Ant Nest! So I was sitting on my floor reading a book when I noticed a line of teensy little ants. This was suspicious. I followed the line and found a whole pile of ant eggs, with dutiful little ant nannies tending to them. Ew. To the dismay of Buddhists everywhere, I sprayed them with a solid layer of bug spray, then reorganized the whole thing. In the process, I...

Found 3 Eggs! Like miniature chicken eggs, each about the size of a Milk Dud. One broke, and was a little unidentifiable, fetus-y blog with black pinpoint eyes. I was convinced and worried that they were from mice, and then I realized that mice don't lay eggs. It is unlikely that I have miniature invisible platypuses running around the house at night, so I'm currently unsure of their origin. Except, well, the whole lizard thing. Cross your fingers for lizards.

Exams (again). Spent this week overseeing exams. It was boring. Highlight: during the 6eme math exam, someone thought it'd be a great idea to burn a giant pile of trash right next to the classroom. We all smelled like a barbecue afterward. The end.

Crime and Punishment, even though it tricked me, was really good! First half's a little wallow-y, because the guy is basically going crazy, but the end is exciting and interesting. Score one for Russian literature.

Three Products I'm Loving: I brought these things back from Amurrica, and in the off-chance you're looking for a new energy bar, sunscreen or soap, I suggest these. They're awesome!Neutrogena UltraSheer Sunscreen and LemonZest

Luna Bars!Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap: Peppermint!

That's all for this week, next update: Parakou!

- The Struggles of a Wednesday. I went to Porto-Novo to work on getting the books for our library, but ran into several little annoying problems. First, the application to request books wasn't actually ready like my project partner told me, so we couldn't order books like I thought we were. Next, the organization's catalogue now doesn't have a bunch of the books I wanted (no worries, I have multiple backup plans). A drunk man got in my face to demand money, and no one in the very packed cyber decided to help me fend him off for a full 3 min. of him rubbing my arm and demanding my money. The bank took $80 extra out of my account for the shipping costs. And finally, the woman at the bookstore overcharged me for school books for my scholarship girl. Sigh. Having been here for a year and a half, though, I now have a solid list of calm-down-breathe-in strategies. I bought vegetables, made fresh mint tea, and listened to Adele. Stress: solved.

- The State of the Library: the room is now separated (!) from the informatique classroom, and the furniture is being built as I write. It looks good so far! Working through the pile of paperwork to get the books from France. Am hoping to order them in a week or two, which would be they'd be here in late February I think. As soon as that request's in, I'll start trying to find a librarian!

- Crime and Punishment. Someone (whoever printed this edition of the book) tricked me. After years of being intimidated by Russian literature, I finally looked at Dostoyevsky in our library and discovered that C&P was actually kind of a small book. Maybe 300 pages by the size of the book. I got it home and started reading, and then found out that The Modern Library just prints on super thin paper. It's like tracing paper, and now I have to read 550 pages. Cheaters.

- At School: we have our 2nd round of exams next week, so I've been hauling my very chatty classes through review lessons to make sure they've seen all the types of activities that'll be on the test. Ho hum. I also promised each of them an American pen if they can get a 15/20... 75% is a really good score here.

- Girl's Club Begins! Yes, I was supposed to start this in October. Thanks to projects and classroom availability, though it just started last week... It's pretty awesome. :) Only 6 girls have showed up, but 4 were girls I took to Camp GLOW last year, and the others were shy girls from my classes, who I'm excited to work with. I kind of love them. We sit in a circle (I am maybe the only teacher that will ever sit at a desk and just chat with them) and talk about things like how to study and what they want to be when they grow up. They make fun of each other (and me), we play games, everyone laughs... it's amazing. It's exactly what I want to be doing with my time. And soon we're going to get into sex ed and setting goals and women's rights, which are, I think, the most important things I could possibly teach them.

- A quick note on Camp GLOW: It might just be in my classes, but you can really tell which girls came to GLOW. They speak up, they don't take crap from the boys next to them, they ask questions and engage with the lesson... They care about getting everything they can out of school. Feel lucky to have been a part of getting them to this point.

Just heard the news that we've got all of the donations necessary for our girls' camp! Thank you all so much!

That means that all I've got left to fundraise for is the boys' camp (Camp BLOW) -- please keep talking that up, since we've still got $4,566.79 to go on that one. Almost done with this round of fundraising! And thanks for being amazing. :)

...that would be, Benin Stops for Giant Voodoo Party Day! More pictures here: Photos October to March

This man, wearing a hoop skirt and jumping around like

crazy, is a voodoo fetish (spirit).

The lady in the middle is a voodoo priestess, and she is

awesome -- you should have seen her dance moves.

Speaking of dancing... see the dust flying? Yep, that

continued.

The scarring here is part of the initiation ritual for girls

who will later become voodoo priestesses. I think

they go through the ritual between ages 10 and 13ish,

but don't quote me on that. These will eventually fade and

flatten until they're just flat, shiny designs on her skin.

Future voodoo priest, dancing.

As you can see from this spirit/man's face, most

people in the parade were very, very drunk.

And very happy!

First of all, jet lag. It's not fun. Also, it's hot. Mmmm, sweat, I forgot what you smelled like.

Playing Santa Claus. K, so one of the things I was most dreading (seriously, this caused no small amount of stress) was the people-asking-me-for-gifts thing. I did bring gifts for people I'm close to or work with -- it'd be supremely culturally inappropriate to not do so -- but I didn't and couldn't buy gifts for everyone.

I gave the ones I had as quickly as I could so I wouldn't have to hear "What'd you bring me?" and "Where's my gift??" There were still quite a few people who searched me out to ask for their present, one of whom sent his mistress to demand his gift from me, but in general, people were pretty chill. Only one showed up at my house, and almost everyone laughed it off if I said I brought them "good health" instead of a cadeau. On the flip side, those people that I did bring gifts to were SO excited and thrilled to get presents, especially if there were photos involved. Beninese people LOVE photos.

So. I think we're done with that. Sigh of relief, and moving on.

Say My Name, Say My Name. While trying to think of gifts for all of my bajillion neighbors, I stumbled upon my old CD case from 8th grade. Obviously, I raided it. Now, my construction worker neighbors and founder-of-a-private-school-head-honcho neighbor have been singing falsetto gibberish to Destiny's Child "Survivor" and the Charlie's Angels soundtrack for about a week. Win!

My two favorite compliments from the past week (hahahhaha): "You have gotten fat! You must have been drinking lots of your mother's milk!" -- GbloGblo "My, you have changed in only 12 days! You are so fat now, and your skin has lost its color! So, so fat!" -- GbloGblo's husband

Nigerian Gas Prices Skyrocket, Everyone Freaks Out. Nigeria's government removed the subsidies on gasoline a week or so ago, freeing up something like $7.3 billion a year in government spending. (If that money manages to actually go to something good, like education or health improvements, that would be great for the country. It remains to be seen, though.) A liter of gas was at 65 naira, and as of January 2nd, it was at 130 or 140 naira. More info here.

Since most of Benin's gas comes illegally from Nigeria, the price change is having a huge effect on everything here. Transport costs are now way more expensive (sometimes close to double the earlier price), and anything imported (loooooots of things) is pricier too. Lines to get gas are four hours long, and everyone running a taxi or a zem is really on edge. In Nigeria, there are riots in different parts of the country, and two of the three unions of Nigerian oil workers are now on strike.

We're waiting it out. I'm totally safe, and all we have to deal with right now are higher transportation costs and people telling us, "You know, gas is really expensive right now! The price is higher now!" all the time.

Tuesday: National Voodoo Day! Post to follow. :)

I went to a sparkly magical place for Christmas -- America! It was an awesome, much-needed trip, and even though I'm supremely jet-lagged right now, I think it's important to list some highlights before I go back to village. Thus, my list (in no particular order):

Seeing The Differences. It had been a year and a half since I'd been in my home country, and it was kind of surreal to be back. I stopped quite a few times just to double-check and make sure I was actually there. It was especially interesting to see the differences in American people and African people now that I'm kind of settled in in my village: Americans seemed weirdly obsessed with things like TV characters, new things, weight loss, and parenting. On the flip side, it was incredibly comforting to remember that men actually treat you like an equal in America -- I knew that wasn't something I just made up!

Also: we are SO rich. The amount of stuff we have is craaaazy compared to the bare-walls-and-two-chairs thing most of my neighbors have going on. My trip to Target was kind of stressful as a result -- how do you choose between 5 types of pretty much the same thing? And why do we need that many??

I'm Not All The Way Normal. I think I did a really good job of being normal while home, but there were a couple of little accidents. On several occasions, I accidentally said sarcastic things in Peace Corps-brand French, which would have been hilarious if I had been with other volunteers. As it was, I just sounded like a snob. My best moment, though, might have been when I yelled "Ko ko ko!" (what we do instead of knocking) and then just walked into my sister's room, where she was half-dressed and NOT pleased. Oops. Guess I should have waited for the "Mé mé mé."

Gained 7 lbs! Greatly added by Mom and Lauren following me around with snacks and cake pops, I'm proud to say that I gained a whole 7 lbs. while home. Take that, amoebas.

MY PROJECT IS FUNDED! This one was a huge moment -- I was so excited to find out that I'd gotten all of the donations needed to start my library project. Thank you thank you thank you for all of your donations and advertising help! Best part? We over-raised by several hundred dollars, so I get to donate some money to the camps, too!

Saw Some Favorite People. Miraculously, all four of my best friends from high school (including one who was a Bolivian exchange student -- hey Dani!) were in town at the same time this year, so we got to have a real reunion! We all got together to go wedding dress shopping with Lauren, who will be getting married in July 2013. We're all bridesmaids, and it was wonderful to be together and making fun of each other just like we used to do. :) Also got to see a couple of old friends from high school and skype most of my friends from Rice. Glad to see yall's faces!

Other Favorite Activities: Chai tea tasting with Mandee, who bought me 7 different types for Christmas. :) Shopping with Mom, and mani/pedi-getting with Lauren. Snow inner tubing with cousins. Fashion help from Katiebelle, and breakfast with my Dad. Eating. Just being home for a little while.

All in all, a fantastic trip. Was it hard to come back? Yeah, kinda. But I'm so glad I went, and now, I'm calm and recharged for these last few months. Bring on the projects, I'm ready!

- Accidentally got a little, uh, tipsy, at the JFK airport. I ordered a single margarita at Chili's, thinking that I should probably have one before I went back to the Land of No Tequila. What arrived in front of me was a shaker approximately the size of an Octoberfest beer; that is, barely smaller than a bathtub. As a half-Texan AND very tough Peace Corps volunteer, I felt that it was my duty to finish the thing. It filled my martini glass 7 times (well, okay, I think it was 7... Counting may not be my strong suit at this very moment), and I drank it all. I am therefore maybe a little drunksies. Related: just got on a plane that might be going to Barcelona. Will find out when I get there.

- (Later) Upon boarding the plane, immediately passed out. Like before we even started taxiing. Apparently my sister's tendency to drool is hereditary. Luckily, the window doesn't seem to care.

- 6-Hour Layover in Paris was made less awful by the arrival of my fellow volunteer and closemate Kalyn, who spent Christmas in France. We traded fun stories of all the weird things we accidentally did/said while in the West, then ate everything we could find before boarding. The flight was easy, we landed on time, and despite literally falling on my butt over my giant mass of duffle bags, we made it to the workstation alive.

- Now: To Village! Anticipate some stress this week as everyone I know asks me to give them things from America, but am also excited to get going on some projects. Stay tuned for updates on my scholarship girl project, the beginnings of the library (i.e. nagging my director until he starts moving on room separation), and surviving hot season. Was so glad to see everyone this trip! Now, onto the next 9 months. :)

Can't get them to upload here, but check them out on YouTube:

1. 5eme M5 sings "Jingle Bells" -- watch the kid (Innocent) in the front left. He was really into it.2. 5eme M1 sings "Ain't No Mountain"... because I felt like it.

Thank you SO SO SO much for donating! The entire almost $3000 is done in under 3 weeks, which is really, really fast by PC standards. Thank yous will be out soon (as soon as PC sends me the list of donors). I'm so excited! I get to start as soon as I get back!

Other things to say:

People keep asking me if they can send me books for the library. Short answer: yes, but I can't pay you back for shipping. It's not in the grant that I wrote, so it's not acceptable for me to pay for shipping for donated books. If you want to send me books (kiddie lit and young adult novels would be best), I'd love to have them, just send them to my package address. I will be getting books from France for most subjects, though, so it's not a big problem if yall can't send me truckfuls of them.

Somehow yall managed to donate all of the money for my project before I even got the chance to put the apron money in. Amazing. Since there's no more space in that fund, I'm going to take the money from the aprons and divide it equally between the Camp GLOW fund and the Camp BLOW fund, for which we still need to raise lots of money. Thank you so much for buying!

Know anyone who still wants to donate? We still need to raise $2,581 for Camp GLOW and $4776 for Camp BLOW. Those links are here: Girls' Camp Boys' Camp

Home is amazing! I've been here exactly a week and I've already gained 4 lbs. I'm gonna make it to 10, just watch! Will update on all of the lovely people I've seen and all the delicious foods Mom keeps handing me (she's dedicated to my goal, too). But now, have to go shopping for my friend Lauren's wedding dress!

Just found this site, which tells you the percentages of donated money actually go to the projects you're charitably supporting. It's kind of like giving grades to charities and NGOs.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/

In other news, we're within $160 of being done with my grant! That's AMAZING! Thanks, everyone, for the perfect Christmas gift!

(In Paris Airport:)

- Just had a really weird emotional response to coffee. It went like this: I get to my gate and, since I have 20 euros leftover from France on July, I decide to buy myself breakfast #2 for today. I get a cappuccino and a giant cookie, and without the stare-down and daily arguments that happen with Beninese mamans, the guy gives me the correct change. I sit down and take a sip of real espresso with real milk. And suddenly my trip home here and it's today and i'm going home to hug my Dad and Mom and baby sisters and there's a tear running down my face. Not sure how it got there. Will try to rein in the weirdness in public, promise.

- American parents seem neurotic and way obsessed with their kids. I'm watching a dad who just got on the floor to roll a ball with two-year-old Addison. Her mom just said (direct quote), "Want some more yogurt, Addison? Maybe? Okay, I'll come to you." in Daagbe, you (moms only, dads never) strap the kid to your back and forget about him till he cries, and when he's too big for that, you let him wander around the general area (playing with chunks of rusty metal and old plastic bags, eating dirt, etc.) until he either does something stupid (gets too close to an oncoming zemidjan) or cries for food. If stupid, you hit him. If hungry, you feed him. End of story. None of this playing with the kid or following him around with food... Kinda seems ridiculous to me now. Hah.

- This country is FREEZING. I'm wearing the warmest thing I brought to Africa (Jones jacket, thanks Caroline!), and am still shivering in my seat. Time for socks, and maybe even the spare tissu pagne I somehow thought I needed in America.

- I can smell melted cheese from my seat in the terminal. Not even joking. No one (except spoiled little Addison) is eating within two rows of me. This place is magical!

- The Frenchy-French accent is tough, but I really do speak French now! Sometimes, people even speak to me in French first. Probably just good manners in a France, but still. Win for me!

- It's looking like I'll almost definitely miss my flight to Cleveland because of customs and my layover time. Oh well. There's another flight a couple of hours later, so I'll get home tonight barring a blizzard or volcano explosion in Pennsylvania. Which I think is pretty unlikely, truth be told.

---------

-On the Paris-to-New York flight: am seated next to an entertainingly cranky gardening lady, who keeps badgering the staff about giving her another double-sized glass of free merlot. She's on her fourth.

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- At JFK: Sprint through the airport at top speed, caring not at all about how crazy and potentially homeless I look. Hair is at cavewoman-level disorder, and have forgotten to take off socks before putting on my duct-taped flats. Despite many strange looks, i make it to the gate on time! This time I'm sitting next to a lawyer who's doing really interesting cases... Between him and Leslie, I'm starting to believe that law is actually (gasp!) interesting to learn about.

_____

- I'm HOME! Family picked me up in Santa hats, and we're now going to my favorite restaurant for a feast before I sleep for 20 hours straight. So happy! So cold! Merry Christmas, everyone!

The Grant: Uhhh... so, I was planning to post an update on the percentage we've earned so far, complete with an elephant graphic to show where we're at. Little problem: that elephant would be pretty much filled up already. We've earned over $2500 in two weeks! That's AMAZING! Had already written a blog begging people to advertise and donate again, but after seeing the donation page and the giant number of people who have been Facebooking and sending in money... Yall are way ahead of me. In fact, you're kind of ridiculously on top of this, and you deserve a huge THANK YOU!! So much closer than I expected to be by now- thank you so much.

I've got pledges already to cover the rest of the grant, and I haven't even put the apron money in yet, so that will now go to girls' and boys' camp, which still need funding. Merci bien, merci beaucoup, and mibayi keke (kekekekeke!) -- I don't know how I got this lucky in terms of friends and family, but thank god I did. :)

World Map Is DONE!! Yaaaay! And I gotta say, it's really pretty. The best part has been seeing students' reactions, though. When I started the project, I assumed that only a couple of students would actually use the map for school reasons. The others would regard it as a giant artwork that the crazy white lady did, and forget about it as soon as the novelty wore off.

I've been amazed at how many students now hang out next to the map and stare at it, telling their friends all of the countries and facts they know (most of which the other volunteers and I taught them). Others stand there and just let the country names roll around in their mouths, tasting their vowels and consonants for the first time. "Madagascar" and "Australie" seem to be their favorites.

Read Book #75! Seventy-five was my original goal, and I made it with months to spare. Ah, the Peace Corps life. :) So... On to 100?

Aprons. Forgot to say earlier, if you ordered an apron (they're all sold now), wash it separately in cold water-- the dyes here aren't as set as what we're used to in the States. I have killed many a t-shirt by washing it with tissu.

Africa Loves My Mom. Two different families have given me gifts to bring to Mom: my couteriere Pierrette made her some clothes just because, and my host family in Porto-Novo went on a shopping spree for presents for Mom and my sisters. Pierrette also tried to give me a giant chicken (the biggest I've ever seen in Benin) to bring to Mom, explaining that I could just tie its feet together and put it under my seat like people do on busses here. We had to have a talk about customs regulations...

Wake-Up Call. At 5:30am last Wednesday, I woke up to my next door neighbors (two construction workers in their late 20s) blasting Shania Twain's "From This Moment On" at full volume. Best part: they were singing along with made-up gibberish words. In falsetto.

It's "Cold Season." By that I mean that in the early morning, it MIGHT hit 68 degrees. People are wearing multiple layers, ski caps, and heavy windbreakers. All of my friends have been complaining about it being "too much" and "dangerous for the health." The cold ("harmattan") also has been cited as the reason for why my students couldn't do their homework and why we had to end our weekly English department meeting early. Harmattan is hilarious. Remember this when I can't function in Ohio in December.

Remember The Week Before Christmas when you were in middle school? Remember how impossible it was to concentrate and how distracted you were? Please say a silent thank-you prayer for those teachers who managed not to kill you during that time. Having been on the non-student side of that situation this week, I am now aware of how much self-control it takes. God bless you, junior high teachers of America, and God save my three classes of hellians.

Merry almost-Christmas everyone! I had my kids sing some songs in class (when I wasn't quite as mad at them), and will upload the videos soon. Prepare yourselves for a total and adorable butchering of your favorite songs! And Ohio, see you tomorrow night. Eeeeeeee!

a. Read the last post! Lots of info on my school library project, plus a pleasepleaseplease for donations.

b. The quick version, for those of you with real jobs: donate to Peace Corps Benin projects! Here are the three I most care about (emphasis on the first one, which is my baby). All contributions are tax-deductable, go directly to the projects (no overhead or organization fees) and can be done with a credit card or "ACH Bank Check," whatever that is. Click on the name to go to the donation site.

CEG Daagbe School Library: Help build a library for my secondary school!

Camp GLOW: Fund a weeklong camp for 10-14 year old girls, where we'll teach them about health, their rights, education, goal setting, and how to take control of their own lives. Read my blog from Camp GLOW last year:

Camp BLOW*: Contribute to a weeklong camp for 10-14 year old boys. Basically the same thing as Camp GLOW, except we'll focus a lot on treating everyone (girls included) with respect. This is our attempt at hitting the girls' empowerment thing from every angle, while at the same time enriching the lives of smart, motivated boys in our villages.

*Yes, I know, ridiculous name, but the girls' camp is "Girls Leading Our World," so we went for consistency rather than respectability.

And now, for the featured act. After over a year of working on group projects, it's finally time for me to introduce my very own, big, intimidating, and hopefully amazing project: I'm creating a library for my school. It's a huge project, and an important one, and I need your help.

Kids almost never have access to books here. Out of my 130+ students, under ten have the textbooks they need for their classes, so they're left to study whatever they've managed to copy off of the blackboard, spelling mistakes and all. Most have never used a dictionary or even seen an encyclopedia, and the thought of reading a story for fun is about as foreign as I am. There are no books. I want to bring some here.

With school administration, I'll be creating a library where students and professors will have access to reading materials: textbooks, picture books, stories, magazines, reference books, and even maps and visuals for science classes. Giving the school a library will change the whole learning environment, not only for the students and teachers, but for the entire community.

So now that I've climbed the first mountain (writing the grant application -- getting budget numbers was like pulling teeth), it's on to Everest: fundraising. I need to come up with $2,824.89 by January. Here's the thing: I don't have that. (Weird, I know, for an English major not to be swimming in $100s.) Which brings me to my main point: I need your help.

1. Donate! (Please!!) The link is here, you can use credit or debit cards, and every single dollar will get us closer to CEG Daagbe's school library. I personally promise that every cent is going to the project, not to admin costs or organization fees. And I'll get the kids to send you a cute thank-you note, complete with marker decorations and frequent misspellings. :)

2. Advertise! I know it doesn't often come up in conversation, but if you can bring up the whole "hey-my-friend's-building-a-library-in-Africa-and-do-you-have-five-bucks-to-spare?" thing in conversations with family, friends, coworkers, and church groups, that'd help a lot. Facebook posts and emails would also be amazing.

3. Aprons for Africa! I'm coming home for Christmas, and I'm bringing 55 aprons with me. Each of them was made with African fabric (tissu) by my seamstress, who's a really close friend. I'm selling them for $15 plus shipping, and all profits (about $11 each) will go directly to the library. Can't guarantee a specific pattern (I only have 2-4 of each), but let me know if you hate yellow or only wear stripes and I'll do my best to oblige. To order, email my mom at glasgoc@gmail.com.*

Thank you so much! Tell your friends! And an even bigger thanks again, because without all of yall's overwhelming support (financial, emotional, spiritual), there's no way I could be here doing something this big, complicated, and community-changing.

Love love love,

Lissa

*Leslie, Tara and Alex, I have your orders already, but email Mom anyway just to double check.

I'll be on a plane in 18 DAYS!!The Adventures of Shadow (and my poor floor). This week I puppy-sat for my closemate Maeghan's new puppy Shadow. A few things you should know about Shadow: he is a puppy. He has a teensy little puppy-sized bladder. His body magically produces about 17 gallons of pee a day. And he is a Basinji, the second least-trainable breed of dog in the world.

Things we achieved in a week (sublist): Shadow pees on floor a record 10 times, despite hourly trips outside. He poos in my bedroom once. House is now coated in bleach water. I manage to not commit caninicide. (That should be a real word.) We also manage to make my cat royally and hilariously jealous. After spending the first day stalking and then running from Shadow, who REALLY wants to play, Popsicle spends the rest of the week perched just out of reach on my porch, glaring at the puppy in his house. He also snuck inside on multiple occasions, only to be surprised and then viciously defensive when Shadow, again, wanted to play. I rescued him. He sat on the porch and glared.Learned: Owls Are Sorcerers. Along with spiders, ants, cats, dogs, and fireflies, owls are animals that sorcerers can inhabit to come kill or injure people. Funny, as the owl is also my college mascot. During a conversation with my Nigerian friend (6 months younger than me, and she has a 7 month old baby girl), I learned that sorcerers in my village often posess owl bodies to come to people in the night.

If they come to you and you're the target, the owl will pull the soul out of you, maybe through your mouth or eyes. Once your soul is gone, your body's dead, and your family will bury you. It is after your burial that the sorcerers dig your body up, have a child chop up the body into meat, and then they drink your blood, which is "like water to them." Then, she pointed out the child who is rumored to be the local body-cutter. All the adults say it's him, and she told me that because he's started so young, he'll be the boss of the sorcerers when he grows up.

Halloween, you've got nothing on Africa.Grant Is En Route! Finally got my grant application reviewed and sent to headquarters, so as soon as that's looked at, it should be online! Watch out in the next week for a post/email about how you can help me out (hint: donate and advertise!) and the link to the site. :)Bridget's Birthday Weekend. This Monday is my really good friend Bridget's birthday, so we're celebrating by pampering ourselves all weekend. We ate delicious food last night with fresh pineapple juice, gave ourselves manicures, and at 1pm, will be going to get massages. Yes, my friends, there are massages in Benin. They're hella expensive on our budget (an hour is 7 mille, or about $15), but we're doing it -- we've earned it after the grants we've just written. Later, we're going to drink hot chocolate and eat cookies that Sam and Alicia made. We're spoiled, it's okay.Next Week... I will go to a church party (free food!), eat real turkey and pate rouge at Kalyn's friend's house, take lots of photos of Pierrette and family with me, get more Christmas presents made, try my hardest to get almost done with my world map. Because this is getting embarrassing. Wish me luck, and see you all SO SOON!

The guest author for this post is Jim Doty, my fellow Jonesian and Rice classmate. We got to visit him in his Peace Corps post -- Senya, Ghana -- in September. Amazing trip, and an amazing friend.   This post should have been written up a few weeks ago, but I was getting used to being a teacher, so better late than never.

   In September, Lissa and two of her friends from Benin came to Ghana.  Bridget and Victoria were coming to run in the Accra International Marathon.  Lissa pretty much hits the highlights of the events that happened on her blog, so I think I will just point out some things that I noticed.

   First, It was really nice to see a friend from Jones/Rice University again.  We could have gone on for hours swapping stories about life in Houston.  We did spend a good amount of time swapping stories on people that we were keeping track of.  It was also reassuring to see someone I knew already a year into their service.  It was really cool to see how calm, self confident, and adventurous a volunteer could be after just one year in country.  I got the feeling that things were tough in the beginning.  I was still very new in country, and was nervous about hosting someone.  I was thinking they would be bored, or uncomfortable, or wouldn't like the food.  Instead I got the three best guest one could wish for.  I think a lot of that came from the fact that they had been around the block before.  In summary, it really gave me something to look forward to.  When times are tough here, I am going to remember that the girls were quite happy after a year.

   Next, in Benin, their trainers gave them some good advice during training.  First, "Not my village, not my problem."  At first this seems like a callous bit of advice, but here in Peace Corps, we don't get to fix everything with a magic wand.  Instead, we have been given the opportunity to work in a really small site, to win the hearts and mind of a community, and to make a difference there.  So when you leave your site, you can't stress out, and try and change people that you have not been building bonds with.

   Second, "Every Peace Corps Volunteer's experience is different."  This one is kind of obvious, but I often forget about it when I get together with other volunteers.  The living conditions vary quite widely between the sites, and even more so between countries.  Sometimes when I meet up with volunteers, it can feel like we are trying to one up each other on who's site is tougher, or problems are rougher, or counterparts are better, or customs are stranger.  But, this ends up being really unproductive.  It is good to swap stories about site, but not even considering for a moment that your service is supposed to be the same, at least for me, has allowed me to try and use those stories as times to see if people have thought new solutions that I haven't thought up before.  At the end of the day, humans are amazingly adaptable.  What usually throws us for a loop is when you change the game on us.  So I know I could get used to no electricity, but I have it most of the time.  I have gotten used to not having a refrigerator, but I don't really think someone else should have to.  When you have one convenience or another, it changes the amount of time that you have to do other things.  If you have absolutely no conveniences as a volunteer, you spend a lot of your time doing things just to survive.  If you have every convenience in the world, you could use that to spend more time and energy on the people around you.  "Every PCV's experience is different."

   Third, "Don't speak to much of the local language in someone else's village."  All of us have varying levels of difficulty with learning these languages.  This is also compounded by the difficulty of learning the language with out a tutor or teacher for the most part.  If you come in and blow your host out of the water with your mad language skills, you take a little bit of their credibility away.  So Bob is always kind and doesn't show me up in town, and I don't embarrass myself when I go and visit him.  These little lessons I have been finding rather useful when interacting with other volunteers.

   In return, I would like to offer an idea that came from our Country Director Mike.  It came in the context of his fireside chat on how to be a successful volunteer.  He stated that we, as Peace Corps volunteers, are agents of change.  However, he made it very clear that we have to be very careful what kind of change we try to implement. "A Peace Corps Volunteer is not an agent of systemic change."  The Peace Corps is an organization that focuses on grass roots style organization.  We work on providing the ability for the host country nationals to solve some of their own problems.  This is done in a variety of ways.  However, we are not the panacea of volunteer organizations.  We can't solve systemic problems like corruption, canning, or how well teachers get paid.  We have to be careful to make sure we tackle problems we can solve.  There are enough of those without burning out on issues that we can't solve.  

From Ghana with Love,

Jim

[Thanks to Lissa, Bridget, and Victoria for coming to visit.  We had a blast, and although we can't promise we will make it out, we will try and see Benin.]

Got my hair braided! Long, heavy and purple. Yes, purple. This is with

my friend Ashley in Parakou for Halloween.

My 14 year old friend/spider exterminator Epiphane. He saved me

from the evil designs of this Anyphops. Tee hee, Anyphops.

Still working on the world map! Not done yet, but with outlining and labeling, it's looking really good!

See that line snaking its way through the school yard? That's a two-inch

thick line of marching soldier ants. They stop for nothing, eat everything,

and according to Gabriel, attack people if they get in their way.

My legacy as an English teacher in Benin. I'm so proud.

Visited my friend Claire's village, Ketou, where the main landmark is this GIANT sacred

pile of trash. Apparently there's a voodoo priestess buried underneath.This week, I killed my first chicken! Here it is alive.

After giving it its last drink of water (in Benin, you always

give the animal a drink before you kill it, because you

don't want it to have to die thirsty), I did the actual

cutting of the throat.

With Pierrette, post-chicken killing. She was proud

of me! I mainly just wanted to wash the gunk off

of my hands. :)

- Go shopping and get a pedicure with my mama

- Dress up, wear heels, feel pretty

- Go grocery shopping, just for the shock of it

- Get a beer with Dad, watch a movie and drink tea with Mandee, and make Katie laugh. :)

- Have a girls' night with the ladies

- Gain 10 lbs in 10 days. It can be done, bring on the milkshakes and melted cheese!

- Use a washing machine (described by my village friends as "a computer that washes clothes..." Which I denied existed, until I realized it does.)  microwave, and fast internet.

- Dry my hair with a hairdryer (and get a haircut).

- Get new music!

- Catch up on YouTube videos (send me your favorites)

- Wear a coat. And boots. And jeans that actually fit. 

Can't wait-- less than 4 weeks!!

- Finally allowed myself to open a jar of American peanut butter Mom brought with her in Juky. Horrible discovery: after a year and a half of Beninese peanut buttter -- just ground peanuts, period -- Jif tastes like sugary lard. The flavor is kind of... Weak. Sad. It'll just never be the same.

- My village's central transformer or something blew up, taking with it all of the electricity and water in the entirety of Daagbe. No pumps were working, meaning that I was living out of the two trash cans of water in my kitchen. Fun! Ended up being only a week and a few days. Bathing out of a bowl... Now normal.

- The pope visited Benin. That's wonderful for the Christians in the country, a truly inspiring visitor. Minor problem from my point of view: to prepare for the highest-ranking visitor in all of Catholicdom, Benin decided to "straighten up" Cotonou. How? They razed hundreds of shanty houses and businesses from all across the city. As the hundreds of now-homeless men, women, and children stood and watched, bulldozers leveled row after row of shacks made of scraps of tin and salvaged sticks. Then they burned it all. The people I've talked to, most with steady jobs and cement houses, said it was a good thing: this way the people will be forced to pay for their space rather than "mooching" the unclaimed alleyways they inhabited before. And if South Africa and India are any example, razing shanty villages is nothing new. Still, it's disheartening that the most marked change in Benin after the visit of the most famous (currently-living) Christian figure was the leveling of hundreds of homes.

...I introduce The Lists. This is how I stay busy at post (while not saving the world, obviously). Things I Want To Eat/Drink While Home:

- bacon

- toast with butter

- hot chocolate with marshmallows

- orange juice

- a chicken breast

- cheese!! Chevre and sharp cheddar, mainly.

- frozen green peas

- glass of 2% milk

- a good, juicy hamburger with pickle relish

- broccoli

- a cappuccino

- ham sandwich

- pizza and soup from broken rocks

- gala apples

- spaghetti with meat sauce

- good beer (something stout)

- frozen blueberries with milk and sugar

- cereal with milk!!

- grilled cheese with tomato soup

- mashed potatoes

- cheese-its

- gingersnaps

For maybe the first time in my PC service, I am stressed about getting things done. Yay! I feel productive! Besides teaching, I'm working on the world map (so pretty!), getting aprons and family Christmas gifts made, a scholarship program for a girl at my school (yet to be chosen)*, and of course, that giant grant application for the library. 

The library grant is what's really stressful, mainly because of the budget. Getting exact estimates from my director and carpenter has been SO difficult, and I'm still not even done. Plus, I have to figure out how much it'll cost to ship 200 books from France, and despite searching on the Internet, emailing the NGO and having Gabriel calk their office, we still have no idea what it's going to cost. No budget means no grant, so I'll be really anxious until I get it all together. Want this thing up before December, and praying desperately that it'll happen.

Other than projects and things, not too much is going on. I took the purple braids out and lost a bunch of hair in the process, but oh well. It'll be cooler in hot season, right? Visited a couple of friends last week -- Juliette, mother of the twins Doloresse and Dorothe -- who moved to Porto-Novo. I miss them... She was one of my best friends in village, and her adorable kids always made me laugh.  Have also been visiting the new volunteers in their posts, and am happy to report that none of them seem to be wallowing in depression or going insane! Yay new PCVs!

Last thing: today I was walking and a raindrop hit my cheek. My honest-to-god first thought was, "Dangit, a lizard peed on me AGAIN." What has Benin done to me??

*Scholarship Girls is a program run by our PC Benin Gender and Development committee. You create an application for the girls at your school, then form a selection committee with members of your school and community. One girl at CEG Daagbe (winner is chosen based on financial need, grades, and essay responses) will win a full year scholarship and money for her uniform and notebooks. Lots of organization required, but definitely a worthwhile program.

I haven't updated in a long time. I feel guilty about it... :/ I have a good excuse though, and that excuse is that I was in a small African village for the past couple of weeks without Internet. And I was tired of coming to Cotonou all of the time. Forgiven?

Main updates from 10.24-11.1:

- Discovered that I have a student named Manlick. Teehee.

- Got a terrible sinus infection somehow. Made a fairly successful DIY NettiPot, then subsequently found a dead ant in my snot. 

- Went to the doctor, got lots of antibiotics and Mucinex, which is an amazing drug. Felt better in two days. Thank god, because...

- I went to Parakou for Halloween! Dressed up as Nicky Minaj, which wad basically just an excuse to get my hair braided with long purple weave. Long, heavy purple hair! Every girl's dream 'do, no?

- Main update here: Dance parties are awesome, no matter which country you're on.

As most of you know, I'll be hoooooome for Chriiiiistmaaaas! (pause to reflect on predictability of last sentence.) What that means:

1. Guard your fridges. I'm coming for your cheddar and Parmesan.

2. I won't be in Benin. Thus,

3. I'll be getting my fill of most things American: ice cream, broccoli, hamburgers, wheat toast... Yay America!

Here's what I'm asking: I have a huge project coming up that I need to fund. This library is going to cost upwards of $2000. Instead of sending me a package of wonderful things, please save that money and donate it to my school library. Pleasepleaseplease and thank you! And Loudonville, get ready for December 22nd!

K, so, pressed for time, and couldn't prepare a blog this week (see explanation below), so here are the super-quick updates from my life:

Canoe Tour of Stilt Villages! Visited new volunteer Jessica in her village Azowlisse, and she took me on an amazing canoe tour of the surrounding villages. All built on the slow-moving edges of the Oueme river, the villages are full of buildings built up on stilts above the water: churches, schools, houses, animal pens, etc. You wade, swim or paddle to wherever you're going. So cool! Lots of gorgeous photos, which I'll share as soon as I have internet for a long time.My Second Computer Seems to Have Given Up. Africa, really? wtf. So no more prepped blog posts or photo montages, unless I get really sick and have to stay in Cotonou for a while. Sigh.Power Cut. Because they wanted to. Had to pay 3.5 mille ($7) to get it reconnected.Director Says Library A Go! Yaaaay! Working on the grant now. :)Asked My New Class Why They Shouldn't Call Me Yovo.New Fun Student Names: Innocent (two of them, neither of them all that innocent), Valentin, Mouchidatou, and Norbert. Norbert!!!The Difference A Year Makes. Feel so much more confident this year, like I actually know what to do in class. Have classes gone smoothly? Not necessarily (one class has been terrible so far), but at least I don't feel lost.Accidentally Caused 4 Kids to be Hit. Did they need to be disciplined? Definitely. Did I want administration to whack their hands repeatedly with a paddle at full force? Definitely not. The kids were perfect after that, though, and I've now learned not to go to admin for discipline unless I absolutely can't handle it myself.See You In 2 Months! Yaaaaaaaaay! Correct answer: because you're a teacher, and we should respect you with the name "Madame." Students stare blankly. One boy tentatively raises his hand, stands up, and responds, "We shouldn't call you yovo because... you're not white?"

· First Week of School. Most of the days were comprised of me sitting and waiting for long stretches of time while I waited for important things to happen, such as: getting my schedule, getting them to fix my schedule, getting them to fix my schedule again, and getting someone to tell me the rooms I’m in. I also played hangman with my students for four hours, and had one class just completely not show up. Not a bad start to the year.

· Snag in the Library Plan. I’m trying to write a grant application to build my school a library, which requires a loooot of organization and math and stuff. I’m really excited about it, my friend Gabriel the Professor is really into it, and the director seems really happy about the project. But this week, while working up the budget, a wrench managed to throw itself into my plans. The grant application requires the community to put in 25% of the money or supplies, which I thought would be no problem – we get to count the room that they’re letting us use, so I figured if they just put in the librarian’s salary, we’d be good.

I thought I made that part clear when I pitched the project, but somehow that must have gotten lost in the “hey, we’re getting a library!” stuff, and he forgot. This week when I talked to him, he told me there’s a good chance the school won’t be able to raise the money. Which would mean that I can’t do the project. Which would make me (and Gabriel, and the African children) very sad. :(

· Finally Catching Up On Letters. Sorry, everyone, I sucked at mail this summer! Am catching up now, promise. In other news, I organized the school supplies in my house before school started, and I have over 4,000 stickers currently. Don't send me any more, or I will have to start using them as wall paper. Don't test me.

· Mothers and Fathers and Parents, Oh My! Bridget and Victoria’s parents met us in Accra. You know those movie scenes when two people who haven’t seen each other in 27 years finally meet (generally in an airport or on a beach) and run towards each other in slow motion? That was Bridget and her mama. A high-pitched shriek, a couple of suitcase-encumbered shuffle steps, and the biggest hug you’ve ever seen. Victoria and I both teared up. Cheers to mamas and their babies.


· Bridget and Vicky’s Marathon! So this one time, my two friends ran a marathon. It was truly an African-style race event, in that it was close to an hour late, was short on all sorts of supplies (including medals for those who finished) and had maybe the least awesome marathon course ever: Pollution! Dead dogs! Dodging semi trucks on blind curves with no shoulder! Despite the obstacle course nature of the thing, the girls finished AND argued the lady into giving them medals AND have really hilarious knee sock-like tan lines now! So proud of them. :)


· Ghanaians Are So Nice. All six of us (three of us, three parents) got a free ride home from a late dinner. Some lady I didn’t even know asked my name, told me she loved me, and then traded me a whole handful of coins (coins!) for my one cedi bill. This is a true story. She gave me change!


· Sexual Harassment: Even in the Land Of Milk and Honey. The first couple of days in Ghana, Bridget, Victoria and I were with Jim and Bob, and because of that we didn’t get harassed at all. We thought the country was this magical place of unicorns, bubbles, and respect for women! Then, when we were on our own, we learned that that was not actually true, and that being harassed in your own language is somehow more jarring than in French. On the upside, though, it’s kind of twistedly really nice to know that it’s not just Benin.


· There Was A Mall! With a fake Costco, a fake Apple store, and a real live food court. And some sort of teacher store, which I avoided on principle.


· A Short List of What We Ate: Accra (not Ghana, just Accra) is like America. Thus: Diet Coke, a cheese, bacon and avocado sandwich, real wood-fired pizza, a cappuccino, egg rolls, a cheesy grilled chicken sandwich, watermelon, a margarita, so many plantain chips, frozen peas, wheat bread (and wheat toast!), a quesadilla, and a beef and bean burrito. Boom. It should be mentioned that most of my caloric intake would have been impossible without the support (emotional and otherwise) of Bridget and Victoria’s parents. Thank you!


· Day Trip to Winneba. We took the parents on an adventure via tro-tro (the transit choice of the masses, minibuses with benches in them) to a little beach village an hour outside of Accra. Well, we thought it was a village – upon arrival, we learned that it’s actually the third largest city in the area! So we found a hut on the beach, got a beer with the parents, and watched the waves. :) It was a semi-successful outing anyways, mainly because we got to see the parents eat African food, and I got to try bush rat! (Google: agouti, grasscutter, or bush rat... mmmm.)


· Batik Fabric! K, we’ve been over my addiction to textiles, yes? Particularly tissu. In Ghana, they have batik: hand-dyed fabric in incredible colors and cool, African-looking patterns. I bought too much! And it made me so happy!!


Dear Ghana, thank you for my latest adventure, a reminder of why I love Rice kids so much, my exciting fabric purchases, and my newest, most ridiculous Band-Aid sunburn line yet. Now, as Victoria says, “from the land of milk and honey to the land of dirt and gari.” Benin, we’re hoooome!

Senya is beautiful. It’s green, first of all, with a huge blue sky and brightly colored little shops and houses on the road that leads to the ocean. The people are friendly and incredibly nice (we got two or three free rides from people we didn’t even know, just because they wanted to help out), there’s watermelon and fresh pineapples, and on a cliff overlooking the beach, there’s a whitewashed castle where you can sit and drink a cold beer with friends.

Senya is where my friend, Jim, lives. Jim is a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana, but more importantly, he lived in the same college (dorm, house, whatever) as I did in college for all four years. This means that he gets all of my inside jokes from two years ago, knows all of my college friends almost as well as I do, and will happy chant “JIBA, JIBA!” at the top of his lungs with me after a couple of beers. Or, you know, before.

Anyway, so after a year in Benin, it was amazing to see someone from my previous life. And lord, did he treat the three of us like princesses. He and his friend Bob picked us up after a hellish trip from Benin to Ghana and not only did they take us to a place with fresh fish and dollar beers ON TAP, but they also found us an awesome hotel WITH AC for the first night. Which was good, because the first two hotels we’d planned to stay in were... um... full, and/or nonexistant.

Jim ‘n Bob then organized our entire first couple of days in the old Gold Coast – I think the biggest decisions we made were what new beer we wanted to try (Ghana has milk stout!) and whether or not we wanted mayonnaise on our morning toast (they have toast!). We were in Accra the first night, and then went to Jim’s village. Highlights from our village sidetrip:Jones nostalgia, hands down. Remember how I melted my favorite Jones water bottle while trying to make tea last August? Guess what he brought me all the way from America? Yep. Not even kidding. Oh, also we made a pact to get his friends and my friends together at Flying Saucer before the end of 2015. Friends, save the date.Milk stouuuuuuuuuuuuut! Real beer, what?Cool photo ops: fisherman boats slipping in between big waves, 6-foot-tall red dirt termite mounds, and that one lone car coming down a hill after nightfall. Sitting on the top of the old castle (yes, it’s really from back in the colonial days) with a cool drink, a camera and some good friends. Next time, I’ll wear sunscreen (and/or take off any band-aids I happen to be wearing), but besides the unintentional rosiness of my shins at the moment, it was a pretty spectacular afternoon.

Thanks, Jim ‘n Bob, and can’t wait til you come to Benin – get ready for a crash course in voodoo, sodabi, and the many joys of zemidjan transit.The tall things are termite mounds.

Jones reunion! Note how well we color coordinated.

Walking to Senya's village center from Jim's house.Rediscovered the long exposure setting on my camera...

Feel like this should have a really dramatic

caption, but Victoria's just walking to meet

Jim at the top of the castle on the coast...

The view from the top of the castle

Four of us (thanks Bridget for taking the picture!) drinking cold beers

on the top of the castle.

Phil sent me real beer from a real Trappist monk brewery in

Belgium -- sooo happy. Look how dark and delicious it is!

With my new closemates Kalyn (left, in Tchaada) and Maeghan

(middle, in Gbozoume). Yay new closemates!

With Claire, my host family little sister. Adore her.

Happy Swear-In to PST 24! As of the 15th, there are now 54 new volunteers in Peace Corps Benin. So exciting! Peace Corps put five of them kinda near me, so guess who’s going to force them to come hang out in Daagbe? Yaaaay new friends. Okay, I promise not to be creepy or stalk them too much or whatever. But, you know, maybe a little bit.HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BABY SISTER! Katie, who once packed me an entire box of Oreos and nothing else for lunch, turned 17 on the fifteenth. Yay you!Training = Awesome. Training the new stage was so much fun, mainly because I felt brilliant. They had so many questions, and I, somehow, had SO many answers! I got to walk people through pre-going-to-post stress and shopping, hear hilarious getting-used-to-Benin stories, wear/show off ALL of my tissu... Plus, they as a whole are a really great group – positive and interesting and easy to talk to... I’m excited to hang out with them au village. Oh! And I got to hang out with some fellow my-year volunteers from up north (I never get to see them) and cook crazy-awesome meals with them. We ate BLTs. I’m not even joking. Bacon!!!Bridget Visited Daagbé. My friend Bridget, who is the sweetest volunteer in country, came to visit my post for a day before we head out for Ghana. We ended up having to leave early because oro was coming out again (last time, they swear), but it was still really fun to walk around and show her my school, friends, life... it’s nice to have people who can picture where you’re living.The new TEFL volunteers -- yaaay!

Whoa, today's 9.10.11. I love patterns.

Stage! I'm in Porto-Novo this week training the new stage (Peace Corps trainees) before they swear in as volunteers on the 15th. Despite the fact that stage is draining, frustrating, and sometimes boring for the trainees (and, hey, for the volunteers that have to sit through the sessions with them), I'm really loving getting to meet everyone.

This group is pretty fantastic -- lots of great personalities, stories, and conversations. And no one, not a single one, has gone home (ETed) yet. It's amazing. To give you a benchmark point, my year lost four people during stage. And I think 12 have left in total up to now. Kudos to them, keep it up, and congrats in advance for making it all the way to swear-in!

Model School Hilarity. One of the stagiers was overseeing the model school exams. She told the students to silently bring her their completed copies, then sit back down and wait to leave. The students stand up, walk toward her in a giant mass, and all start MEOWING as they hand her the exams. What?? I was giggling hopelessly in the back of the class with another stagier... What is it with this country and cats??

Lou Left. :( Lou, my closemate in Tchaada, finished his service this week and flew out for home last night. Hope he and his puppy Rex have fun in l'Amerique! Eat some sushi for me, sir, and remember not to discuter in supermarkets.

Bryant Identified the Spider! This is huge, as now I can yell at the spiders by a real name (though "person spider" was entertaining) as I hop around them with my broom and can of bug killer. It is some species in the Huntsman spider group (Sparassidae), and its relatives in Australia can get up to a 12-inch leg span, but mine was only about a 4 inch leg span. Ho hum. It looked way bigger on the wall.

Upon further spider investigation, I think the big but less scary flat wall spider is called a "wall crab spider," Selenopidae (Anyphops or Selenops). "Anyphops" is a hilarious word. I'm going to call them by name from now on.

All for now. Plans for the next week include: lots of shopping with new volunteers before they go to post, going to swear-in and the swear-in party!, and enjoying time with the awesome other trainers I'm hanging out with this week. And then... in a week and a half... GHANAAA!

This being my last week at post before I leave for most of September, I spent most of the last couple of days working on my world map project. Good lord, is it a lot of work: you have to draw the countries/islands/territories, then prime them in white because the yellow isn’t strong enough otherwise, then finally paint them the right color. And frequently, even that’s not strong enough, so you have to do a second coat. Sigh.

Observations:· There are WAY too many islands in the south Pacific – roughly 84,012 billion islands and atolls. I counted. Micronesia and I are not friends.· I’ve made mental lists of countries I like (mostly large ones with not-too-hard-to-follow-borders) and countries I will never be friends with. On the positive end, we have China, Australia, Mongolia, Russia except for the fjord-y part, India, Brazil, the –guays, And most of the countries at the top of Africa. On my hate list: Indonesia, Micronesia, the entirety of the south Pacific except for Australia, Thailand, Central America, Finland and Canada. Have you seen Canada recently? Ridiculous.· Many countries appear to have faces. Did we plan this? Croatia is Pac-Man. Kazakhstan is eating the Caspian Sea. And Pakistan has a dog’s head.· Spending 7 hours a day with your iPod means lots of time for new music. Thanks to fellow volunteers Matt and Erin S., I now have years worth of mash-ups (Best of Bootie 2005-2010) and Jay-Z/Kanye to keep me entertained. :)· I have 65 countries completely done as of Tuesday night! Hoping to knock another 20 or 40 out by the end of the week. (Update: as of Saturday, 117 countries done!)

Enough of that. Other updates:· Jenny’s visiting this week! She lives in Sori, waaaay up in the north (I visited her when I went to Niger at Christmas), and I’m excited to finally show her around. Unfortunately, though, we’re going to have to leave a day later because of oro... I guess that’s a mild taste of southern culture, right?· Gabriel, Elise and I watched “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” dubbed in French on his computer. Fun to explain American culture and quirks from it. Gabriel wanted me to see this one part where “the people all jump up and start moving together in this really cool dance, they all move together!” It was the Electric Slide. I started doing it with the people, and he now can’t wait to learn. Cultural exchange!· Killed another truly giant spider, and decided I desperately want to identify the species, just to know. Here are pictures, any ideas? Also found a moth that looks exactly like a peeling twig – cool!

Moth that looks exactly like a twig. Crazy.

Big, scary spider.

Big, scary spider, now dead. Can you see the hair on it?

My homologue, Epiphane, working with me on our CEG World Map a few days ago. SO. MUCH. WORK.

After the heat of the day has passed, Daagbé comes alive again. Around 6pm, when the sun slowly makes its way toward the palm trees and rust-colored dirt road, we gather at the water pump. First it’s the woman with the big smile who runs the pump, sitting there and chatting with whomever wanders by. Then I come out to wait for the grandmama who sells akassa. I sit next to the water lady and we talk a little, greeting in Gún the little French we share.

My neighbors join, Elise and Gabriel, and kids from around the neighborhood play on sand piles, rolling old tire rims with sticks and laughing at the faces we make at each other. The women start to come. Every morning and every evening, the women of the neighborhood arrive at the pump to carry water home, each with a big, brightly colored plastic basin on her head.

The women meet and talk, share stories about their husbands, chickens, or naughty children, about funny things, about sad things., about life. They chatter as they fill their bowls then walk them home, their hips swaying so that the water won’t spill. We sit and watch them, welcoming each with a smiling “Kualé, kualé-o!” The water pouring, the women talking, and the singsong greetings punctuating it all.

It’s a beautiful thing, this life, this community. Being here in this place. I don’t understand a thing they’re saying, and still they treat me like I’m one of them, including me in the elbow nudges and group jokes. A mama leans over and hands me a piece of kola nut to chew, and laughs heartily when I make a face at the flavor. The akassa lady claps her hands in delight when I order from her in local language. She gives me an extra leaf-wrapped piece of it just because.

The sun is almost gone now, and the bats start to tumble out of the mosque tower, swooping up through the air to eat the mosquitoes that come out at night. It’s time to go inside and make dinner, maybe get some work done. And yet I stay just a couple of seconds longer, silently willing myself to store this up for later. This perfect place, these amazing people, this beautiful village evening.

I have finished half of my Peace Corps service in Benin. Yaaaay! At the one year mark, every PCV has to do a mid-service physical exam -- blood work, samples of all kinds, a head-to-toe going-over, that sort of thing.

Discovered: I am in great health! With one minor exception. I have amoebas (amoebiasis)! That's right, my friends, my first tropical parasites, all living in a big happy family in my digestive system. I imagine them all having parties down in there, drinking cocktails and dancing to amoeba-esque music, perhaps with a Hawaiian luau theme...

Mai tais and hula!

Anyway, so there were no symptoms, and I have no idea how I got them (I'd guess water from peoples' houses when I visit them). Cheers to PC Med for making us come in for all of this stuff -- kind of a hassle, but worth it. And hey, I've got a cool story for when I get back, right? :)

My wall!

Painting it blue as a base -- I did most of it, but hey, if the students are volunteering...

Kalyn, my new closemate, helps Sam with gridlines.

From left: Kalyn & Meaghan (my new closemates), Lou and I doing gridlines for my wall. Sam

was taking the picture -- thanks everyone for helping! Next up: drawing and painting.

- I have a gnarly cold. But thanks to free Peace Corps medicine, lots of water, and the “chicken” lentil soup, I’m almost better!

- Met my new closemates! This past week the two girls who are going to replace Sam and Lou next to me. Kalyn is going to be in Tchaada in Lou’s place (but as an English professor), and Maeghan’s going to be in Sam’s place in Gbozoume. We got to hang out a couple of times, first working on my world map project (update next), then having a potluck dinner at Lou’s. Which was awesome: Sam’s salad, Lou’s amaaaazing curry, and brownies from me, plus Maeghan & Kalyn’s 2 boxes of wine... we’re going to get along. Yay new closemates!

- World Map Project: Finally on the way! Spent last week chalking the wall space off on the rickety-est ladder I’ve ever seen, then painting the rectangle ocean-ish blue. Lou, Sam, Kalyn and Maeghan visited to help out one morning, and we not only got the whole grid drawn (like a week of work for me alone), but also got the sections chalked. Now to draw some countries. Sidenote: Micronesia has waaaaaay too many tiny islands. Waaaaay.

- Oro’s Coming... So remember that thing I talked about called oro? It’s a voodoo thing, and when it comes out (three days a year, usually in August), only men initiated in the secret society can go outside. This year it’s September, dates TBD. It’s really, really bad news for anyone else who goes out, especially women, so on those days you just close your doors and windows and have a dance party in your underwear all day. Not that bad.

Thing is, I just found out that the three villages closest to me also do oro, and that I can’t go through them if oro’s out there. And none of the villages do oro at the same time. This is over a 15-day period, and oro can’t come out during marché day or Sundays... So according to my calculations, during oro season, travel’s going to be kind of difficult.

Luckily, I’ll be out of town for almost all of September... except for five days right in the middle. I’ve had about 5 different people track me down to tell me they’re going to let me know ASAP when the dates are announced, so positive note: my village is taking care of me. Negative note: visiting Daagbé between training the new stage and going on vacation is maybe impossible. Sigh.

My School Director: “Oh, you have a cat! I forgot!”

Me: “Yep... his name is Popsicle... he steals other people’s fish...”

Director: “Good! I have a very important question for you: can I have his poop?”

Me: (pretty sure I’ve misheard the question) “Umm... what?”

Director: “I need his poop. Like three days’ worth, and it needs to be fresh. If I come back on Friday, can you save it until then?”

Me: “Uhhh... yes?” (try really, really hard not to giggle) “What’s it for?”

Director: “Oh, it’s to do... something...”

Me: “Oh, okay... what thing?”

Director: “Some.... thing...“ (looks evasively off into the distance) “You can keep it in a plastic bag and keep it outside so it doesn’t make your house smell. You can put it...” (takes two full minutes to look around my complex for an appropriate cat poop stash spot) “... oh! In that empty building. Put it there. I’ll be back Friday.”

(We go to the buvette with the school accountant and have a serious nuts-and-bolts library project meeting. I feel excellent about the beginning of the plans, though a little nervous about the actual implementation of them. After an hour and a half we’re finished, and they drive me back home. I get out of the car and walk toward my house, when out of the window my director yells his version of ‘good night, sleep tight’:)

“DON’T FORGET MY CAT POOP!”

I'm so happy we visited you, Lissa. To experience a country through the

eyes of someone living there was a much richer experience than visiting onmy own or through a tour. I have such great memories, the least of which is

our hasty retreat from your office due to the mace. I've got my little man statue standing on my side table with my comb and I wore my pania to mybirthday party. I love, love the teal fabric pania.

Lissa lived in Porto Novo her first 3 months of training and her host family invited us for a meal-- we were overwhelmed by their generosity, friendliness, wonderful hospitality. They treated us like royalty! We loved each one of them!!!

Here is Host Papa, his sister on his right, Barb then Host Mama, their 4 daughters. Also here is Papa's youngest daughter by his second wife, who we did not meet.

The meal they served was fantastic!!! So many dishes! Three types of meat and specially made fried plaintains because they are Lissa's favorite! After all that, they gave us wonderful gifts to bring back to America with us. Lissa lived on the 3rd floor.

Too soon it was time to say goodbye to our new friends and head back to Daagbe, Lissa's village. In order to have a Peace Corps volunteer, the village or at least the person who requests a volunteer, must provide a place to live that’s not a hut and a has private bathroom. That’s it, that’s the requirement-- the bathroom could be a latrine and the water doesn’t have to be indoors or even running- some of the volunteers have to get their water from the local well.

Playing spades with Gabriel (another teacher) on Lissa's porchLissa has a 3-room apartment in a concession which is a row of about 8 apartments. Each one has 3 rooms, electricity most of the time, and running water with a real toilet and shower! The kitchen is as you make it- Lissa has a propane tank and a 2-burner stove on a table. (Lissa has even designed a little dutch-oven that she bakes banana bread and brownies in!) She has a large bucket for water and scoops out what she needs into other plastic pails for cooking, washing, etc. Her neighbor, Elise, uses charcoal to cook, but I don’t know what sort of stove she uses.

The people are all so amazing and wonderfully friendly, hospitable and fun, too! Of course Lissa was translating non-stop as everyone speaks French.

Lissa's neighbors, Elisa and her husband brought scrumptuous fish meal!

Elise, Lissa's neighbor will be opening a computer service business in which she will type and print documents and make copies and such. She is a real sweetheart... We enjoyed their citron flavored sodebe even though it, like moonshine, had a real kick!

 Head coutourie and I with my new custom-made skirt Barb and I bought tissu, the local cotton fabric with the wild and wonderful designs. For a couple of dollars the couterie made us a pair of pajama pants, a wrap skirt, and a custom made skirt. It's addictive because they are so good. You choose a style from hundreds of pictures on the wall and they take your measurements and sew it up- beautiful and perfect!       Everyone we met in Lissa's village was wonderful, beautiful, and gracious. They all wanted us to enjoy Benin and were very proud of their country!

We also found some cool local industries- Palm oil (like olive oil or canola oil for cooking) is made- whew so much hot labor! The palm nuts have to be husked, roasted, put in water and stomped on, then the resulting foam is boiled and the result is pressed down for the oil to flow! 

And a local group of carvers in a mud and thatch roof compound. We bought a couple of things because the whole experience was amazing!

Our trip to Benin was fantastic because the Beninese people are fantastic! We loved everything we saw and everyone we met.What a wonderful adventure!

July couldn’t come too quickly for me as my sister Barbara and I prepared to visit our Lissa in Benin, West Africa! Excited for the first hug and to see her, but also excited to experience Benin!

The Beninese people that we met were outstanding- hospitable and wanting us to enjoy their fantastic country!! To give you an example, even the zem motorcycle drivers were asking us how our visit in Benin was and when we answered that it was very beautiful and the people were wonderful, they all agreed with us and were very happy.

In Lissa’s area of Benin, the common language is “Gún”, but many people learn French in school. Lissa doesn’t know Gún, but she has learned an amazing amount of French in one year and was able to translate non-stop even very subtle ideas... our questions and those of the people we met never stopped!

The first two days, Lissa took us sightseeing we drove to Ouidah (pronounced wee-dah) to visit two important things... the Voodoo python temple- it was a very powerful place in the Voodoo religion, but we declined the offer of a special ceremony by the Voodoo priest there. We did hold a python- I was surprised by how squeamish Barb and I were about the snakes- they were boa constrictors and well fed so lazy-- not harmful but still! We could hardly get near them!

Ouidah is also the first place from which slaves were exported to the Americas. Sadly we visited the tree where most slaves were sold and went down the long long road that they had to walk in chains to the waiting boats. I wondered why the Beninese didn’t run and hide or move away when all this started, but the driver told us that the warring tribes would take prisoners and sell them... so sad!

But happiness awaited! We stopped at a fresh fish restaurant- YUM! and had our first taste of “pâte”. It’s corn mush- mine was “pâte rouge” so red with tomato, I think. It’s served in a huge plop with a sauce. Great if you are trying to carb-load!

Then onto the ocean in Grand Popo- Lissa and two Peace Corps friends, Dione and Sam, Barb and I had a WONDERFUL time- see the beautiful rooms with the mosquito netting... the undertow is so strong you don’t dare even wade, but the waves were incredible and the breeze perfect for sleeping.

The “gas station” -- “real” gas stations are closed due to the huge number of these black market stands selling gasoline from Nigeria. They filter the gas with the black cloth and pour it through a funnel into the gas tank.

Henry, our taxi driver, stopped to fill up. He’s educated but couldn’t find a job, so he drives a taxi. His wife is finishing her bachelors degree.

By now Barb and I had been soaking up the different sights for a couple of days and we were amazed at what we’d seen.

 Lissa's student selling lunch...rice and beans I think So many people carrying heavy, huge loads on their heads!

 notice the suitcase on the gas tank?So many zem motorcycle taxis- they carry EVERYTHING- we saw motorcycles carrying a refrigerator, and another with a huge stack of tires, one with a casket and lots with up to 5 people on them!

 Zem  We once hailed a van type taxi. Since there were five of us, we got the entire back seat to ourselves! You don’t have to pay for children who sit in your lap- there were 6 or 7 passengers in the middle seat and at least 3 or 4 in the front seats... once Dione got out to head back to her town, an old man climbed in the back with us- at least he looked old- people there age very quickly!

The poverty seemed everywhere to us. People in dirt or palm branch huts... many buildings either not finished or without windows...but really they seemed like they were having a good life, too. So many waved and were friendly and welcoming to the “yovos”- white people. I came away thinking that the people deal with their circumstances just like we do- they try to have the best life possible given what life has dealt them.

 In order to have a Peace Corps volunteer, the village or at least the person who requests a volunteer, must provide a place to live that’s not a hut and a has private bathroom. That’s it, that’s the requirement-- the bathroom could be a latrine and the water doesn’t have to be indoors or even running- some of the volunteers have to get their water from the local well.

 end of part 1

This is not actually juice. It’s used as a sauce with my favorite type of pate (pate rouge), but I think it’d also work as a warm tomato/onion salad or a relish for something chicken-y. Delicious, and about as easy as it gets.

6 small red onions

4-6 plum tomatoes

peanut or olive oil

salt and pepper

chicken boullion cube

small spicy peppers (optional, maybe poblano?)

1. Cut the onions and tomatoes into thin-ish slices, grind peppers. Keep everything separate.

2. Put a little bit of the oil in the bottom of the pan, heat it up and add the onions. Sautee until they’re just a little bit translucent, 3-5 minutes. Sprinkle in chicken bouillon, then add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Add tomatoes, cover and cook for 1-2 minutes, until they’re just a little soft. Don’t let them fall apart, or it’ll get all mushy and stuff. Remove from heat. Serve immediately, putting some of the spicy ground pepper to the side of each serving (each person mixes it in as they like).

• Rhythm of the Marché. I went to the marché in Porto Novo to buy beads, and upon finding the right beads, I called the seller mama over. She walked over, and instead of starting the conversation with a “Hi, how’s it going?”, she instead chose to tap out an energetic rhythm on my butt before continuing with the sale. Hello to you, too.

• A Box of Cheez-Its. Eaten in 2.5 days. Digestive system unhappy.

• People Who Have Told Me I Look “Good Fat” Since My Return: Only 2. Must try harder at Christmas.

• Started Studying for the GRE. Planning on taking it in September in Accra. Notes: it’s been a while since I took a standardized test. And math is still not my friend.

• Books Read This Week. “Breakfast of Champions,” the first half of “The Three Musketeers,” and a book given to me by a pastor in my building who’s dead set on converting me to his church. Hasn’t worked yet, but the conversations have been entertaining – he seems surprised that I’ve read chunks of the Bible and can think about them all by myself.

• Taco Night: The Final Fiesta. As our resident taco night master Erik is about to finish his two-year service, this weekend (7.31) is the last of his legendary fetes. Never one to let an occasion for tequila pass, he’s making this weekend by far the most elaborate one yet. Not only will there be the standard homemade tortillas, guacamole, salsa, and real bought-from-the-store cheese, but he’s also adding something that involves a blender...! Eeee!

July 16th was my one-year anniversary of living in Benin, and in honor of that holiday, I left the country. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been an amazing year, but hey, after a year of living in West Africa, I needed a little holiday somewhere with warm showers.

And that’s what I got: for six days, my family took a vacation all together to Paris, where they have not only warm showers, but also delicious food & wine, fancy-schmancy art, and wireless internet. Craaazy! I spent the week eating as many servings of crème brulee and duck breast as I could, searching Google for anything I could possibly think of (best goat cheese in Paris! YouTube’s most popular videos! Megan Fox’s weird thumb!), and soaking up all of the elegance and developed-nation-ness that France had to offer. Also, laughing with my sisters, who somehow have the same sense of humor as I do (weird), chilling out with Susan and Phil in cafes, and hugging my adorable and oh-so-loving parents.

Important Points:

• Enjoying My Sisters’ Grown-Up Company. It’s strange when you realize that pretty much none of the kids in your family are really kids anymore. The youngest of us, Katie, is already 16 and essentially a Real Live Adult. I’ve been avoiding being a Real Live Adult for several years now, but I guess if Katie’s already there, I kinda have to step up and accept it, huh? There are perks, though: I can now talk to my sisters about RLA topics such as politics, religion and the weather. It’s an exciting time.

• Hugging Dad. No explanation necessary... sometimes a girl just needs a dad hug, and this last year has been one of those times.

• Seeing Susan and Phil. It’s officially been over a whole year since we graduated from college, and no matter what continent we’re on, all of us have changed since then. It was really, really great to catch up with two of my closest friends and chat about what was different, and what, thankfully, is still the same. Plus, we somehow managed to go to three different eating establishments in under 4 hours. That particular skill may never change.

• I GOT A KINDLE! Susan, being a wonderful human being, brought me a bag full of stuff I wanted from America, including grape jelly, dryer sheets, and nail clippers. She also brought me a birthday gift from my best friends from college: my very own Kindle. So cool! It was loaded with classics (which is the stuff I’ve been trying to read more of), and I got to download a book I’ve been dying to read (Suttree) before I left. 700+ pages compressed into one skinny little techno-thing. Thank you so much! Yall are wonderful, sneaky schemers, and I love you all.

• Shopping with Auntie B. It’s nice to have someone who pushes you to buy things you really love, and for me, that’s always been AB. My sisters, AB and I hit the shops on multiple occasions, wearing out the soles of our shoes and the magnetic strip on the credit card with our sophisticated Parisian purchases. White cardigan? Check. New red-coral Greek-ish dress, care of Inamorata? Check. Chocolate muffin? Checkmate.

• Picnic. My absolute favorite moment in the entire trip was our picnic... well, that and our last night out. I guess dinners with my family in general. Something about a good bottle of wine, great cheese, fresh bread, various fruits, and apple tarts combined with a relaxed, giggly family... pretty wonderful. And after a year in West Africa, definitely needed.

Paris, je t’aime. Vraiment, quoi.

I think I bragged about this before, but did you know that my mom and my aunt flew all the way to Benin to visit me? They did. And they’ve got stories to prove it.

As a whole, the trip went really well – we got to see some culture (Ouidah and Cotonou), relax a little (Grand Popo), meet my fantastic host family (Porto Novo), and enjoy all that is my village (Daagbé). We stayed busy, took lots of naps, and met a huge number of really excited Beninese people. Highlights from my point of view:

- Auntie B at the Python Temple. The Python Temple, in Ouidah, is a voodoo temple where they keep a lot of snakes for powerful voodoo purposes. The snakes are tame and used to being handled, but I’ve never seen Auntie B so on edge – one wiggled near her foot, and she broke the sound barrier heading back to the door. The woman’s got some speed. And eyes the size of dinner plates.

- Hanging Out With My Host Family. My host family, the sweetest people in the world who spoke to me in mime for months while I learned French, met my visitors. Not only did they meet them, though, they fed them... really, really well. Maman Badarou made three types of meat, a giant bowl of fried plantains (my favorite), and even bought sparkling grape juice (they’re Muslim and don’t drink wine). And they sat and talked with Mom and Auntie B, and Papa was so excited to see them... it was fantastic. As we left, we took a bajillion pictures, and my host parents presented them with Beninese gift bags. It was amazing to see them all together, laughing and enjoying each other’s company despite different cultures and no common language.

- Pate. And More Pate. Part of being a good sport when visiting a country is eating the native food. Pate, or corn flour mush, is the native food here, and I commend both of my visitors for eating as much of it as they did. Various people fed them pate (which always comes in mountain-sized portions) like three or four times, and each time they tried their hardest to demolish the entire pile. They failed (like I usually do), but everyone here loved their effort.

- Playing with Children. Entertaining myself in village usually involves sitting for hours with the mamas or playing with children. So when Mom and Auntie B showed up, the kids were really, really excited: two new playmates! The visitors didn’t disappoint, and after teaching the petits to jump rope and throw a Frisbee, they played with them for hours. It was adorable, and I have photo proof that Auntie B is the best human tilt-a-whirl ever.

- Tissu! The Obsession is Contagious! Despite Auntie B’s professed disinterest in tissu when she got here, she left this country with three pairs of pants and two wrap skirts (I think), all made out of tissu. I looooove that! And Mom got a skirt and maybe pants... my couturiere was a very happy lady. :)

- People Loving Them For Visiting. The people here LOVED seeing my family. They treated them like queens, came out of their way to meet them, fed them tons, and complimented me endlessly on how beautiful and young they were. (Two people have told me how beautiful my mother is since she’s left, confirming suspicions I have had since childhood.) Since they went back to Yovotome (“city of the yovos”... meaning America), a bunch of people have stopped me to make sure they got back alright, including people who met them once and speak absolutely no French or English. Such nice people. And SO excited to meet my wonderful family.

- Just Having Them Here. At the risk of sounding sappy, it was amazing just to see my mama and my aunt. Getting to talk with them, hang out, sound smart while I answered questions, be spoiled a little bit... it was kinda great. And maybe even more importantly, having them see where I live and what I do makes me feel like I’ve made it, and like when I get home, at least two people will be able to talk to me about it. It’s like having proof of what’s happened so far, and a sounding board that’ll actually understand for everything yet to come.

All in all, pretty amazing. Thank you, Mom and Auntie B, for coming to the 26th (I think) poorest country in the world just to visit me. Thanks for being so interested and energetic and understanding, and thanks for making your trip such an adventure. Love you!

Meme tissu, or getting matching outfits made out of the same fabric, is a huge thing here. For every wedding, funeral, baptism and church party, there is a tissu chosen for everyone to wear. If you’re close enough with the family, you get to buy it, get it sewn into your own style, and look like a badass integration-wise – it’s like being in Destiny’s Child, but the outfits usually cover more of the stomach area.

Anyway. So getting meme tissu with someone means you’re close with them, and it’s a big deal.

A couple of weekends ago, my Beninese friend/neighbor Elise and her husband (“Maitre”) invited my closemate Sam and I to go over to their house for... well, they wouldn’t explain what it was for. We were worried. What if they ask us to fund a project? Or help them do something we can’t do? Having already accepted the invite, we sucked it up, put on earrings, and headed over.

Elise had made my favorite Beninese meal ever: pate rouge with tomato/onion jus, a little bit of piment, and really good fish. There was sodabi, of course, this bottle infused with citron, and they’d even somehow found a Beninese song with my name in it... I didn’t know Beninese people used “Melissa,” so that was pretty cool.

They were flat-out spoiling us, and we were loving it. Thinking it was over, we collected our things and thanked the two of them... but as we started standing up, they told us to sit our little behinds back down. They had a present for us.

A what? A present. That’s right, everyone, someone was actually giving US a present, just because they thought we were nice. Baffling, thrilling, and so encouraging. Yay integration!

We unwrapped the shiny-paper-covered boxes and discovered...

...(count to ten for drama)...

...meme tissu! But not just any old tissu. Chicken tissu. That’s right, folks, my neighbors went to the marché and picked out tissu just for us, and what they picked was red and blue with big white chickens on it. Then, they secretly took it to a local couteriere (not mine, because she’d tell me) and got it sewn into boombas for us. Ten points to Benin.

The rest of the evening involved beers at the local buvette, the head of my group of villages (Chef d’Arrondissement) asking why he wasn’t invited to wear the same thing, good stories, and a lot of adoration from me for the two of them. Meme tissu. Meme chicken tissu. My life is awesome.

Thank. The. Lawd. I have a computer again!

What this means for me: the ability to watch hours of mind-melting TV and movies, edit photos in which I am sweating too much, and prep typed things before I go to Cotonou.

What this means for you: Actually edited blogs! Hopefully better writing! And probably a lot more inane updates about the large insects I find in my house. Cheers!

...a bajillion years later, I'll finally write the long-procrastinated post on our amazing girls' camp.

I've written a lot about the challenges girls face in this country: lack of school-related support from parents, sexual harassment from teachers (some teachers, not all), pressure to marry and have babies right now, and an overwhelming pressure to value household duties over educational/professional goals. It's hard to see such bright, strong girls being shoved aside to make way for the boys just because of their sex.

That's where the idea for girls' camp came from. Camp GLOW started in Romania in the early '90s, dreamed up by Peace Corps volunteers who saw basically the same problems there as I see in Benin in 2011. Our Camp GLOW is held in Porto Novo every year, and this year we invited 50 girls, six of whom were from Daagbé (thanks for your donations!).

To stop myself from rambling for years about how awesome it was to see these girls learning, interacting, and taking control of their own sessions, I'm going to just give some highlights.

We taught them about themselves. Kids don't get the sex/puberty talk here until they're in 3eme -- usually at 17ish years old. That's a little late, especially when all there is to do in village for hormone-filled teens is... ahem. Because it's always better to have a Beninese person teach these culturally sensitive things, we invited a Porto-Novo-based female doctor to teach the girls about their bodies: puberty, periods, abstinence, and preservatifs (condoms). Personal opinion: when pregnancy is such a huge, education-ending problem here, this is one of the most important topics we can teach them.We taught them about their rights. A fantastic man (Beninese) from the NGO Victory Way came to talk to the girls about sexual harassment and their rights as both women and children. Victory Way is an organization that works (really effectively, I think) to combat the mistreatment of women in Benin. The man was incredible, challenging the girls to think and ask questions and argue for their own equality... it was amazing. The girls really, really got it, and at the end of it they couldn't stop talking about everything they'd learned... how equal they are, how they can push for the same treatment as their brothers get. Definitely a highlight for me.Zoom! This is probably only entertaining to my fellow Jonesians, but when it was my turn for songs and games, I taught the entire camp "Zoom"... which may or may not be a part of King's Cup. A game we perfected on Saturday nights in college. The girls loved it. :) Arts & Crafts! Among the items created: Fanmilk pouch purses, handmade bound books, and beaded necklaces.(I Brag.) One of my girls, Flora, was in my group, and she wanted to know if we were going to go home after the camp. Home, as in America. I explained that some would go home because they'd finished their two years, but that I and lots of others would be staying another year. Flora jumped up and shouted "yaaaay! Madame is staying!" I'm sure that that was a Class A Suck-Up moment for her, but hey, I'm susceptible to flattery, and that was good to hear. :)Seeing My Girls Be Girls. In class, they're all super respectful, kinda quiet, and not excited or emotional about anything. By the end of the week, not only did they have friends from other villages across Benin, but they also jumped around, laughed, were silly... they were girls. Real, free, excited-to-be-alive girls. I can't get more photos to upload right now, but here's the full album. Thanks so much to everyone who donated the funds to make this happen... it was amazing, and I'm so glad I got to be here. Stay tuned for next year's camp!

Bernadette was kind of a surprise pick for me -- she's an absolute sweetheart, and kind of in the high middle of her class. I didn't really plan on bringing her until the very end, when I saw how deferring she was to the boys in her class. She seemed like the perfect candidate for Camp GLOW -- smart, nice, and in need of a little girl power education. And that's exactly what she got.Flora (wearing an Obama girl t-shirt in this picture) is the overall top student in her 6M1 class for 2010-2011. The girl is smart, and towards the end of the year she finally started gaining some confidence in my class... in the beginning, she'd cover her mouth every time she answered a question, and by the end I'd told her to stand up/speak up/put her hands down so many times that she did it automatically! Yaaaay! That's just posture, though, and I wanted her to get the full benefit of a week of health, education, financial planning, and women's rights sessions. She was in my Red team, so I got to spend the whole week hanging out with her and enjoying her enthusiasm. She asked me if she could come back next year.Elisabeth is not shy. She's already a burgeoning feminist (in a questionnaire I gave my girls' club, she wrote, "It is NOT true that men are more powerful than women, because a woman can do anything a man can do and probably worked harder than he did anyway." She's the second girl in her class (after Flora), is always the first to raise her hand in girls' club, and is rarely too shy to share her opinions. She also stole my notebook one day, just to write "I love you" (in English) on its cover. I think I kind of love her, too.Estelle was the girl I took to Natitingou with me for the spelling bee: an incredibly hard worker, smart student, and sometimes painfully shy girl. It takes a lot of work to have a conversation with her, and in a large group of people, it's tough for her to talk. I can sort of relate to that... so my biggest hope for this week was that she would come out of her shell, make some friends, and just let herself be silly. It took a few days, but by the end of Camp GLOW she was teasing other girls, dancing enthusiastically, and even laughing at my mediocre Beninese dance moves. I'd call that a success.Pauline is the oldest girl I brought, and the only one from 5eme. I found out after inviting her that she's also the little sister of one of my fellow English profs, so that's an accidental positive. She's a good participant in class and gets good grades, but often isn't very outspoken otherwise... see a pattern with the girls? Beninese culture dictates that when a kid given an honor by a grande (me), he/she doesn't usually act excited or happy. They should thank you, curtsy, and walk away. Pauline tried to do that when I gave her her invite, and even though her eyes were dancing, she kept her face calm. When she turned away, though, I saw her cheek round out and her mouth turn up -- she was grinning like mad at her friends across the schoolyard.Odette – Odette’s the littlest of the girls I took. For most of the year, she was really quiet in class, volunteering to answer a question here or there, always getting good grades, but never really seeking any sort of attention. At the end of the first semester, while doing grades, I suddenly realized that not only was she the top girl in my English class, but that she was the top student overall in 6M2. Amazing – little girl’s kicking the boys’ butts. J She’s got a big, gorgeous smile and a great giggle, and I couldn’t wait to see her soak up all of the important info we were going to throw at her.

Last weekend was the 2011 National English Spelling Bee in Natitingou -- this is the one with Estelle and Soulemane, my awesome kids from CEG Daagbe.

The transport was, in all honesty, kind of hellish. Getting there involved a taxi at 4:30am (or, well, 4:50, because it was raining and the taxi driver didn't want to walk outside), a speed-drive to Cotonou, and a nine-and-a-half hour trip to Nati. Nine and a half... that's about eight and a half too long. On the positive side, we got there in three pieces, and were in time to eat lots of riz au gras.

The day of the spelling be started early -- we ate, spent an hour or two studying, then were ready for the competition. First up were the boys, and it was a fierce fight. Soulemane made it to the top eight, and got out on the word "organisation" (all British spellings) because he forgot the R. He was disappointed, but the two kids who got first and second certainly deserved it: it was a 30-40 minute battle between the two, and they were throwing out words I probably can't spell: haemhorrage, anoemia, etc. Intense. The one that finally won (from way up north in Banikoara) was shaking he was so pumped up -- he definitely, definitely deserved it.

Kind of sadly, the girls' competition was way, way faster. Half of the girls were out on the first word, including Estelle, who spelled "animal" as "element". That's a clear example of how much harder school is for girls: whereas a motivated boy can go home and study for a few hours every day, a motivated girl has to clean the house, take care of the kids, make dinner, wash the dishes, and wash the laundry first.

We had a girls' winner in about 20 minutes, also from Banikoara (what do they put in the water up there??), and then we spent the rest of the day playing volleyball, watercoloring, eating pate, and watching "B Movie" in French. Also, Soulemane and two other boys took over the dishes for the girls one night, and made a point of yelling to me, "Madame! Look what I'm doing! It's dishes!!"

Traveling back down was even more hellish than the first trip thanks to an accident on the one road between Allada and Cotonou, but we made it! My kids had a great time overall, and it was really cool to see Estelle come out of her shell a little... she's normally really shy, sometimes too shy to even smile in front of me, and this weekend she actually laughed with me! We played volleyball together, and that, somehow, just relaxed her and made her friendly and social and happy... : ) The things I get to do and the kids I get to know here, yall, are so, so cool.

In a long, not-necessary-to-tell story, I lost my old phone number. It's irretrievable. Is that a word?

The new one:

(229) 96-37-59-49

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