The Great Beninese Gas Crisis of 2012 is over--mostly. In the face of protests that nearly shut down the country, the government of Nigeria decided to partially reinstate its gas subsidies, which ended the general strike and resumed illegal gas exports to Benin.

Gas stations are back to empty, and roadside gas stands are back up. Rather than up to 1,400cfa (about $3!) a liter, gas is back down to a more manageable 475cfa per liter, though still more than the 300-350cfa per liter that gas was going for before the crisis.

Zem prices are still slightly inflated, but we have found that if we travel in packs and gang up on zem drivers we can get a better price, though taxi prices are still quite inflated. To wit: the price from Bohicon to Cotonou used to cost 1500-1800cfa, but now costs a minimum of 2500cfa each person, each way. We do not travel much between town and we generally ride our bikes within our city so this has not impacted us too much, but it was quite a shock to pay so much to get down to Cotonou last week to take the FSOT!

Heather has her Nutritional Recuperation project going on this week and I am getting started on creating a Beninese-friendly Excel training course for budding entrepreneurs who already have some computer knowledge (I am not reinventing the wheel, mind).

It is still hot. Harmattan is about over, which means that chaleur is about here. Mango season is almost upon us. Rainy season will commence in a few months, and we are anxiously waiting the relief that it brings.

Cheers.

Benin does not produce any oil. Nigeria, our neighbor and biggest trading partner, however, does. In fact, Nigeria is the largest oil producer in West Africa and Benin imports close to 100% of its petroleum from its large, overpopulated neighbor. Talk about being addicted to foreign oil! Much of Benin’s economy is concentrated in what is called the “informal sector”, which means that most people who work do not get a paycheck like we do in the United States with taxes taken out. Instead, employers (and employees) in the informal sector get paid in cash only. Examples are women who walk around and sell food, men who grill meat on the side of the road, women who sell vegetables at the market, and people who sell gas on the side of the road.

Wait, gas? Yes, every city has a thriving informal gas market, brought over illegally from Nigeria and sold in stands on the side of the road. Well, that is until last week when the Nigerian government ended its domestic oil subsidy that kept the price of oil down and affordable for everyone. Protests have erupted in the streets of Nigeria and illegal roadside gas stations have disappeared in Benin since the end of the subsidy last week. Roadside gas in Benin is no longer affordable; long lines are popping up at the few legal gas stations in the country. Roadside gas used to be 300 cfa per liter (about 60 cents), but has now skyrocketed to more than 1,000 cfa per liter (about 2 dollars), almost triple the price of legal gas offered at (likely state-subsidized) gas stations.

You can see how the end of the gas subsidy not only affects Nigerians but Beninese, as well. Add to that rumors of a rumored 35% devaluation in the price of the franc cfa used by 13 countries in the West African Economic Union, and there is a possible disaster on the horizon. My work partner, Arimi, makes 30,000 cfa (or about 60 dollars) each month which supports him, his wife, and small child (his wife also works and makes 20,000 cfa per month, so together they make $100 each month). Gas prices have just tripled, and soon he will make essentially 10,500 cfa less each month if the rumored devaluation happens. The local mayor’s office pays his salary and since the mayor’s office refuses to even give us a $400 marketing budget for this year, I would be surprised if they would increase salaries to make up for the devaluation, if it happens.

So, what will happen to Arimi if the cfa is devalued? Well, with the gas issue I have heard other volunteers complain that their work partners will not go to work until they can afford gas for their motorcycles. Arimi would have to find some way to cut back on expenses, which would be a stretch for a guy who already essentially lives on $1 per day (the other dollar he makes per day goes towards recurring expenses, such as rent, electricity, water, motorcycle upkeep, and, of course, gas). What will it mean for us? The price of transportation has already massively increased. Zemijohn prices have doubled, bush taxi prices have gone up 20%-50%, and it seems as if bus service has declined. Rumors abound that buses are now installing a bench in the aisle of the bus to pack more people in, plus slightly increasing the price of fares, to make up for the difference in gas prices. With more people on the bus, the bus is heavier and more difficult to navigate through the slalom of potholes that litter the main north-south corridor and can cripple a vehicle. I imagine that we will see more bus accidents as they continue to become more and more overloaded with passengers and more difficult to maneuver.

Higher gas prices have also driven zemijohn drivers to literally fight for business: zem drivers have been pushing volunteers off of the back of other zem’s motorcycles to try to literally steal their business. It is not difficult to see the social and economic consequences of the new gas prices and we cannot imagine what will happen if the cfa franc is devalued, as well.

Travel is less safe and more expensive. Crowds swarm to legal gas stations while the thousands of people who once made a little money selling illegal gas now must find another profession. There are no jobs here, no craigslist or monster.com to search for jobs, a poor education system, and shoddy, crumbling infrastructure. It feels like the country is literally falling apart in front of our eyes. But people will find a way to get through it. The roadside sellers of gas might make and sell charcoal instead, or grill meat. People may ride bicycles instead of motorcycles. Without any help from the government, everyone will need to find a way to scrape and save and find money for their next meal. As Arimi is fond of saying to me, “C’est l’Afrique.” That’s Africa.

**Update: Nigeria reinstated their fuel subsidy last week, albeit at a lower rate than it was previously. There are still problems with zem and food prices, but they are becoming part of "normal" life now. Check out this line at the gas station!

click me to see me larger

We passed the holidays at home in Bohicon with local volunteer pals. Big thanks to Kev & Danielle, Tim, and Cherise for the Christmas packages! We are so fortunate to have great friends and family that supply us we goodies from Americaland.

On 10 January, Benin has a state holiday for Vodoun (Voodoo). Minutes and untold minutes of research have led me to believe that Benin is not only the only country in the world that has an official state holiday for Vodoun, but also the only one that has state holidays for three different religions (Christian, Muslim, Vodoun). Technically referred to as "Traditional Religions Day", the Vodoun fête day is celebrated with dancing, drinking (heavily), offerings to vodoun spirits and/or deities, singing, dancing, having fun with vodoun characters (such as Egunguns and Zangbetos), and dancing and drinking.

We are in the beginning stages of planning our girls' camp for this year which will take place in June and we have also recently found out that new volunteers who will arrive in July (or maybe June?) are already receiving invitations to come here and have a facebook group already. Many volunteers are busy facebook stalking them already.

We will try to post pictures from the fete the next time that we have a fast internet connection. Tried to post a video + pictures here today but it wasn't working out. Sorry!

Cheers

From June, I think, but I forgot to post it.

...

I arrived to the park on my bike, as usual, in the late morning. I usually arrive at that time because I take my time eating breakfast and drinking coffee in the morning, and I like to turn up before it gets too hot. We are in the rainy season now, though, so we have a constant low, dark cloud cover throughout the day with intermittent sun (like San Diego’s “June Gloom”). It is cool. I still go to work in the late morning, though, merely out of habit.

When I showed up, I saw Arimi, Denis, and another man huddled around a foosball table. It was brand new, with the plastic still on and around it, and was still sitting on top of the cardboard box that it was delivered on. I parked my bike and walked around to where it was situated, across a corner of the concrete slab by the office but still under the overhang.

“Good Morning,” I said.

“Good Morning,” replied Arimi.

“When did we get this?”

“This morning. The mayor paid for it.”

“Oh, that was nice of him.”

“No. He is not nice.”

I thought of all the things the mayor could have paid for, such as higher wages for the employees or to print marketing materials. A foosball table was unnecessary, especially considering that we all had to come to the park early a few weeks ago—Théo, Arimi, Denis, Elie, and I—to clear out weeds because the mayor had not paid the groundskeeper in the past eighteen months—eighteen months!

As they fidgeted with the screwdrivers and wrenches and assorted metal and plastic parts strewn about the table, I started to look for the instructions. They all looked clueless, so I thought maybe the instructions were in English. But had there been directions only in English, they would have asked me to help (I hope).

I looked at the dark clouds hanging low, directly over us, and asked what they would do with the table if it rains. The table looks too wide to fit through the door of the office, and if left outside it would just be ruined, like everything else.

“We will take it inside.”

“Where are the instructions?”

“We don’t have any. You see, the mayor is not nice.”

Arimi and Denis moved the table to the side of the building, flush up against the wall so it was not visible from the street, and if it rains it would be unlikely to get too wet. The group walked inside and Arimi and Denis laid down on the benches inside the office which line two of the walls. Time for a break. They would finish up with the table later, but for now, the mayor is not so nice.

Craig had his post visit with his PC boss the day before we left to go south to head to Ghana. Last year, it didn't leave Craig feeling warm and fuzzy, we'll leave it at that. This year was a hundred times better. He paid attention to Craig and what he was doing and saying, what he was working on, and genuinely seemed interested and pleased. Not to mention that he not only treated Craig to dinner/sodas, but he got some to go for me. How nice! My post visit, which was after we got back from Ghana, the day before Thanksgiving, was very similar to Craig’s last year.

So on the 15th, we went down south to Cotonou then on the 16th, we left for Ghana. We got to the taxi station at 6am, but had to wait for the taxi to fill up and didn’t leave until like 6:45. I was sitting by a really nice Beninese man who waited for us to get our Togo visas at the boarder with his cute little son. When we got to Lome, which looks way nicer than Cotonou, he also helped us get a zem to the Togo/Ghana boarder, which he definitely didn't have to do. Once we crossed over to Ghana, they were wearing really colorful green uniforms, much different than the normal khaki or army green that everyone else wears, and they all spoke English. It threw me off a bit to have to revert to English since we're so use to speaking French in West Africa. The two are linked in our minds. We got into a tro-tro, which is like a minibus, to head to Accra from the boarder. While we were waiting, I discovered that they sold guacamole sandwiches at the station. Yum! From the boarder to Accra, it is about 4 hours.

Accra was pretty impressive. There are some streets in Accra that you could confuse with a posh street in America somewhere. It was really surreal. We went straight to the airport to get Brian. Dustin was already there so we all waited for Brian together. When we finally saw Brian, it was a nice reunion.

We went out for a drink that night to celebrate. The next morning, we were supposed to leave bright and early for the coast, but we discovered that Dustin never got his Benin visa. He had some issues with getting the Ghanaian visa since he had to send his passport from Germany, where he recently relocated, to the US to do it and wait for it to come back and it took too long. He changed his flight to arrive on the 14th in order to take care of the Benin visa before we even got there, but he didn’t do it. So off to the Beninese embassy we went when we should have been half wait to Butre. He did his paperwork and then was told that he can only pick up visas in the afternoon and he’d have to come back. This really didn’t bode well with us. I went outside to let Brian know what was going on when I ran into the Ambassador for Benin. I explained our problem to him and he was very helpful in getting our visa to us within the next hour. So off to the coast we went.

It was a really long ride, very pretty though, to the coastal town of Butre. Butre is a small fishing village and we were just outside of it in this secluded “hideout” called Ellis Hideout that was absolutely amazing and the best part of the trip for me. It was pretty cheap to stay there, like $6/night/person and it also had a restaurant that served amazing food as well as happy hour. The beer in Ghana is way better than the beer in Benin, too. We hung out there for a couple days, enjoying their beautiful beach that made it seem that we were the only ones for miles. The beach was small and was surrounded by lush green vegetation everywhere, but unlike Benin, there were hills and mountains included in this lush scenery. It was amazing.

After leaving amazing Butre, we went to Cape Coast. There we saw the famous castle that was used to house captured slaves before there departure to the “New World”, as seen in Roots and other movies. We also took a side trip up about 45 minutes north to a national park that had a canopy walk. The walk was cool, but there were a lot of people and it was just a circle of connecting bridges a little high up in the trees. Not really worth the money, in my opinion.

After Cape Coast, we went back to Accra, changed minibuses, and headed directly up north along the Togo boarder to a monkey sanctuary in a place called Tafi-Atome. We paid about $12 to have a place to stay, dinner and breakfast, food for the monkeys, and a guide that took us to feed the monkeys in the early morning the next day. It was really pretty up there and there was actual forest around in the area. We walked to where the monkeys usually congregate in the morning to feed them. They were completely wild and we called them with making kissy noises to get them to come closer. Soon enough, they were jumping all over us, using their little hands to peel back the banana and eat their breakfast. It was really cool.

Right after we were done feeding the monkeys, we took a zem to the boarder of Togo, where we had some problems with getting Dustin and Brian a visa. They had to pay a “guide” to take them to a nearby town where there was a consulate to get a visa since they didn’t give them at the boarder up there. This took much longer than we thought but the ride there was through hills and forests and it was really pretty. We waited around the taxi gare for them, getting something lined up to take us across the boarder. We all got into this tro-tro that was like a Flintstone car. Every time we hit a bump, the side would sway one way, the back would sway another, and so on. I thought it was going to fall apart around us. The road was a bumpy dirt road, which made us very dirty by the time we got half way across where we switched to a taxi. We thought it’d take 2 hours total to cross the country of Togo (it’s so small!) but it took over 3 hours just to get half way. Then it took another 2 or so in a taxi to get to the Benin/Togo boarder. From there, our taxi took us to Azove, which is south of Bohicon. The night marche in the taxi gare in Azove was crazy and their first look at Benin. Very different from Ghana and Togo. By this time it was night, and we were a bit nervous in traveling at night, but the road was good and paved, so it worked out fine. We didn't get home (after a pit stop for dinner in Bohicon) until almost 11pm at night. Silly us thought that we may even get home by lunchtime. That was before we realized that that distinct line on the map that seems like a very nice road was all bumpy and dirty.

We spent a total of one week in Bohicon, showing them around, seeing voodoo stuff, introducing them to people, and hanging out. We also went to the local artist's house, Julien, to see his art, buy his art, and make new art with him, which was a really cool experience. It reinforced what I already knew about myself though; I am not artistic. Ha! Everyone was super excited to meet Brian and they all commented on his size compared to Craig. They would say things like, "He likes the fastfood, huh?" Ha! It was funny to watch their reactions. We all had Thanksgiving together and invited some other volunteers that came from around the area. We had a total of ten people. I made pumpkin pie, cherry pie, and a brownie cake with a glaze on top, in addition to all the other normal Thanksgiving food that you normally eat (no meat though). It was delicious! Right as the dinner was about to be ready, Logan, our CD’s son who is doing film work in Benin, called to say he was in town and wanted to know if we could hang out, so we invited him to join us, which made our tenth person. And he was a great addition to our group. Since Brian brought all the food except for some stuff, like potatoes, that we could get in town, we had all the out of towners bring a bottle of wine. We ended up with 4 bottles of wine, which was just right for 10 of us. It was great. Dustin and Brian also got to see both of us in action at work. Craig gave them a tour of his park and I had a World AIDS Day event, in addition to taking them to our two English clubs so our kids could ask them questions. It was fun.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we headed up to Parakou because they were giving mandatory flu vaccines and we wanted to show them Parakou anyway. We hung out the first day and on the second day, went on a tchouk crawl. Like a beer crawl, but with tchouk stands. The tchouk marche that we went to was the biggest in the world. It was really fun and much better tasting than I remembered. The next day, we headed back to Bohicon and had a super fast driver for a taxi driver. It didn't take the normal 4 hours to get back to Bohicon; it only took 3.

We were back in Bohicon for a day or two before we headed back down to Cotonou. The PCVL (volunteer who is in charge of the workstation, basically) in Cotonou was nice enough to let us stay at her house the whole time. Once we were almost in Cotonou, Craig and I realized that neither one of us remembered to pack our passports. Craig went back up to Bohicon that evening to get them and came back down the next morning. That next day, we went to a village called Ganvie. It’s in the guidebooks and we’d never been so we thought we’d go with our visitors. We rented out a whole taxi to take us there and when we got there, discovered that the boat ride to the village was ridiculously expensive. We ended up paying it anyway since we were already there, but it wasn’t worth it in my opinion. That night, Logan was nice enough to invite us over for dinner to thank us for having him over for Thanksgiving. It was a delicious dinner with homemade ice cream and pumpkin pie for dessert. Our last full day in Cotonou, we spent at the beach, then at the Ambassador’s house for swimming, then getting ice cream, then at happy hour, where it was last man standing. It was a lot of fun. The next day, we headed to Ouidah, where there is a python temple and the gate of no return and more slave stuff. They didn’t want to go into the python temple since they were tired, but we saw the gate and continued on to Grand Popo.

We spent two days in Grand Popo laying around on the beach, reading and relaxing, as the last part of the trip before having to get them back to Ghana for their flights. We played the “Inglorious Bastards” game, as we call it (where you’re giving a name to put on your forehead and you have to guess who or what you are), but often the geography version, which we usually enjoy more. It was a lot of fun.

By the end of their stay with us, we were super low on funds, so I decided to go straight back to Cotonou to save money while Craig took them back to Ghana. He’s on his way back to Cotonou right now, as I write. Our time together was great. We like traveling with Brian and we anticipate that we’ll be traveling with him again soon, I’m sure. We were sad to see him go, but we realized that we are pretty compatible travel companions and when we saw Brian again, after not seeing him for over a year and a half, it was like no time had passed at all. Things just fell back into place.

On a side note, I have been obsessively reading through the Twilight book series. I finished the first three in 5 days and have the 4th one waiting for me at post. I really really wish there were a movie theater here that showed American movies so I could watch it when I finish the book, but I guess I will just have to wait.

Since Craig and I have been back in Benin, there hasn’t been a day without loads to do, which is nice. When we first arrived back in Cotonou, we had to spend 3 days there getting our Ghanaian visa in anticipation of Brian and Dustin’s upcoming visit. It was kind of ridiculous because on top of all the crazy requirements, you could only go before noon to apply for a visa and only after 3pm to pick up the visa (with at least a day in between for processing), which is why it took so long. I guess it would make sense to do it like that if there was a lot of visa turnover, but there isn’t. So it’s just laziness, I guess.

We got back to Bohicon and both hit the ground running. Craig started up his soccer club and a business course right away. I had a week to plan a launching ceremony for my Amour et Vie (Love and Life) team that our host NGO came for, so I had meetings every day on how to actually execute the ceremony. Luckily, my team has 3 other people on it, so when it came to inviting the whole town, it wasn’t too hard to get the invitations spread out. The ceremony went really well. My team prepared a skit to perform and aside from the rain thundering down on the tin roof and not being able to hear for 20 minutes or so, the whole thing went really well. The community leader of the group, Gisele, whom is a Beninese woman who works with my CPS and who has tons of experience teaching people about health-related things, created some drama when the sodas came. Here in Benin, sodas are reserved for officials and everyone else gets beesap or some other beverage, and because of that, there are always a limited number of sodas because they are considered to be expensive. So when the sodas came and there was a rush of everyone, official or not, she just gave them out to whomever and some people who should have gotten one didn’t. But she herself decided to keep one and chugged it right there in front of the officials without offering it to anyone else, including her own team members. She is slowly starting to irritate me in ways like that.

I also found out that she replaced the student on my team, Patricia, with another university-level girl (whom is also named Patricia) while we were on vacation because “her dad wouldn’t let her go to Parakou for the training”. When I talked to the original Patricia, she said that it was because her family didn’t have the money to front to get to Parakou. I had asked Gisele if she had the funds to cover the team to get there until reimbursements were given and she said yes. Otherwise, I would have given them the money to get there myself and gotten reimbursed afterwards. I guess she didn’t though and instead of saying the truth, she made something up, which is quite common here. The new Patricia is also great and motivated and smart, but I just feel really bad for my original Patricia since she was really looking forward to doing this. It’s like she got robbed of it.

Craig and I have both been busy going to two different CEGs (schools) that we picked out to talk to the administration about choosing a girl from a poor family to receive a scholarship for all school-related expenses for the next school year, which is a Peace Corps-funded project countrywide. We didn’t choose the school that we do our English and soccer clubs at because they are already benefiting from our other activities. So we chose two different schools and both sets of administration have been really helpful and happy to work with us on getting one of their disadvantaged girls a scholarship. We should be done with all of the paperwork next week. I specifically chose Patricia’s school (the original one from my team) in hopes that maybe I could help her out that way. I am not playing favorites though, so the scholarship will go to the neediest girl, but seeing as how her family didn’t have $8 to send her to the training, she may actually get it. Stay tuned!

I also started meeting to implement and organize my next big project, a week-long nutritional recuperation program. In the months of November, we are collecting all the contact information at each baby weighing for the women who have malnourished children and in December, we are inviting them to the program, which will take place in January. Now all I have to do is fill out the grant application and figure out exact recipes for the nutrition-rich food that we are going to teach the moms to prepare.

I also went to my Moringa supplier’s house and operations location to see his set up and give him business advice on how to expand and be more profitable. I also suggested that he begin attending the business course that Craig just started doing with Francois, our zemijohn man. He was really happy about all of that and as I type this blog, he is sitting at our kitchen table with Craig going over business stuff.

Craig has started teaching his homologue Excel while at work. They have it on the computer that they use at his job and Craig created an Excel document to help them track all the details of visitors to view progress and the such and his homologue has been blown away by Excel’s capabilities. Craig has also been playing soccer on the weekends with people from the park and other community friends we know.

We started up our English club and oddly enough, it’s only boys who come. This is a problem since we’re supposed to bring a girl to the National Spelling Bee next year up in Natitingou, but if we don’t have any girls participating, it’s going to be difficult. After the first week of no girls, we talked to all the English teachers at the school to inform their students again and encourage them to come, but there still haven’t been any girls. I’m not quite sure how we’re going to solve this pickle, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out. One of the boys who comes to our club is in Premier (which is like being a Junior in high school) and can speak pretty good English. He said he had a book about American things and when we got on the subject of Thanksgiving this week, he already knew what it was, which was truly shocking. When we did that same thing last year, and not only did no one know what it was, but it was that much more difficult to explain. Especially since they have no idea what any of the normal foods that are eaten on Thanksgiving are, with exception to turkey and sweet potatoes.

When we got back from vacation, we also had responses from Russ’s (Craig’s former coach who is a teacher as well) students who received our package of letters that we sent to them back in July, written by our Camp GLOW girls. I sent out a text to all the captains of each school who had girls participating in the exchange with information on a time and a place to meet, but only one girl actually showed up. So we tried again with a different time and place, and again, only one girl showed up. So it’s been quite expensive (with our phone credit and zem rides) and time consuming distributing these letters and at the same time, the boys in our English club are extremely interested in participating, so we have decided to still include only the committed and serious girls from the original exchange and give the rest of the letters to the boys in our English club to respond to. I think that will work out a lot better.

On a side note, since we have been back, we have hosted a Zou Taco Tuesday with the four new volunteers in our area, which was a smashing success. Craig has also gone up to Parakou for a regional VAC meeting as well as the Halloween party—I stayed home in Bohicon. I have been traveling all around the Zou visiting the new volunteers as part of my duties as a PSN member. Statistically, most people end their contract early in the first 3 months at post, so these visits are to give volunteers company as well as support in integrating and problem solving. They all went really well and I am even more appreciative of our western-style home now, especially after visiting one volunteer who didn’t use her latrine at night because there were bats flying around in and outside it. Our “close-mate”, Amy, had a mishap during a lightening storm which fried her computer charger as well as slightly electrocuted her (thanks a lot, Benin, for your tin roofs) so she was kind enough to let us use her internet key until her dead computer comes back to life with a new charger, which Brian is bringing. She and I also tried making cinnamon rolls too, which were kind of successful. So we have had an internet connection, albeit slow, in our house for the last couple days and the prepaid connection will last until tomorrow.

Lastly, Craig and I are leaving on Tuesday to head down to Cotonou. We’re leaving early so we can get some work done while we’re there, like printing, turning in forms, applying for grants, etc. Then, next Wednesday we head to Ghana! Dustin is flying in on the 14th, but because Craig has his PC boss visiting on that day in the afternoon in Bohicon, the soonest we can leave for Cotonou is the 15th. Usually, the taxis just leave for Ghana in the morning from Cotonou, which we’ll certainly miss, so we can’t head over there until the 16th, which is when Brian comes in. I have all the confidence in the world that Dustin will be just fine without us for a day and a half since his girlfriend has been there before and has been giving him lots of tips and instructions, not to mention a Ghanaian phone, which is a lot more than I can say Craig and I can do. We’re spending about a week in Ghana after they arrive to take advantage of some beaching and the western luxuries that Accra has to offer, like sushi and movie theaters. But more importantly, we’ll be with our twinsy and Dustin. We can’t wait!

We took the train into Athens, then a bus to Litochoro to prepare to hike Mt. Olympus the next day. Litochoro was a scenic little mountainside town, and we stayed by the beach at a place about 5km outside the town. We woke up early the next morning and our hostel host was nice enough to drive us to the starting point for the trail on Mt. Olympus at 6am for our all-day hike. We started out in the dark and my headlamp stopped working so we wandered around in the dark for about an hour until the sun finally came up. It was easy going for the first few hours until we got to the first stopping point, “Refuge A”, which lies about halfway up the trail. From there it was really steep and slippery (the trail near the top is covered with loose rock), but we huffed and puffed and finally made it to the “top” by noon. We ate our victory Snickers and headed down, were lucky enough to get a ride back down to Litochoro by a couple at the parking lot at the bottom, and dinner in town and got ready for our next day of travel, to Thessaloniki.

We took the early train to Thessaloniki (the ride is only an hour) and headed straight to the White Tower, its most famous landmark. Once it was used as a prison for political prisoners but now it is a museum for the culture and history of the city. We also saw the Agia Sofia, a 7th-century church (but didn’t go in because it closes for 6 hours in the middle of the day), and other landmarks. We couchsurfed and went out with our host later that night to a bar then a movie. When we were waiting to get into the movie theater, our host mentioned that the Minister of Justice was right behind us and we thought nothing of it until intermission, when 20-odd protesters barged into the theatre, chanting and throwing yogurt on the minister, who was sitting in the back row. There was a lot of pushing and shoving and a big racket until the movie was back on for a good 5 minutes. We had a great time with our host and sadly left the next day to fly to Milan.

We flew to Milan in the afternoon and, because of a delayed plane, arrived just in time to make it to our reservation to see The Last Supper. Later on, we met up with one of Heather’s good friends, Massimiliano, who she knows from her “Paris days”. We had a short, good time in Milan; it is a very pretty city but we unfortunately arrived late and were scheduled to leave the next day for Cinque Terre.

We left early in the morning to take the train to Cinque Terre, where we spent 4 days. It was one of the highlights of our trip and we took full advantage of it, waking up early to walk to the castle at the top of Riomaggiore and spend the day eating gelato and walking the meandering paths that connect to the 4 other principal cities in the area. We tried some freshly made limoncello from a local farmer and ate the local speciality, trofie, a pasta made from chick-pea flour and smothered in delicious pesto sauce. We also met a nice Quebecois couple and were able to brush up on our French that had become rusty since we left Africa. When we left Cinque Terre we took a train through the Tuscany region and visited Lucca and Pisa en route to Florence.

Florence is a beautiful city and has amazing food. We took a lot of pictures in front of the Ponte Vecchio, a famous bridge that is covered in houses (now converted to high-end jewelry stores), saw the statue of David, visited the Uffizi museum, and took a daylong side trip to a little town in the Chianti region for some wine tasting. The Tuscany region is spectacular and everywhere you turn, it looks like you just walked into a painting. It is probably the most beautiful place I have ever visited, and the food is fantastic, too!After a few days in Florence we took off to Rome again to stay for two days until our flight left to come back home. Unbeknownst to us, Rome suffered massive riots that day that we arrived back and we missed the festivities by about 2 hours or so. We stayed with our good friend Paolo who we had stayed with before, and this time we were able to see the Pope and enjoy a last-minute cappuccino and gelato. We spent our last night shopping and filling up our bags with wine and pasta to take back and enjoy in Bohicon.

We arrived safely and refreshed and were excited to get home and get to work. We are really busy and our schedules are fairly packed until February or so. Heather is hard at work with her projects at work and I just started teaching our favorite zem a business course because he wants to start his own business. We also have our English Club and Football Club that just started (because school started at the beginning of October), I’m still looking for a group of guys to regularly play football with, and are always trying to schedule other stuff to do. To top it all off, twinsy and Dustin are coming out to visit for a few weeks at the end of November!

Lots of stuff coming up soon.

Cheers.

Just under our contact information on the right side of the page, we have added a list of projects that we have been working on. Proof to the cynics that we are not on a "2-year vacation"!

Cheers

Athens: 1-3 October

After island hopping, we went back to Athens and hung out with our new Greek friends who hosted us the last time. It was really nice and relaxing. Nelly, the daughter of the family, took us out to a place called Beer Academy where I had the most delicious unfiltered beer of my life. Or…at least within the last 14 months. We spend the entire night with her and didn’t go to bed until almost 4am. It was really fun. We spent the next day hanging out with them in the morning over a yummy breakfast and then spent the rest of the day in Athens. We climbed up to the top of this hill that gives a view of the entire city, which was pretty cool. We also went to the Acropolis museum, which we missed last time. And after we were done with all that, we went to a MALL! It was very exciting. We had their version of Panda Express and I ate orange chicken, which for some reason I had been craving. We were going to watch a movie too, but didn’t have time.

Corinth: 3-6 October

We woke up early to spend some time with our hosts before leaving on the 3rd for Corinth, where we would stay with an old friend from soccer of Craig’s, Kosta, who is Greek-American. When we called Kosta to tell him what train we were taking to Corinth, it turned out he was taking the same one just a stop away. So we chatted the whole hour on the train. He gave us a little walking tour of the city and then we headed back to his house where his mom had prepared an amazing lunch complete with local organic wine. Then we went to their land where they were growing grapes and picked a good 7 pounds of them to munch on. The next day he showed us around another part of the area and then we went bowling. It was the first time we had gone bowling since leaving the States and we had a lot of fun. Afterwards, we had the best gyros that we have had so far in Greece. And his mom let us do our laundry there, which was magical. Kosta and his whole family were amazing hosts and it really felt like we were in America with the American-ran household with Greek flare. The next morning, we got up super early to catch the train back to Athens to catch a bus up to Litochoro.

Litochoro/Mt. Olympus: 6-8 October

Once we arrived in Litochoro, we were automatically blown away by it’s charm and how warm and friendly it was. It was everything that you would imagine and ancient mountain town to be. We were picked up by Perry, the owner of our hostel, and hung out with him for a good part of the night. He was super helpful with all kinds of information about climbing the mountain. We went to bed early (9pm) in order to get up at 4am and be well rested. Since we had to wake up so early that day, it was no problem; we were exhausted! We were eating breakfast with Perry by 5am and we were leaving the hostel by 5:15am to head up to the start of the trail. We were hiking by 6:20am. It was pitch black, cold (luckily Perry let me borrow a woman’s warm windbreaker that he had at the hostel), and a little intimidating since we were the only ones around. Our imaginations definitely got the best of us while we were hiking in the dark. On one occasion though, Craig and I both heard an animal coming towards us from the forest and were completely freaked out. Craig threw a rock in it’s direction and we kept on hiking. The trail was really gravely and when we stepped, our shoes would throw back rocks and we would think it was some nocturnal animal coming to get us so Craig would hear a rock fall from his step and throw another rock frantically in it’s direction, which would get me freaked out and then both of us were imagining things. A little while down the trail, we decided that we were way too freaked out to continue, so we hid against a big rock and waited for the sun to rise. Did I mention it was cold??

Once the sun rose, it was a 2 hour hike up to the first official rest stop where most people who do the trail in 2 days sleep. We didn’t stay there long; just long enough to buy some supplies and use the facilities. We kept going and after 45 minutes or so, we really hit the hard part of the trail. It was barren and rocky and very steep. It was definitely a challenging hike. Once we got to the top, which we had no warning we were nearing it (that would have helped us push through if we knew the end was near), we were super happy and energized. We got really lucky with the weather too. Normally, the weather isn’t as good this time of year, but it was sunny and cloudless for 90% of our hike. At the top, it was still windy and cold, but it was definitely manageable.

Going down the trail seemed to take forever. In reality, we were going down much faster than we were headed up, naturally. Once we got down to the parking lot where we started, Craig asked this older couple if we could hitch a ride down to the town (which is a totally safe and common practice, according to our hostel owner). The guy gave all kinds of excuses why he probably can’t take us, but the wife was wonderfully nice and talked him into it. Turns out, they were from New York. He was originally from Greece and she Brazil and they had lived in the States for the last 40 years. She was really nice to talk to but he was absolutely insane. He basically was completely arrogant about Greece and shot down any thought that there might be something better or equally good outside of Greece. He even stopped the car to admire the view and then told us that we would never find a view like that in California. I’m quite sure he had never been because the view we were looking at is littered all over the Californian countryside. But we were getting a free ride, so I kept my mouth shut.

We leave tomorrow for Thessaloniki, where we got lucky again to couch surf. Then the next day, we are headed back to Italy to Milan. Enjoy the pictures!

Oh, Benin…you make it so easy to leave.

We accrue 48 days of vacation for our 2 years in Benin so we planned a month-long Italian-Greek vacation halfway through our service. We are hoping to return refreshed for our next year of service, and I have a personal goal to gain most of the 20 pounds that I’ve lost over the past year (gyros, pizzas, pastas, gelato!).

Once we got to the airport for our 5 am flight to Rome, we couldn’t wait to get out of Benin. The airport has one terminal and only services a few flights each day. We lined up to check into our flight and “security” was standing there checking everyone’s passports…and taking pictures of them with a digital camera. When we asked why, we were told that the “President of the Republic” wants pictures of passports of everyone who leaves the country. We were traveling with a volunteer who had just finished her service and was heading home who had an especially difficult time with the airport staff who wanted to assert their masculinity one last time before she left the country for good. She had a painting with her and had to tape it to the outside of her checked bag, only for them to tell her that her bag was one kilogram overweight, but they were out of tape so she had to go buy more after removing a pair of shoes from her checked bag so she could re-tape the painting back on. While she was waiting in line again to re-check her bag, some ignames (yams) fell out of a bag belonging to the Beninese couple in front of her, and the security guard ran in front of us while we tried to take a picture. So disappointing. (See picture below.) Then we went through 5 more security checkpoints so 11 different people could check our passports (one had a rad game of freecell going on his computer). Finally, eventually, we left. So long.

Rome: 17-20 SeptemberWe flew from Cotonou to Casablanca to Rome. We arrived in Rome late and went straight to our hostel, and explored a little. Heather had already been to Rome before so I got my first glimpse of the Coliseum, Trevi fountain, Spanish steps, Parthenon, Vatican, and countless piazzas that dot the city. We had delicious food, gelato, pastries, and cappuccinos. One day we just bought some cheese and wine and had a little picnic at one of the beautiful piazzas, Piazza Novanna, before going back to where we were staying. We stayed in a hostel the first night and for our second and third nights there we stayed with our new friend Paolo, who lives just outside the city. We had trouble with the banks in Rome. Apparently Italy recently passed a law that disallows their banks to change traveler’s cheques, which made basically all of our money null and void (we brought the vast majority of our money in traveler’s cheques, and the moneychangers charge up to 50% in fees to change them). We finally, after an entire morning of trying, were able to get some money. (We had to wait until Athens to change the cheques.) Paolo was really nice and we were able to celebrate Oktoberfest in Rome with him the first night we stayed with him. There was a La Mesa-esque Oktoberfest celebration going on with barbeque, beer, and line dancing. The next day, we went to the Vatican and saw the Sistine Chapel (we had climbed the basilica and saw the Pope—on the TV screens in the plaza—the previous day). Our last night in Rome, Paolo’s brother cooked a delicious Italian pasta dish that we enjoyed together before going off to the airport. Heather slept in the airport just enough to keep me from nodding off, and we had to change terminals at 3 am because one was closing. It was freezing.

Athens: 20 SeptemberOur early flight to Athens was nice and short and we arrived in the morning and got situated with our hosts, a fantastic Greek family who live just outside Athens. Our new friend, Mel, was nice enough to host us: his mother, who speaks English, his father, who speaks French, and his sister, who speaks English and French, were so great to us, and they even had a big dog, Lion, who is just like Ole Gunnar. We got situated at our host house and explored the Plaka area of Athens and the Acropolis. We ate lots of delicious gyros and I got off to a good start on my weight gain regimen. We left early the next morning on a ferry for Santorini, but before that, we stayed up really late hanging out with our adopted Greek family.

Santorini: 21-24 SeptemberThe ferry to Santorini was about 7 hours long, most of which, we spent enjoying Amstel beers. When we finally got there, we figured out the public bus system and met with our hosts, Vlada and Inese, a newlywed couple who were nice enough to share their place with us. Santorini currently suffers from too many tourists. The main island, Thira, had 11 cruise ships in port one of the days we were there, but the island is gorgeous and we took a little sunset cruise ourselves to a volcanic island and “hot” springs. On our way down the steps to the port, we passed some other folks who were taking donkeys down (it’s easier, apparently) and one girl absolutely FREAKED OUT and had a complete breakdown just after we passed them because she thought that her donkey was going too fast (they were walking and she was American, unfortunately). We also visited a red sand beach, but couldn’t visit the white sand beach because the boats weren’t running because of the weather (it has been really windy on all of the islands, which makes for choppy seas). Vlada was nice enough to take us to his secret swimming place, though, so I was able to get in the (cold) water and take a little swim. I ate lots of gyros!

Naxos: 24-26 SeptemberAfter a few days we said good-bye and took a ferry to Naxos, the largest island in the Cyclades chain. We didn’t have any hosts and didn’t make reservations anywhere, so we were hoping that we could get hooked up at the port when we arrived. A really nice local lady who lives in a smaller town, called Agia Anna, hooked us up with a really good deal on a studio apartment 5 minutes walk from the beach. She even made us frappe’s and gave us a small bottle of wine that her family produces when we checked in! (And there was Wi-Fi!) We definitely could have stayed there for a long time. The town was small and walkable and there were really good restaurants that served inexpensive but really good food. We really wanted to rent scooters or an atv but we didn’t bring our drivers licenses (Heather’s is expired, anyway). It didn’t really matter, though, because Agia Anna had pretty much everything we wanted and needed. The town is a little farming town with a pretty little beach and we went for a run one morning and kept running into farmland and kept having to turn around. One day we took the public bus to Naxos Town, the largest city, and were lucky enough to find a bar that had happy hour from 2pm to 2am, so Heather finally got her frozen cocktail that she has been craving for the past 14 months (I opted for a mojito). There aren’t enough great things to say about Naxos. I’m hoping that we can go back and explore some more one day.

Paros: 26 SeptemberWe decided to take a chance and leave Naxos after only a few days to check out Paros, which turned out to be a big mistake. Paros is slightly smaller than Naxos, but one really needs a car or scooter to explore the island because the buses don’t go everywhere. We tried our luck with accommodations again and the guy we decided to rent a room from was insane. He was dancing in the car and kept telling us that he dances to hip-hop, rap, and R&B and told us about his YouTube page where we can see him dancing at a local bar wearing an orange hat. He was really drunk later that night and we decided to leave the next day. He was creepy and maybe going through some sort of midlife crisis and lied to us about the accommodations. We couldn’t even see any of the beaches, anyway, because we didn’t have a car or scooter and boats that went to “good” beaches weren’t running because of the weather. Not to mention, a dog humped Craig's leg. A lot of people here have great things to say about Paros, but the less that we say here the better. Not our favorite.

Mykonos: 27 September-1 OctoberWe couldn’t wait to get to Mykonos! Our last island stop. We took the “fast ferry”, a catamaran that only took 45 minutes to get there. It was really windy and the waves rocked the boat a lot while we tried to get in. I was in the middle of the ramp to get onto the ship and it almost fell into the water (with me on it). It was a long rollercoaster ride. Heather had to “go to her happy place” while I turned on my iPod and stared out the window. We were sitting just above the water level and saw the waves shooting up and over the side of the boat. There were huge swells and we were stuck back in our seats the whole ride. It was a lot of fun! We rolled the accommodations dice again in Mykonos and found a nice German lady who hooked us up with a little apartment right in the center of town. We visited the “party beach” and went out that night and partied way too hard. While we were getting ready to go out, we turned on the TV and there was a show about Benin! The host went to Abomey and Bohicon! We were transfixed, trying to remember our “home” that we had left less than two weeks before. We tried to get up early the next day to take a day trip to Delos but that definitely was not going to happen. We woke up late and decided to check out some quiet beaches while we sorted out the details from the previous night. We took the bus to a recommended beach, only to find out that it was a (mostly) nude gay beach. The beach was still nice, though, and a friend we made on the bus let us stay at a private hotel beach for free (away from all the “action”). We went out to a really good Italian restaurant that night (needed a short break from all the gyros). On Sept 30 we took a day trip to Delos, a small island that has amazingly well preserved Greek ruins and artifacts, and we made a delicious pesto pasta dinner.

We have been discovering all of our “Beninisms” that we have acquired over the past year. For example, I have been keeping plastic bags and water bottles to reuse them later. I had a huge pile of bags that I had to force myself to throw away (I was keeping them for the woman who cleans that room so she could reuse them as trash bags). We have also been insisting on breaking big bills wherever we go in order to get small change. We have been hoarding change like the Beninese do. There is a big problem with a lack of “petite monnaie” in Benin because everyone hoards coins! They last longer than bills and everything is so inexpensive, anyway, it makes sense to just pay for everything with smaller money…EXCEPT for the fact that nobody ever wants to get rid of it and many vendors would rather lose a customer than to part with their precious coins. We are entranced by all the technology of the developed world: everyone has a new iPhone or iPad, there are working gauges on buses, wine in bottles, and working refrigerators! It has been a little reverse culture shock but I think that it will help us cope when we finally do come home (we joke that by the time we get back to the States, there will be an iPhone 12 and iPad 5 already…).

Cheers!

There will be a lull in activity here for the next month, as we will be on a month-long vacation to Italy and Greece.

But when we get back we will be busy. Heather will be busy working with her CPS and child malnutrition/nutritional recuperation project, Amour et Vie team, and new moringa counterpart, while I am going to try to teach our favorite zemidjohn business skills and try to set up an Artist/Artisan fair at my site during the height of our tourist season.

We will post photos when we get back, or you can check out Heather's facebook to see them sooner.

Cheers!

From August 7-13 we were in Parakou to help out with another Camp GLOW. We had organized our own camp back in July and had signed on to help with this camp, as well, though this camp in Parakou was slightly different because it was an overnight camp and the girls came from all over the north-east region of Benin. (If you remember, our camp was a day camp and involved just girls from our city of Bohicon.) The girls had sessions during the day where they learned about harassment, the importance of education, HIV/AIDS, malaria, sports, and women’s issues. The girls stayed overnight in dorms while we stayed at the Peace Corps workstation. We were supposed to bring a few girls but were not able to because our mayor refused to contribute money to pay for travel and food expenses. The funding for the camp depended on a certain amount of “community contribution”; each volunteer who brought girls asked their local mayor for a certain amount of money to pay for travel and food expenses for the girls, which was to form part of the community contribution that was factored into the overall budget for the camp.

The camp went well and we had a great time and gave a presentation on malaria as our major contribution to the camp. The rest of the time, we tried to get the girls to participate and to facilitate the learning process.

After the camp was over, we traveled down to Savalou to work a tourism booth (to promote my site) and a moringa booth (to promote moringa—duh) at the annual Igname Fête, which marks the beginning of the igname harvest. There were a lot of booths where we could buy artisanal crafts and trinkets, vendors from Togo and Ghana, and there was even cotton candy, Chilean wine, and soft-serve ice cream! We also ate lots and lots of igname pile, which is my favorite Beninese food. Ignam Pilé (literally, “pounded yams”) is made by boiling gigantic ignames, then placing them in a gigantic mortar and pounding the crap out of them with a huge pestle. When finished, it looks like and has the texture of bread dough, but tastes like mashed potatoes. It is served with a spicy peanut sauce with wagasi (locally produced cheese—also delicious!) and is cheap, normally 500 cfa (about a dollar).

After the 3-day Igname Fête we went to another local volunteer’s post to go for a hike in the beautiful Collines region of Benin. The cities of Savalou and Dassa are well-known for their wonderful hiking, and we had been meaning for a while to visit Tony, the volunteer who lives near Dassa, and go for a hike. We went on a two-hour long hike and the view from the top of the hill was very pretty—pictures to come!

We are in Cotonou now for our mid-service medical appointments, which include samples of certain bodily fluids. I am pretty sure that we are not carrying around any parasites or worms or weird tropical diseases, so this should be short and sweet.

Our Italy/Greece vacation starts begins in less than a month!

Cheers

We watch a lot of movies and TV shows that we have brought with us, were sent to us, or that we have borrowed from other volunteers. We are always pleasantly surprised when a movie or series mentions the Peace Corps. Without any further ado, below is our list so far. Do you have any others to add?

Movies or TV Shows that mention the Peace Corps

Airplane!

Along Came Polly

Blood Diamond

Dirty Dancing

LOST

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Sex And The City

The Devil Wears Prada

Towelhead

Volunteers

Heather has been busier than I on this blog lately, so here is a quick rundown of what I’ve been up to and what is in store for me/us coming up soon.

My biggest project that I have been working on, the website that I have been creating for my parc is finished—for now. My supervisor and I recently wrote up a budget for the calendar year 2012 that included funds for everything involved with allowing folks to view my labor of love.

Last year we submitted our marketing budget too late. Apparently it needs to be submitted in July so that numbers can be bandied about before it is voted on in November. If or when the funds are approved, we can move forward on the other items included in our funds request, which mainly consist of printing flyers, brochures, and other promotional material to deposit at local hotels and give out to Beninese tour guides/companies to promote our little piece of fantastic in the craziness of Bohicon.

As Heather wrote in the last post, our first annual Bohicon Camp GLOW was a success. See her post below for more details.

Last weekend after the camp we hosted some new stagiares (read: trainees) who arrived July 2 for their “demystification weekend”. It was basically a chance for them to see what volunteers actually do with their time in Benin, and it was a great opportunity for Heather and I to see just how far we have come. This weekend we will host three more and I will leave with them to go down to their training site in Porto-Novo for the week where I will be leading some training sessions.

Our favorite Zemidjan recently revealed to me that he wants to start his own business, so I will start meeting with him on a weekly basis to teach him the essentials (accounting, keeping track of stock, marketing, etc.). If that all goes well (and I have the time) then maybe I will approach the nice folks at the Maison des Jeunes and see if they would like me to lead a free weekly seminar to budding entrepreneurs.

We will be spending a week in Parakou in a few weeks to help out with the Camp GLOW there, then hit Savalou for a few days on the way back down south to take part in their (famous in Benin) Ignam Fête to promote my site. That should be a great opportunity to network with tour guides and eat lots and lots of Ignam Pilé (think: super-mashed potatoes with peanut sauce and meat).

A few weeks after that, we take our month-long vacation to Greece/Italy, and shortly after that, a pair of very special folks will be visiting us for a few weeks (can’t wait to see you, Brian and Dustin)! That will take us into the holiday season and the end of the year.

But before Brian and Dustin arrive (and after our vacation), my girls’ soccer club at our local school will start up again, and I hope to get a good turnout. I received approval from the American NGO who supplies us soccer balls to have Peace Corps release some to me, but due to what I believe is a miscommunication between the NGO and our vast bureaucracy, I have yet to receive anything. Here’s hoping that that all works out.

I have been so busy that I haven’t finished a book in over a month! It’s a good busy. Don’t worry Mom and Dad, I am eating plenty and working out a lot. I even feel like I am gaining some weight back.

Premier League starts August 13! Glory Glory Man United!

Cheers.

On Sunday, July 10th, 7 other volunteers arrived at our house (the 8th one the following morning) to work the very first Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) in Bohicon. With all the time-consuming preparations, stress, worrying, and hours spent grueling over how I would do this camp, by the time they arrived, I thought that I would have been running around and stressed out, but I was surprisingly calm, excited, and really happy. We had a really great group of volunteers helping out, all of whom we get along with very well. We had a little bump in the road when we realized that all of our office-like supplies were left on the PC shuttle and we wouldn’t be able to use them until Wednesday when the shuttle went through our town again, but that didn’t even worry me. We had a little mini-meeting for less than an hour when everyone got there and by the end of it, we were ready to rock the whole camp. I didn’t sleep at all that night because my mind wouldn’t stand still for longer than 10 seconds.

Day One (July 11th): Sleep deprived and all, we started day one bright and early and totally stoked with a 6:30am alarm. Craig and I were the first to leave the house after coffee. I realized half way there that I forgot the key to the room where we had stored everything, and we had to send Elaina back to the house a couple of times (she was the runner that day) for things we forgot, but other than that, it was a pretty flawless day. When we got there, there were already about 10 girls waiting for us and we got there at 7:30am! They didn’t have to be there for another hour. So that was really encouraging that they were excited enough about the camp to come an hour early. As Patrick, Andrea, and Rich were all doing the check-in, giving t-shirts, taking permission slips, etc, Sarah and Erin were teaching the kids songs. My personal favorite was Destiny Child’s “Independent Woman” in French. It was pretty awesome. We started our opening ceremony incredibly late since we were waiting on the Mayor, who never showed up. The media didn’t show up either as promised, which I was grateful for. Craig and I did our speech, my supervisor did her speech, and someone from the Mayor’s office did a speech. It went really well. We had sodas and the good cookies for all the adults for after the ceremony while the girls got their own less-expensive version of a beverage and cookies. We went over the objectives and rules of the camp and then got in our 5 groups (grouped by colored t-shirt). We had 8 girls that didn’t show up all week, but it was still a good turn out and didn’t affect the groups. We ate with our groups and then played a questionnaire-game to get to know everyone. The photographer showed up and took a group picture of all of us. Afterwards, we went over the next day’s program and then cleaned up and everyone started going home. So day one was really more of an intro for the week, games, activities, and getting to know them more than anything else. After the camp, Erin, Craig, and I went on a long run and inspired most everyone else to do a little workout of some sort. That night, we had a little pow-wow on how to make the next day run smoother then ordered chwarma (yum!).

Day Two (July 12th): After check-in, Patrick and Andrea played “Sharks and Minnows” with the girls and they loved it. It woke them all up and burned out their excess energy so when we started the next activity, “Qui Suis-je?” (Who Am I?) they were attentive. That activity was nice and encouraged them to think positively about themselves since they had to find a positive adjective for each letter of their name. The following activity that we did with them was a Myers-Briggs test. Once they all had their results, we ran off copies of the result page that each needed and spent time with them making sure they understood everything. They seemed to really enjoy it. Several of them said that the test results described them to a “T” and were really surprised that a pre-written thing could be so dead-on. After lunch, we played soccer. We broke up onto 3 different fields. One of the girls on Craig’s team, Hortence, was upset that her team was losing and started a strike with all of her team members and just quit playing. Ha! It was ridiculous and hilarious all at the same time. She was definitely the strongest personality out of all of the girls present at the camp. Following soccer, Gilles (my neighbor and collegue from the CPS) came in and talked to the girls about healthy relationships with other people and women’s’/girls’ rights. I could definitely tell that all these girls were truly the brightest in Bohicon because they all wanted to participate, they all wanted to answer questions, and they all were attentive and respectful to whomever had the floor. It was amazing. After Gilles left, Patrick talked about how to re-use water saches by using them to plant Moringa. Almost none of the girls had heard about Moringa before, so he explained and we decided to squeeze in a Moringa session later on in the week. We had a little pow-wow again that night on how the day went.

Day Three (July 13th): After the girls arrived and registered, they all went into a different room (shoes off) and did yoga/stress management, which was led by Rich and Andrea. None of them had ever done yoga before and they all really liked it. In our camp reviews, some of them said they didn’t like it because it made them sore all over the next day and that was the only reason, so I think it was a success! After that, we had a professional panel come in. We had someone from the mayor’s office (government), a teacher from a school (education), a nurse (health), someone from Bohicon’s women’s center (social work), and a local artist’s wife who runs his art business (entrepreneurial). Julien is the artist and he is also the Censeur (like Vice-Principle) of the school where the camp was. His art was featured in a museum in Chicago for 6 weeks and he speaks fluent English and is very friendly and warm to all Peace Corps volunteers who cross his path, and he’s been a great help throughout this entire camp. The day before, we set out a “Question Box” where the girls could anonymously ask any kind of question they wanted and it was a huge success. We originally did it so that they would think of questions ahead of time for the professional panel that we could give to them, but they used it for every session, which was really awesome. Julien’s wife, Pauline, the nurse (who is the sister of Craig’s homologue), and the teacher were absolutely awesome and very inspirational for the girls. The woman from the mayor’s office was mediocre…she got off subject a lot and would go on and on about how her father would beat her. The woman from the women’s center was terrible…all she did was talk about her rough upbringing and religion. Definitely not what I invited her to talk about, but oh well. Hopefully, someone got something out of it. After lunch, we played red light/green light which was a huge success with the girls. We were supposed to have the added moringa session after that, but the moringa cultivator that we asked to come didn’t show up. The photographer DID show up to give me the pictures that he took for us the first day and tons of girls wanted special pictures with their group, their volunteer, etc and it got kind of out of hand. We decided to limit it to a group picture by color and that was it. After picture-taking mania, we had someone from my CPS (Celine, the awful woman that was supposed to be my homologue in the beginning) come in and talk about family planning. She kept picking on the girls to answer questions, some of them were obviously new to the material and had no idea and she would pick on them anyway. She didn’t explain things well, if at all, and the only family planning method other than abstinence that she talked about was condoms. About half way through, Elaina and I got up there and co-led it with her to try to make it better. I don’t know why they sent her to do that session when I requested Gisele, the woman from my Amour et Vie team who is awesome at family planning, but that’s who they sent. There was a point when Celine didn’t understand that the girls didn’t know what they were looking at when they were told to look at a picture of a vagina, so Elaina sat on the table with her legs open (she was wearing pants) and put the picture in between her legs to show them what they were looking at. It was funny and the girls immediately understood. After the camp that day, upon receiving word that Bohicon had lions, we went to this mysterious place that ended up being a very sad zoo. Before we left though, while Andrea was trying to pose in front of a monkey that was not in a cage, the monkey ran up and smacked her on the head. Haha! Maybe he was camera shy? After the sad zoo, we went to Julien’s house to see his art. He has some very impressive stuff and I can understand why it was on exhibition in Chicago for 6 weeks. He gives PCVs the “family discount”, which is about 25% of what a tourist would pay, so Craig and I will probably be coming home with some of his art. After Julien’s house, we were all pretty beat so we made salads and watched a movie, which I fell asleep watching. We did realize that Craig’s keys (which have our main gate key on them) had somehow gotten left at the camp site and the gate was locked and there were people out at the bar, so we had to wake up our neighbors to open the gate for them.

Day Four (July 14th): As girls arrived this morning, we sent them to the back of the school where Patrick was leading a “planting Moringa in water saches” session. It was quick and went really well. They learned a lot about the Moringa and were completely done with their hands washed by the time our guest speaker for HIV/AIDS (Gisele with an NGO) arrived. We invited the same NGO that we had invited for our World AIDS Day event that we did back in December and they showed the same graphic photos. I think it got the point across though and the whole session went really well. After that, Andrea and I led a session on Self-Esteem. We talked about what it meant, what high self-esteems and low self-esteems mean and so on. We had them do a written activity where they list things that they like about themselves, among other things. After they were done with that, we went outside and taped a folded piece of paper on all of their backs and everyone wrote what they liked about that person on their backs and at the end of the session, they took off the paper and read what was written about them. I thought it went really well. Craig and Erin T. led the next session on goals and aspirations in life. They had all the girls write out a long-term goal, like what they want to be when they grow up, and then write out all the short-term goals that they would need to achieve to get there, like doing well in school. It was a good learning experience for the volunteers and the kids I think. I learned a lot about their school system during that session. And there were a couple tiny little girls who want to be police officers when they grow up, which I thought was really cute. After lunch, we played freeze tag. They didn’t understand it at first and everyone was just running around pushing each other, but after further explanation and examples, they got it. It was super fun and tired them out really quickly. After 17 minutes, all of the girls were back under the tree pouring water over their heads and panting. Haha! It was hilarious! They rebounded quickly though and went back out for more. Once they were all tired out, we went in and had a session on sexual harassment in the school system, which is a huge problem here. Someone from the CPS came to lead it, but seeing how the last one that they led went, I had Erin T. who is an English teacher here, co-lead it with them. It worked out well and we even finished a little early, which is amazing whenever anyone from Benin is in charge of a session. Things rarely end on time; they like to talk. Since we finished early, we all sat down after the CPS people left and answered questions from the question box. They were all really good questions and some of them were very concerning, such as one about whether or not it’s ok for a girl’s brother to have sex with his sister. I thought we answered them all very well and gave them a lot of really good resources to deal with serious problems like that. The last question was, “what does it mean for a boy to masturbate, how do they do it, and….is it good?”. HA! Patrick and Craig were supposed to take that one, but Craig was so embarrassed that he just sat there, beat-red and laughing, as Patrick demonstrated with a garden hoe how guys masturbate. It was pretty hilarious. Craig and I shared the information about the pen-pal exchange program through PC that he started up with Russ’s school (his former soccer coach) and instructed all the girls who were interested to write a letter in English that night to mail off to the States. There were a lot of girls from all over Bohicon interested in the program so we set up a system of communication with all of them to set up meetings once a month to exchange letters. That is really exciting for us since we’ve been trying to start this for forever now. That night, Patricia, who is on my Amour et Vie team that I set up, called me to ask me if the letter should be informal or not. I had no idea that she was at the camp, so I was really confused. Turns out, I totally didn’t recognize her all week! She had been in the camp all week and didn’t say anything to me about the Amour et Vie team either. Crazy! Now I would never NOT recognize her, that’s for sure!

Day Five (July 15th): This was our last day of camp and very bitter sweet. We were happy that it was coming to an end and everything went so well but sad to say goodbye to all the girls. During the week, I had handpicked 3 girls who were in 4eme (the highest grade level invited) and just passed into 3eme. These girls stood out to me as leaders and would not be invited back next year since they would be past the cutoff grade so I pulled them aside during registration to invite them to come back next year as junior counselors to help out at the camp with the other volunteers. They were really happy about the opportunity and gave me all their contact information. In the morning, Erin S. and I led a healthy diets and exercise session that went really well. Exercising to stay healthy isn’t in the culture here and one of our “Question Box” questions was how to have a flat stomach, stay slim, etc. So it was a good opportunity to address that. After our session, Craig, Erin T. and Rich all led a session on various study abroad opportunities. We talked to them about the Fulbright program for the States and different programs in Francophone countries. They were really interested in that and asked a lot of questions. I don’t think that anyone had ever mentioned the possibility of leaving Benin for school to them before. On our review that we gave to the girls, all of the girls really loved the session about studying abroad except for one and it was because she didn’t think that she had high enough grades to get a scholarship so it made her sad, but in order to come to the camp, you had to have the best grades out of the entire school. So it didn’t really make sense. Anyway, that session was kind of like my brainchild and I’m really good that they all liked it so much and got something out of it. Gilles came back to do a session on how to succeed in life, which went really well because it was all reinforcement by a Beninese person of what we’ve been telling them all week. We had lunch then did a little pop-quiz to measure how much they all absorbed all week (for grant-reporting purposes) and then gave them an evaluation to fill out about the camp. After those two formalities, we started the closing ceremony. Julien talked to them about the Fulbright program a bit since he will soon be a Fulbright (he’s planning on studying at Berkley in 2012 on a Fulbright) and gave a really inspiring speech to the girls. I spoke after him and just said a few words on how I would miss them all and how awesome they all are, because they truly are, and how they can go super far in life if they work hard and believe in themselves. It was a sad speech and one of the girls pulled me aside crying because she was so sad to see the end of the camp. By this time, there were only 5 volunteers left (one from each colored team) and we each gave out the certificates, group picture, and school supplies to each of our girls on our team. They all got really nice backpacks with 4 meters of khaki (for their school uniforms), 4 notebooks, a pencil, and 4 pens, which is already more than they’re required to have for school. We collected all the girls’ letters to be sent to the States after the ceremony and before the fête-ing (partying). Once the ceremony finished, we had cookies and the DJ played music that we were all dancing to. It was really fun and we all got to dance with almost all the girls. It was a great end to the camp.

We cleaned up, packed up, and headed home after all the girls left. Myself, Elaina, Rich, and Patrick all helped in a team effort to clean up our house since we had 3 new trainees coming to stay with us for the weekend. I was told that Erin T. (camp-planning super woman) was really impressed with our camp and Rich told us that this was the best-organized camp that he’d ever seen. Since the other camps that he’s participated in have been going on for years and years and this was our first camp and we hadn’t a clue to what we were doing most of the time, it was a huge compliment. After cleaning up the house, I read the evaluations of the camp that the girls wrote. They all really loved the camp and all the volunteers but not surprisingly, they only liked “a little” the people from the CPS. It was really great to read their comments and praises on the evaluations and doing so made all of the stress, work, frustration, and much running around all worth it. And after meeting all those girls and spending a week with them, it was also all worth it because every one of those girls was worth it. They were truly an amazing bunch of girls. We didn’t have any problems with anything. They all participated and were super well-behaved and even on time every morning (for the most part). All the girls had so much personality and were so strong-willed. I really do believe that they can do anything in their lives and hope that I will come back to Benin to visit in 15 years and see them all in successful careers leading lives full of happiness, reaped from all of their hard work. The thing that really made it all worth it though is the fact that I know that this camp will be like a fork in the road that will make a big difference in some of their lives. Whether it’s the lesson on family planning that keeps them from getting pregnant and dropping out of school or that they learn about a program in the States after the study abroad session and get a Fulbright to study there, I know that some of them will lead better lives because of this camp, and that’s enough for me. We will definitely be doing this camp again next year. Only it will be the new-and-improved version. You can find pictures of this on Facebook...the internet is too slow to upload them to the blog. Sorry!

A special thanks to the Wiricks for funding the t-shirts. The camp would have been totally different and not nearly as successful without the t-shirts and your support. Because of those t-shirts, we were able to have teams based on color, which was the foundation of how the camp ran so smoothly. Thank you a million times over!

One of the many errands and tasks that I have had to accomplish for this girls’ camp was to get a couple banners made that welcomed the girls to the camp. I arranged with my co-worker for them to be made by a local guy here in Bohicon and wrote out specifically what I wanted the banners to say. I also instructed them to draw a globe on the side of the banner as well. The banner was to say “Bienvenue a (line 1) Camp GLOW Bohicon (line 2) Girls Leading Our World (line 3)”. I told them not to paint anything until I ok’d it. So I went to the shop to proofread everything and I decided that I wanted them to do each of the English words in a different color that would correspond to the letter in “GLOW”. I knew that I was reaching for the stars, but they seemed fine with it. So I asked them what colors they had and they said that they had green, red, blue, and black. Since the rest of the banner would be in black, I asked the apprentice if they could mix the blue and the red to make purple and use that color for the forth word and letter.

“Non, c’est impossible!” –It’s impossible“C’est possible; c’est facile, quoi” – It’s possible and easy

After going around with that a couple of times, I gave up. The shop owner and boss-man came in and showed me where everything would go on the banner. The banner was probably a foot longer/wider than the paper that they had the letters stenciled on. That’s right, they use a stencil system here, like in kindergarten. He said that he would put the globe at the top of the banner and then add the writing. I didn’t like that, so I asked him why he didn’t just put the globe on the side, like we already agreed on and he said that there is no space, which on the paper, there isn’t enough space, but on the banner (what really matters in the end), there is. I told him that if he cut out the lines and spaced them out equally on the banner that there would be more than enough space.

“No, you didn’t understand what I said.” Then he (and my co-worker, whom is equally slow) proceeded to re-explain the same thing to me like I’m an enfant with a learning disability. It was about at this time that I put my fingers to my temples, looked down, took a deep breath, and tried to practice my patience.

“Yes, I understood what you said, but you aren’t understanding me.”

This lasted longer than it should have and I had to listen to them (the shop owner AND my co-worker, who is supposed to be on my side) swear that the problem is my incompetence in French, not their incompetence in imagination/problem solving. They insisted on re-explaining their reasoning to me about 5 times, which forced me to re-explain my point just as many.

Finally, we agreed that in order to understand each other, we would have the apprentice cut out each line so I could show them what I was talking about on the banner itself. Fifteen minutes later, I spaced out the lines equally and put the picture of the globe to the side. “Ahhh huuuuhhhh!” They finally understood. Then, after we had that sorted out, I asked him if it would be possible to mix the blue and red to make purple for the forth color in “GLOW”.

“No, that’s way too much work”. Are you freakin’ kidding me?? “No, it’s easy. You just get another can, fill it half with blue and half with red and mix it up with a pen or something. If you give me the materials, I will show you.” “No, I don’t have time for that. It’s too much work”.

That conversation went on for another five minutes before I could convince him that it wasn’t too much work and that he was capable of doing it. So once we had that under control, he asked me if I wanted the first line to be in purple too. I said that black was fine, but it didn’t really matter to me if it was in purple or black; whatever was easier for him. Well, that confused the hell out of him for some reason until I had to cut him off and tell him to just stick to the letter and corresponding word for purple and leave the top line in black. I then drew it out on a piece of paper to be super clear. That led to the discussion of when it would all be finished and we could pick it up. He wanted a week to stencil in letters and draw a globe. My co-worker wanted to get it in 2 days. Since we’re the paying customers, we actually won that battle.

As we were out the door, he asked my co-worker in the softest voice that I have ever heard (which proves that they CAN have a conversation without screaming—they just choose not to most of the time) so I wouldn’t hear, for the rest of the money. The expression that he had on his face was the same expression that homeless crazy women have when they ask for food and money when they see a white person. Since we didn’t have any money on us anyway, it was easy to get out of that one and make the agreement that the rest would be paid when we pick up the banners.

This whole ordeal lasted over an hour and although it may not seem very frustrating, it really was, and places in the top ten most frustrating days in Benin. I guess it’s all just part of the experience though and I’m sure I’ll somehow be a better person in the long run for it. At least, that’s what I tell myself when I get into situations like those. In hindsight, it was pretty funny. We should start a TV show out here.

Heather and I both traveled this past weekend, albeit in opposite directions.

Heather headed down to Cotonou to greet the new stagiares, or trainees, who arrived Saturday night, and to hobnob with Embassy staff at the Ambassador’s 4th of July party that was held on July 1. With the arrival of the new trainees, it means that we have now been here for an entire year! We are halfway there. We have not realized how far we have come until we met the new little “baby birds”—what do you mean you don’t know how to ride a zem or eat ignam pilé?—it is both eye-opening and humbling to see how much progress we have made since we arrived in Benin last July. We seem to have adapted nicely so far. Thank you all for your continued love and support.

I headed to Djougou, about 5 hours north, to play in an annual soccer game between German volunteers and American Peace Corps Volunteers dubbed “American Blitzkrieg”. It is a two-day competition, where we play European football on the first day and American football on the second day. The volunteer who hosted us and organized the event wrote up an announcement that was broadcasted on local radio in the area for two weeks prior to the match, and Beninese who live a few hours away knew about the match.

A few PCVs have German Volunteers in their cities/villages. The German Volunteers generally go to university after their volunteer service. They serve as volunteers as a “civilian option” to mandatory military conscription. They work with local Non-Governmental Organizations, just like we do, but they get a lot more money, can purchase and drive their own motorcycles, and are only here for a year rather than for two. And they all speak really good French and English. A few can also speak other languages.

We ended up with 12 volunteers playing, and the Germans unexpectedly showed up with at least 20. We arrived at the stadium in Djougou an hour early, and the stands were already mostly full and the Germans were taking team pictures and warming up. Both teams talked a lot of smack before the game. We made WWII jokes, and they wondered aloud where all the Americans were (the punch line: “Are they in Iraq?” “Ok, how many troops do we still have in your country?”). We had the makings of a classic encounter.

Before the game we lined up and walked out to the center of the field, single file, then faced the crowd and sang our respective national anthems. I lined up in center midfield in a playmaker role, tucked in nicely just behind our two forwards (one of whom, I would find out later, was 3 beers in when he arrived at the field, but he was wearing cleats so it evened out). The field, of course, was dirt, and we more or less estimated the touch and goal lines. The quality of the game was about the same as the field (overall, not so great). The Beninese showed up for a show and we didn’t disappoint, and they laughed at us as we slipped and clumsily mishit plenty of passes and shots. There were a few good give-and-go’s, and there was some quality here and there. We ended up winning 1-0 with a first-half goal, but three or four would have been more reasonable.

After the game we all went out to a bar where a concert was organized. I’m not sure if it was for us or not (there were about 40 of us and we far outnumbered the Beninese at the bar). We had a great time and made some new friends.

This week Heather and I are making the final preparations for our girl’s camp. I am in Cotonou for a meeting (I am our regional representative for the Volunteer Advisory Council, or VAC), and will take the PC shuttle up on Sunday with lots of necessary items for our camp, while Heather is at home working with her supervisor to hammer out the final details.

We have about 2 months to go until our much-needed vacation and 4 months until Brian and Dustin visit us for a few weeks! Can’t wait to see you guys!

Cheers!

On the 24th, Craig and I took our two Regional Spelling Bee winners up to Natitingou for the National Spelling Bee. Before we actually even left, we had a lot of hurdles that we had to jump over.

First, our two winners had quit showing up to our English Club, so we had to tell the other kids to send them to our house if they see them. Sure enough, within a week, both of them had shown up at our house and we started practice and study sessions with them. We were only going to do them once a week like we were doing our English Club, but since they had so many words to review and they weren’t comfortable with them yet, upon their request, we started meeting with them twice a week for about two hours each time to review words. This worked great for Yannik, the boy, but the second meeting, Marlyse showed up very late after I called her parents and then she quit showing up at all. I called and they said she was in the hospital in Cotonou. I didn’t quite believe them, so I went to her house after another session, but sure enough, she was sick and in Cotonou. It sounds very serious when it’s phrased like that, but it’s normal for people to go to Cotonou for medical treatment because that’s where all the “good” doctors are.

Our second big roadblock was the parents. Neither set of parents wanted to just let some white people take their kid to the other end of the country for a weekend without meeting us and getting confirmation from the school that we were legit and weren’t going to sell their kids into slavery. First we met Marlyse’s mom and she was supportive of what was going on, but left the decision of whether or not to sign the permission slip to her father, who is always in Cotonou. Then we met Yannik’s mom. She came to our house with him while we weren’t there, but luckily the school’s Censeur (like a Vice Principle) is out neighbor and he assured her that it was ok. The next day, we had success in meeting with her. Shortly afterwards, we learned from Marlyse’s mom that her father wasn’t going to let her go with us. Surely it was because he didn’t know us, so we arranged to go back to their house the next day when he was supposed to be home so we could meet him. We took Gilles, the Censeur, with us to ensure success and at first, they weren’t even home. After waiting around for a while, they finally showed up and the father gave his blessing.

The final road block to all of this was at breakfast the morning of the departure. We invited the kids and their parents over to our house before we had to leave for pancakes. Yannik and his parents showed up on time (for Beninese standards) but Marlyse was no where to be found and everytime we tried calling, the answer we got was that they were coming. The were coming from Cotonou, that is. We weren’t sure if she was going to make it back from Cotonou in time to make our departure time. Within the last 10 minutes before having to leave our house for the bus station, they all showed up. Phew! The families took their kids to the bus gare with us and waited there until we were on our way.

It was a long 6 hour bus ride and it was the first time that either of them had been up north. The furthest north Yannik had been was an hour north of Bohicon and Marlyse had been up north on the other side, but never on the side we were headed to. Once we got there, they got to sign in and meet kids their own age from all over the country and immediately started playing with them. It was nice. I was sitting in a chair watching all the kids play when Marlyse came up to me and said, “It’s really nice”. I assumed she was talking about the place, but she said the place, us, and everything. That we, ourselves, are very nice. All of our efforts to get that girl there paid off right then with that little token of appreciation.

The kids slept at a private school called St. Augustine, which was ran by nuns. The nuns prepared all the meals for all the kids and the volunteers and were super nice. It was like being in camp again. The majority of the volunteers slept at the workstation to save on space, which was fine with us since it also offered peace and quite with wifi.

That first night, the PCVL in Nati took us to this artist’s house where he showed us a ton of his paintings. His name was Joseph and he was from the Gambia and spoke English. His paintings were super good and numerous. I ended up buying two. One of which, I’m selling to another volunteer later on who didn’t have the extra cash to buy it then. Craig and I were both wishy-washy on how we felt about that painting anyway, which as I’ve learned, if you don’t absolutely have to have something, you probably don’t want it on your wall staring at you all day. Joseph was really nice and served us tea, coffee, or sodas while we browsed. He gives volunteers the bare-bone price because we’re “friends” of his. He gets a lot of business from tourists and other people in town, but that’s business; the Peace Corps volunteers are his friends. It was nice not to have to negotiate for something for once.

The next day we had breakfast, a couple ice-breaker games (I played Simon Says with them), and some study time, we had the Spelling Bee. During our study time, Marlyse was really struggling since she didn’t study much since she didn’t think she was going to be allowed to go, but Yannik was killing it. He was getting everything right, helping Marlyse, and just being a superstar. So I was really REALLY disappointed when during the 3rd round of boys, his misheard “white” and spelled “wait”. It was a huge bummer because he totally could have won if he didn’t mishear the word. Surprisingly, the girls were dropping like flies in their round and Marlyse came in 3rd or 4th. She could have won too if she didn’t mishear her word. She was given the word “experience” but heard “experiment”. What’s ironic about that, is that within the prior 24 hours, I must have told her 10 times that no matter if she wins or looses, she has already won because she has gotten to have this experience. Oh well. They had fun and got prizes for participating, which included a French/English dictionary—a rarity in these parts.

The next day, we woke up super early to leave. Craig and another male volunteer went to the bus to talk to the driver about stopping on the side of the road and picking us up so we didn’t have to all find motos and go over there since there was 15 of us total headed south. While they did that, me and two other volunteers headed to the school. We had to walk most of the way (which was kinda far) in the dark because there were no motos out yet. We had told our kids to be up and ready to meet us at the school at 6am to catch our bus, otherwise we’d all have to sleep in the street that night. They were all ready to go when we got there. So we walked to the side of the road with our fish sandwich breakfasts and waited for the bus. Once the bus pulled over and got us, we got on and Craig and I gave our delicious fish sandwich breakfasts to our kids since there was no way we were going to eat that. We told them to wait and not to eat it until half way through the trip so they’re not hungry later and asking us for money like they did on the way up. Since the money their parents gave them quickly ran out, I thought this was a great way to keep their tummies happy and our wallets happier. But sure enough, by the time we got to Dassa (an hour north of Bohicon), they were asking for money for food because they ate their sandwiches too soon and were hungry. This time, since we were so close to Bohicon, we told them that they had to wait until they got home because we’re broke ass volunteers and we were hungry too. They weren’t thrilled, but they accepted the lesson that they learned.

On the bus after Dassa, for the remaining hour of the trip, we had to hear this guy selling traditional medicine on the bus scream about his products. I put in my headphones for the ipod but couldn’t help noticing Marlyse’s hysterical laughter after everything that the guy was saying in local language. I asked her what was so funny and she was just shocked at the “ridiculous” things this guy was saying about his traditional medicine. Then she proceeded to call him a voleur (thief) since he was obviously full of it and selling people leaves and other useless stuff. It was really cute and really funny watching her crack up at that. Once in Bohicon, Marlyse’s parents were there to meet her and Yannik’s dad followed shortly after. Overall, it was a really great weekend that I think will have a lasting impression on our kids.

Everyone from the weekend

Yannik spelling a word

Marlyse spelling a word

Our two kids

It’s been a really busy quarter with all kinds of things going on. We’re really reaching an earmark in our service and we have a lot of really exciting things going on. The biggest thing that has been keeping us really busy is the camp preparations.

Our camp is in 2 weeks and we’re slowly but surely getting things done and things are coming together. We had a big hang up when my supervisor told me that the khaki (used for school uniforms) that we were going to give to the girls at the end of the camp was given away at this event that they had for other Beninese kids. Normally, it wouldn’t have been a problem, but since the cost of that khaki was part of the community contribution that I put in our budget that I have to stick to, it made things really hairy. According to Sakina, she’s going to find someone to donate it. We’ll see how that goes. The other main problem that we ran into is our mayor. We have the worst mayor in Benin (this claim is backed by all volunteers) and we asked him to help finance the t-shirts for the camp (it can’t be an official event if we don’t all have event-official t-shirts) and money to pay for the bus rides for two girls that we’re taking to another camp in Parakou. Well, we’ve been asking for this financing since April and he still hasn’t given us anything and he probably won’t. Sakina is helping me figure out what else we can do. The other big stressor for me is that I have to give a little speech for the opening and closing ceremonies in French and I don’t know what I’m going to say yet and I was just informed that Sakina is getting all the tv channels and radio stations to come and record it in Bohicon history. Which did not help my stress levels at all! Next week, I am headed to Cotonou to get camp manuals printed and bound for the camp.

During the whole circus of this girls’ empowerment camp, Sakina gave me my first validation as a volunteer. She said that I’m a real volunteer and that when I leave, people will be able to see that I was here and did something in Bohicon. You can’t imagine how much that made my day. It also made the headache of everything all worth it. It was really nice.

Another random and weird thing that has been happening to us is that we’re constantly getting confused with French people. I mean, I know we’re white and they’re white, but our French is nowhere near a French person’s French and they don’t like the French here, so that complicates things. In fact, I was walking home from work one day and a grown ass man called me yovo, so I politely asked him not to call me that and gave him other options for names instead of yovo then after he asked why I care so much, I explained to him that chez moi, it’s racists to call someone, “Hey, white person!” And his reply was, “Well, when we noires go to chez toi, you’re racists to us, so it’s the same thing”. So I asked him where he thought chez moi was, and his response was en France. Well, no, in fact, I’m American and from the United States. “Oh, that’s different. You’re right, that would be racists there. You have Obama. You aren’t racists to us noires”. These are conversations that we have on a somewhat regular basis. No joke.

Our postmate, Katie, had a going-away party in Bohicon the other weekend where she shed a lot of tears and said a lot of goodbyes. It was really sad and at the same time, very weird. She’s been in and out of Bohicon for most of the time we’ve been here and I guess in my head, she’s just going away for a bit again and will come back. But she’s going home to the magical land of America come the beginning of the month. Our neighbor actually cried when she said goodbye to her, which is huge here since they think that you’re a baby and can’t control your emotions if you cry in public. When we returned home after going out for a bit, I knocked on her door to see if she was ok and she said that she kept thinking when she was saying goodbye to Katie that she’d have to say goodbye to us in a year and that it’s going to be really hard for her. That made me realize how fast time is going here and how much I’m going to miss her. She’s by far my best friend in Bohicon. I don’t know what I would do without her. It’s just so sobering to think that I may not ever see her again after we leave Peace Corps.

More news is that I was chosen for a volunteer-ran organization named PSN (Peer Support Network) which basically exists to help volunteers adjust to life in Benin and help them through any difficulties that they may have while we’re here. It gets used a lot, especially since most people have a death in the family while in Peace Corps and life is just so different here that there is no way that you can prepare yourself completely before you get here. I went down to Cotonou last weekend for the training for the group, which was actually really pleasant and helpful. A big perk for me in being part of PSN is that I get to be there when the new group of volunteers arrive, which is July 2nd. When we arrived, everyone was there to welcome us with such enthusiasm and it really made us feel welcomed and like we didn’t just make a huge mistake by just moving to West Africa. So at the beginning of July, I’m headed down to Cotonou to do the manuals for the camp, go to the Ambassador’s 4th of July party, and welcome the new volunteers to Benin. I’m really excited too!

The day that I got home from PSN training, my PC boss, Christian, asked me to do some site developments with him in Zagnanado (the place where I did my tech visit) which was interesting. I went with him to meet the work partners and see the house and offer feedback. Apparently there will be a male volunteer there, one of the only 2 male health volunteers that we’ll have, so I think he’ll be fine, but it was an interesting experience to help out with. It really showed various cultural differences because his house is next to a primary school and Christian’s reaction to that is that volunteers like to be around kids. My reaction to that is that he’s going to have hoards of kids screaming the yovo song at him every day. It’s things like this why he asked me to go with him.

While I’m down in Cotonou to welcome the new group of volunteers, Craig is going up to Djougou for an annual soccer/American football tournament against the Germans. There are a lot of German volunteers in Benin on a consistent basis like there are Americans and every year there is mad smack-talking between the two nationalities on who is going to beat whom in soccer and American football. Since it’s the same weekend that the new group of volunteers arrives, Craig is going alone up there to play with the other volunteers and I’ll be in the opposite end of the country welcoming the new stage. He’s really excited to play. It’s supposed to be really fun and next year, I am for sure going to go and watch.

The following weekend, Craig is going down to Cotonou for a national VAC meeting (quarterly meeting to tell representatives what’s up in Benin that concerns Peace Corps and then they pass it on to the rest of us) and that same weekend, it’s Amanda’s birthday (the little girl that lives next door) so I’m helping Alice make a birthday cake. She’s pretty excited to have an American cake. She is basically American and would do really well over there. Ha! Right after that weekend, we have our camp and the day after our camp ends, I am hosting 3 health volunteers from the new group of trainees for a “demystification weekend”. It’s basically to give them a break and let them see a little more of the country while letting them see how a real health volunteer lives. The following weekend, Craig is hosting 3 business volunteers from the new group for the same thing. Then he leaves for training and after his week of training, I have a presentation to do on PSN coping methods in Porto-Novo. So as you can see, it’s going to be an extremely busy summer for us! We don’t have a free weekend until the end of August. And we’re hoping to use that weekend to go hiking with a volunteer who’s leaving soon.

I also recently started a team called, “Amour et Vie”. Volunteers are encouraged to get about 3 locals between the ages of 18-26 or so, and one of them being an older community leader. With these people, we go out into the “bush” to teach villagers about HIV and AIDS and other health-related things since most villagers don’t have the money to go into town for educational events like those. We have our training in October before we can start any actual work, but once that is done and my team is trained, we’re going to start going out into the village once a month or so to teach people about AIDS. It’s a really good program and at the end of the year, the organization called PSI who is responsible for these teams gives each volunteer about $100 for each of the two younger participants to pay for school fees, technical training, or anything else that can better their lives and help them have a steady income. So everyone benefits from it. It’s a really great project.

On a side note…the other day when we were babysitting our neighbor kid, Emeric, while Alice ran to the marche real quick, he went into our bathroom and just peed on the floor. We’re not sure why he did that since we have a toilet and their house is exactly like ours, but there he was, peeing on our tiled bathroom floor. It gave us a little preview of what parenting may bring for us later on in life. It was funny but I didn’t really know what to do with him since he was probably just too shy to ask about the toilet, so we just cleaned it up and didn’t make a big deal about it. Another comical thing that happens here I guess!

Our last bit of exciting news is that Brian bought his ticket to come out and visit! He’s coming out over Thanksgiving and staying for 3 weeks. We’re really excited and are already putting together a list of activities that we can do with him. We’ll be spending part of the time he’s here in Ghana since he’s flying in and out of there. Very exciting!!!

Special thanks to the Wiricks for our awesome care package! Thanks guys!! We love you! And you make us feel very loved over here.

Sidenote: We tried to upload pictures to go with this blog but the internet is way too slow here. Sorry! They're on facebook though!

June 8th...

Chaleur is over. No more sleeping with the fan on full blast. No more sweating through the day and night. No more trudging through the heat down the street to our local bar to sit out on the breezy second story with an ice cold drink (though that’s still a good idea any time, regardless of the weather). La saison, they say, est fini. It has been replaced, though, with la saison des pluies. The rainy season. And it came with a vengeance.

We have actually been saying for weeks now that the long, hot, dry season was coming to a close. The days have cooled off and become a little more humid. Clouds have been dotting the skies. Some rain has come down here and there. But not like today.

We were fortunate and blessed to come here from San Diego, which sees more than 300 days of sunshine each year. Rain was always an enigma to me. Sometimes when it rained in San Diego, I would just curl up on the couch and watch out the window as the rain would be illuminated as it came down through the glow of the streetlight. For part of our honeymoon in Miami we were entranced as South Beach flooded so massively that patio furniture outside the hotel began floating down the street. A lone biker slowly made his way down the street, his feet submerged completely under the water as he cranked the pedal downwards. That was me today.

I went to my girls’ soccer practice at 4pm at our local school, and saw some dark, ominous clouds on the horizon and coming my way, but didn’t think anything of them, even though they brought with them thunder and lightning. In my naivety, I thought it would pass. It didn’t. I decided to call an early end to practice, and as we were on our way out of the school, Heather called.

“Craig, are you coming home soon?”

“Yeah, we’re finishing up and on our way out.”

“It’s going to pour!”

As soon as she hung up, it started pouring at our house, about a mile away to the east. Less than a minute after that it would get to me and I had to ride into the storm. I was just at the front of the school when I was smacked in the face by a blinding, sideways rain. I literally could not see more than 20 yards ahead of me. The dirt road I was riding down was a river a few inches deep and I was pedaling against it. For some strange reason, some people were still outside! I pedaled past men pushing rickshaws full of wood as well as quite a few children whose parents had sent them outside to get water, balancing the full bassines on their heads while waiting for someone to open the door to their concession so they could enter. Our concession was under a few inches of water when I arrived. Our welcome mat was not, in fact, welcoming. Electricity was out (though it came on soon thereafter). Heather was taking a video of our concession as I tramped in, soaking wet.

I watched the video later. I looked like a wet dog. My hair was matted and my clothes stuck to me as I trudged through the concession, high-stepping through a few inches of water with my bike in tow, trying to keep my sandals from sliding off of my feet.

The storm kept up for a solid two hours. By nightfall the storm was on its way out. Over the next few days, we discovered that some trees in a rare pretty shaded area had fallen over, their exposed, gnarled trunks shredded from the high winds; roofs had been ripped off houses; some dirt roads will need to be re-graded from the rivers that ran down them just a few days before.

The rainy season is here, and I learned an important lesson this time: Whenever I go out, in addition to bringing a book, always pack a poncho. At least until chaleur rears its ugly head again.

While Heather was out gallivanting around Morocco for the past three weeks, eating delicious food and meeting famous people, I was in Bohicon, working on projects and whatnot. Here are the highlights:· Learned a few new words of Fᴐn

· Played soccer with my neighbor, Gilles

· Had training sessions with my girls’ soccer team

· Received approval for free soccer balls for girls’ soccer team

· Spoke only French and Fᴐn for three weeks—I don’t know how all the other volunteers do it!

· Read 5 books

· Worked on website for my archaeological park

· Started application for funding for uniforms for girls’ soccer team

· Cleaned the house

· Baked a bunch of cakes—then ate them. By myself. Delicious!

· Delivered applications for girls’ camp we are planning in July

· Hung out a lot with my work partner and best Beninese friend, Arimi

· Took a lot of pictures of the artisans at the archaeological park for the website

· Ate a lot of beignets (French doughnuts)

· Watched all of the Star Wars movies in the order that they were released (I see what the fuss is about, but I don’t get it)

· Went on a bike ride to Abomey, a big tourist town about 10 km away from Bohicon

It all sounds like a lot, but I spread it out over 23 days, so I had a lot of down time (hence the 5 books that I read). I feel like I improved my French, and I made a few new friends around town…maybe some new work partners for future projects? Heather was nice enough to get me some goodies from Morocco: lots of candy, a necktie, a new leather wallet, a leather satchel, anti-perspirent deodorant, and body and face wash; plus she bought lots of fresh olive oil and balsamic vinegar, Moroccan cumin, and other goodies. She definitely made her 23 days worthwhile! Projects are coming up soon. We have a girls’ camp in July (11-15) that we are working on, plus I am trying to get this website up and contact travel agents in Benin, France, and the United States before the next tourist season starts! We also might have some things coming up soon with the Maison des Jeunes (youth center). Until next time…

Cheers.

As a lot of you know, my knee has been bothering me since beginning marathon training back in October. It was really hurting in December and that is when my doctor and myself have been trying different things to figure out what it is. We’ve tried resting it for 2 months, we’ve had x-rays done, we have tried knee braces, icing it, anti-inflamatories, and even an ultrasound, all with no diagnosis. I have had “specialists” in Benin look at it on three different occasions, all saying different things. Finally, Washington decided to send me to Morocco (as a Medical Evacuee) to have a super expert look at it.

I left for Morocco dark and early on Tuesday morning, the 3rd. I basically stayed up all night because I was worried I’d sleep through my alarm that was getting me up at 2:30am if I went to sleep at all. I was at the airport a little after 3am and waited until 5:30 before I was boarded and on the tarmac. After 20 minutes of being airborne, we landed. I had no idea what was going on since a layover wasn’t on my itinerary and was worried that I had somehow got on the wrong flight. We had landed in Lagos, Nigeria, which did nothing to sooth my worries since we’re not even supposed to go to Nigeria. Everyone started clapping and getting off the plane. I stayed on the plane and slyly asked the flight attendant if she thought we’d be landing in Casablanca on time or if she thought we would be running late. Her answer didn’t exactly help me figure out if I was on the right plane or not since she just told me the local time in Casablanca instead of actually answering my question. Luckily for me, I was on the right plane (which I figured out hours later!) and eventually landed in Casablanca.

I got my luggage, exchanged my per diem dollars to dirham and went out to look for the Peace Corps driver that was supposed to be picking me up. It was so strange. There were no black people, the airport was clean, people weren’t shoving or raising their voices, it was orderly, it smelled nice, and my driver wasn’t black either! We got in the car and started driving down well-paved streets with speed limit signs and painted lanes (more abnormalities!) and people actually used their turn signals. Even more amazing, their turn signals were operational on the cars. It was the cleanest city that I have seen in months and months. No gutters flowing with who-knows-what, no trash littering the side of the road, no goats or pigs tied to the roofs of other cars. And the other cars were all nice! There were American cars, European cars, Japanese cars and they looked new.

We got into Rabat and not only did it look and feel (climate-wise) like a city in Southern California, but there was even a tram! A brand new tram, graffiti-free, that glided past us. We walked into the Peace Corps office and the medical secretary greeted me by name and welcomed me right before introducing me to my Moroccan doctor, who was actually American, Dr. Craig (last name forgotten). They were super friendly and gave me maps and a cell phone that was charged up with credit along with their personal phone numbers in case I needed anything. He showed me on the map where the McDonald’s, T.G.I. Fridays, American Club, hotel, and good shopping was, which absolutely blew my mind that those things existed at all in Morocco.

He took me to my hotel, which had an elevator (!), got me all settled in and introduced me to the two other volunteers who were med-evaced there from Cameroon. Their names were Amanda and Jared and after their appointments for that day, we all hung out together and they showed me where the good stuff was. We went to the medina (super large market) and I was blown away. They have absolutely everything here! There is any kind of produce you can think of, any kind of herbs or spices you could want, clothing, bags, shoes, breads, lots and lots of olives, hand-made goods, lamps, crystal, souvenirs, etc. I was completely overwhelmed. It has taken me nearly a week to get out of West-Africa mode. For example, when they called me to see where I was and I told them where I was standing, I thought to myself out of instinct that it should be easy to find me since I’m the only white person around and I had to correct myself. Another time, I saw a bus full of “white” people and thought, “what are all of those white people doing here?” It took me a while to get out of the habit of thinking that I was the only gringa around.

View from hotel room BALCONY!

Inside the artisan part of the Medina

Herbs and spices galore!

Medina food

The following day, Wednesday, I had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to try again, to figure out what was going on with my knee. This man was super nice, spoke fluent English (which a lot of people do here in Morocco, which I’m always shocked about), and is a real-life wizard. He looked at the x-rays that were taken in Benin, which 3 other specialists and numerous doctors all looked at, and could tell right away what was wrong with me. He did some other quick tests to draw his conclusion. One of these tests included poking around my kneecap, which everyone else did too (with no pain), and he poked in this mysterious spot of my knee that caused a lot of pain. The appointment took less than half an hour and I had a diagnosis. Incredible.

So basically, I have two things wrong with me that cause the pain, neither of which require surgery (phew!). The first is that I have a very small amount of scoliosis that has caused a 3mm tilt on my right side (which is why it’s my right knee that gives me problems). They are ordering me insoles for my shoes to correct that problem. The other problem is patellofemoral tracking disorder. Basically, my quad is too strong on one side of my leg and not strong enough on the other, so it has pulled my kneecap out of place via the tendons, which causes part of the pain. Between that and my tilt, my leg bones have been rubbing together and inflaming each other, which causes the other part of the pain. I have to do physical therapy to strengthen the other part of my quad to get my patella back where it should be after using my insoles for at least a month. I have to stay in Morocco until my insoles come in, which they’re hoping are here by Friday. In the meantime, they are trying to get me to see a physical therapist to teach me the exercises to do after the month-long period of using the insoles has passed. So that’s the medical update.

After my appointment, Amanda and I went to the shopping mall (!) to browse around. There was a big store, like a Wal-Mart, that she wanted to get shampoo and stuff from and I wanted to get a new bikini for Greece. I was so blown away walking into the mall. It was just like being back in America. It’s incredible how different West Africa is from North Africa. It really should be it’s own continent! It’s so different. It is more like Europe than Africa. After much walking around (and playing on the moving sidewalk/escalator things), I found what I went there for and so did Amanda. We got into a taxi that we didn’t have to argue over the price for because it was metered and went back to the hotel. She ended up leaving for Cameroon that night but I still had the other med-evac volunteer to keep me company, Jared, so we hung out.

Amanda and me

mall wonderland

Jared and I both had appointments on Thursday, so we went to the PC office together and hung out most of the day. I had to have an x-ray done of my torso to determine the size of lifts I need, which I found out yesterday. Since we didn’t have any appointments the next day or over the weekend, we decided to travel to Fes for the weekend.

Friday, we left whenever we were ready. We weren’t in a rush or on a schedule, which is a great way to travel. As soon as we got on the train to go to Fes, I started feeling dizzy. The train was moving around a lot and it was hot, which I think is what caused me to feel sick. I broke out into a cold sweat and rushed to the toilet only to lift up the lid and find it clogged and filled to the brim with things I don’t even want to talk about. Needless to say, that didn’t help my nausea and before I knew it, I was hanging my head out the door of the train as it was going down the tracks, throwing up my breakfast. I slept the rest of the way until we got to Fes and by the time we got there, I was feeling pretty good.

We only ended up spending a day of the weekend in Fes because it was a little pricey (and touristy) and we basically saw everything we wanted to see in the day that we were there. It was really beautiful there and reminded me a lot of Siena, Italy. We walked around the medina most of the first day. I briefly paused at a little shop that sold earrings and got called a “Scaly wag” and a “Hooligan” by a Moroccan guy who was trying to be funny and maybe mistook me for a Brit? It was unexpected and pretty funny. That night, we sat at a café trying to guess where all the tourists were from. This activity made me realize that I have been in West Africa long enough to be really bad at this game. The only ones I could correctly spot were the Americans. And even then, I may have mistaken some of them for Europeans.

The second day, we hired a guide to show us around the medina since we spent a full hour looking for their famous tannery (leather-making/dying) without avail the prior day. This guy gave us a really good price and spent the entire afternoon showing us around. We saw the tannery, mosque, school of Islam, along with lots of other things, like a rug-maker, and a perfumery. It was a good deal. At the tannery, I got a great deal on a gift for Craig. The owner said that he wanted to help this pretty Peace Corps volunteer and gave me this gift for less than half of what a Moroccan would pay for it. I’m not sure how much of it was true, but I was happy for the deal. I then tracked down freshly-pressed olive oil of high quality and bought 3 liters for less than half of what the low-quality stuff would cost us in Benin. I’m pretty excited about that. After the tour, he invited us to his home for tea, which we happily accepted. After chatting for 45 minutes or so, we left for the train station and got on a train right before it left.

Towards the end of the train ride, I was napping and when the train stopped, I looked up and asked my new friend, Jared, if we were in Rabat, and he said, “No, we have another hour.” I accepted this right away at first, but then realized that this stop had an escalator, which I didn’t see at any of the other stops. When I asked him if he was sure, the woman across from us told us that it was Rabat and we had to rush out of the train with all of our stuff. It was pretty funny.

Fes: The Siena of Morocco

the famous tannery

Jared and me in Fes

Yesterday, while I am in Morocco with a toothache, I decided to have it checked out. I got a same-day appointment with a very good dentist. He discovered a small hole in an old filling that was causing food/drink to enter, which was causing the toothache. He decided to drill it out and replace it right then, which I wasn't at all mentally prepared for, so I had dentist anxiety the entire time and Dr. Craig basically stayed to hold my hand. The dentist left the room for a few minutes and instructed him to give me a "pep talk" even. Haha! In the end, he did a really good job; a much better job than my fancy, super expensive dentist in San Diego.

Other than that, I have just been hanging out and enjoying the Western amenities and abundant options that Rabat has to offer, my favorite being freshly blended smoothies. They have these avocado, honey, and almond smoothies that I thought would be gross but is actually very good and addicting! I will probably be here until at least Friday. Maybe I will fly home on Saturday, but if not, I won’t be flying home until Monday. If that’s the case, and Jared is also still stuck here, we may try to visit some other part of Morocco again, per diem permitting. If we do, I will definitely write another update on here! Until then, enjoy the blog and the pictures!

So they sent me to Morocco to have an MRI done on my knee since it has been bothering me a lot. Depending on what the docs say, we may or may not still be running the marathon. For those of you who sponsored us, we'll give you your money back, don't worry! :) I will update you all very soon on my trip to Morocco!

Craig and I just returned from Parakou where we spend the weekend promoting gender and development (GAD) via auctions, bake sales, etc. A lot of people were in town, which was nice because we haven’t seen a lot of them in months. I helped bake breakfast stuff to sell to raise money for GAD on Friday, which ended up being a pretty big success since all of our breakfast stuff sold out really quickly as more and more volunteers were arriving. Saturday, other volunteers focused on baking desserts to sell after the formal dinner since dessert wasn’t provided.

Saturday was an informal night at a bar that started with a talent show. I wore heels for the first time in 9 months and thought I was going to fall whenever the surface became uneven. My legs aren’t use to them anymore! The talent show consisted of a dance off between people, a duet song, and a salsa dance routine. After the talent show, they started auctioning off dates. Some of these dates were very tempting. For example, there were dates that included spa treatments, sightseeing at the waterfalls, maid service, meals being cooked, and the one that I really wanted to bid on was a 2-day camping trip in the Collines. Volunteers lead all of these dates from whatever region they occur in and are offered up voluntarily. The volunteers cover the cost of the date and whatever price the highest bidder pays goes directly to fund the GAD program. Afterwards, there was dancing and a shuttle that brought everyone back to their hotel or to the workstation. This first night, we raised over 2 million cfa ($4,000), which is pretty good!

Taken on the first night. Suzie, me, Josh, Craig, and Julia

Patrick and Craig

The next day, there was a rematch of a football game. During our first 2 months of training after we arrived, the boys (and some girls) had a football match between us newbies and the volunteers who had been here a year already. We’re the 23rd batch of volunteers and they’re the 22nd, so it was them versus us. We beat them, to their surprise, and soon after, they demanded a rematch. The rematch was organized for this weekend. This time, we lost horribly. I don’t even remember what their score was, but they had at least 5 touchdowns and we had 2. It was super hot and everyone was tired, but it was fun. Most of us somehow managed to get sunburned, even those of us who were in the shade the whole time watching. How does that happen? The wrestling that we mentioned in a previous blog didn’t happen for fear of injuries so we had the football game instead.

About to commence

At halftime

We got ready for the formal dinner and silent auction and got there at about 6:30. It was a pretty setting at a hotel/bar/restaurant with a pool, all outdoors. The silent auction consisted of all kinds of different things, like a “Man Basket” that had jerky, Sports Illustrated magazines, protein powder, etc. There were different types of jewelry and other African art that were being auctioned off. There was Starbucks stuff, candy baskets, Christmas baskets, outdoorsy baskets, and dates with people like the head of all of our programs in Peace Corps, Lauren, and our security officer at the Embassy, Tony. Since the date with Lauren was a BBQ for 10 people and was famous for the delicious meats and many in our group of 10 were vegetarians or kinda vegetarians, we bid on Tony’s date he had up for auction. I started the bid at $100 total and about half an hour before the auction closed, I had competition. We had to get creative with our bidding since the people guarding that date would be watching for us. Erin ended up winning it for $220 and added us to her group so we still get to participate. We also got an African necklace for a certain someone in California whom I lost a super bowl bet to.

The dinner that they served was either beef stroganoff (Craig’s dinner) or vegetarian lasagna (my dinner). It was good but definitely not what you would normally call lasagna. It was more of a giant ravioli. As soon as dinner was done, people started changing into bathing suits and jumping in the green pool. Some people didn’t even bother changing and went in with all their clothes on. I wasn’t planning on going swimming at all because the pool was green, but eventually got peer pressured into swimming and I am glad I did because it was a lot of fun. There was a DJ playing music all night, good music, too! We stayed out until the last shuttle left to take us home where Craig sat in the back seat with one of the German volunteers who attended the festivities and competed to see who had the best Beninese French. It was pretty hilarious.

At the formal dinner

During the dinner

The entire night was the most fun that I have had in a long time. It was all very worry-free, laid back, fun. No drama, no incidents, no dampers on the night at all. It’s so rare to be in a group of at least 60 other people from various backgrounds with alcohol involved and for everyone to enjoy themselves and all get along without any sign of trouble throughout the night. We all got to get dressed up to the nines, which is not something we get to do very often here, and everyone looked awesome. We raised a bunch of money for a good cause, and had a ton of fun while doing it. I will definitely be partaking in next year’s GAD weekend. If anyone wants to send us things to donate for next year, it’s never too early to start collecting! Enjoy the pictures!

It has been far too long since my last football update. I thought that these would be much more frequent. A few highlights: •I played for the first time in a long, long time with my neighbor’s team. It was kind of silly how this all came about, since I had been bothering the guy for six months about playing football with his weekend buddies. Heather and I will be running a week-long girls’ camp in June and are soliciting local schools for lists of their girls with the top grades so we can invite them. Our neighbor is the equivalent of a Vice Principal at our local school, and one day he came by to drop off his list of girls for us to formally invite to the camp. While he dropped it off, he started gloating that he would get to play soccer the next day (a Wednesday) because, since it was the day of the presidential inauguration, the president gave all state employees the next day off. Heather suggested that he take me along and, with his back to the wall, caught between a rock and a hard place, he was forced and coerced into inviting me. I woke up early the next morning and went with him to our neighboring city of Abomey and we played for 2 straight hours without a break. I have been busy the past few weeks but apparently everyone asks about me. Can’t wait to get back to post to show off some more Yovo skills. •After I wowed Gilles and his friends with my skills, he invited me to play in a soccer game at his school. The school was having an end-of-the-semester party and part of the week-long festivities, of course, was a Teacher-Student football match, presumably so the teachers could literally kick the crap out of their students. Long story short, I started the game and scored the opening goal of the game (with a header, no less!) on a brilliant front-post run. The crowd went bezerk. We tied, 1-1. See the “Photo Mélange” page for pictures of my triumphant debut. •I have started a girls’ soccer team at said school (CEG 2, in case you were wondering), and it has started off well. Actually, when I went to the school to make the announcement that I wanted to start a girl’s soccer team, I was literally—literally!—laughed out of the school, then of course nobody came to my meeting that I scheduled. Out of nowhere, my neighbor told me that girls had been asking him where I was because they wanted to play (apparently everyone already knows that he’s my neighbor, or that I’m his neighbor—whatever). We had our first practice and I just let them play. We had 9 girls show up and more are on the way when word gets out about it. I am working on getting a soccer ball for each girl (and some for the boy’s team, as well). We will practice on Wednesdays where I will lead a formal training session, and probably Saturdays as well (on their own to mess around). •My neighbor is quickly becoming one of my best friends at post. We get together to watch all Champion’s League matches. He calls me when the game is about to start to let me know that there is a game on, which is hilarious because 1. I can hear him shouting into his phone from the other side of the wall and 2. We always discuss our “game plans” the afternoon of the game. “Of course I know there’s a game on! I’ll finish my dinner and I will be right over!” Heather gets some peace and quiet out of it, and since Manchester United is in such great form, she doesn’t have to deal with me sulking around when we lose. I just finished watching the first leg of the Man Utd-Schalke match up here in Parakou. We went to a bar to watch the game but the TVs kept going out (weird because the lights stayed on…most of the time). At halftime Heather and I went back to the workstation and just streamed the game live and used the in-house projector to watch the game on the wall. Two-nil and advantage Manchester to take back to the Theatre of Dreams! Life is good. Football is here and it is plentiful. Cheers!

We realized that it has been awhile since we posted a blog with substantial updates so we're planning on fixing that today! Since Gaani Fete, we have been busy running around doing stuff. This blog is just to give an update on random things that have been going on in our lives. There is no flow or transitions between paragraphs, so if something doesn’t make sense, or it seems like I’m jumping subjects out of nowhere, it’s because I am. J So bear with me!

Craig and I started an English club back in October and it was one of the first real things that we did here as volunteers and each week or every other week we had been meeting with the kids to go over English words in preparation for a Spelling Bee. The last couple weeks before the Bee, we had like a “dress rehearsal” where we pretended to be judges and went through the process exactly how the real judges would to better prepare them. The day of the Spelling Bee, March 16th, came and as I predicted, the girls were killing it and the boys were dropping like flies. The final two girls each spelled at least 15 words and the runner up for the girls was very upset that she lost and didn’t even want to take my “thanks for playing” candy that I was handing out at the end. The boys were dropping like flies but eventually, they got down to the two last boys and they had a respectable battle—though nowhere near the same as the last two girls. The boy that ended up winning had started coming to our sessions after Craig and I made a list of students that we had our neighbor and their vice principal verify to make sure they had the average gpa to be qualified to participate. That means that we had no way of knowing for sure if our winner for the boys was even qualified to win. Oops! At the end, I asked him if he had the average (which is 10) and he said that he had 17 (which is super high!). Naturally, I thought he was full of it and became even more worried about whether he was qualified. About a week later, we found out from our neighbor that he had a 16.5 and was the top boy in his grade. Wow! Good for him! So we were able to breathe a sigh of relief. The next step for the Spelling Bee is that these two winners will get to travel with us for a few days up to Nattitangou (the north of the country, to where most kids from down here have never been) to battle all the other winners of participating schools where there are participating PCVs. So it’s a pretty big deal for the winners.

Before the start of the Spelling Bee

With the winners....too bad the flash wasn't working!

The other major development that has sucked us dry of free time is our grant application for our girls camp that we’re doing this summer. While we were hanging out with one of our Spelling Bee judges, Erik, I found out that it took him 4 months to get his money for his project from when he submitted his grant application because he kept having to go back and make changes and get contracts signed before it would be approved. So Craig and I diligently worked from the time we woke up to the time we went to bed, often foregoing our usual movie that we watch every night, to finish writing up the project. During the day, I was running around, literally, everywhere getting contracts signed. Any price we have in our budget has to be backed up with a contract, whether it’s a donation (like a NGO coming to teach about a topic for free that would normally cost money) or a service. It was very tiring and time consuming but we were able to finish everything over the weekend before we left for Cotonou. Once we were in Cotonou, I was able to nag at the lady that looks over them for approval to get remarks back right away and to fix things right away. It took us 3 days from when we submitted our application to when it was approved. I think that’s a new Peace Corps record! It was also a HUGE weight off of our shoulders. Now we’ll have money to actually host this camp. Whoohooo!

While we were in her office, getting the good news about our grant application, our Country Director, Bob, invited us to his house for dinner. Bob reminds me of home in so many ways. He has that laid-back surfer attitude, he talks like a surfer, and he’s from the West Coast. He’s from Seattle but has land out in Montana. Dinner at his house was amazing. Their personal chef made us fresh tortillas, fajitas, salsa, and guacamole followed by a dessert of home made ice-cream and espresso. We got to talk a lot about Madagascar, his last post, so I got some good tips for when we do our big trip and hit Madagascar.

Recently, my CPS opened up a “cyber”, where people can go to use the internet, as part of the CPS and we accidentally, while we were there working on grant stuff, found out that they had wifi also. This is really good news because our house is about a 7 minute walk from the CPS, whereas our other cyber was at least a 10-minute bike ride (not bad) and I can use this wifi for free! Of course, as soon as I pointed out to my supervisor that I was getting wifi, she had someone come in and protect it so other people couldn’t mooch off of it, which ultimately screwed everything up and I can’t get on it anymore. The technician is supposed to come back out this week to fix it again. That is another reason why we haven’t been online in a while. We’ve been really busy + the closest wifi to us doesn’t work = we’re not online as often as we’d like to be.

So we have 3 neighbors and the neighbors whom we share a wall with are the closest to us and are a younger couple that is in probably their mid-thirties and they have two kids. One of them is about 4 or so and his name is Emeric, and the other one is less than 2 years old and her name is Amanda. Amanda has started saying my Fon name (Sikah) and both kids have warmed up to us so what they do now is put their faces against our screen door and call my name, then tell me to come in Fon (wa-wa). It’s really cute. Just yesterday, Amanda was peering into our house looking for me and when she saw me, she started calling me name and telling me to wa-wa, which is funny because usually it is the adults that “wa” the kids, not the other way around. We have fun with them though. We play soccer with them and stuff, which they like because here adults don’t play with kids.

Craig playing soccer with Emeric

They don't smile here, so we told him to smile with his teeth showing and this is what we got! Ha!

Emeric and Amanda playing with us

Today, Craig and I had an appointment in a little village just north of us named Dan and we decided that it would be a good bike ride. So this morning, we got on our bikes and rode…and rode…and rode. Turns out, it was 20 km each way (about 12.4 miles each way) and the longest bike ride I have done here. It took us an hour of road at a slight incline to get there and once we got there, we were beat. The meeting was supposed to be a needs assessment of the village because the nun that I have worked with before wants to build a maternity ward and a nutritional recuperation center there. We quickly realized that we were not there to really assess any needs but to talk about how we were going to help them get their buildings financed. After an hour bike ride uphill, this was very annoying. We are willing to help and think that they are both good projects, but they could have told us that over the phone. We didn’t exactly have to go up there for that. The meeting lasted an hour and a half and then we were back on the rode in the middle of the afternoon sun riding home. Needless to say, I was completely exhausted by the time we got home. And starving!! Since I had only eaten a little oatmeal before our ride. It’s good practice though to get ready for the upcoming bike tour in which we’re participating in May.

Craig with Father Cesar and Soeur Nadine

Coming up in our near future (this month), is Craig’s quarterly In-Service Training followed by our GAD dinner/auction, both in Parakou. We will also be celebrating our 9-month PC anniversary! We have almost been here 9 months already…unbelievable! Craig is leaving here on the 17th for training and I will meet him in Parakou a couple days before the dinner/after his training is over because we’re meeting with the person who is in charge of the girl’s camp in Parakou to get pointers and ideas from her since we have no clue what we’re doing yet for some of the activities for our girl’s camp. The dinner/auction should be fun. From how I understand it, the first night (Friday night) is informal and there is a “date” auction. Craig and I have talked about auctioning off a “Dinner with the Wiricks”, but we’ll see what happens. On the informal night, there will also be a wrestling match with all the boys. Craig is paired up with the other married guy from our group, Andrew. The second night, Saturday, is formal and consists of a fancy dinner and a silent auction of stuff, most of which are enticing luxuries from America. All money that is raised from auctions, wrestling, etc. goes towards supporting GAD (Gender And Development), which funds small projects for volunteers all over Benin. So it’s a good cause and it should be a lot of fun.

We hope all is well in everyone’s lives over there and we are always thinking of all of you. Thank you Brandy and Brian for your sponsorships for our marathon! You guys are wonderful! Thank you Mama Joyce for the care package! And a delayed thank you to Vashti and my dad for their giant care package and for Mama Jamie’s two packages. You guys are awesome and you make us the envy of all the volunteers with the wonderful goodies from America that you send! We love you!

We are in the long, hot dry season, and it is turning out to be everything that we were promised: hot, steamy, humid, and hot. When we sit in our concrete house with tin roof we feel like we are sitting in an oven (with electricity and running water). It feels like South Florida without the ocean breeze. I try to do my important stuff in the morning before it gets too hot. After riding the 5-7 km to work or into town in the middle of the day makes me sweat so much that my fingers pucker up like I just spent too much time in the bathtub (if I had one). We try to run a few times a week but if we sleep too late (every time), we have to wait until it’s almost dark and the heat is down to bearable levels. Beninese people do not sweat. Maybe it’s just because I’m new in town, but my hyperactive sweat glands were never much of a problem until I moved here to the near-tropics. Fortunately we have a bar a stone’s throw away from our house with a breezy second story, plenty of music, and cold drinks. Beers are only a dollar! Other than the oppressive heat and humidity, things are going well. I’m starting to work on a website for my park, and Heather has been running around like mad applying for grants and organizing a girl’s camp for this summer and our marathon team for September. Our mamá down the road sells ice and cold bisap (a sweet, sugary, dark-purple hibiscus drink; think: Kool-Aid). Thank you all for the care packages, love, prayers, and support. It’s almost rainy season again! Yay! Cheers.

As most of you know, Craig and I, along with 2 other PCVs, are planning on running a marathon in Ghana in September as a team to raise money for Camp GLOWs in Benin. Camp GLOW is a girls’ camp that Peace Corps does every summer vacation that focuses on empowering girls to stay in school, promotes self esteem, teaches them about reproductive health, staying healthy, sexual harassment, and gives them the opportunity to speak with other successful women from the community. It is a great camp with a lot of positive feedback in respect to supporting and encouraging girls and is one of the most memorable parts of most volunteers’ service in the Peace Corps. Craig and I are putting on a Camp GLOW in Bohicon, the first one here, this summer vacation.

We will not be asking our family and friends to donate towards Camp GLOW, unless you want to of course, given the fact that the economy has affected many people we know. Instead, we are asking for our friends and family to cover our fees and costs to participate in the marathon. We do not want any of the money that we raise for Camp GLOW to go towards our costs, so we are asking for your sponsorships to cover those fees. These sponsorships will not be tax-deductible since they are not going towards Camp GLOW, but if you did want to donate towards Camp GLOW, which IS tax-deductible, we will have information on how you can do that soon.

Every member of our team of four will be petitioning their family and friends as well to sponsor us as a team. Our team costs to take part in the marathon are:

--Team Registration Fee $130 *Must be paid by April 30th

--Visas for Togo 100,000cfa (about $200) *by July 31st

--Visas for Ghana 60,000cfa (about $120) *by July 31st

--Transportation Costs 120,000cfa (about $240) *Cotonou to Accra, round trip *by September 1st

--Lodging Costs 120,000cfa (about $240) *10,000cfa fee each to stay in PC office in Ghana for 3 nights *by September 1st

Total $930

Again, this is for our entire team, so Craig and I will be responsible coming up with about half of that. The most important amount that we need now is our registration fee. This fee goes up if not paid by April 30th, which obviously increases our costs. If our closest family and friends, or about 10 people, all pitch in $50, then our costs are easily covered. As soon as all of the costs are met, we will post a blog immediately to inform everyone to avoid additional sponsorships.

If you are interested in sponsoring us, you can mail a check to Craig’s parents, the Wiricks, and they can deposit it into our account for us. Send us an email or a message on Facebook for their address.

Thank you for all of your support: emotional, mental, and financial! We are lucky to have every one of you in our lives.

As most of you have probably seen on the news, North Africa and parts of the Middle East are in the midst of revolutions. I am not sure what is being reported over there, but I have gotten several comments that those crazy “Islamic radicals” are the ones responsible for all the chaos. This blog is to clear up any confusion regarding the revolutions that are happening in (sort of) our part of the world.

A couple months ago, a young, unemployed, and economically frustrated man in Tunisia set himself on fire to end his life in protest of the lack of economic opportunities and years of hopelessness in Tunisia. That brought a lot of attention to the economic problems that the majority of the population suffered from and sparked the first revolution in Tunisia. These first protestors, most of whom had a lot in common with the young man who set himself on fire, went out into the streets to call for the current dictatorship to step down and make room for democracy so they can have a voice.

These bold acts inspired Egypt, who suffers from similar issues, to take to the streets and call for their dictatorship to step down in the name of democracy as well. These protestors were of the same or similar demographic as the protestors in Tunisia. From there, it has snowballed and this contagious idea of revolt has spread like the flu to the entire North African region (Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya) and several parts of the Middle East (Bahrain, Yemen, and Iran) and people are trying to get the idea to catch in parts of China.

The two major forces driving these “Jasmine” revolutions that these countries have in common is the lack of economic opportunity among the majority of the population, particularly with recently graduated college students who are more forthcoming with their grievances, in addition to a non-democratic form of government responsible for these causes of distress. It is not the “radicals of Islam” who are causing or encouraging the protestors to take to the streets, causing all of this “chaos”; it is the desire of the people to make a better life for themselves.

Some of the leaders have reluctantly respected their wishes and have, or are planning on, stepping down, such as Egypt and Tunisia. Others have taken violent means to put down the protestors, such as in Libya. Their leader has used fighter jets, among other things, to unsuccessfully silence the population and thousands have lost their lives for wanting a voice and a better life for themselves and their family.

The United States has always been a proponent of democracy and has done their damndest to spread democracy to places such as these, who are now pulling for democracy as I write this. Hopefully, this blog will clear up any confusion that “Islamic extremists” are the perpetrators of these revolutions. Just because the protesters happen to live in a predominantly Muslim country doesn’t mean they are extremists. They are people, just like us, who deserve a better life and are fighting for it. As Americans who get the luxury of a vote, I encourage you to support them. After all, we have been in their position before; we also once had a revolution that brought democracy and gave us a voice.

Today was a very exciting and inspiring day. Most days I go in to work, I discuss my progress on projects that I’m working on for Bohicon (i.e. girls camp, nutritional recuperation workshops, etc) but today I actually made something concrete happen at work. I went into work today, expecting it to be like any other day, which it started out as. We discussed when we could go together to the school where we want to do the girls’ camp this summer and discussed menu items for the girls’ camp and then with one remark, the tides changed.

My supervisor mentioned that Matthieu, (a politician, NGO owner, volunteer host-er, and Moringa farmer) didn’t show up for his appointment with my CPS to do his Moringa sensibilisation so that we could start selling his Moringa (he wont’ start selling it to us until he knows that everyone is properly trained on how to teach people about it) to people in need after telling his Peace Corps volunteer and our postmate, Katie, that he did. This was the billionth time that we have tried to make this happen and that was the last go-around that we were willing to try.

Side note: For those of you who have not received my Moringa explanation, it is a small tree that grows everywhere here that has more vitamins, protein, and all-around nutrients (when it is dried and processed) than any other thing known on Earth and it just so happens to grow in almost all the places where malnutrition is an issue. The problem is, not many people know about these great benefits so it’s quite possible for someone to have a Moringa tree in their backyard their whole life and never take advantage of it. Since malnutrition is my primary project with my CPS, Moringa naturally is a huge part of my efforts.

So I got on the phone to Patrick, another volunteer in Parakou whose central project is Moringa, and asked him if we could set up some sort of partnership so we can get Moringa sent down every two weeks or so. He informed me that there was a huge Moringa farmer, Isador, right here in Bohicon and sent me his contact information. This was very uplifting because before that phone call, we thought Matthieu was the only Moringa farmer in the Bohicon area.

I called Isador and did the proper introduction and explanation of why I was calling and an hour later, a woman who works with him arrived at my CPS with all the sizes of bottled Moringa powder that he sells. Luckily, I asked the prices on the phone before the woman got there and had time to call Patrick and ask him why this guy’s prices were so much higher than the Moringa Association’s, of which he is a part. There was no clear reason why he was charging more down in Bohicon other than to just make more money. So when the lady came with her over-priced bottles of Moringa powder, I spent about 20 minutes negotiating with her, then on the phone with Isador, and got our current and future purchases down to the normal price.

After all the negotiations were said and done, we had 2 liters of Moringa powder for $6 to test the market with and a promise from Isador to come by and formally introduce himself when he is back in town. I left with the wonderful satisfaction to have gotten a project that I had been working on for months off the ground all on my own without the help or local language translation of my supervisor or anyone else. It may not seem like a very challenging task, but here, to get anything off of the ground is a huge feat and to do it by oneself is all the more gratifying. This was a very productive day in moving forward.

P.S. Thank you Dad and Vashti and the Wiricks for all the care packages! Love you guys!

I tried to take advantage of the free internet here in Parakou and add a few things to our blog here. There are links at the top (under the banner) for two new pages that I created. One is a Google Map to track where we have been and where we will be going during our travels. The second is an entire page dedicated to a mélange of photos that we have taken. The bulk of our photos are still on Facebook for those to see who have accounts there. The first set of pictures are from the Fête de la Gani in Nikki. There were a lot of Peul (or Fulani) people at the celebrations and they let us take lots of pictures of them. Children love to get pictures taken and I posted some of my favorites. We will try to continue to post pictures there that are representative of our activities here. Until next time... Cheers.

This weekend we traveled northeast to Parakou, then east to Nikki to attend the Fête de la Gaani, a traditional Bariba celebration that lasts for about a week in the dusty town of Nikki, the capital of the Bariba kingdom, which traditionally spans the north of Benin and into Nigeria and Niger. They are renowned as expert horsemen, and during the celebration, the Bariba kings parade through town on their horses amidst drummers and “race” each other in front of the palace in Nikki (the videos are on Facebook). This year’s celebration was noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First, Peace Corps had a few booths up during the festival to showcase the PC-started Beninese Moringa Association (ABM), a Shea Butter group that three PC volunteers work with, a Peace Corps 50th Anniversary booth to showcase what we as volunteers do in our communities as well as to search for new work partners, and a Tourism booth to showcase the great tourism sites in the country: Abomey, Grand Popo, Parc Pendjari, Boukoumbe, Parc W, and my archeological park in Bohicon, the Parc Archeologique d’Agongointo. Our mayors were supposed to pay for flyers to be printed but my mayor didn’t, so I had only 3 flyers for people to look at (but was able to get the word out, anyway). Second, our American ambassador was a special guest during the celebrations and got to walk hand-in-hand with the king of Nikki during the main celebration. Third, we were able to show off our booths to not only our ambassador and his staff, but also to our PC staff, including our country director; even though Benin is a small country and we have a small PC and embassy staff, we are a tight little community and it is awesome to show such camaraderie for each other. After the fete, we returned to the Parakou workstation and we had a town hall meeting with the ambassador and embassy staff for us and other Americans who live in Benin. It was great to meet up with them again and to be able to hear our ambassador speak on issues affecting us here, such as what the embassy does for us, funding issues, safety and security issues, and upcoming elections news. Tomorrow we head back down south to Bohicon, where we will be for a long while without any traveling, which is great because we miss being at home! Heather will go to Cotonou soon for a medical check-up but other than that, we will be staying put until at least April when I come back to Parakou for another training (and Heather heads to Cotonou for a training in May). We are sad that this big block of traveling is over because we love seeing other parts of the country but we will be happy to get home to our wonderful neighborhood and out of the dust. It’s time to focus on our projects and really get some work done. A bientôt. Cheers.

I used to cut my own hair at home, and so when I came to Benin I brought my own clippers with me, which worked pretty well until the voltage difference finally killed them back in September—two months into my service. There is a barber at the end of our street who I have been to a few times, but I always return home unsatisfied because my 16-year old friend has no prior experience with Yovo hair. Today I wanted to try something different. I was thinking about going native and just growing out my hair and beard but we’re in the hot season—the chaleur—and there’s no way that I can survive the heat with long (for me) hair and a beard. I walked down to the barber in the afternoon when I had a feeling it would be slow and the electricity would be on, and asked him if I paid him for a haircut, could I just do it myself? He was surprised, but said ok, and prepared the clippers for me. I told him that he could sit down and watch, and he did. About halfway through, the power went out and a few awkward minutes later, I was able to finish up. When I was almost done, a few guys came in to get haircuts and I offered to give them haircuts, too, and we jokingly negotiated a price (I could have made 500 cfa!). Pretty soon I had a vrai audience: my young barber, his friend sleeping on the bench inside the shop, and two other guys who came by to get their haircuts. I saw the barber study how I was cutting my hair, so as I cleaned off the clippers after I finished, I told him that next time, he can give it a try. Haircut: 300 cfa (about 60 cents). Cultural exchange: priceless. Cheers.

First, to back up a little bit, I had my IST (in-service training) two weeks ago. It went well. I learned a bit about how to request funding for projects, was able to get together with my work partner and formally make a work plan, got to see my fellow volunteers again who live nowhere near us, and I ate a lot of free food. We are hoping to be able to get our girl’s soccer team up and running over the next month at the local private school, and I have a lot of people to meet and monies to ask for to promote my worksite. I’m ever-so-slowly gaining weight back, and as soon as we are back in our normal routine at post (in two weeks), we will be able to work out regularly again so maybe that weight that I gain back will be muscle. Now on to this weekend. My birthday was on Friday, so we came down to Cotonou on Thursday to celebrate and also to take the State Department Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT). My birthday was basically perfect. We spared ourselves the hot West African sun and humidity by staying inside in the cool air conditioning all day, I was able to get some work done thanks to the lightning-fast internet connection in the workstation, and I ate a lot: buille, pizza, a cheeseburger, german chocolate cake, and ice cream. On Saturday, we got up early to take the FSOT at the American Cultural Center here in Cotonou. We both took the test last year so we thought we knew what to study and what to expect but the test covers so much general information that it is difficult to study for. Despite the State Department adding an extra essay question on the end, we both are optimistic about our results (we will find out in “3-5 weeks” how we did). After the FSOT, we had a celebratory beer, then went swimming at the Ambassador’s house, played softball with the embassy staff (PC vs Embassy, the Embassy won, 1-0…we want a rematch!), then hung out with the embassy staff afterwards at a local restaurant. I was also fortunate enough to chat with my mom and friends over Facebook and received a birthday phone call from my best bud. Thanks again for all the birthday wishes. I understand that Brian partied enough for both of us this weekend! Tonight we are going to a Super Bowl party (the game starts at 12:30am), and tomorrow we will try to get a spot in a PC vehicle that is heading north. If not, we will just take an early taxi up. At the end of next week we will be traveling again, this time up north to Nikki, to work a PC booth at the Gaani Fete to promote PC’s 50th Anniversary and tourism in Benin. After that, we will be home for a while and unable to travel due to upcoming elections, but fortunately we have multiple cyber café’s in our town so we will be able to post updates. Until then, Cheers.

I have been in Cotonou for the last 9 days and will be finally going home on Monday. I will not bore you with my medical details, but rest assured that it’s nothing serious. While I have been in Cotonou, Craig has been in Porto-Novo at his quarterly training (IST), which is what I had in December. There have been a few other volunteers with maladies in the med unit with me in Cotonou so we have been having a nice time all week making dinners and watching movies. I have been trying to get some work done here, but rather unsuccessfully since I have had appointments almost every day. One really exciting thing that I did get done is I have begun to help change someone’s life. Let me back up.

When I was working in property management in El Cajon, we had a lot of refugees from Iraq so therefore, we worked quite closely with Catholic Charities among other organizations who help them. I made a friend (Tim) towards the end of my two years there who works for Catholic Charities and used to live in Benin working for an NGO. When I found out we were being sent to Benin, he was one of the people that I talked to for insight. Before I left, he asked me if I could help him find his former chauffeur and friend that he had when he lived in Cotonou because he promised him that he would help him start his own chauffeur business by getting him money for a car. Since this is Africa, you can’t just send money like that because people find out about it very quickly and try to reap some of the benefits and Tim couldn’t fly out here and buy the car for him. Naturally, I said I would love to help. So I have taken on the role as the middleman. I have been trying to coordinate a time when I could look for him while I’ve been in Cotonou. I tried in December but had some mishaps and this week, I took another shot at it. I printed out all the information that Tim sent me along with a couple photos and headed out with two other volunteers to the area that the NGO is in.

I got to the NGO and talked to the head guy and asked him if he knew him. He said he did and called him up to tell him that friends of Tim were there at the NGO looking for him. He showed up on his moto about 20 minutes later. I quizzed him on some trivia to make sure that I had the right guy and then broke the good news to him that is surely going to change his life. Needless to say, he was thrilled and called it a miracle that Tim remembered him and that we were sitting down together talking about a promise that was made six years ago. When Craig gets back to Cotonou, we are meeting up with him and his wife/wives to give him the details on the process of completing this promise and to get to know each other better. When I left the office to go find him that afternoon, Tim had no idea that I would actually be conducting my search that day, so when I was successful, I couldn’t WAIT to get back to email him and tell him the good news. Clearly, he was ecstatic. I am thrilled to be a part of such a wonderfully good deed.

Craig comes back to Cotonou on Sunday and then we’re leaving for Bohicon with one of the Peace Corps staff members, which means a private air-conditioned car that isn’t crammed with marche mamas. I’m sure Craig will have an update about how his IST went. I cannot wait to get back to Bohicon and continue to work on all of our projects. A bientot!

Yesterday, January 17th, marked six months since we started training and began our lives in Benin as Peace Corps Volunteers. It seems like much longer ago. It feels like we’ve been here a year already but at the same time, we can’t believe how fast time has gone by. Craig and I were talking about the very beginning of our journey last night. We were talking about how sad it was to get on the plane to leave San Diego and how I could barely control my blubbering when we were at the airport in New York, waiting to board our flight to Benin. It hit me then how insane I was to be moving across the world from everything and everyone that I knew and loved for over two years of my life. We packed up all of our belongings, found homes for our animals, quit our decent-paying jobs (mine, I actually really liked), did a farewell tour with family and friends, and then we found ourselves at the JFK airport, saying our last goodbyes to family and friends on our T-Mobile contracted phones, wondering what we were really getting ourselves into.

We’re very happy that we took that leap into the unknown, especially since it’s not scary anymore. The unknown has become known. We are well-integrated into our community, are starting up projects left and right, have gotten used to West-Africa French, are learning local language, and actually know how to live here. We know how to get from point A to point B, know how and where to pay our electric bill or water bill, we know how to haggle prices even better than how Tijuana taught us, and we know exactly how to handle our unimaginably hectic taxi gare in Bohicon. The bus gare is still a mystery sometimes, but we’ll get the hang of it before we leave, I’m sure. Overall, we are really happy here. Joyfully happy. The kind of happy that puts a smile on your face about something insignificant and you can’t wipe it away. It’s a great feeling.

Moving to Benin, a little-known place, and joining the Peace Corps to embark on the unknown adventure has both been the scariest thing and the most exciting thing that either of us have ever done in our lives. We have had some lows, but we have had a lot of highs. Without the support of all of you back home with all of your loving care packages, letters, emails, and words of encouragement, those lows probably would have taken a much harder toll on us. We count our blessings that we have such an amazing support network of family and friends back home, patiently waiting for our return after our adventure is over. Here’s to the next six months!

Quick update: Our PO Box will remain in Cotonou. The Bohicon post office decided to raise the fee for the PO Box this year and we have decided not to pay for it, since we go to Cotonou on a somewhat regular basis and there is a monthly shuttle that comes through our little town, anyway. Thank you for all of the packages and love! Cheers

It all started the day we got home from up north. There were two pintards (guinea fowl) in our concession, hiding behind a metal door that was lying on its side. At first, we thought they were there because they were going to be eaten soon for some upcoming holiday celebration (they are delicious). Upon further investigation, which included asking the little girl who is about 10 years old why they were there, we discovered that they were there “for playing”. There are two pintards; one for the girl and one for her older brother. I knew that alarms and sirens should have been going off in my head to alert me of the atrocities that were going to take place to these poor birds, but I didn’t think much of it. After all, I grew up with pet birds, right? I was forgetting that we don’t live in America; we live in Benin where animals do not have rights, the ability to feel pain, emotions, or a mind and personality of their own.

The next day, I noticed that these birds were tied by their foot to a tree next to the door. It wasn’t much later that the kids got home from school and started “playing” with the birds. Their idea of playing includes grabbing the rope that is attached to the bird’s foot so that the bird is hanging upside down all the while trying to flap its wings and fly away. Then they began swinging the bird around. At this point, Craig and I were both standing outside our door yelling at them to stop and to be nice to the birds. They just giggled as they put down the birds. As soon as we went back inside, they started up again. I would have felt better if their plans for the birds were dinner.

The next morning, Craig and I awoke to a shrieking metal-grinding noise that these birds were making. I have never heard anything like that come out of an animal. These birds only reprise from the torment and torture are when the kids are in school. The weekends pass by slowly for them, as well as the evenings. It has become a daily pattern for us to yell at the kids to stop dragging the birds all over the ground by the rope, swinging them around, hanging them upside down, all the while they are crying. Sometimes, they just pull on the rope just enough so that as the pintards are trying to hide behind the door, they don’t actually go anywhere. It’s sick and I can’t watch or even look at the poor birds. What’s worse is that I have never seen anyone give them water or food and it’s been two weeks. We sneak them some leftover rice and beans and water. We have began calling the two kids little assholes (they don’t know English) as a way of venting our frustrations to them.

Craig and I have talked to the neighbors and to the parents and nothing seems to really change. We are plotting to cut them loose and free them, but their mother is always home when the kids and father aren’t. We’re patiently waiting for the right moment to liberate the poor pintards. In the meantime, it’s still Guantanamo Bay for birds inside our concession.

We hope everyone had a wonderful New Years. Craig and I left Cotonou on the 28th of December to go all the way up north to Tanguieta for some work. Another health volunteer who works at a CPS (like me) has a Moringa system in place at the CPS and it acts as a well-oiled machine. I was hoping that I could do some research and copy it at my CPS. It is also the start of the tourist season there and Craig wanted to check into their tourist system and put some flyers for his park at the Parc Pendjari office so people coming down from safari would stop in Bohicon at his parc. It took us 11 hours to get up to Tanguieta. Once we got there, the other married couple from our stage, Krista and Andrew, met us at the “bus stop” and we went back to their house. It was already too late to do any work, so we went to dinner and went chuking. Chuke is fermented sorghum that they serve in homemade bowls for 25-50f (5-10 cents) and it tastes like warm Belgium sour beer but with more alcohol content. I am not a fan of the Belgium sours back home and I wasn’t super crazy about the chuke either. Nonetheless, we were in the north of the country, land of chuke, so we had to go chuking. We went to a couple different chuke bars around the dusty quartier and had some bowls of chuke. I gave most of mine to Craig or Andrew though because it was starting to hurt my stomach.

The weather up north is remarkably different than the south of the country, where we live. It was actually cold! We also learned that we are not used to dry heat/cool anymore. It was so dry I thought my eyeballs were going to crack. Between the dryness and the harmattan winds, I was overwhelmed with the weather. It felt like Arizona in the wintertime with its strong cold winds, dryness all around, and dust! By the end of our time up there, every time I blew my nose, the Kleenex would be filled with dust. For the first time, I missed the humidity of the south. The north does have one good advantage though: fresh watermelon! There are watermelon stands everywhere that sell the watermelon in thoughtfully sliced chunks for 5 cents and it was deliciously fresh. I felt well integrated as I walked down the street eating my slice of watermelon, spitting out the seeds into the dirt, then throwing the rind to the goats.

We spent a couple days checking out Krista’s work structures. The Moringa system was sadly a little disappointing because they had chopped the Moringa trees down for the dry season and the boss wasn’t there while we were there because of the holidays. I did get some good information and strategies about nutritional recuperation however, that I will begin to try to implement at my CPS.

In doing our tourism research for the archeological park, we decided to spend the holidays on safari. We wouldn’t be able to work anyway on the 31st and 1st since they are both holidays here in Benin, so we gathered up a little group of 7 people and went on safari. While staying at the workstation, someone took 25,000cfa out of my bag, which is the equivalent to $50, or a quarter of a volunteer’s living stipend each month. I have already filed a report with the Peace Corps. I doubt they’ll find the money; as I’m sure it’s long gone, but hopefully they’ll be able to catch the person, especially since it had to be a fellow volunteer who took it.

The safari was amazing! We all sat on the roof of the car most of the time. Our first sightings of animals were baboons, birds, antelope, boars, hippos, and crocodiles. We also saw a couple lions, several elephants, monkeys swinging from tree to tree, coyotes, water buffalo, several other kinds of deer-like animals, and lots of other colorful birds. One morning, we were out on the roof, and we saw a teenage boy lion lying in the road. He saw us coming and ran into the tall grass. What he didn’t realize was that there was a family of elephants walking right over there and they saw the lion and charged at the lion to scare it away. The elephants, about 100 yards away, eventually saw us, too, as a threat and began to charge at us. We were all yelling in French for the driver to “go”. One of us took a video of the elephant making it’s elephant noise with its ears up and the car racing off. I’ll try to post it on here, but it will eventually be on Facebook. It was really cool and more than fulfilled our expectations of the safari.

That same day, we went to the watering hole, and we saw lots of hippos, four of them, in the shallow water, yawning and walking around. They never actually got out of the water, but at that same time, there were probably 50 baboons all around the watering hole as well. That was very interesting to watch. The baboons were trying to get water while the crocodiles were trying to sun themselves and several times, we thought a baby baboon was going to get eaten. While some tried to get water, another climbed the baobab tree and was knocking down fruit to the other ones that were waiting on the ground. This was all going on while the hippos were walking around and yawning. It was really amazing! Also that same evening, we went out, and just outside of where the hotel was, we saw a beautiful lioness teaching her cubs how to hunt about 40 feet from our car. We didn’t actually see the cubs (only the guide did) but the lioness saw us. She looked at us every time we made any noise but we didn’t seem to bother her. She would just turn around and look at us, then turn back around and watch her cubs. It was incredible.

On New Years Eve, we decided we wanted to take a break from our grocery store food and treat ourselves to dinner at our hotel, the only hotel/restaurant within 2 hours from the nearest civilization (we were in the bush!!) so we went into the restaurant to reserve a table. The usual dinner is 6,000cfa ($12) and that was a very big splurge for us. They informed us that the New Years Eve dinner would be 15,000cfa!!! We, the only grungy, dirty poor people for hours, decided that that was far too much money. One of us, the dirtiest of us all, decided that they were going to talk to the manager. As he stormed off, another one of us yelled at him to be sure to tell them that we were poor. This was hysterical to me because clearly, they could just look at how dirty he was and see that we couldn’t even afford soap! After five attempts at talking to the manager, he decided that they would give us the same dinner for 10,000cfa ($20) and then, we decided that each pair of us would split the dinner so that it would end up being even cheaper than we first thought. What smart volunteers we were! The dinner was a 5-course meal and was very good and definitely enough for 2 people to share.

Craig and I had stashed a bottle of very cheap champagne in the hotel bar fridge and at 11:15pm, we decided to get it. After some confusion and the bartender trying to give us a $300 bottle of champagne that belonged to the table next to us, we got our champagne. After midnight, all the French people decided that they were going to make a conga line and dance around the room holding the person’s shoulders in front of you. We decided to join in to the silly Frenchies’ dance and when we got back to our table, someone had STOLEN my freshly poured glass of champagne! I looked over at the table next to us, whose champagne we almost ended up with, and saw a Beninese person with the Frenchies drinking champagne out of a glass shaped like ours (and shaped differently from everyone else’s at his table). One of the people in our group confronted the Frenchie about it and they said that it was beer that they got from a friend at another table. Silly Frenchie, they don’t serve beer in a champagne glass! I was stupefied that a table with a $300 bottle of champagne would steal a glass of my $4 champagne. That is bad karma that is going to follow him all throughout 2011.

On the 1st, on our way back to Natitingou, we stopped at the waterfalls and went swimming. Craig and I were both coming down with the flu by this time, but I wasn’t going to allow that to stop me from swimming in the cold waterfall runoff water. It was so beautiful. It was also so cold that it was hard to breathe. I’m sure for you guys back home, it wouldn’t be that bad, but to us, who are use to 100 degrees with 100% humidity, it was cold! We got back to Natty and in failing to buy our bus tickets because they were on repos, we found a guide that was friends with our guide who just happened to pull up next to our car and say hello, who was headed to Grand Popo the next day and could take us to Bohicon for the same price as the bus. We jumped at the opportunity. It meant comfy seats, AC, door to door pick up and drop off, and a quicker ride down. And quicker it was! It shaved off over an hour and a half off of the normal time it takes to get from Natty to Bohicon. By the 2nd though, when we left, I was so sick that I just slept the whole way. I had a slight fever and body aches and a sore throat that kept me up all night. . Craig’s flu soon caught up to mine but didn’t hang on as long. I called Sister Madeline to tell her I had her mosquito nets but I was sick so she would have to come get them and a couple days later, another nun that she works with came all the way to Bohicon to check on us because she heard we were sick. They’re so sweet!

I went into work the next day, the 3rd, in my fragile condition (just as I would if I were in the States) and my supervisor told me to go home and not to come back until the following week when I feel better. It was a nice and welcome rest, especially since I have been bouncing around hotels and workstations for the past month. It has been almost a month since I had been home. I left on December 9th and didn’t come back until the 2nd of January. Our mama around the corner that sells us stuff thought I called it quits and went back to the States for good. My supervisor was ecstatic to see me. And our neighbors held us hostage to catch up when I went by their house to ask them to help us kill the mouse that Craig had trapped in our bathroom. It is good to be home! I am only going to leave one time in January, and that is for a Camp GLOW meeting that I really do need to attend at the end of the month, around the same time that Craig has to leave for training. Other than that, I am staying put for as long as Peace Corps will allow me to.

the family of elephants right before they charged our car

the lioness 40 feet from our car

a baboon

Safari sunset

the whole safari gang on the roof of the car with the guide and the driver

the waterfalls

I apologize in advance for the incredibly short post. Christmas was great. We went to Grand-Popo with a few friends and hung out on the beach for a few days, soaking up the sun. Just like at home! We had a great time and had pizza and red wine for Christmas dinner. On the 26th, we went back to Cotonou for the night and made the long haul (11 hours in a bus) up to Tanguieta to visit some friends and check out some things for work. We are in Natitingou right now and early tomorrow morning (5:30am) we begin our 3-day safari to end the year on a high! We're excited to see some lions and elephants. Stay tuned for pictures and we will see you next year! Cheers!

I left almost two weeks ago to go to my IST (In-Service Training) to learn about stuff that we didn’t cover (for the most part) in our 9 weeks of training like grant writing and funding for projects and all that good stuff. It was also the first time that I had seen a lot of my fellow volunteers in 3 months, so it was really nice to see them again. I had to leave Craig in Bohicon though, and he has been keeping busy entertaining himself and watching football (as you can see from the previous post). I miss him a lot!

Peace Corps really took care of us this week! It was like a mini vacation (until the end when we were tired of having a full schedule again). When we first got into country, we stayed at Codiam, which is probably one of the worst hotels in Benin, in my opinion. The hotel that they put us in was at a place called “Songhai” in Porto-Novo, which is an eco-conservation place where they do all kinds of environment things and it’s really pretty. Our hotel room was great! It was roomy with tile floor, AC (although ours didn’t work), a TV that showed CNN in English (what is going on in the world?!?!), a flushing toilet, a ceiling fan, shower with good pressure, toilet paper, soap, and the best part…a weak, but free wifi connection. Our breakfasts and lunches were provided to us. Breakfasts usually included omelet sandwiches and coffee or tea. Our lunches started with an appetizer salad, then a plate of massive proportions! Usually chicken or fish with some sort of starch like rice or couscous, a mélange of vegetables in a sauce, and sometimes fries, followed by dessert of usually yogurt, fruit, or a crepe. We got a snack before lunch and after lunch, which was cookies with a soda, soy milk, or some sort of freshly squeezed juice in a bottle. My favorite was the mango juice. I only ate dinner twice the whole 9 days of training because they fed us so well! It was great! Craig is definitely going to gain some of his lost weight back when he goes to his IST.

Since Soghai is such an environment-friendly place, there are a lot of bugs buzzing around and something bit me on my butt 4 times on one cheek! The more I scratched the bites, the bigger and harder they got until finally they looked and felt like golf balls under my skin. I decided that enough was enough and on Thursday, I called the doc in Cotonou and he had one of the Peace Corps chauffeurs take me to Cotonou for a consultation. There are two doctors on staff here in Peace Corps Benin and my normal doctor, Dr. Lomo (a wonderful woman from Ghana), was out giving flu vaccinations or something, so I saw the male doctor, Dr. Ruffin (also great). Since he was a male, and the bites were on my butt, the medical secretary had to also come into the room while he examined me. This is where I would claim that you have to have no shame to be a Peace Corps Volunteer! I felt like Ross from Friends (with his mole on his butt) having all these people crowded around me looking at my butt. He didn’t know what it was that bit me, but he seemed convinced that it wasn’t deadly nor flesh-eating; just an allergic reaction of some sort. Phew! He gave me some cream and sent me back to Porto-Novo with the instructions of coming back to Cotonou after IST until the bites cleared up.

Every night after training, we all hung out together. One night, while we were on the roof (it was cool up there) watching a movie, my dear friend Michelle wanted someone to play with her, so we all started playing “kick the can” which is a mix of tag and hide-in-go-seek. It was pretty fun and a good form of exercise. My knee had started bothering me during that game though. It has been bothering me off and on since I started training for the marathon and sometimes it would be incredibly painful and other times it would be fine. The next night, while we were dancing on the roof, I heard a little “pop” come from my knee. It started bothering me more after that. It wasn’t extremely painful or anything, so I figured it would go away. The next day, Saturday (the last day of training), it hurt a LOT. Since I was going to Cotonou that day, I’d have the doctor check it out on Monday. Once we got to Cotonou, we all went swimming at the Ambassador’s house (he lets us swim there every Saturday) and my knee was bothering me enough to where I couldn’t do my favorite underwater frog-swim.

On Monday, I was supposed to take the PC shuttle up to Bohicon (a free ride) but since the doc wanted me to stay there until my bites cleared up and my knee was bothering me anyway, I didn’t take it. By Monday, Dr. Lomo was back and she looked at my bites and my knee. I explained to her what was going on and she said that a surgeon was coming for someone else and he would look at my knee. This morning, he looked at my knee and thinks that my problem has something to do with my meniscus and wanted me to get it x-rayed, which I did and it showed nothing (like we thought would happen, since you can't see the meniscus on an x-ray). So now that THAT is out of the way, the next step is an MRI, but the MRI that they do here is "invasive" and I am waiting on the doc to ask Washington what to do with me. It's possible that they'll do the invasive procedure anyway, send me somewhere near-by that uses a more modern technique (like South Africa or London), or send me to DC to get it done. Hopefully it’s nothing serious and doesn’t impede my running and training for the marathon. I haven’t run in like 2 or 3 weeks now because of these knee issues and I’m getting antsy. My knee doesn't hurt most of the time, it just comes in spurts of pain, so I can't imagine that it would be serious enough for surgery or anything like that. Anyone who has been through this before have any ideas? Since I’m down here, Craig is taking the PC shuttle down on Thursday and on Friday morning we’re headed to Grand Popo for Christmas. That’s the plan anyway. I’ll keep you all posted and will have pictures posted soon.

I miss you all and hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas! And thank you, Brian, for the care package!

For the first time in months, I’ve been able to watch an entire EPL game, and tonight didn’t disappoint. I finally found out where I could watch a game here in Bohicon, and there just happens to be a place down the street from the Grand Mosque that shows the games and it only costs 200 cfa to get a seat on the bench. I sat 7 rows back in the room, which was more like a lean-to, built from mud brick with an aluminum sheeting roof. The screen wasn’t huge, and sometimes I lost track of the ball because I was constantly straining to see the TV. There were lots of Arsenal supporters and a few United supporters in the room. All around me people were talking smack to each other and causing a ruckus. It was an amazing atmosphere to watch a game in. The only thing I was missing was a few pints, and maybe mon jumeau to fight with. In true yovo fashion, I got plenty of stares and everyone wanted to know which team I was rooting for. The Mighty Reds, of course! Comme normal here, I was in the minority. What follows is my analysis of the match and a look forward to Sunday’s contest: Rooney is not yet on form. Surprisingly, he was most effective when sitting on the last defender’s shoulder and barging through Arsenal’s defense, rather than dropping back into space to play it to the wingers Park and Nani and then moving forward. Speaking of Nani, he ran wild tonight like he did in last season’s final encounter between the two sides and, with the help of an unfortunate deflection, served Park for the winner. As far as Park was concerned, this was a normal game for him. He worked hard, sprinted box-to-box for the full 90+ minutes, and wasn’t terribly effective save for the goal (how far did he run to get to that spot?), which he has a knack for in the important games. The goal was a bit fortunate at best; in fact, it was a classic “Craigy goal”: the result of a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck. Rooney ultimately created the space in the middle for Park to run into while Nani held up play for long enough for Park to get inside the 18. United looked very dangerous on the counter-attacks through Evra and Rafael, who played better offensively than defensively tonight. Back to Rooney, I thought that he would have been more effective. He generally seems to do well against Arsenal, and anyone could tell that he isn’t yet in form. I can’t help but wonder if Chicharito would have been more effective? His penalty was nothing less than embarrassing, trying to do a Ruud van Nistelrooy-versus-Arsenal circa 2003 (when he smacked the ball so hard against the crossbar with his penalty that it nearly flew to midfield). What was he thinking? “I make £200,000 per week now, gotta put a hole in the net every time?” If it weren’t for a good save later on, his cheeky little chip would have just about redeemed him. Arsenal, for their part, were a bit awkward and seemed to quickly run out of ideas. Nasri has been in brilliant form lately, bagging a double in their last match, but he wasn’t able to quite get on track tonight. He started on the right, but when Rafael exposed his flank while launching counter-attacks, Nasri switched over to the left, which I thought was a good move, as Evra is less prone to making mistakes than is Rafael. Arsenal had a lot of trouble getting service to Chamakh. After a frustrating opening 25 minutes or so, he started dropping far back into the defensive half to get the ball (notice where he was on the pitch when he fouled Nani when he got his yellow card). The introduction of Fabregas and Van Persie was a positive move, especially since Rosicky and Wilshire had all but disappeared from the game and Van Persie could fill that hole up top that Chamakh left when he dropped deep to receive the ball. Arsenal were ultimately let down by their wingers, who couldn’t service a decent ball in, and their central midfielders, who often left Chamakh to attack the wingers’ crosses by himself. Their introduction maybe should have been made at half-time. Arsenal came out strong in the second half but Rosicky and Wilshire were so far out of the game by then that Chamakh was still left attacking the United goal basically by himself with wide support and service from Nasri and Arshavin. Overall, United had more quality chances and did better tactically to counter-attack versus Arsenal’s possession game, though possession seemed to be fairly even. It was always going to be a tight game and it had to come down to who could better capitalize on the other’s mistakes. Nani by far wins Man of the Match in my eyes. Definitely worth my 200 cfa. Now on to Stamford Bridge on Sunday which will be just as tricky, since Chelsea have not won in over a month and are bound to break out of their slump. Let’s hope they wait at least another week before then. (Note: Since this entire continent supports Chelsea, I will be lacking fellow Reds to cheer with.) Look for Fergie to pack the center of the midfield against the Blues, who should see Lampard back in the starting line-up. It’s too bad that Ballack has moved on, as he and Evra had some great bouts of handbags the past few seasons. Speaking of Evra, come Sunday, someone restrain the groundskeepers! Cheers!

The Colline region of Benin is the very middle of the country where there are rolling green hills. Some say it is one of the prettiest parts of Benin. I would have to agree. When we were first told that we’d be living in Bohicon and we found out how close it was to the Collines, we knew that we wanted to go hiking a lot. This last weekend was the first chance that we have gotten to take advantage of the nearby scenery and dust off our hiking boots. We left on Friday from the bus gare. It was definitely the worst ride anywhere of our lives. We had to wait around for almost 4 hours in the heat for the bus to leave, while everyone kept telling us that the bus was coming any second. We ended up trying to get on a different bus whenever a bus would come into the gare, but they were all full. In the midst of trying to talk to one of the guys with whom we’ve had success with before in finding a bus, a huge guy came up to me with his hand out for a handshake calling me “yovo”. I don’t have the patience for adults calling me yovo, so I simply told him that my name wasn’t yovo and that he could call me “Madame”. He said, “but you are a yovo”, and then put his hand on my arm. I moved my arm and told him sternly not to touch me and then walked away. (It’s a big taboo for a guy to touch a girl here that he doesn’t know). He followed me and kept bothering me. I left and went back to Craig where he was guarding our luggage, and asked him to take over in our transport search. Long story short, we got in a minivan that was supposed to leave at 10:30 and it didn’t end up leaving until after noon and made frequent and long stops along the way. What should have taken us 2 hour, took us almost 4. Once we got to Savalou, the small town where our friends, Carlos and Andrea live who celebrated Thanksgiving with us, we got out of the van and went to get our bag and the van started to drive away. I yelled at the van to stop, which it did. Then it started intentionally driving just fast enough for us to have to chase it, meanwhile, the entire van that was crammed full of people (19 to be exact) was laughing at the white people chasing the van. It was one of the most frustrating days in my Peace Corps life to date. After we got to Andrea’s house, we were able to relax and enjoy the rest of our weekend. Andrea was telling us how she was having bat problems since moving into this new house because the people left the windows open the whole time it was empty. We looked everywhere, high and low, and couldn’t find any bats. As soon as night hit, there were two bats flying around. We got one of them to go out the window and the other one disappeared again. As soon as we started to go to sleep, I opened my eyes and saw it flying around above us, so I shouted for Cara to open the window again. The bat would not go out the window so Andrea thought she would try to hit it with a broom to get it out the window. Well she hit the bat directly at Craig and I, so I started freaking out even more (I don’t do rodents) and it eventually went out the window. We thought that was all, but the next night, the 3rd one appeared and we got that one out too. Now, Andrea’s house should be bat-free! On Saturday, we got up very early (to beat the sun/heat) and took a 20-minute zem ride to a little village higher up in the collines where we started our hike. Before starting, we ate some bouille for breakfast, which is the Beninese equivalent of cream of wheat but not as good. It was cool, misty, cloudy, and nice until about 11am when the sun started to come out. Needless to say, it was a very nice hike. There was a palm tree with 7 trunks (they said it is the only one in the world, but who knows) along with a lot of other pretty things. It was just nice to get away from post for the weekend and do some outdoor activity. The company that took us out said that it was the hardest hike that they did, but we didn’t find it too hard. We were very dirty afterwards though and when we got back to Andrea’s house, the water was out so we had to walk to Carlos’ house with our shower stuff to take a shower. We left to come home on Sunday, and the ride home was much nicer than the ride there! Enjoy the pictures!

P.S. A huge thanks to Noelle and Mama/Papa Wirick for the care packages! You guys are awesome!

Carlos, Cara, Satin, and Andrea

Craig and I with the kids in the start village

All of us in front of the palm tree with 7 trunks

the start of the trail

at the top of the first peak

This bat pretended to be dead and when Craig threw him off the roof with the dust pan, he flew away!

December 1st is globally known as World AIDS Day. I knew about it before leaving the States, but I wasn’t too sure how well-known it was here. Our event started about a month ago when I was at my first baby weighing and I asked my supervisor, Sakina, if we could do something for World AIDS Day. Being the supportive supervisor she is, she said, “of course”. I told her that I’d like to organize a sesibilization about HIV/AIDS and then do voluntary testing afterwards. She elaborated on my ideas and got a video to play, organized with a school director of a local school that has a high rate of infection, and amazingly, got someone to agree to do the testing. We chose a school because here, kids start having sex at 8-10 years old, which is unconceivable in the States, and because it is not unheard of that a young girls have these relations with older men (teachers, family friends, etc), there is a much higher rate of infection. Another reason for this is because in the culture here, they believe that if you don’t have sex a lot, then you’re not healthy and you’ll get sick with all kinds of horrible things. Which I guess there is some truth to that keeping you healthy, but they put a lot more emphasis on “being healthy” in that aspect then they really need to. I asked Peace Corps if we could use our connections and resources to get someone to do the testing, but the only resources that are available through Peace Corps have to be booked months in advance. Luckily, there is a local organization that does testing whom she’s worked with before and they were happy to help.

December first came around and Craig and I met Sakina at the school. She pulled up with a vehicle full of stuff (including free female and male condoms to give out at the end) and walked up to meet us with a box on her head and a smile on her face. The turn out was much larger than I had expected since we did the presentation right after exams. We had two rooms full of kids. One room had older adolescents and the other room had the kiddies. The organization that came did a really good sensibilization on HIV and AIDS that was very informative for the kids as well as inclusive. The video that we showed was so graphic that if THAT doesn’t stop them from having unprotected sex, I have no idea what will. Craig couldn’t even watch it because it was so illustrative. And of course every time there was a penis or vagina, all the kids started yelling and getting all excited. After the video, we did a condom demonstration with both the female and male condoms while they started the rapid testing. One of our colleagues who was leading the demonstration said to make sure the penis was hard and not floppy before putting on the condom and all hell broke loose with kids screaming and laughing and jumping around. After the kids got their results, they gave us the little paper that the technicians gave to them when they got their results and they turned it in to us for a package of free condoms. that we got to give out Sadly, there were many cases of HIV positive students. They didn’t tell them that they were positive there, but told them to go to their headquarters for more testing so that they could counsel them in a private place. Hopefully, we made some sort of impact on them to live healthier lifestyles. As our first official event that we have done in the Peace Corps, I feel that it went incredibly well. Enjoy the pictures!

My fearless leader, Sakina, with a box of donated condoms on her head

The class with all the older kids

Doing the rapid testing

Ready to give out condoms!

Heather and I took a trip to Savalou (pronounced Sah-vah-lew) this weekend to visit two of our friends who live there, Andrea and Carlos. Savalou is about 115 km northwest of Bohicon in the Collines department (there are hills there, thus the name; collines = hills). Tangent: Savalou is about 70 miles away from Bohicon, which would take an hour or less on a well-constructed 8-lane freeway in the U.S. We arrived at the Bus Gare (bus station) at 8:45am on Friday and were promised that there would be a bus available to take at 9:30am (Bohicon is a major transit point and buses are always coming through going north or south). We waited and asked around and waited some more and finally left at 12:30pm in a 9-person van. Because of potholes littering the 2-lane road and frequent stops for gas, food, urination, and picking people up, our van finally cruised into Savalou at about 3:00pm with us and 17 of our closest Beninese friends. This is normal. Savalou is a pretty town and is best known in Benin for its Ignam Pilé Fête, which occurs every August. Ignam Pilé is similar to mashed potatoes, and it’s extremely popular in Savalou. Basically, yams are boiled until tender, then placed in a very large mortar and beat to hell with a gigantic pestle. The result is a ball of doughy mashed potatoes which is eaten by hand or with a fork with a spicy peanut sauce (sauce d’arachide). It is my favorite Beninese dish. Savalou is also well known as the starting point of the Collines which offers great opportunities for hiking. So we did!

We woke up early on Saturday morning and took Zems (moto-taxis) about 10 miles to a very small village to meet our guide and start the hike. We didn’t have any breakfast yet so a family in the village served us some buille (sort of like oatmeal, but made with cornmeal and water and has no nutritional value. It’s a common breakfast here and can be served with sugar, peanuts, or sweetened condensed milk mixed in and often with fried dough on the side, like doughnuts) and allowed us to take pictures of the little kids that were running around, curious about the white people in their village.

We got pictures in front of a famous Savalou landmark: a palm tree with 7 trunks. It used to have 9, but two were cut off because they were blocking a dirt footpath (why they couldn’t re-route the path, nobody known). Then we started the hike up the colline, which was a steep incline at some places. From the top of the first colline (500 meters) we could see most of the valley that Savalou sits in and made for some great pictures. We stopped for a few minutes then headed to the adjoining colline which was probably about 100 meters higher and offered a better view and better pictures. The hike in all took about 3-1/2 hours in the hot sun and many not-so-friendly bugs but it was well worth it—it was beautiful!

On Saturday night we went out for pizza and omelet sandwiches and sodas and relaxed. It was great to see our friends and check out more of what Benin has to offer! Cheers!

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. It was a little weird for us, celebrating it without our families back home, but we did celebrate it with a couple members of our new Peace Corps family. At the last minute our friends Carlos and Andrea, who live about 2 hours northwest of us decided to come down and celebrate with us. We all went out to dinner the night before Thanksgiving for some cheap food (rice, sauce, and wagasi cheese—400CFA/.90 cents) and caught up.

We don’t have access to your typical Thanksgiving foods (except yams and potatoes) and since we’re all from regions with heavy Latin culture, we decided to make Mexican food. Carlos, Craig, and I all went to a garden that is run by handicaped people to buy our produce. Unfortunately, they sold us avocados that weren’t ripe yet so we couldn’t have any guacamole and the papayas that we had for our beverages weren’t all the way ripe either so it was a little chunky. Regardless, we had a nice spread. Home-made tortillas and tortilla chips, salsa, refried beans, Spanish rice, Tapatio potatoes, and the dessert—arroz con leche, or rice pudding while drinking frozen fruit daiquiris made with papaya, pineapple, and bisap syrup-made from hibiscus flowers. Sister Madeline (from a previous post) was in town and stopped by with a bottle of white wine for us to celebrate the holidays with and we had our neighbors over for the actual dinner part.

We ate all day long to make sure that something that day felt like Thanksgiving since we were without our normal company and it was extremely hot like usual. But while surrounded by new family, friends, and neighbors, it was the closest to a “normal” Thanksgiving that we would get to and it was really nice.

Pictures to come soon!

We have been living in Benin for less than six months, and it is interesting to reflect back and see how we have already changed—and what we have to be thankful for.

It was not until we arrived here that we realized just how well we live back in the States. It’s easy to take for granted the little things, like free public education and a civil service and law enforcement that isn’t rife with endemic corruption. Kids in Benin regularly wake up at 5:00am on a school day to do homework then housework before going off to school, then come home and cook and clean before going to bed at 11:00 at night. School costs money, and if Moms does not make enough money selling rice and beans outside the front door and Pops is a degenerate drunken Zem driver with a second family somewhere else, kids sometimes have to pick up a job cleaning houses or working at the marché to pay their school fees, which are something like $20 a year; or even worse, having to work as an apprentice for free because you cannot afford school fees, like the 10-year old apprentice to the 14-year old man-boy barber who cuts my hair for sixty cents (ages are approximate). Corrupt police set up checkpoints along the only major road in the country to force taxi drivers into supplementing their income, usually right in front of a roadside stand that peddles pilfered Nigerian gasoline at a discounted rate.

There are great things here, though. It’s great to wake up early before it gets really hot and walk down the dirt road and salue the Mama’s setting up their makeshift food stands (or walking around with various assorted goods on their heads), to see the joy and surprise on their faces when the Yovo greets them with a cheerful “A fon gonji a!” or greeting our neighbors with a quick “bonjour” and “bonne journée” as they walk their motos out the gate to leave for work. Little things are fulfilling, like when my work partner treats me to a satisfactory “Voila!” as I begin to slowly figure out what is going on around me. Making those personal connections is one of the most important parts of this experience.

Thanksgiving is about being appreciative of the little things, but also of the big things, like family and friends. We left behind family and friends in Arizona, California, and Texas to come on this little journey and we couldn’t be more thankful for their love, wisdom, and support, and we are thankful for our new extended family here, from our host family in Porto-Novo, Embassy staff, our Beninese neighbors, and, of course, our fellow PCVs.

To our family, here’s to you on this Thanksgiving. We have much to be thankful for.

Work has started slowly here, but is quickly picking up. Our first (almost) two months at post was spent getting accustomed to the area, meeting people, figuring out the marché schedule, reading a lot of books, magazines, and online articles, and preparing for the work that would inevitably come our way.

That time is hurtling toward us with reckless abandon. Our schedule is starting to get packed with Fongbe lessons, meetings, excursions, baby-weighings, sensibilizations, and trips to the Cyber to research and post marketing materials. It seems like every day this week we have something on our schedules. To wit: Monday we had a meeting at the local CEG to present an English Spelling Bee project (that PC Benin is putting on--the finals are in Nattitangou in June or at the end of the school year, whichever comes first); Tuesday and Friday we have Fongbe (Fon) lessons; Wednesday we have another meeting at the CEG, this time with an English professor who may become our contact person for the spelling bee as well as a soccer game (we might be starting not only an English club, which would coincide with the spelling bee, but also a girls’ soccer club at the school, with help from our neighbor); Thursday Heather has her APCD (her PC boss) visit; Friday we have a sensibilization on Moringa in Abomey and the aforementioned Fongbe lessons but I also need to research the histoire of the parc and write up information to post on travel websites and meet with my homologue to discuss ideas that I have for the parc (and how to present them to the mayor so we can actually get some reinvestment there). Saturday we have off but Sunday I have my APCD visit and next week is Thanksgiving.

So everything is picking up now. No more whining about having nothing to do. We’re also trying to coordinate “work trips” with other volunteers to visit other parts of Benin, all the while studying for the FSOT, building up mileage before we start marathon training, and trying to avoid explosive diarrhea.

Fun times. Cheers.