough I finally have at the end is to tell them to stand like they are washing clothes, which is normally with a wide stance.

I go to setting, which is not exactly my strong point. I try to teach the way I learned, holding a paint bucket, make a small window parrallel to your forehead. They do the up and down motion with their legs and arms well enough, but when we start a few insist on swatting the ball downward. I demonstrate that way doesn't work, but this one girl can't help herself.

I show them a little bit of serving and then toss the solo ball we have up for each of them to hit. I have a feeling serving will be easy for girls who spend their days mashing up food with giant wooden sticks and have way better arm muscles than I ever have.

In the end I feel bad. I think the practice was flat and I am discouraged because we just have one ball, my volleyball terminology is limited in French, and I am worried the girls did not enjoy it, although they say the do. I realize that part of my problem is I am American and I have this mentality with volleyball that everything must be done exactly right. I have realized though that all these girls, save one, have never seen volleyball played, let alone played it. For that matter some have never played a sport. I have decided what I need to do is create a volleyball team like my classes, where the practices are fun and engaging, and patients is key.

On Sunday morning I wake up early, but not to run. I wake up because my legs are extremely sore from the day before. I can't believe I used to play volleyball everyday and sometimes all day. My sister and her friend later tell me how sore their legs are too. They are in a pain, but not in a "I never want to do it again," but proud of the reason behind it.

It is 7 o’clock on my Friday evening, and I am pausing to tell you about the time I was schooled in how to take care of my dog, who is now currently sitting in my lap shivering, wrapped up in my panya (a two meter piece of fabric).

First let me just say I know how to take care of a dog. Or at least I think I do. I grew up with no fewer than three dogs in my house at one time, so you’d think I’d have a clue.

I have had my dog since he was born more or less. My neighbor has a dog and she was pregnant when I got here. In October she had six puppies. Beaugard (that’s my dog) was the first one I held. I claimed him as mine early on. He was one of the best looking ones and he wasn’t a female—I don’t want little Beaugards running around.

I started trying to potty train him early on; yelling NO a lot at him when he tried to pee everywhere. I learned to take him out immediately after he woke up and show him designated urinating and poo-ing areas, which are actually the same places where some humans can be found defecating on market day—yay! Since this process has begun he has peed and poo-ed in the house only once. Once he did pee on me in my bed, but that was my own fault—he’d been crying to get down more or less for an hour and I was too tired to get up.

My friend Ashley called me recently and she laughed at me. I told her having this puppy was like having a baby, and I was certainly going to be thinking extra hard when I decided I wanted to have a kid.

When he was a month or so old I tried to have him sleep in my house with me. He cried so much and I grew impatient. I put him back with the other puppies and resumed my restful sleep. A week later though I tried again, and now he sleeps most of the night nestled under my armpit sleeping. And on most days he continues to sleep until I make him get up so I can go to school.

The other day my sister told the boutique owner my dog sleeps with me in my bed. The guy shook his head and said that was no good. He also said naming my dog handsome guardian was also no good—he’s just a dog after all.

Dogs here, well they roam freely. I was convinced that it was built into Beaugard’s genes this need to sortir (to go out). When he was still very little though we had a series of dog nappings, and so I resorted to keeping him on a leash all the time, and walked him twice a day so he’d get his exercise. Then my Maman returned from being away for two weeks and told me to let him run free. He is too big to be tied up she said.

So for a week or so I allowed little Beaugard to roam free, but I began to worry. First of all, he took it upon himself to become friends with the meat vendors near my house, who frequently hit dogs. Secondly, one day he decided he wanted to try and follow me to school. I remember turning back every few seconds, seeing his little ears flapping in the wind, and he was running with all his heart. He made it half way before a little girl started chasing him and he went back home. A couple weeks later though, a little bigger, he attempted to follow me again, this time he was met with success. There is no tricking him either, he knows when I am leaving and will come out of no where to join me. So now I keep him tied out on my porch while I am at school. He cries so much when I leave, it breaks my heart.

Meanwhile my mother has been getting a chronicle of Beaugard’s life and urging me to keep him tied up more. I know this, but I also know the Beninese way with dogs, and how nuts they think I am with him already.

So today he has been tied up most of the day, like most days this week, but he keeps crying. Maybe he needs to go the bathroom, so I let him out. Of course when I do this, this is when the vet arrives, and I have to spend five minutes asking everyone where Beaugard went.

After capturing Beaugard, the vet looks over him, and hands him to me. You must wash him twice a week; he is too dirty. Also he can’t be running around like this. I say to him about how I know this, but everyone always tells me to let him run free. He shakes his head, and I know we both get that these people know very little about decent pet care. He doesn’t let this be an excuse. I feel so embarrassed.

After he left I promptly took Beaugard into my showering area and gave him a bath. He now smells like Chamomile and refuses to leave the warmth of my lap. I guess he is going to have to learn to be an American living in a Beninese world, just like me.

For the second time in a row I actually felt like I had in fact aged a full year on my birthday. The first time it happened it was my 22nd birthday. I was working at National Geographic at the time, and I remember I went to the bathroom a little after lunch, and after washing my hands I just stared at myself in the mirror. And thought: “I no longer feel like I am constantly trying to catch my feelings up with my actual age.

I did not have a mirror this year it is more or less a feeling. It would be easy to say that I felt older because I was living in Africa, but I don’t think that is it entirely. The last couple days, having finished reading The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, along with the New Year I find myself edging towards a new way of thinking.

Maybe it started with my New Year’s Resolution—wear sunscreen on my face. I have been in Africa for almost six months and prior to Christmas I had applied sunscreen once, I think. I admit I could see the irony and amusement if later in life I developed skin cancer and that it was linked to trying to save the world in Africa.

I made this resolution out of vanity. Although I have been told many times before that too much sun makes ones face resemble a leather bag some sort of aging gene kicked in one day in early December when I was reading an article about being in your 20s and being sure to taking care of your skin as if you were in your 30s or 40s.

I think a lot about the future, always planning. I keep trying to plan for what will happen after my service (I am not even six months in yet), and I just keep changing my mind. I admit now that part of my reason for joining the Peace Corps was this desire to search for something I was passionate about.

And maybe it’s thinking about the future so much that makes me feel older, because I realize a changing set of priorities. For example, there was a time in my life when I said with conviction that I would not have kids and wasn’t going to get married. I thought I was so progressive with this thinking. But then something changed and now I have been quoted as wanting five children, adding the more kids you have the better chances you have that at least one of them will take care of you in your old age—I plan on living a long time.

I think feeling older has a little something to do with my actual physical state. I love Africa, but I can see it taking a toll on my body: My hair has been falling out more, I am told a combination of stress and the malaria medication I am on; I spent my Sunday morning scrubbing the cement floors of my house on my knees, I felt like Cinderella, and I know tomorrow I will be aching way more than I already do; I have lost some weight since being here, it has been gradually. I am by no means unhealthy, and after all these years of complaints my boobs finally have agreed to shrink first in the weight loss. My face is also thinner. I haven’t had my menstrual cycle in a few months, which I don’t want to complain to much about, and yes I am sure, very sure, I am not pregnant.

Birthdays aren’t a spectacle to me, but they do hold a special place. I admit I think I was more depressed on my birthday than on Christmas—narcissistic I know. This year I didn’t do anything special. I am not going to throw a full-out pity party for myself, because I could have done something more for my birthday. I chose not to. I woke up at a normal time, swept my house, dressed for school. I taught my two classes, and didn’t even tell the first one it was my birthday. I told my second one, and they all lit up. They lit up even more when I let them say hello to my mother on the phone. I put her on speaker phone, and I could see how proud they were to be able to talk to her in English, even if it was just “Good morning, how are you?”

After classes I went to the market and bought a bunch of new cooking dishes, which were much needed. I always feel so content and full of joy when I buy things that I know are going to make things more “American” feeling here. I worry what might happen if I run out of things to buy and ways to improve my house.

I had a meeting in the evening, no one showed up, so I took two hours to lesson plan. I of course received phone calls from my family and friends—and I didn’t mind that a few of them required me to wake up at 2:30.

On Friday I did bake myself a chocolate cake with the help of my sister. After dinner we put in the 24 candles my mom sent from the States, and they sang happy birthday to me, in French of course. I actually blew out the candles twice, because my brother really wanted to get the picture of me blowing the candles out—he missed the first time around. The funny thing is even blowing the candles out twice I forgot to make a birthday wish.

Tomorrow, as I have told myself for the last few days, I am going to get up early and start practicing yoga. I did yoga in high school, because my mom told me to, and I didn’t really get it. I told my mom I want to try it again—it is too hot here and the air is to dry for me to realistically keep up with running. I told her I think maybe wanting to do yoga is a sign my spirit is calming down or something—another sure sign that I am getting older, perhaps maybe even wiser.

Today I had to spend some time making amends.

I am not sure why, but I really thought I could spend the next two years trying to live in perfect harmony and not making any missteps.

My first problem started with my sister (see Sisterhood). That eventually mended itself with time. She even bought me a cool bracelet for Christmas and went with me to find the doctor today. Things have appeared to reach a neutral ground. I love my sister, but I know her ways and am reminded often that she is still a child and not my equal necessarily.

While family matters pass with more ease, it is no big surprise that my other problems involve men.

A month ago in passing I told the owner of the boutique next to my house I would teach him how to use his computer. I offered to come that evening, but he was busy. I told him to let me know when would be good. I figured he’d forget or tell me in advance. The second thought just goes to show I still think like an American and not a Beninese person.

A week past and one day my little sister came by and said he asked if I could come help. It was almost 8:30 or 9 o’clock. I of course said I was busy, which I probably was, but also it was late, and I wasn’t going to drop everything right then and there. Two days later my other sister, came and asked if I could go help him. Again, no warning, and again I said no.

Christmas Eve, I had to buy credit in an emergency, because my friend’s taxi had broke down on the way to my village. In my panic, the man asked me why I hadn’t come to help him and said he was made at me. I was too stressed about my friends to get really angry, but I wasn’t so stressed out that I wasn’t super annoyed. My annoyance was topped off when he ask I come over on Christmas when there is electricity all day. I did not.

Last night I had a terrible stomach ache. I swear there was a demon in my belly, as only that much pain could be inflicted by a demon. In my agony, my sister calls me, and asks me to come over. I assumed she meant next door, which I thought was odd, as she could have easily just walked over. But no, later she called again, to explain to come to the boutique. On further questioning I realized once again I was being asked to help with the computer. Annoyed I said I was sick, and again I was reminded he was mad at me.

The problem is that the electricity is not always on, and it normally comes on after it gets dark, and I don’t want to be seen in a man’s boutique behind his counter working with him. People wouldn’t talk, but they would assume. Plus, I was slightly angry with him for harboring my sister a few weeks ago (again see Sisterhood).

I felt resolved to just never go to his boutique anymore, but he has good Sangria, and it is convenient to buy phone credit there. I then thought I could explain why I hadn’t come and helped him, and that I thought he had been quite rude and impatient. Neither of these solutions was realistic. No need to alienate someone for two years in my small village, where everyone knows everyone. So today after school I agreed that every Sunday for an hour I would come help him. He seemed happy by this, and I also know sometimes on Sunday we have electricity all day. The hour gives me time to do things before it gets dark.

The second injustice I have bestowed upon someone was not going to a dinner meeting. Once again the darkness causes problems for me. I assumed we would eat dinner early, and when my post-mate told me it be later it made me nervous. It is a hard job trying to keep up a saintly hood here. I planned on going, despite my fatigue and battling and ongoing sickness caused by the dry air and massive amounts of dust that exist here. Upon arrival at home though, I forgot I had promised to help my Maman print something at work, and she was leaving the next day. My Maman feeds me everyday, and it was for work, so of course I helped her.

Today I saw the professor (he is who I cancelled on). The Beninese have a way of being angry, without actually being angry. If you say hello to them, of course they say hello back, but they will try to sneak away without saluer-ing, which is only there favorite national pastime. This is what the professor did to me. I figured I’d let it lie, because I know he is moving soon. Of course a slave to not wanting people to dislike me I changed my mind. I explained to him I did not like going out at night, and I had also been sick—both true. He understood, and I told him I’d still like to come over, and we agreed on a lunch date on Friday. He seemed happy by this, and after I told him my birthday was on Thursday, he said it be a mini-birthday fete (party).

I know before I tell this story it may be a bore in comparison to lions and waterfalls, but it is one of those stories that you can relate to because it is life in its simplest form.

One of my favorite moments in life was when I was maybe 12 or 13. My family was going to Chincoteague for the day. We did not take week long beach vacations in my family growing up, and while my mother I think believes this is why I find the need to travel now—to make up for lost time—I don’t think I’d want my childhood to be any different. Instead my family on occasion went to the beach for the day, occasionally camping somewhere overnight. So as we were driving to Chincoteague we were listening to Bob Marley’s Greatest Hits. And my favorite song, Buffalo Soldier came on, and me and my brothers sang the whole song together, with the windows down and the warm air blowing on our face. We all laughed afterward and it is a moment I have never forgotten. And try as I might with other songs, I have never been able to recapture that moment in quite the same way ever again.

Two nights ago as I sat with my sister playing cards, Presca was near by. I don’t normally call Presca my sister, and really calling her anything but her name would not be appropriate. Presca is not related to the family, and she has a cool if not slightly dangerous spirit. She knows enough to know she should be more apprehensive, but she is immature enough to not really try. She sings to herself, and has a giggle that is menacing to say the least. She doesn’t speak much French even though she goes to school everyday, where they speak French. She talks back sometimes and in general she acts like the definition of a crazy person.

So we are playing card, when my sister tells me to look at Presca. She is holding a tiny mirror that broke off god-knows-who’s moto, and has a razor in her hand. She is shaving her head. Now the girls her all have to keep their heads shaved for school, so this isn’t the crazy part of it. The crazy part is the razor. As I look closer and the light hits it right you can see she has cut her scalp. I cringe and I am worried for her. She could really hurt herself. When she sees my horrow, she of course laughs and keeps going. When my aunt comes in the concession she runs away. Like I said she knows enough sometimes to be worried of her actions. She returns and half her head is bald, and the parts that are shaved have chunks of hair attached. Finally a friend of the family comes in and rescues her.

Twenty minutes later, after applying medicine to her cuts, which give her white spots on her head, I still can’t help but laugh at Presca. Then Presca decides to take to mocking me when I yell at Beaugard. She assumes that hitting all animals is the best way to discipline, so my yelling no at Beaugard is of great amusement. Her impression is actually quite good, and I can’t help but laugh. All of us laugh, and I eventually take to mimicking Presca, who then mimics me making fun of her.

Like I said, I know this story isn’t amusing from an outsider, but it was one of those rare moments, like singing “Buffalo Soldier,” in the car with my brothers that could never be repeated. It is a moment that capsizes on the familiarity and bond you have with a group of people.

Scared and unsure the only moment I let my guard down upon arriving to Matéri was at the sight of two puppies. Bennie and Izzy, which are the names I gave them a week after my arrival, when my Maman quickly discovered their presence always made me smile.

I have to admit I liked Izzy more than Bennie at first. She was the more attractive of the two, and Bennie would not let me pick him up right away. Then one night he slept in my lap for a couple hours, and after that day he was loyally mine. I felt like I had not chose him, but rather he had chosen me. When he got in trouble he knew he could run to me for safety. When I sit outside trying to read or nap, he’d insist on playing around me, and then nuzzling his head underneath my shoulder and sleeping. With the arrival of Beaugarde, Bennie’s jealousy, normally reserved for times when I petted Izzy, increased. He became increasingly needed, and when I would take Beaugard for walks, he always followed along. I thought of him as mine, but never took ownership, as he was my Maman’s dog.

I wasn’t surprised on Christmas Day when I found him sleeping in my chair on the front porch. But something seemed off, then my Grand-mama, said the word vomir, one of the few French words she knows. Bennie was sick. I picked him up and put him in my lap. Comforting him the best I could. He just looked tired and weak; I could see it in his eyes. I let him sleep, as I bustled around. Beaugard had acted the same way two days before and was fine an hour later.

The day after Christmas I left for Safari. I did not give much thought to Bennie, preoccupied with my own stresses. When I returned from Safari, I was so happy to see Beaugarde, and I vaguely noticed Izzy and Dit Peux Toi (Beaugarde’s mother) hoping about me. An hour later as I was talking with my Maman, she mentioned, as Beaugarde entered the house, that Bennie had died.

Talking about death does not leave me unnerved, but death here in Benin takes getting used to, especially since I have not known many people close to me who have died. I do acknowledge though that death as it exists in Benin might bring a slight smile to Charles Darwins’ face. Survival here exists in such a raw form, the strong or the rich survive, and the rest is a crapshoot it seems. A student of mines little sister died a month ago. The son of my surveillant died a couple years ago. The son of my friend died a year ago. Days of drumming can go by, all signaling a death. The louder and longer the drums go the older the person was who died. Dogs don’t get drums.

The Beninese don’t treat their dogs the way we do. In fact, I recently learned that the rumors were true. They kill dogs and eat them here, which explains the high quantity of dogs always running around in village. Now my family happens to be relatively nice to their pets in comparison to others here, but that does not mean they shed a single tear or thought when Bennie died. Knowing this and the way death can come into ones life so easily here, I tried not to look to upset at Bennie’s death.

That whole first day back in village I felt slightly depressed. I don’t know whether it was from not being around Americans, or the fact that it was New Year’s Eve, or as much as I did not want to admit, I was sad about Bennie. I noticed the sadness in Izzy and Beaugard, who slept all day; I was worried they were sick too.

I have recovered, and so has Beaugarde. We have each other, but I have noticed Izzy wanders more and seems distant. The day after I returned she went missing completely. We thought she had died too. She turned up later that day, so excited to see me. Her neediness and nuzzles now remind me of Bennie, and it as if she, like Bennie once did, has now chosen me.

I think when you are own Safari your soul can’t help but feel at ease. I was reminded of a time right before I left for Benin. I was watching “The Bucket List” with my grandmother, and they went to Africa on safari. I remember my heart fluttered at that scene, with the excitement of my impending move, and the serene beauty and rawness Africa offered.

I am willing to admit not all of Benin is beautiful, there have been many times when I can do nothing but let my thoughts be consumed by the wide expanses of open land that surround me. On Safari though, I truly believe I finally took in the definition of clean air.

Sitting on top of an old van, pumping along a dirt road, going an hour or more with seeing nothing more than the birds and deer that are everywhere, I just wish I could have captured my face. The wind, much cooler than I am used to, whipping my hair around, knowing had nothing to do today except look for animals.

I can think of almost no instances where I have watched a movie or a show in which a person has jumped off a waterfall and thought to myself that I would not want to do that. “That looks like so much fun,” I’d always say to whoever was with me, or if I was by myself I would think it. And after 23 years of talk I finally had the occasion to act on doing something I was so sure I would enjoy.

I am going to be honest with myself. I am a stable person. I am cautious, not to a fault of course. I go out of my way to secure my safety. In the states I carry keys between my knuckles at night and always call a friend as I walked to my car—my logic no one will attack someone on a phone. In Benin I rarely am caught out at night, and if I am I always have a male volunteer make sure I get home safely. In general I understand the risks of certain behaviors, and avoid them. This makes me sound like a square, which is misleading, but so is what I did a week ago.

After leaving Safari, we asked our guide to stop at the waterfalls. We had heard a lot about the waterfalls, including that you could swim and jump off them. I was so excited about the prospects of finally proofing all my talk all these years, wasn’t just that, talk.

I really can’t say what was more dangerous; the climb up to the top of the waterfall or the jump itself.

After expressing interest in jumping the falls, our waterfall guide, went and searched for a guide to climb to the top with us. Perhaps, he thought after explaining we had to swim across the water, and climb up rocks, we might reconsider. Nope.

So when the guide arrived, Jonny, Clay, and I entered the water, which is when I began to realize I had not thought this through really. I am not a strong swimmer, I mean don’t get me wrong I can swim, but dreading water and floating have never been strong points. About three-fourths across the water, which I imagine was maybe about a lap in a swimming pool, I was worried I couldn’t make it. I am half-ashamed and not to admit I did resort to the doggy paddle a few times.

Once across we mounted onto a small ledge, by grabbing a nearby tree that sacrificed living in rocks for what I imagine to be a constant abundance of water. I was last to climb up, and as we made it to the first jumping point, Clay decided he would jump from there. He hesitated and finally went only after our guide jumped in the water to show him it was safe.

Then there were two.

Jonny and I continued the climb, following the steps of our guide, who had returned after a quick dip for Clay’s sake. I am short and so the whole time climbing the rocks I worried about coming to an instance where my limbs just would not allow me to stretch and reach. Furthermore we were climbing up barefooted obviously on slippery rocks. I was more scared then I realized I know, because I had to stay focus on making it up without slipping. I did not even complete the images of falling onto rocks, even though the thoughts kept trying to cross my mind. Once at the top, I told Jonny I wanted to go last.

We watched as our guide jumped fearlessly the 48 feet down to the water. Standing behind Jonny I could see his leg shaking. I did not say anything. I don’t think either of us really wanted to admit that we were nervous, especially after gaffing a little at Clay jumping early. Before jumping Jonny turned and made sure I did not want to go first. I told him I was fine, and then he made the leap. I don’t remember the jump, but more or less watching to make sure he came back to the surface safe. He did, but he exhaled a little, and in his face I could see pain.

Alone looking out at the water and the trees surrounding me, I returned to myself. Calculating what I must do on my jump and worrying about what might happen to me if something did not go right. I needed to land like a pencil, and then I worried about not holding my breath right as I entered the water and then how could I swim all the way back. I am not sure how long I stood up there, probably a few months. I even crossed myself. A couple times I told myself, OK on the count of three. 1,2,3. Nothing. OK, on the count of five, 1,2,3,4,5. Nothing. Finally the guide motioned something that looked like he wanted me to climb back down. There was no way I was climbing back down the way I came, no fu***** way, I thought. I jumped. I don’t think I could mimic how horrified I looked, and I was so scared. I don’t think I have ever felt that scared.

The jump felt like forever. At first I was scared. Then I enjoyed the weightlessness and registered I had in fact did it. Then the insecurity returned as I had not hit the water yet. I did not even think of all the things that had worried me before jumping. I just wanted to land. And land I did, and not like a pencil. Like my face, I could not mimic that landing twice, but needless to say immediately after emerging from the water the whole side of my left thigh was red and bruising—and I don’t bruise easily.

Walking back to the car, I felt regret immediately for my body. Jonny asked, “Was that your first time jumping something that high?”

“That was my first time jumping anything like that.”

“Seriously,” Jonny said laughing slightly. “That’s intense.”

Around noon on Monday we finally arrive to our hotel—we left around 6 a.m. Our hotel is nestled in the middle of the park, and me and the other volunteers have been dreaming about the swimming pool. We enter our room, with a fan, two twin beds, with nice high wooden frames and mosquito nets. After my bags hit the floor with a mild thud, I search for my bathing suit. After everyone has emptied their bladders I enter the bathroom to change.

“Jamie, hurry get out here,” shouts Clay. I throw on my pants over my bathing suit and shuffle out the door, not quickly, but not slowly. I know sometimes with Clay, the hurry is not always necessary.

After throwing the spare mattress on top of our safari van, I learn that there has been a lion sighting, and sometimes you can go days without seeing a lion. We drive along at a fast pace. I sit near the front, with Clay, and we dodge tree branches that hang in our way. Dust flies up around our car and we are all excited like children at the zoo for the first time.

I heard it before I saw it. We pulled up behind two other cars, and the lion did not roar but rather was growling. It sounded very far away. A few hundred yards away from us is a short tree, its branches hang low, reminding me of a bonsai tree. Under the tree there isn’t the same tall grass that surrounds the area. This, we find, is where the lion is, with his femme. He continues to make noises, or warnings, and our guide tells us that if he gets in the car to make sure we hold on, because we will be moving out of there fast. The lion is forced to stand-up, as us we continue to look-on unafraid. He roars and runs a little ways off. We stay for a few more minutes and then on our own terms depart.

They say it is rare to see lions in the park. I saw two the first day, the second day, and the third day.

In the evening of the second day we headed toward the Niger River, which borders Benin and Burkina Faso in the park. As we round a corner in the road, like immigrant police trying to meet a quota, two lions lie in the road, in a posture that could only be interpreted as, this is my road mother-fu*****. Our response; stop, pause, register what is happening, and immediately gas it in reverse.

We turn to go back the way we came and as we leave we run into another group. Our guide explains the lions ahead, but the group decides to continue anyways. This of course makes us want to go back. Our guide reluctantly agrees, but tells us to get into the vehicle and clothes up all the windows.

Literally driving back into the lions den a second time, we don’t see the other car, where the lions were, and at first we don’t see the lions either. But then they emerge again from the bush and head towards us. Our response; stop, pause, register what is happening, and immediately gas it in reverse.

We turn to go back the way we came and as we leave we run into another group. Our guide explains the lions ahead, but the group decides to continue anyways. (I am aware this is the same paragraph as before.) Like Groundhog’s Day, trying to get things right, this of course makes us want to go back.

This time we follow the vehicle relatively closely and it almost passes the lions, before the lions see them. We linger a safe distance away, watching flashes going off in the car ahead of us. Clay keeps repeating all the great photos he is missing. We can barely see the lions ahead. Then, all of sudden, the male lion comes running out of the bush and attacks the car in front of us. We don’t think they are going to move, but then they gas it, with the girl in the back getting in some last shots in on her camera. Our guide does not turn back, at our insistence we decide to go past the lions.

We drive slowly. It is like in a scary movie when the damsel-in-distress knows the villain lurks behind the closet door, but has to look to make sure. She opens the door slowly and at first sees nothing, only to realize the villain is right behind her. While the lion wasn’t behind us, he was right after the bush on the right side of the road, which happened to be the side of the car I was sitting on. I was the first to see him.

He was just lying there, so majestic. I was staring into his eyes and him into mine. We stared at each other for a long time, and then he jumped up quickly. Screams followed from inside the car, as if to signal to our guide to hurry, get out of here.

It is late Monday morning. The air is the cool. They say this is the coldest it will be all year here, yet I still find myself sweating. I sit inside my house, on the twin bed given to me by the Peace Corps, which I have transformed into a day bed. Hunched over the metal bucket I used to mix paint in the previous months. No painting today. Just small pieces of white paper—only paper whose sides have been completely been filled front and back—fall to the bucket. I will discard them later in my compost pile—or at least my attempt at one. I work swiftly and diligently, cutting one snowflake after another.

I remember in elementary school my teacher said, no two snowflakes are the same. Each one is its own unique shape. An amazing fact when you consider the number of snowflakes that have existed in the world. I do my best to vary my cuts, as to uphold the integrity of real snowflakes in my paper ones.

It is December 21st and aside from the calendar and reminders from the States it does not feel like Christmas time. I am grateful for the heat in part. It makes life feel like a permanent summer, and therefore makes Christmas feel far away. I almost feel silly cutting snowflakes, listening to “Winter Wonderland.” The only signs of winter are the Beninese people who wear giant winter coats in the morning these days. Barely below 70 calls for a parka here.

With each snowflake and each song I am reminded of all the Christmas’ of the past: The Christmas calendar on the door in the kitchen every year; decorating gingerbread cookies; leaving notes for Santa to sign to obtain proof of his existence; bon fires; watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Christmas eve; not being able to escape “A Christmas Story” on Christmas; and always cutting up snowflakes. I don’t think I ever realized how much I enjoy Christmas, and honestly it isn’t even the presents.

It’s 12:30 on Christmas Day. I am standing in my kitchen over the gas stove looking at sugar cookie dough in hopes they won’t slide across the pan in the Dutch oven like the first batch. My phone rings. Erin is working on making chipatis, and Clay is lying on the bed resting. I know who is calling me.

When I was a kid my family would get up really early to open presents. A great debate always occurred Christmas Eve on what time we’d rise. Of course my dad, who has always woke-up early, wants to sleep in. We normally settled on around 5:30 or so. My brothers woke first, and would have to make me up. My mom was easy to get up, but it would take a half hour or more to get my dad to get up. I remember times getting on the bed hoping up and down at the end of the bed, giggling, at his disgruntled looks.

“Merry Christmas,” says my mother as I answer the phone. “It smells like something is burning,” I say to Erin, throwing in a Merry Christmas mid-sentence to my mom. Feeling stressed, I ask if they are ready to open presents. I can tell from her voice though that she has just woke up, which means most likely everyone else is still asleep. Clay chimes in, “It smells like something is burning.” I feel flushed and annoyed, I tell my mom to call me back when they are ready, and that I am sorry.

A little while she calls back, the kitchen has calmed down a bit. Sugar cookies are piled on a plate now. It is finally time to open presents at 1:30 p.m. I don’t think I have ever waited to open presents this late before, but it is worth it to open them at the same time as my family. We always open our presents up one by one. I go first, and as everyone opens there presents, I try my best to make sure I take into account what everyone has received, via Skype—without video. It is comforting, being able to continue the timeless tradition. It’s like paper snowflakes in Africa. They can’t melt from the heat and they will never fall to the ground and loose their uniqueness.

It is nearing six in the evening, or dix-huit heures. The time of day casts a dark shadow on the classroom of students, all boys to be precise, working at a methodical pace to complete their English exams. I pull myself away from “The Poisonwood Bible,” which I hurry to finish, partially because it is good, and partially because I have a new stack of books piling up at home from family and friends in the States and other PCV in villages far from here. Leaning against the classroom door way only as a silhouette is another English professor. I think to myself, this would make an excellent photo, although I am not sure it could capture everything it actually represents.

I won’t give anyone or anything away, but I think perhaps some people, myself perhaps included, could be left with a false sense of tranquility and love that exists in Benin, and from my point of reference, Matéri. I don’t think the pain and tragedy here is any more or any less important or severe than say the demented current events revealed in the U.S. media. I do think however, evil exists everywhere, but in most cases you have to go looking for it to truly understand how deep it is. I don’t plan on going on a witch.

I don’t think I even like to admit myself how some things do get to me. I only recently notice it comes out in my mood or tone of voice when I can’t get the simplest thing done, like cleaning a dish. Of course I know as soon as I set that dish down, a wind will blow African dust on it—nothing can ever be pure here.

The other night I woke up at 4:30 a.m. Inevitably every night I wake up around this time for one reason or another, stomach problems, nausea, heat, sudden feeling of bug bites, even though I have my mosquito net over me, or like last night the crying of the puppy locked up. But on Saturday night it was the screaming of a child, a girl to be exact. It grew louder, piercing the night air, and in my in and out state of sleeping I thought I heard the sound of something, most likely a broom hitting skin. It alarmed me, but I knew there was nothing I could do, and forced myself to go to sleep. How heartless do I feel? It isn’t the first time I have heard these sounds, sometimes it has been at closer range, which is why I know it is a broom being used. Brooms are made of sticks here. Sometimes it isn’t even a person, but an animal. Honestly, I don’t know which I feel is worse.

Yesterday I was running late to school, and heard the loud piercing cries coming from another direction. There is a pattern that it is girls crying. It is day time, and emerging from a side road is a girl. I stare; she looks as if she is holding her private parts, like a five year old needing to pee. I look away. I want to pretend I did not see the pain in her face as she cried and held onto herself. It is the first time that it has dawned on me what these girls could really be crying about. I am ignorant. I look back at her again, out of pity. This time she looks like she is holding her arm now. Perhaps, I imagined what I saw the first time, but perhaps imagine or not that sort of thing is happening—I know for certain, more and more everyday that I have lived content on not looking for evil.

I want to believe the world is a beautiful place. I want to see it as a nostalgic image, like that of the professor looking out into a courtyard of students bustling buy, holding hands, living out their childhoods.

“I have never had a sister,” I say to Erin one Tuesday evening as I am walking back home from taking Beaugard for a walk. “So should I be worried Petra will stay mad at me for good, or will she eventually get over it?” I add, semi-desperately. I face enough isolation on a weekly basis without making it worse by permanently angering my host sister. Erin assures me not to worry; “My sister used to always tattle on me, and I hated when she did it, but I know now she was watching out for me. Just give it some time.” It’s been two days. I lack patients.

Last Saturday my Maman left for Parakou. She frequently takes leave from Matéri for health information sessions. Normally she is not gone more than five days or so. On this particular journey she would not return for close to two weeks. Why does any of this matter? Let me put this in perspective.

My family consists of my Maman, who is widowed, her youngest daughter, Petra, Petra’s cousin, Huguette (both are teenagers), and two girls Meuveille (Maman’s granddaughter), and Presca (of no family relations). Not that I advocate it is necessary to have a male role model, but when my Maman is gone the supervisors of these girls are the soft, push-over, white girl (yours truly), and old grand-mama, who doesn’t speak a lick of French. Neither of us will resort to hitting the girls, and so the fear of god is lifted from the girls’ shoulders, and their tongues and bodies run wild.

The first couple days after Maman leaves normally occur with the same normalcy as if she was still around. It’s like they don’t believe she is really gone, and may come flying out of her bedroom at any moment yelling their names, confusing them at the same time, and telling them they are acting like imbeciles (I use the English word here, but the Biali word sounds very similar).

Thursday things start to deteriorate. I attribute part of this to it being market day, and just the general flow of weeks here. People enjoy drinking in my village. When asked on a questionnaire given by the other volunteer in Matéri, what people spend their money on one person answered, alcohol. I believe it. Now I am not insinuating that my sisters go out and drink on Thursday, but Petra begins to set the tone. She is the oldest, and the only actual child of Maman. She is given the money, and more or less is in charge. So she is out most of Thursday, which is not unusual, but it continues into Friday.

Friday night. I return home from meeting with the director at my school. It is approaching dusk. I go next door, to find the concession empty. I return to my house and set to doing work and cleaning my house. Later I hear noise coming from next door, which I take to mean the girls have returned. I lock up my door and go next door. The girls, minus Petra, are making dinner. Huguette, next in charge, is yelling out the two younger ones. I say something to Presca, who ignores me. Huguette five minutes later takes a broom to Presca. I find out the next day, it is because she did not speak to me when I was talking to her. I ask where Petra is, and Huguette says she does not know. I must buy phone credit, and so I go to the boutique near my house, and this is where I find Petra.

Now, I am sure many can imagine from personal experience the upheaval caused when teenagers are left to their own devices. While here in Matéri they can’t get into hard drugs, go to the mall and loiter, join a gang, or hold massive parties, they can still certainly break social norms.

I rarely if ever go out at night, and neither do my sisters, not without the permission of my Maman, who knows their every move and scolds them if they are ten minutes late from school. So imagine my surprise when I enter the boutique and find Petra behind the counter with the owner helping him serve up Sodobe (Benin’s moonshine). I buy my credit, go back home, tell Huguette what I have seen. Huguette has this looks she gives when she knows something has occurred that isn’t proper, but she doesn’t want to say anything. It is something along the lines of an uncomfortable, nervous, smile.

I forgot to mention that the reason I wanted phone credit, is because I wanted to call Maman to saluer. I also let the girls talk to her, which they are excited to do. I tell Huguette I will not lie to Maman, so she can explain where Petra is. We wait for twenty minutes, thinking Petra will return. When she does not Huguette lies and says she is with Grand-mama. Around 10 p.m. I go to bed. Petra has yet to arrive.

I don’t like to assume, and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, which on many occasions makes me naïve. But at the same time I live my life here in many ways considering what people may assume of my actions. This is why I don’t go to buvettes (bars) here or go out at night alone. If you are out at night, especially if you are at or with a man, it is assumed you two are together, and here that means you are sleeping together. This is serious business. I don’t even let men on my front porch stoop for this exact reason.

Over the next couple days, Petra continued to be frequently absent from the concession. She very well may have been with her friends, but after Friday night I do not know. Not to mention the increase of male students coming by the concessions on a daily basis since Maman left. It is like a red alarm light goes off in every man’s house when my Maman leaves signaling it is time to attack.

On Sunday I don’t feel well and spent the morning sleeping. When I wake up at lunch time and go next door it is like the scene in Western movies right before a duel, and empty and dusty space. It is clear the concession has not been swept well in a couple days. I go outside and talk with my aunts, who have also been witnessing all these things unfolding. They seem more concerned with the fact that I have not been fed, and one says what I have feared all along about Petra’s actions. “She is going to get pregnant going out like that.” It is not an exaggeration.

Around this time, my Maman calls, and I just unload about everything that has been going on, at the encouragement of my aunts. And for the record it wasn’t even me being worried about being fed, but more about the principle. All this behavior was a result of Maman being gone. Immediately after I call I feel guilty with betrayal. My aunt’s tell me to leave it be, and that it will be fine. They take amusement in my reactions.

Shortly after this, hungry, I go to buy an egg sandwich, return home, and go to meet with another English professor to do some work. I come home near dusk. Everyone is home, but no one is speaking to me. I remain at my house. My aunt tells me to go eat next door, and when I go over there the girls just look at me. I don’t need to fight for my food, in preparation for this very moment I had already cooked some pasta. When I return my aunt, forces me back over, and yells at them to feed me, which they do reluctantly.

The freeze begins thawing gradually. It starts with the youngest girls, then Huguette. I resolve to taking my meals at my house, as to avoid further conflict. The freeze has not only affected me, but Grand-mama, whom they do not give feed on Monday. She also called and told Maman about their antics. I buy her bread, and make her tea for a couple days, until Maman returns.

When Maman returns on Wednesday night, I give her a huge hug. I am so relieved to see her. At this point Petra is still tolerating my existence, but won’t admit she is mad. I begin to feel better, because I feel like her silence has turned into less anger for anger sake, but more anger because she knows I am right, but does not want to admit it.

I find myself falling in love with Africa. At first I did nothing but compare it to the United States, which I miss so much. But then I began to see that Africa had things that the United States as far as I know could not offer.

Imagine in the States a Hispanic man moves into the house next to you, or an Indian woman becomes your new neighbor in your apartment complex. Do you introduce yourself? Probably, but do you offer to feed that neighbor? Help them find the local grocery store, aid him or her in buying groceries, and then spent every evening allowing that neighbor to sit with you, watch your TV and eat your food—not the food he bought. Don’t lie about your response. I would even go as far as to think many Americans would think the Hispanic was going to trash the house, have loud parties, with music blasting all hours of the night, and in the end leave the house, after not paying the rent, leaving it with a smell of beans or rice, or some other stereotypical Hispanic food. If it was an Indian neighbor, you might be so ignorant to not even know she was Indian, and maybe assumed she was Arab, and therefore a terrorist or friend of a terrorist. Because of this you would not even think to trust her. Call me offensive, but this I know is the reality of the United States, we trust no one. But if Benin was the United States I would have starved a long time ago, and be living a life of utter despair.

On days when I really miss the United States—despite its cynicism—I think about the wonderful people in Benin I would have not known. When I arrived in Matéri I worried about how I would feed myself adequately. And even though many Beninese think Americans are spies, cowboys, or ninjas, my Maman took me in and fed me. And I know it isn’t just because she knows I am a Peace Corps volunteer, because she has helped others in my community. When I have a taxi-driver trying to get more money from me than he deserves, in most cases, another Beninese comes to my rescue to make sure I don’t get screwed, even though we probably both know I have the money to give. I don’t have a lot of time to myself, and I am always being watched, but I know I always have someone I can talk to. The sense of community that exists in Africa perhaps existed at one point in the United States, and if advancement means the destruction of this precious social set-up I am not sure if the trade-off would be worth it. It gets deeper.

I became a Peace Corps volunteer because I wanted to make a difference, and I wanted to change the world. I now find myself in Africa, asking the big question, or questions, “Can and Africa be changed?” and “Does it want to be changed?” and “Should it be changed?” Peace Corps has been in Benin for forty years.

Post-colonialism, NGOs have set-up camp throughout Africa, along with missionaries, which have been here since whites first set themselves up here. And I think existing as one of the five white people in this village, could be an accurate representation of things. That is to say that perhaps we don’t belong here. Furthermore, as another volunteer asked, not to say I agree with this, but are some of us here out of guilt, that is to say does this work we do now rectify our work of the past? Or maybe excuse us from living our frivolous lives in the United States, where we throw away computer each year for a newer model, while maybe one computer from the 80s exist in any given village in Africa.

My friends were worried I would come to Africa, and come back to the United States and look down on everyone. While the above statements lead one to think this is exactly what is happening to me, I don’t believe it to be true. I think that with any loving relationship, despite human nature, the key is acceptance. I accept that my life in the States is not the same as the one in Africa, and vice-versa. Perhaps, in this way it isn’t fair to compare the two, but it is the only way I can come to try and answer the big questions.

You call Peace Corps and have the villagers threaten to throw him in jail.

Oh the courtship between me and Why-Why started on the second day I arrived in Matéri. I had gone to my school, a twenty minute walk, and upon returning saw a place to buy bread. Fresh off the taxi-bus from Cotonou, where you must discouter everything and bread is cheap I argue over the price they demand for the bread. I finally walked away, not really wanting to buy expensive bread I knew for a fact is not very good. Now, looking back, I can see how ridiculous I must have seemed—which is the overarching feeling I have when I look back at most of my experiences here in Benin. As I began to walk away from the stand, the woman handed me the bread. The man, who had been standing next to her the whole time had bought it for me. I did not really get this until after I almost made it home, which had given me time to replay the conversation in my head and translate it correctly. Then I thought to myself, I hope that doesn’t legally bind me in some way to that man.

The next day I was out saluer again, near the bread stand from the day before. I had befriended a lady next to the stand, who makes yam pilee and knew the volunteer before me. Sitting laughing with her and a few other Beninese women, this same man comes up to me with a close familiarity that makes me immediately uncomfortable. The women tolerate him for a few minutes, but then have to almost hit him to make him leave. He keeps asking if I will be his wife. I tell him I am married. He asks how many children I have. I tell him none, thus canceling out being married in his mind. He tells me he is a doctor. I don’t care.

Sunday, I go to church, and as I walk with my sisters, I hear a voice in the distance yelling ma femme, ma femme. I ignore it, until my sisters turn and laugh. I turn and see the same man. I quicken the pace.

Ever since then that same man has made frequent and annoying appearances in my life here. I finally learned his name was Why-Why, and that he was not in fact a doctor—shocker—but actually the doctor’s assistant. I think he actually just cleans out the trash cans at the health center—shocker.

It never resonates with him that I don’t like talking to him and that I am not his wife. I am even resort to saying I don’t speak French, which causes him to try to speak a little English, to which I respond I don’t speak English. And to be honest French or English I really don’t understand him, because on most days he is drunk. I have only seen him on one occasion when he wasn’t drunk. I don’t think he saw me though, because he walked hunched, with his head down, arms dangling as he sauntered by in shame of his existence and angered by it at the same time.

I noticed his visits past my house increased when my Maman was gone, and one occasion my neighbor even tried to tell me what a good worker he was—my neighbor is always trying to find me a Beninese match. I told my Maman all this, and added if he thinks he is such a good worker, why doesn’t he marry him. I was not kidding.

One day, Why-Why popped his head over the door of my Maman’s concession, I guess no one had told him of her return. At the site of him, my Maman told him to leave, and she once again reminded me he was crazy, and I added he drinks too much. Later that same day, as I was preparing to head to Natitingou, I heard his voice outside where my sisters were washing my clothes. I was in my kitchen and remained hidden there, while my sisters covered and told him I was sleeping. Apparently he was hungry and wanted me to make him food, something I rarely do for myself here, and never for him.

Oh Why-Why.

A week later on a Monday evening I was walking my dog and was just about to turn to head back home, when one of my friends called my name. As I walked toward her, my body sent off an “oh-shit” alarm. There was Why-Why, and he had already caught sight of me. Committed to saluer my friend I continued. As we exchanged greetings, Why-Why lingered to my left closely, which allowed him to catch sight of the bandage I had on my arm from a vaccination. That band-aid I imagine was what a butterfly is to a small kitten, irresistible to not touch. And touch my arm Why-Why did. In all the encounters with Why-Why he had never touched me—oh what a gentleman really.

“Don’t touch me,” I said to him abruptly. It sent him off into frenzy, and he began shouting, tiny droplets of spit coming from his mouth as he spouted off. I picked up my dog and my friend guided me away, but of course Why-Why followed. I dare not put my dog down, as he would have laid down in fear and would hinder me from getting home quickly. About 10 or 15 minutes from home, Why-Why continued to follow me, behind him the laughter of his friends could be heard. I kept silent, thinking he quit me, and when he didn’t I threw out a couple insults, including respecting himself and that he was impolite—these are Beninese insults obviously, not American ones. The insults only fuel him, and the shouting of other men for him to leave me alone, go unnoticed. I don’t understand much of what he says, but I do understand his threats to take my dog and steal my money. Finally a man on a moto and a man from his house come and stop Why-Why, I am two minutes from home. I have used all my strength to not break-down in the middle of my village.

Once at home, I go inside, close my door, which I normally only do when I am sleeping at night. I sit on my bed and I cry. I don’t know that I have ever felt so threatened, but I cry more out of embarrassment, because everyone in the village saw him chasing me down the road.

At the urging of a friend, I call Peace Corps, they call my Maman. She calls me and sounds upset. I worry she is angry with me, but I think she is more worried about what might happen to me if Why-Why continues to cause problems. She says, if he comes again, you call me and he will go to prison.

Why-why is my husband, at least that is what I tell the doctor, his supervisor, when I see him. He laughs, and understands I don’t have any hard feelings. My marriage with Why-why is quite beautiful really. I never see him anymore, even in his drunk states, he saunters by without a word or a look. It is matrimonial bliss.

Time is a difficult concept to grapple with these days on many levels. On most weeks Monday through Thursday go quickly, and normally leave me pretty exhausted. Fridays are filled with lesson planning and housekeeping neglected during the week—shuffling dresses from the back of a chair or the top of my mosquito net back to the twin size bed sitting collecting dust. The dust collecting requires attention in itself; sweeping a couple times a day. Saturday and Sunday always feel like the hardest. I have plenty to do, but my mind feels more idle for a reason I can not explain. The weeks pass by and they seem to go slowly, but then a new month arrives. I am beginning to feel like I am living in a permanent summer. Then there is future time, where I have to travel two weeks from now, a couple months from now, when the next devoir is going to be, and that makes time feel like it has the ability to move at a hastened pace. I worry I will never do more than merely teach here for two years, accomplishing secondary tasks seem difficult.

Sunday afternoon I find myself sitting with my family next door. As usual a slow, inconsistent stream of people have entered into our concession to saluer; most of the time I sit quietly saying the little local language I know and occasionally listening to my Maman. I usually sit in my chair that has been fashioned out of narrow sticks in forced into a laid back position that is most comfortable, occasionally pausing to call over Bennie or Izzy, the chions. I make a kissing noise to get their attention, and almost immediately they come dashing over, toppling over each other in jealousy trying to be the first to reach me. On this particular Sunday, after one lady has left, my mother says to me so and so is having a baby.

I never feel like I know who is who. I recognize faces, but know very few names. I can’t feel too bad though, just the other day my neighbor called me la blanche, she still didn’t know my name after a couple months. So when my Maman said someone had a baby I did not try to rack my brain on relations.

Going on an outing is always a culmination of false starts. It starts like this: Jamie, we are going out, or my favorite, so and so is sick or in this instance so and so had a baby. Then my Maman will stand up. Her stating an event happened more often than not means she is going out. But she says it as we are going out, but she uses the third person plural form of aller, suggesting they are going out, but then I remind myself that the subject “on” is we—I can never keep subjects and verbs straight. Notice she does not ask, Jamie do you want to go with me? It is more an announcement, not even really a command. It is a peculiarity, which can be confusing, because inevitably I want to make sure I have been invited. By asking for a clarification though, then my Maman thinks I don’t want to go with her, which leads to me having to exude a high level of excitement about the prospects of going out. You can see the relief in my Maman’s face. It is so interesting to observe a person, especially when half the time you have no idea what they are saying. I find myself learning and understanding so much more about my Maman than I could really know by talking with her.

She is prideful and traditional in many ways. I notice that she can be easily offended, but has a passive way of expressing this. She is like many people in a lot of way, but what is interesting is how her kindness comes in conflict with her pride. For example, our other neighbor asks for things all the time, and my mother gives generously. One day the neighbor had a mini-fete for somebody or others sister or husband—again I am horrible at keeping track of who is who. The neighbor practically prepared everything over in our concession, but failed to invite my Maman over. So my Maman was very put off by this. I don’t think it was so much that she wanted the food, but it was the principle of the event. It is proper to invite the person over. Throughout the day my Maman complained about this, and went as far to say she was cutting the neighbor off cold turkey the following day. I never feel like I give quite the reaction my Maman wants in situations such as these. This event actually occurred the same day we intended to set off the maternity center—I watched the midwife’s reaction to this story, and now I try to mimic that response—“Tu a raison.”

Once I have understood my presence is required to an outing the next hurdle to cross is when we will leave. Normally it is within a five to twenty minute time frame. Many factors come into play, each of us has to change, or I have to change, which gives my Maman time to get involved with some other task, which inevitably leads to her yelling at one of the girls over what I can only deduce to be because they are moving to slow. On the specific occasion of going over to the maternity ward though, we wait longer—I am in the process of washing the two week old puppies, which have an absurd number of fleas. Since I was younger I have had a strange obsession with killing all fleas on cats and dogs. Then of course I have to wash off and change after I finish. The sun is on its way down when we finally set off to the maternity center.

At the maternity center it is like my Maman has come home, or arrived at a high school reunion where the classmates actually like each other. She knows everyone, and those she doesn’t know she gets in their business just the same. She gives orders, corrects the new mothers as they try breastfeeding for the first time. I feel grateful that before I left my best friend had a baby, so I know a little about what goes on at this point in a person’s life.

No one can say that Matéri is not doing their part to keep the animal population up. I mean there are babies everywhere. Women, dogs, cats, chickens, guinea hens, spiders; they are all producing, and no one blinks—this is life, literally.

The maternity center faces the outskirts of the marche, which is lined with mini-boutiques. Don’t think boutiques like you’d find in small coastal tourist towns that are filled with useless knick-knacks and local artisan jewelry way over priced. Think the local country convenience store, without the fish bait and mini-grand display of American candy. Like most buildings here the maternity center is cement. You could plop this village right in the middle of tornado alley without a worry.

We cross through some construction work to a room with seven beds. Each bed has metal rods shooting up from the head and foot of it, where the mosquito nets will be attached. At the moment they are bare. These posts loom like a needy insecure teenage girl, who no one will take notice of, despite all her good intentions and security. Although there are seven beds, only six have firm, rubber like mattresses, five are occupied by new mothers. I have long ago given up on guessing the age of Beninese people, but I know these mothers are either the same age as me, but most likely younger.

Very few weeks go by when I am not asked if I am married. One man was very puzzled when I replied, “No I wasn’t married, and no I did not have kids.” I can’t be certain, although I am, and just prefer to be in denial, but that man pointed at my large breasts as a sure sign I was lying and I did in fact have kids. Among the many follow up questions after saying I am not married are, “Why not?.” When I say I am too young and then give me age, they look at me like I haven’t the slightest inclination of what young means. I suppose I don’t when other volunteers have been offered 14 year olds as wives, without the slightest hesitation or shame from the Beninese. I guess it should be no surprise why most men who approach me as jeepers creepers are much older than me. Cougars wouldn’t stand a real chance here. I suppose I welcome a pity parade when I say I am too young to marry, and the Beninese offer up finding me a Beninese man. It puts me in a spot. I can’t say no, because they will think I only want to marry a white man. I can’t say yes, because they might offer themselves. This is just taking their opinion into consideration. Of my own mind I can’t say yes because deep down I know exactly what the men here think of woman, and no amount of western thought on my end would change that I fear. Plus the looks and impolite remarks I have born witness to since being here has spoiled the whole lot for me, as callous as that sounds.

I will be honest though, as uncomfortable as all this is, and boy does it get to me on some days, it is not such an unfamiliar feeling. The questions and culture are different, but the meaning and implications aren’t so different than the States, when a family member asks, “If I have a boyfriend yet?” or if I meet a guy, and he inevitably questions “Why I haven’t been snatched up yet?” The latter question is always an indication that guy is a girlfriend snatcher. And while very few American men are looking to colonize me in the same sense as a Beninese man, meaning making babies and then taking other wives, there is another cultural card at play. Maybe it’s me, but experience says men have rarely really liked me for who I am, although they say so. No, right away, they like me for what they see I could be for them. What this all adds up to is my own criticism of myself, which is that, forgive me, I don’t fall into the more “traditional” female role at this point in my life.

So here I was in the maternity ward around women, who were living up to their roles in society. I saluer all of them, and they stare back at me. Staring is a cultural norm here, which I have come to love—my friends in the States have commented on this habitual flaw of mine, so in a way Benin is coming home for my eyes. We don’t say much beyond hello and me commenting on their babies being pretty or handsome.

As my Maman washes one of the newborns, I sit alone on the lone empty bed in the maternity center. The other mothers are taking turns bathing, while my Maman tends to their new borns. I sit quietly, the 23 year old white woman; the only woman teacher at the school; the woman who gets fed first like the other men in the village; the woman who has yet to bare any children and sees nothing wrong with that; the woman who despite knowing the cultural norms feels pity for these mothers. I know I should feel shame. I look listlessly around, trying to pretend I belong here.

The faces of the new mothers I think may haunt me for a long while. I imagine what I saw hidden in their stares, and how I felt about it and ask, “Was their gaze a result of what they saw in mine? They were exhausted, moving slowly about the room, and one could easily mistake this as the result of giving birth the same day. But no. In their eyes I saw girls whose souls had been stolen from them, without them knowing they had lost them. How could they when this is all they know in their culture? I think back to the first days in Cotonou, the poverty I saw, and still witness everyday. I have pity and sorrow, but get by knowing that this is all these people may ever know, and therefore they don’t know how poor they really are.

My Maman has finished cleaning the first newborn, and handed it over to me, all bundled in clothes it looks like it will never be capable of growing into. I haven’t held a baby this small since my best friend had her girl over a year ago. I am reminded of the fragility of human beings at this young age. I feel calm and tranquil. I have witnessed how some of the babies here are man handled, and know I carry a feeling not many woman here can have or ever know, and that is the choice to hold a baby or not. The baby sleeps easily. It is hungry, I know as it turns its head toward my breast. I give it my finger to grasp onto.

The women around me seem surprised by the baby’s ease and my own. I suspect they think since I don’t have children I don’t care for them or know how to manage them. I look around occasionally at the other mothers, and I feel not only pity, but jealousy. I feel like tears are trying to make their way into my eyes, but they don’t quite reach the point of even forming. It is a bitter sweet thought that causes this sensation. Around women who will most certainly go on to have more babies, I am here, knowing I can make choices and may have already made some choices—although I am young—that may result in me never having a baby. Whose souls are truly at a loss now?

I know I could never be Beninese, but I must confess, I have always enjoyed playing dress-up.

Growing up I did not actually have a dress-up box in a traditional sense, and by traditional sense, I mean like those cute girls on television commercials who dig through a giant wooden chest of pearl beaded necklaces, boas, high heals, and dresses made of find sheer, satin, silky like materials. But I did play dress-up the best I could.

I still don’t have a chest, but I do have a stack of African style clothes. Dresses made of crazy patterns, and a two meter piece of fabric that I wrap around myself when I am at home—it has become my version of sweatpants in Africa. I try to look my best on a consistent basis, which is more than can I say when I lived in the United States. I always match my earring, necklace, and bracelets to my dress. I come up with different ways to try and wear my hair, and I have showered three times a day on occasion. I paint my nails once a week, my toenails once every two weeks.

Wearing the costume of a Beninese doesn’t take a lot of time, although I do find myself needing to add more clothes to my wardrobe. Learning the language, however, has been taxing. But it seems that I have up and taken on the persona of a Beninese woman.

It wasn’t until I was around other volunteers I had realized this. I went to buy some credit with a friend at a small boutique in Parakou. My friend also wanted to know where he could find sodobe, the Benin version of moonshine. I find myself thrown into a conversation about sodobe. Nothing earth shattering, just some simple jokes that would barely pass for mildly entertaining in the States, but here they are cherished and the Gold Standard here. As we left the boutique my friend was left asking, what was that? I didn’t know what he meant, and then he was like, you sounded so Beninese.

The next day I went to the marche with another volunteers. I have made it habit to find one vender and then have her show me to the other things I need to buy. I risk finding a vender who leads me to someone who will rip me off, but I take it anyways. At first when we enter the marche I am overwhelmed with the number of people vying for our attention—it is unlike my village marche that I have grown accustomed to. The sun is setting, and in the hazy air there is desperation among the venders. They see us Americans as appropriate targets to take off their hands no Beninese person would buy, even in perhaps the poorest circumstances.

The volunteer with me is about as indecisive as I am, and we fumble over ourselves a little. We find a vender with most of the vegetables that we need, and I set to getting everything, swatting away the venders that are attacking us like flies feeding on meat that has been sitting out all day—not an uncommon phenomenon here. They appear with one item of fruit only to move quickly back for another item, seeing me dismiss the first with a hand, saying “No, ca ce n’est pas nécessaire,” “No pas ajhourd’hui,” “Pas maintenant,” “Ca c’est comme une bebe.” The last response in regard to the largest pineapple I have ever seen in my life, which makes the venders all laugh.

In the mist of all the chaos we come out with most of our things, and I am confronted with the sun nearly set. It is like I have come out of a trance, moving back into the panic state of being swarmed by people. My guard is back up, as I am no longer surrounded what I had perceived to be kind Mamans.

The volunteer turns to me, and nearly in the same tone, shock, and words questions my transformation for a short ten minutes into a Beninese woman. I smile and feel flattered, perhaps I am more bien integre than I thought. On the way back to the work station though I get lost, and I am reminded, I could never be fully Beninese.

Before arriving to Benin I took on a long-term substitute position for the majority of the second semester. Working at an inner-city school was not easy, but the challenges I faced there—from students openly admitting to not studying for exam to the pressure of ensure you do everything possible, short of doing the work for them, to make sure the kids pass—taught me how to cope with the reality of being a teacher. It is a job, which can never be perfected.

The first month and half as a substitute teacher was among the hardest months of my life. I am not sure how I made it through some days without crying in front of my students, and to think through most of my public education if a teacher spoke in a less than a friendly tone it would send me into tears immediately. I realize this makes me appear like a weaker soul.

As a substitute I remember one particular day though. I had to call parents and inform them that his or her daughter or son was failing my class. I called one mother, and after going through my spiel she said, “I have heard all about you from my daughter,” in this accusatory tone that could only be compared to a mother speaking to a boy she has never met and that has just broken her daughters heart . She spoke to me as if I was a child, hitting on my weakness of being only 23 years old—a target the kids constantly reminded me of. She continued, “Have you ever thought maybe it’s you? That you are not a good teacher, and that is why my daughter is failing?” I looked down at her daughter’s grade sheet and saw she had turned in two things since I had arrived in February, it was almost April. I am not sure what words I struggled to get out after she said that, but I could feel the rage in her voice. She spoke to me as if she knew me, and she hadn’t the faintest idea of who I was or what I was going through, and I could tell she really didn’t give a shit, either way. I shut down, and hurried the conversation along in the best way I knew possible. Once off the phone I cried. Several of my students failed the third semester and many because they refused to do work. I didn’t take that as my problem, I can’t grade what I don’t have, and I gave them every opportunity to do the work. The administration did not feel the same way, and I spent my fourth semester really doing everything possible to get my kids to pass.

Before beginning to teach in Benin all the TEFL volunteers went through training, which involved four weeks of teaching local kids through a summer school program, and having other volunteers and Beninese teachers observe you. The first week I struggled to get through my entire lessons. The criticism: I was trying to make sure everyone learned. “You are lucky if half of your class passes,” a volunteer said to me, in a tone which made it apparent that it was acceptable when this happened. In my heart I could not accept this, it was my job to teach, and for me that meant everyone.

My first month at post was among the hardest months of my life. I was faced with classrooms of students whose numbers were growing into the 70s. I was teaching English to students, who spoke the local language and a smattering of French. I spoke French, but my accent I imagine is like listening to the Asian teacher, who speaks English well, but you can’t understand most of the words, well because each word has an added Chinese or Japanese sound to it. Of course the kids snickered. I have perhaps a false set of entitlement. I am American and know English well therefore these kids should be nothing short of as excited as children waiting in line to talk to Santa for the first time at the local mall. They should have their heads open ready for me to dump my infinite wisdom. I realize the naïveté of this now. Humans are an interesting sort, and by humans at this moment I mean myself. I hate making mistakes, I want to do everything right, but I find myself learning infinitely more by making mistakes. After a lecture about getting to angry with my students from the Beninese school teachers, despite my protests I took it to heart. I also took my kids confusion, and waning interest to heart. I needed to find a way for them to learn, all 70 of them.

After the first interrogation, in which I had well over a quarter of my students below passing grades, I set about to make a change. I rearranged every students seat, and put them in mixes of strong and not so strong students. I developed a team strategy, where by each group became a team. My little ones, or 6eme kids, are named after colors, “Team Purple,” “Team Brown,” etc. and my evil ones, or 5eme students, are named after places in Benin, “Team Parakou,” “Team Kerou,” etc. Doing individual work is a challenge with so many kids, who all write at a pace that puts the movement of a heard of snails to shame. I have taken to the theory the kids may learn better from each other, assuming a couple learn a thing or two from myself.

The kids all had their second interrogation a week ago. The numbers improved exponentially. Sadly I questioned some of the students who jumped ten points, comparing their exams to the smart kids they sit next too. I was unable to find foul play. After I finished grading all their exams I had between 10 to 15 percent of my kids failing, out of nearly 300 kids. There are still some not grasping concepts, and I am not sure what has caused the change, but the ones who don’t get it are starting to not want to be left behind. I am starting to understand how to help my kids bit by bit. I don’t want to fail them.

We will be starting our second semester soon, and I have a handful of new strategies I am itching to try with my kids, including hand puppets, balls, and being the craziest teacher in a goofy kind of way. I suppose I did not take the settling for 50 percent passing to heart and improvements in a few students has given me the hope that perhaps I can get all of my students to pass. I love this job. I love the feeling of my kids’ energy as it calms when I come in the room, and as tired as I feel sometimes I love that I try to perfect a job that I know can’t be perfected.