Below are a few pictures from the recent food security conference in Grand Popo, a beach resort on the coast of Benin. The conference itself was very productive, several volunteers collaborated with staff to discuss food security issues in Benin and how we can better focus our programs to address those problems. In the evenings we swam in the ocean and pool and ate lots of delicious food! It was a great week and I miss the beach already. A few of us are planning to return for Christmas and I am really excited.

Sunset on the beach

Benin Peace Corps Volunteers

Brigitte and I at the hotel pool

We don't have palm trees like that in the north!

In the last week there have been two unrelated articles about Benin on NYtimes.com! The first is a piece written by singer Angelique Kidjo reflecting on 50 years of independence. The second article is about a scandal involving Yayi Boni, the current president of Benin. I will let you read the article to find out the details for yourself.

It is surprising to see Benin mentioned at all in the NY Times, nevermind getting its own headlines. Most people I know in the States have never even heard of Benin.

Things are still going well here, this is the first time in a while that I have spent an extended period of time at post. I did the radio show with Brian for the first time yesterday. We talked about keeping water clean, planting trees and micro-finance all in Zarma/Dendi which is the local language of our area. I got to pick the music and I played some Rihanna, some stupid hipster music and some French Canadian rap. Afterwards we were walking back to the house of another volunteer and some guys in a shop said ‘Hey! We just heard you on the radio!’ so it was nice to know that people are actually listening and enjoy it.

Here are a few pictures:

Another thing that is happening right now is that the Niger River has reached its highest level in 100 years. Around Malanville/Gaya very few people live on the river so not too many homes are flooded but a lot of people plant crops on the banks and so their fields are flooded. Niger is already facing a food crisis because of a couple consecutive years of drought and now that it has rained it has rained too much.

I just celebrated my birthday in Benin for the second time. This year was much better than last year when my birthday was during training. Two of my friends came to Kandi and we went on a long walk around town, made chocolate birthday cake, drank french wine, at bbq chicken pizza, saw a rainbow and had a dance party. All in all it was a pretty nice day. Here are a few pictures:

Here are a few pictures from the Independence day parade in Malanville today. The maine parade is in Porto Novo, the political capital of the country and since it is the 50th anniversary of independence from France it is guaranteed to be a huge party. The pictures below are mostly zangbetos and agunguns which are human manifestations of vodun spirits. They are much more common in southern Benin where vodun is more widely practiced (Malanville has a very large muslim population) so it was surprising to see them in our parade. Enjoy!

I arrived in Benin on July 24th, 2009. For the first few days I was confused, hot and surrounded by people I did not know. Over the next few weeks I grew accustomed to my surroundings and developed relationships with the people in my training class and my host family. I am still hot and I am often confused but I am now surrounded by some of my best friends in the world. It is especially interesting to reflect on the past year right now because our new group of trainees arrived last week and I have been with them from the airport to their first few days in Cotonou and then meeting their host families in Porto Novo where they will spend the next two months. Being here again reminds me of how hard the first few weeks and months were but it also reminds me of how far I have come and what I have accomplished. It is amazing to me that in the past year I have moved to West Africa, learned French (and a little bit of Zarma,) and lived on my own in a house with no running water and unreliable electricity in a town where I am the only westerner. I have survived malaria, a coup d’etat, motorcycle accidents and numerous other small incidents that I would have considered a big deal in the states.

Most of my accomplishments in the past year have been of a personal nature. I know that I can live here and enjoy it and I felt like that was the challenge of my first year of service. I now want to focus on serving my community and I have a list of things that I want to accomplish there in the next 14 months. These goals include starting a girl’s empowerment club at the local secondary school, starting microfinance groups in the impoverished villages surrounding Malanville and organizing a bike tour to raise awareness on Malaria prevention. I am really excited about all of the potential the next year holds for work opportunities in and around Malanville.

The new stage has been here for a week and that means that the older stage will be leaving over the next couple of months. It is exciting to have new friends arriving but it is sad that some of my close friends will be leaving Benin and moving on with their lives. I know that they are all happy to be finishing up their service and I hope that in a year I will feel the same way.

So after two weeks in America and a week hanging out in various areas of the country I am back in Malanville for a few days. America was amazing, I ate so muc delicious food and it was wonderful to see so many friends and so much of my family. I even cried a little bit when I saw my mom waiting for me outside the baggage claim at logan. My cousin's wedding was beautiful and I am so glad that I was able to go. I also went to a red sox game, a street party in central square and Truro for a few days to sit on the beach. The weather was warm and sunny the entire time and I was so lucky to be able to enjoy those two weeks at home.

I loved being home, but in some ways I missed Benin. Here I am used to saying hello to random people on the street and having converstions with strangers. I am like a mini celebrity here, when I walk around, everyone looks at me and wants to talk to me. Some days it really sucks but most of the time I do not mind it and in America I felt invisible. It was really strange. I also missed my host family in Malanville and all of my Peace Corps friends. I sometimes found it hard to talk about my experiencse with friends and family in the United States because they have no concept of what life in an African village is like. It is also hard to convey my feelings about living here because Benin sucks but I am really enjoying my experience. One of my friends asked me to tell a positive story about my experience after hearing lots of stories about Peace Corps parties and horrific traffic accidents. I had trouble coming up with a positive story because what I like about living here are the small things like the children in my concession running to hug me every time I get home from a trip.

America!

So after my trip home I spent a couple of days in Cotonou before heading up to Djougou in the Northwest for a USA volunteers vs Germany volunteers soccer/football match. It took place Fourth of July weekend and it was really, really fun. We had jerseys made that said 'American Blitzkrieg' (we checked with the Germans first to ensure that they would not be offended) and played soccer one day and American football the next. When I told my friends at home about the upcoming match they all said that the Germans were going to kill us but that was not the case at all. The match ended tied 0-0 and because the sun was going down we did 10 penalty kicks each. The Germans took an early lead in PKs but then we scored several in a row, including a goal by me which was the highlight of my weekend for sure. After ten each the Germans said it was a tie but we are pretty sure they won and were just being nice, or they are bad at counting. The next day we played football with mixed teams and again it was a tie.

After the games a group of us headed up to Nattitingou where Johnny (another volunteer) was having an American style cookout. The food was incredible, there was even cherry pie. We lit sparklers and a couple of the children in his concession really loved them. The next day I took the Peace Corps shuttle to Kandi and hung at at the Kandi girls camp for a few days.

Fourth of July!

So it took me a while to get back to Malanville and I will be leaving again within the next few days because a new stage is coming in on the 16th! We only have one stage a year so it is really exciting to get to meet a new group of people. I am almost at my one year anniversary of living in Benin so look out for a blog post reflecting on my first year of service. Until next time!

So in just 10 days I will be hopping on a flight for a visit to the USA. I have lots of plans for when I am home including a red sox game, my cousin Kristin's wedding(!!), the beach and lots and lots of ice cream and other good food that I cannot get here.

The rainy season seems to have started in the Alibori and it has been noticeably cooler the last couple of days. I am now comfortable sleeping inside as long as I have my fan and I was even a little cold last night. At the moment all of my projects have stalled since I am going to be away for most of the month and after that I am working the first week of stage. We are really excited to have new trainees coming in but it means that some of my favorite people will be finishing their service and leaving.

Plans for the next few days include going to the pool with my postmates, bar crawl in Niger (also with my postmates,) packing and heading to Cotonou! I have a little bit of work to do while in Cotonou (stuff for the incoming stage) and I also have to do some gift shopping. So get ready everyone, I will be back the afternoon of the 14th!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/opinion/23kristof.html

Nicholas D. Kristof is a NY Times columnist who frequently writes about the developing world. In this article he talks about men who claim that they have no money to send their children to school while spending all of their disposable income on alcohol, cigarettes and prostitutes. This is something I have seen frequently in Benin. At bars, men will approach volunteers asking for money to send their children to school. These same men usually have expensive cell phones and motorcycles. Kristof also points out that women are much more likely to spend their income on education for their children. This is the main reason that I prefer to work with women's groups as a business volunteer.

The hot season is in full swing up here in Malanville. Most days it reaches at least 110 in the shade and sleeping inside is unbearable. It has rained a couple of times since I came back from the south but I have been told that the real rainy season, when it cools down a little bit, doesn't start until mid June. By then I will be heading back to the states for a visit to attend my cousin Kristin's wedding!

I have had a couple of visitors this month including the US Ambassador to Benin who came today to look at some projects that were completed using US Embassy funds. I was taken out to a nice lunch with the Ambassador, his wife and several other US Embassy staff members. Everyone was very nice but most peace corps volunteers here spend a lot of time talking about poop and how stupid Benin can be. I felt that both of these topics were not appropriate so I had some trouble making polite conversation. I expect this to be a problem again next month when I am home. I do not think that I am properly socialized to interact with non-peace corps related Americans.

Last weekend we had a birthday party for three PCVs in Parakou. At least half of my stage was there and we had a great time drinking champagne in a kiddie pool. There was also a tchouk (millet beer) power hour. I had to stop at minute 30 because I was on the verge of vomitting. Clearly it was a fun weekend. I did manage to step on a nail (same foot as before) but other than that I escaped injury free. The doctor assured me that I do not need another tetanus shot so I am not going to worry about it.

At the moment I am back in Malanville sitting outside my house in the dark because the power is out. This happens pretty much every night here and I am thankful that I spent a little extra money to get an extended battery for my laptop. I am lucky enough to have a USB key that acts as a modem to provide internet through a cellular network. It is slow but it is certainly better than nothing!

I will be home in less than four weeks! Let me know if you would like me to bring you anything from Benin!

After my friend’s fundraiser in Ketou the business volunteers all headed to Porto Novo for our second round of In Service Training (IST.) The last one had been incredibly boring and mostly unproductive but luckily this time I had my wireless internet key and I spent most of my time facebooking other volunteers, including people in the room who were frequently checking facebook on their internet phones. The training was conducted at Centre Songhai which is an agriculture project where they raise animals and crow crops in a sustainable manner. They provide training to people from all over West Africa and they also have a hotel and conference facilities. We were frequently there during training and there are some pictures in one of my earlier photo albums. At Songhai we met two guys from the Boston area who are traveling through Africa from Morocco to South Africa on Motorcycles. Their motorcycles both had Mass license plates and it was a strange thing to see in Benin. They were really nice and even put a picture of me on their blog! Here is a link: http://www.northsouthventure.com. Unfortunately one of the first nights there I lost my camera but it was not working very well anyway and I am going to get a new one when I am home next month.

After IST I headed to Pobe to visit my friend’s Lindsay and Jackie. Pobe was very pretty, it is on a plateau in the more Jungley regions of Benin and it has some nice old architecture. The three of us spent most of our time cooking good food and watching the Jersey Shore which is circulating around Benin on flash drives and is the latest obsession among most of the volunteers.

I spent a couple of days in Cotonou before heading up to Kloukuomey with Sarah to visit our friend Erik. We ate a dinner of Steak and baked potatoes followed by breakfast of omelets with cheddar and chorizo and a lunch of chalupas. One nice thing about living in the south is the ability to bring good ingredients from Cotonou to your post without having to worry too much about them going bad. The three of us then headed to Lalo to visit the famous Mr Fogla. Mr Fogla is famous among Peace Corps Benin volunteers and has been friends with volunteers for many years. He is the chef du village (village chief) and he is one of the friendliest and most open Beninese people I have met. The journey to Lalo was not easy, just as we were setting out it started to pour and we were forced to take shelter in a shop waiting for the storm to pass. 45 minutes later we decided to head back to Erik’s house because it is unsafe to travel on dirt roads by motorcycle in the rain. Back at Erik’s we discussed the situation and decided that meeting Mr Fogla was not an experience we wanted to miss, rain be damned so we set out anyway. We found mototaxis that were willing to take us despite the impending darkness and were on our way. A ride that should have taken about 20 minutes turned into an hour long muddy ordeal during which time my motorcycle crashed and I cut up my leg. We finally made it to Lalo and stopped at the house of Charlie and Miranna, married volunteers who live in Lalo and are friends of Mr. Fogla’s. Unfortunately, because of the rain the power was out and Fogla had not been able to prepare the planned meal of pate rouge and fried chicken (Beninese people generally cook outside over an open flame.) Instead, we sat inside his house and drank Sodabe which is distilled palm wine and the liquor of choice in Southern Benin. We had a great conversation; he talked to us about vodun and the health benefits of sodabe (good for the digestion and gives strength.) He then invited us over for pate rouge and chicken the next day, an offer we gladly accepted. The next day was beautiful and sunny, we hung out at Charlie and Miranna’s house (they had left for Cotonou in the morning but left us the keys) and then headed over for lunch with a case of Beninoise (Beninese beer.) We sat in the shade of a large tree, drank more sodabe, discussed more interesting topics such as eating snakes and ate delicious pate rouge and chicken. It was one of my favorite cultural experiences in Benin thus far and I am hoping to return at least once more before I leave.

That afternoon I hopped back on a mototaxi and rode to Bohicon to visit my best friend Jeff. I was still slightly drunk from all of the sodabe and the dirt road was beautiful and as we were driving past all of these small, lush, green farms I thought about how happy I was to be having this experience in Benin and I would not change it for anything. I arrived in Bohicon and Jeff made fun of me for being drunk. Jeff has a beautiful house and we just sat around and then went to bed early. The next day we were joined by Sarah B, Sarah P and Erik (my companions in Lalo,) Brad and Dave with the intention of partying in Bohicon and then traveling to Cotonou together the next day. The next morning we rented a taxi for the seven of us and bought some boxed wine before heading south. We ‘juice boxed’ where each person gets their own box and a straw and it is the most amusing way to pass a taxi ride with a large group of volunteers. We hit very bad traffic coming into Cotonou (which is actually very normal) and spent a good amount of time standing on the side of the road with our wineboxes and occasionally walking along when our taxi moved forward. We eventually made it to the hotel where all of the volunteers were staying and the rest of the week went something like this: boring sessions all day (we were planning for the new group of volunteers coming into Benin in July) and eating good food and drinking a lot all night. Personal highlights of the week include another motorcycle crash, falling into an open sewer and having to be pulled out by very confused Beninese bar staff and passing out on top of two tables pushed together at the same bar the very next night. I think that maybe I should not go back to that bar again.

I am now back in the Alibori after almost a month long absence. It has rained a couple of times so it is not as hot as it was when I left which is a nice relief. I will be back in Boston on June 14th so I am going to spend the next six weeks buckled down at post trying to get some projects off of the ground before a few hectic summer months. See you all soon!

Hillary

At GAD weekend I stepped on a piece of broken glass and a week and half later it still hurt and it felt like something was suck in the cut. So on Monday I called the doctor and the next day I was able to take the Peace Corps shuttle down to Cotonou. It was really nice to ride in a spacious air conditioned SUV over the awful road between Kandi and Parakou. I don't think ex pats know quite how good they have it because that is their standard mode of transportation while Peace Corps volunteers squeeze into old puegot station wagons and share a seat with at least one other person. And of course there is no air conditioning.

So I got my foot taken care of in Cotonou, I thought there was glass in it but it turned out to be a couple of large pieces of sand. The good news is that it is healing a lot better that it had been and I can finally walk without limping. I stayed in Cotonou for a few more days because there was not enough time for me to go back to post before our second round of training in Porto Novo. I had a great time in Cotonou, I got to spend time with people who I rarely see (that is usually what happens in med unit) and I ate some great food. In his previous life my friend Mark was a wine and cheese buyer for whole foods so he and I went to a French supermarket one day and bought three different cheeses and a bottle of wine and it was amazing. Other nights we had beers on the beach and ate schwarma and we had a pretty good time in general.

Last night my friend Rich who lives a few hours north of Porto Novo had a fundraiser for an NGO the he is trying to start in his community. The goal of the NGO is to support orphans and at risk youth in school through help with tuition and school fees as well as providing life skills such as job training and financial management. Most of the business sector went to support him, as did the country director and the director of the business program (Yves.)The food was good and at the end there was a voodoo priest who danced and ran around touching people with his hair whip. I got some great pictures of it. But really I am so proud of Rich for all of his hard work and dedication to his project. I hope he continues to succeed and is able to raise all of the money he needs to get his NGO off the ground.

It always amazes me how different the South is from the north. Where I live the population is very muslim and the climate is dry and incredibly hot. Down here the population is Christian or practice vodun (usually it is a mixture) and it is really humid. So I will be spending the rest of April either at Peace Corps related trainings or visiting Southern volunteers and it should be an interesting couple of weeks. I will post again soon.

Hillary

I can't believe that March is over! The month really flew by and right in the middle of it we had a freak rain storm and then the dust kicked up again and it has been freakishly cold for the season. By freakishly cold I mean 105 instead of 120. The month was capped off by the annual fund raiser for the Gender and Development program which supports volunteer projects with small grants. The fund raiser consisted of a date auction one night and a silent auction and dinner the next and almost every volunteer in Benin came. I think it may have been the most fun that I have had so far as a volunteer and a lot of money was raised to support the program and that is probably the best part. Here are the pictures, the first few are from a snake charmer that was in front of my house one day. It was pretty gross. Enjoy!

March

February

Here are pictures from the month of February, including pictures from the Alibori bike tour and Gaani Fete. I would also like to take this chance to thank a couple of RPCVs I met in Cotonou while recovering from malaria. My friend Kim and I met them at the bank and they invited us out to dinner. They were volunteers in Cotonou in the 1970s and it was great to hear about their experiences and how Benin has changed since then. They were also nice enough to give us some American candy that they had brought over. It was a really positive experience and it proves how strong the Peace Corps network is both during and after service.

Thats all for now. Until next time!

Last weekend I went to a festival in Nikki called Gaani Fete. Nikki is the center of the Bariba Kingdom and every year it hosts a large fete where all of the Bariba Kings from Benin, Nigeria and Togo come together to get drunk and ride around on horses in traditional costumes. It is one of the most interesting cultural events in Benin all year and PCVs from around Benin showed up to watch. Unfortunately I missed most of it because on Saturday morning I woke up with a fever of 99.7. We were hosted by the PCV who lives in Nikki (another business volunteer, Sam) and so I spent most of the morning lying on Sam's cot. Around noon I took my temperature again and this time it was 102.6. This was very concerning for me because I do not get sick very often so I looked up the symptoms of malaria in our medical handbook. Fever over 102: check, Chills: check, Headache: check, Nausea: check, Dry cough: check. So I called the doctor and she directed me towards Parakou where there is a workstation and a hospital and she told me to call her when I arrived. After a 2.5 hour ride down a dirt road, sharing the front seat with three other people, I arrived in Parakou very dirty and feeling like death. Kyle, the Peace Corps Volunteer Leader in Parakou was at the work station to meet me and he helped me call the doctor who had me take my temperature again (103.1) and then instructed me to take the anti-malaria drug coartem and come to Cotonou as soon as possible. That night I did not really sleep, just laid in bed in a feverish haze. I took my temperature one more time and it was 104.1, the highest I think it has ever been.

I could not get a bus ticket the next day and I was probably too ill to travel seven hours anyway so I spent most of the day lying on the couch willing myself to get better. At some point in the afternoon my fever broke and I was able to get some sleep and then all of the PCVs who had been in Nikki showed up. A couple of them were also travelling to Cotonou the next morning so the three of us took the bus down on Monday morning and I was finally able to see the doctor on Monday afternoon. By then I was feeling much better, the coartem was working and the symptoms were going away. They tested my blood for malaria but because I had been on the meds for 2 days already the test came up negative, although the doctor told me that she is sure I had malaria.

So I have been in Cotonou for a few days now, recovering and making sure that nothing else is wrong with me (I also had a bacterial infection in my intestines.) I will be headed back up to post tomorrow morning with a stop in Parakou along the way. Until next time!

We just finished up 3 days of riding around the Banikoara Commune raising awareness on HIV/AIDS. Each day we rode to different schools in the commune and led sessions on preventing the transmission of HIV/AIDS, including proper condom use. Teaching middle school and high school aged girls how to use condoms was quite the experience.

The first day we went from Banikoara to Founogou, a 25k bike ride. The ride was tough because my bike was messed up somehow but I made it there in one piece. We gave our presentation, had a delicious lunch and then continued on to the next school in Somperekou. Tracie and I rode in the car for that stretch and right as we entered the school the top of the car met the bottom of a mango tree. Apparently the driver forgot that our bikes were on top and they were both completely ruined. The driver felt pretty bad but we just called HQ and they are sending us two new bikes. Your tax dollars hard at work. We also had a couple of spare bikes so I used one of those the next two days. Day two we visited schools in the town of Banikoara commune and there was not much riding but I found myself enjoying the presentations more and more. At each school we split up into a boys group and a girls group to facilitate better communication and hopefully answer gender specific questions. I realized how much I liked working with the girls and I am hoping to become involved in the already existing girls club in Malanville. Day three we travelled 7k to Toura and afterwards another 13k to Gomouri. I actually rode the whole day and the 20k ride back was brutal. We had to ride directly into strong wind and the road was slightly uphill, not a fun way to end the day. At that point we had finished our last presentation and we celebrated by drinking gin and tonics.

In total we rode about 100k over 3 days. Not that impressive unless you consider that roads are unpaved and 100 degree temperature. Can't wait for next year!Pictures are coming, unfortunately the internet connection here in Kandi is not very fast but I will post them as soon as I can.

A good portion of January was spent at In Service Training (IST) where we learned a few more ways to promote development in Benin but mostly just partied a whole lot. It took place in Porto Novo where we had our pre service training (aka stage) and 3 out of the 4 sectors were there so it was just like stage except we stayed at hotels instead of with host families. On the way there we stopped at the American Ambassabor's house in Cotonou for a swim in their pool. It is really nice of them to open it up for us!Here are the pictures from New Year's Eve and IST:

January

So as some of you know last week was a little bit difficult for me. On the way home from In Service Training we got stopped because there had been a bus accident. Three other volunteers were on the bus and luckily they walked away from the accident but many other people weren't as lucky. My friend Chadsey was on the bus and he has a long blog post and pictures on the accident here:

http://peacecorpschadsey.blogspot.com/2010/01/ooooo-here-we-go-slam.html

This was a little disturbing to me because I have to take the bus more often than most PCVs as I am about six hours away from the nearest bank where I have to travel every month.

In addition to that happening two of my friends are now leaving, one for personal reasons and one for safety reasons. My friend who is leaving for safety reasons was my first friend in Peace Corps, she and I met at Logan Airport on our way to Philadelphia for staging. I am really bummed that she has to leave Benin but I am hoping that she will end up somewhere nearby.

The week ended much better than it started, I am now back in Kandi (where we have just acquired a wii!) and yesterday I made chocolate cake with butter cream frosting from scratch to celebrate Tracie's birthday!

I just want to thank those of you who were around to talk me through my tough week, it may have been one of the hardest so far in Benin. I really appreciate your support and I could not be here without it!

Christmas was really fun and not at all like Christmas in America. We had cheeseburgers, cole slaw, potato salad and apple crisp and with the 95 degree weather we realized that we were actually celebrating fourth of July rather than Christmas. I hope everyone at home had a great holiday, I miss you all!

Here are some pictures from Gaya, Safari and Christmas!

December

Alfakoara and Parc W

I spent the week before Christmas is Alfakoara, a village 65k south of me that is at an entrance to Parc W. Myself and five other volunteers helped Weihow run a tourism formation in Alfakoara and then we chaperoned his environmental club on a safari.

For the tourism formation we toured two different villages with villagers who have been trained as guides. We gave them pointers on things to say and things not to say for instance saying ‘faites attention’ instead of ‘doucement’ which is a word the Beninese use in place of ‘watch out’ or ‘excuse me’ and it means ‘gently’ so it really doesn’t make sense to westerners when the Beninese say it. But it was cool to see these villages, one had a crocodile farm and the other had a man who makes cool hats.

The second part of the trip was chaperoning the kids on the Parc W field trip. It was a really cool thing to do because these kids will probably live next to this Parc their whole lives and not have another opportunity to go into it. Entering the parc requires paying a fee and renting vehicles and both things are too expensive for the average Beninese person. Weihow got a grant to pay for the trip so it was completely free for the kids and they seemed to have a really great time even though we did not see that many animals just monkeys, baboons and a few different kinds of antelope.

We spent one night in the parc and most people slept in huts at the forestier campment at point triple where Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger meet, but Weihow, Melissa and I decided to sleep at a campement across the river in Burkina. This meant we had to cross the river after dark and then had to find the camp without really knowing how to get there, clearly it did not turn out too well. First off, Melissa lost her shoe while crossing the river on the rock dam. Instead of letting it go she stripped off her clothes and dove in after it. Luckily she was able to get it but since she did not want to get her warm clothes wet she then hiked around in her underwear. When we got to the other side we started to follow the trail. At one point we veered to the right on what looked like the trail but after a while we realized it was a game path so we turned around and found the real trail and followed it for about ten minutes until we got to a clearing. Naturally I assumed the camp was nearby so Weihow marked the trail with a pile of rocks and we looked around a little bit but decided we were not in the right place so we admitted defeat and headed back to Benin. The next morning, when we crossed the river with the kids and the guides we found the pile of rocks about 20 ft away from the Burkina camp…go figure, that’s what you get for hiking around in the dark. Back at the Benin camp, Weihow, Melissa and I decided to stay outside and we slept in an open pavilion near the huts. Weihow heard an animal in the middle of the night but it stopped making noise before he could wake us up but apparently it was pretty close to us. The next morning, the guide who hadn’t realized that we had slept outside, asked us if we had heard the lion walking through camp. Luckily I hadn’t because I probably would have peed in my sleeping bag. The next day we walked around in Burkina a little bit and then headed back to Alfakoara.

So I am now back at my post and I am happy to have electricity again after spending a whole week in Weihow’s village and the Parc. I am also happy to be sleeping inside again since we slept at the elephant viewing post every night while in Alfakoara. We did not see any elephants during the day but we could hear them bathing at night. They are pretty noisy. Right now it is a time of year known as ‘harmattan’ when cold winds come down from the Sahara and make the nights pretty chilly. Of course it is still around 95 degrees during the day but the cool nights are a nice change of pace. Christmas is in just a few days and I cannot wait to spend it in Kandi where most of my friends will be coming to celebrate the holiday! We are going to make cheeseburgers to celebrate!

Halloween and Thanksgiving

Here are some pictures of Halloween and Thanksgiving. We had an awesome dinner in Kandi with all of the staples of an American Thanksgiving. We even killed our own Turkey! I spent the actual day of Thanksgiving in Alphakoara at the National Park with another volunteer and we looked for elephants but only saw monkeys. He is only 65k from me so I will definitely be going back.

Hope everyone in the States had a great Thanksgiving!

Love,

Hillary

So I have been at post for almost a month now. I am just about settled in and I have been working quite a bit. I am working with an NGO and we go out to the villages around Malanville and work with women's groups and some mens groups and we help them manage whatever work they are doing. It is mostly with people involved in the fishing industry and some of the work is with managing the fisheries and some of the work is with secondary income generation for fishermen like gardening (tomatoes, onions etc) or raising rabbits to sell as food.

So that is all for now, I will try to post something longer at some point but I don't have much internet time. Enjoy the pictures!

Post

Stage

Stage 2

So here are two albums of pictures from my first two months in Africa. There are pictures from my homestay, from training in Porto Novo and of our field trip to Ouidah. Tomorrow we swear in as Peace Corps Volunteers! I am very happy that training is over, that I have passed my language exam and that I can finally move to my own house and start doing some work in the community.

Enjoy the pictures, I will post more from swear in and of my house sometime within the next month hopefully.

Hillary

So I have some good Africa stories for you. Yesterday we were sent out to entrepreneurs to talk to them about their businesses and how they use accounting or if they use accounting. I was paired up with my friend Ravi (who is a hipster) and we went to a cobbler. He had lived in Ghana so he spoke perfect English. We asked if we could see his accounting ledger and he showed us one entry from 1997 that took up one page of a notebook. The rest of the notebook had pages of this guys personal thoughts on the philosophy and history of rastafarianism. And then he told us about beninese weed laws. He had a Hitler stache. I have photographic evidence.

After, we went to learn about Voodun. We talked to a voodun priest and we asked him how you can tell if someone practices his kind of voodun. He told us that he has a lot of scars but if he showed them to us he would have to do a purification ritual and that it would be expensive. We asked him how much and he said 20,000 (40 bucks) and then he pointed at me and said or I could just take her, she has really nice legs. Awesome, a voodun priest offered to trade me in exchange for showing our group his sacred scars. We declined.

Today, we went to meet a traditional healer and he showed us all of the traditional medicines including rocks, plants, snakes in jars, even a lion skin, a whole lion. He can cure AIDS all he needs is 10,000 cfa and 10 months. I am serious. So that was my last two days and a lot of really interesting stuff happened in a short span of time, otherwise things haven't been quite as interesting.

This week we are visiting our posts and then returning to Porto Novo for two more weeks of training before moving to post permanently. Swear in is on September 25th, very exciting!

Post announcements were yesterday and I am heading to Malanville on the border with Niger. Here is the wikipedia entry for the city: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malanville. The post is the secnd furthest north but it is actually apretty good sized place and I will be getting a visa for Niger so I will probably be crossing the border quite a bit. I am significantly closer to the capital of Niger than to the caital of Benin and I am really excited about it. We go on Post visit in a few weeks so I am excited to seemy new house. Other than that training is going well, my French is certainly improving and I am learning lots about Benin. Come visit me and I will take you to the national park that is nearby to see elephants.

So I wrote a blog post but now I cant get the file open...typical. So I will just give you a brief update saying that we are currently in the capital, Porto Novo, for training and everything is going well. I am living with a host family and speaking lots of *French.* On Thursday we are finding out where in the country we are being placed and what exactly we will be doing so I should have more information then.

In the mean time feel free to write me letter or send care packages.

Hillary Clifford PCT

Corps De La Paix

BP 971

Cotonou, Benin

AIRMAIL

Bye for now,

Hillary

Made it to Philadelphia for staging. Came very close to a melt down while I was packing but I managed to get my things into two bags and was well below the weight limit. I have a bad feeling that I am unprepared physically and mentally but I am sure other people feel that way as well. Sat next to another PC volunteer on the plane. Turns out she used to work 2 floors below me in my old office building. The other volunteers seem nice, I am sure I will know a lot more about them in the nexts few days.

I am leaving in 26 days and I have not moved out of my apartment or started packing yet.

Some Travel Tips From Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times:

1. Carry a “decoy wallet,” so that if you are robbed by bandits with large guns, you have something to hand over. I keep $40 in my decoy wallet, along with an old library card and frequent-flier card. (But don’t begrudge the wallet: when my travel buddy was pickpocketed in Peru, we tried to jump the pickpocket, who turned out to be backed by an entire gang ... )

2. Carry cash and your passport where no robber will find it. Assuming that few bandits read this column, I’ll disclose that I carry mine in a pouch that loops onto my belt and tucks under my trousers.

3. Carry a tiny ski lock with a six-foot retractable wire. Use it to lock your backpack to a hotel bed when you’re out, or to the rack of a train car.

4. At night, set a chair against your hotel door so that it will tip over and crash if someone slips in at 4 a.m. And lift the sheet to look for bloodstains on the mattress — meaning bed bugs.

5. When it gets dark, always carry a headlamp in your pocket. I learned that from a friend whose hotel in Damascus lost power. He lacked a light but was able to feel his way up the stairs in the dark, find his room and walk in. A couple of final gropes, and he discovered it wasn’t his room after all. Unfortunately, it was occupied.

6. If you’re a woman held up in an isolated area, stick out your stomach, pat it and signal that you’re pregnant. You might also invest in a cheap wedding band, for imaginary husbands deflect unwanted suitors.

7. Be wary of accepting drinks from anyone. Robbers sometimes use a date rape drug to knock out their victims — in bars, in trains, in homes. If presented with pre-poured drinks, switch them with your host, cheerfully explaining: “This is an American good luck ritual!”

8. Buy a secondhand local cell phone for $20, outfit it with a local SIM card and keep it in your pocket.

9. When you arrive in a new city, don’t take an airport taxi unless you know it is safe. If you do take a cab, choose a scrawny driver and lock ALL the doors — thieves may pull open the doors at a red light and run off with a bag.

10. Don’t wear a nice watch, for that suggests a fat wallet and also makes a target. I learned that lesson on my first trip to the Philippines: a robber with a machete had just encountered a Japanese businessman with a Rolex — who now, alas, has only one hand.

11. Look out for fake cops or crooked ones. If a policeman tries to arrest you, demand to see some ID and use your cell phone to contact a friend.

12. If you are held up by bandits with large guns, shake hands respectfully with each of your persecutors. It’s very important to be polite to people who might kill you. Surprisingly often, child soldiers and other bandits will reciprocate your fake friendliness and settle for some cash rather than everything you possess. I’ve even had thugs warmly exchange addresses with me, after robbing me.

13. Remember that the scariest people aren’t warlords, but drivers. In buses I sometimes use my pack as an airbag; after one crash I was the only passenger not hospitalized.

14. If terrorists finger you, break out singing “O Canada”!

15. Finally, don’t be so cautious that you miss the magic of escaping your comfort zone and mingling with local people and staying in their homes. The risks are minimal compared with the wonders of spending time in a small village. So take a gap year, or volunteer in a village or a slum. And even if everything goes wrong and you are robbed and catch malaria, shrug it off — those are precisely the kinds of authentic interactions with local cultures that, in retrospect, enrich a journey and life itself.

These are all great suggestions, some of which I had thought of and some I hadn't. Obviously accepting drinks from a stranger is a big no-no for females and I already have an international phone but the decoy wallet is a good idea. The author also recently went on a trip to five countries in West-Africa and has written about it in his blog which should be interesting to read at some point.