(This should have been posted before previous posting) Above: Female Elephant

I just returned from going on Safara in Park Pendjari. It was awesome. We saw 5 lions, water buffalo, hippos, elephants (which have extremely large male anatomy), tons of birds, warthogs, civet, pretty much everything that there is in the park except for cheetahs and leopards. I went with 6 other volunteers so we traversed the dusty roads to scope out the animals on the top of our old Toyota bus that looks like a VW bus from the 70s. Our guide wasn't that helpful and the driver was kind of rude, but we saw the animals which is why we went so we were satisfied. After that, we stopped at the waterfalls to go for a swim and just see how beautiful the natural world is. Especially since it's the dry season and seeing water isn't the most common sight so all the greenery was beautiful.

Before that, I went down to Cotonou to say goodbye to one of my postmates. He decided to end his service early for another job. That was kind of sad. It's nice to have another American so close to escape to every once in awhile, but at least I still have another awesome postmate who is in the same ville. While I was down in Cotonou, I went to see one of my Beninese friends from down there and he took me out to eat some fish with baobab juice mixed with milk and ice which was delicious. Although pretty much anything cold is delicious. It's getting hotter and hotter at post so it is consequently getting harder and harder to sleep at night. Eventually I will move outside to sleep, but I am trying to delay that as long as possible.

While I was at the health center the other day, I saw this guy come in from an awful accident and he had a huge wound on his head. It was as if someone had ripped a 2 inch piece of skin from the front of his head it as it's too bad, so the guy gets up off the table and walks off. Meanwhile, I feel queasy from just LOOKING at it and go lay down. I used to think that I could handle gruesome things really well, but recently I have seen so many things that should never happen to a human body and I am second guessing my capabilities.

Outside of that, not too much has been going on at post. I'm organizing some sort of event for International Women's Day. I held a girls club meeting for primary school girls. There were about 15 people in my house at one time which is about 12 people too many for my tiny house so that was a little cramped, but for now we haven't found a good room to use so we made it work. I had them do an activity in which they chose a word that described them for each letter in their name. Their were several problems. One being that many do not know how to spell their names, two being that they don't all understand French so I tried to help them and it was more fun just to let them color and draw and be together. I'm trying to organize a similar girls club for girls in middle school who have a better grasp on their French, but the older the girls get, the less time they have so finding a time that they can all meet is tough.

My health center is slow to give me work. Meaning, they give me none. Out of our staff of 7 people (which is already understaffed), there are 3 left. The majeur (fr) retired, another moved, another wants to move, etc. So my work partner is way way too busy so it's up to me to find work which is how it has always been, but sometimes I wish I had a more steady work plan. One positive thing is that they are still using the numerical order system that I put in place for vaccination day. Yay!!! Sustainability!!!!

Okay so I wanna go watch some people make cheese here. Apparently you take the milk, grind up some bark and voila, cheese. Cool right??? I'll take pics.

Getting back from safari has been a bit tough, mainly because of the heat. My entire body is covered in the worst heat rash imaginable. My face was all swollen, my body itches like crazy non-stop, and there is nothing to do. It has been consistently 110 and it doesn’t get much cooler at night. I have started sleeping outside though, but that is only minimally better. So all of you enjoy your air conditioners. I guess that’s what I get for not having electricity. I have discovered a way to keep my drinking water below boiling though! Somebody took an old jug of motor oil and cleaned it out real good and made a rattan type cover for it so if you keep that kinda wet, the water stays cooler. The only problem is that everyone else knows I have it so they come to drink my water. But I guess that’s the culture here, whatever you have, you have to share.

Other than that, things have been pretty good. I have restarted playing soccer with the girls. We play almost every night. I have also been continuing to meet with the primary school girls. About 15 of them pile into my house which it is way too small and too hot for, but we do it anyways. We talked about self-confidence, the importance of women, and made friendship bracelets.

Students have figured out that I am decent at math, so they have started bringing me their homework to help them with. I always welcome students who are willing to learn, as many of them come for help with English, but it is often disheartening. Kids who are in 4eme which is about 8th grade have a lot of trouble understanding what fractions are. Is this normal??? With the way the system here works, most kids just memorize words and formulas without understanding what they are memorizing so in a subject such as math where you build off of previously learned items, it becomes increasingly more difficult to understand. I still try though. I try to explain through pictures, money, anything I can think of, but it makes me wonder how they really learn. It’s not any easier when the teachers tell the kids to go home and figure it out without explaining. How are you supposed to do that without textbooks or resources such as computers?

I had spoken with the director of the school to get the kids to plant a garden so they built the fence to keep out the goats and stuff. Now I have to take the seeds, which I have broccoli (doubt that will work), lettuce, okra, turnips, radish, carrots, tons of stuff. I’m trying to figure out the best way so that the kids actually get to use the seeds and so that director doesn’t take them and say he misplaced them so he can plant himself a nice little garden. I think I might just tell them to come get me when they are ready to plant.

My third cat is no longer. He lasted a good while though and he took care of my mouse problem. He got hit by a truck going by on the highway that is directly in front of my house and the neighbors were so lucky as to find him so they could eat him. That was a sad day. I’m just not meant to have pets here.

I just had a little terrace built in front of my house to give myself a good place to hang my mosquito net for sleeping outside. I remember when I used to have a mosquito net on my bed when I was little because it made me feel like a princess or something like that. Now, I actually need one. Funny how things change.

It’s presidential election time here so people are busy campaigning. Two nights ago, presidential hopeful Issa Salifou came to my village around 10:30 at night and passed out money and danced and then left. That is the essence of a good campaign. That or passing out fliers with the name and picture of the hopeful. And by passing out, I mean a car driving by playing loud music and throwing the fliers out to whoever wants them. They were supposed to vote on the 6th, but of course it got delayed so it is now scheduled for the 13th. We’ll see if that actually happens. So that’s about it for now, it’s the dry season so the other day I witnessed a dust tornado. Kinda cool. But that also means the wells will dry up soon so getting water will be more difficult.

So I'm currently down in Cotonou for my mid-service medical exam. I came down early for a gender and development meeting of which I work on the quarterly newsletter. The meeting happened to be the same day as the new volunteers' swear-in ceremony. So I went to see them get sworn in at the ambassador's house at which point it started to pour down raining. We were stuck outside in the rain, in a country that halts all life when rain starts. Since the main form of transportation is motos, when it rains, things get messed up. So we were stuck there for awhile in the torrential downpour. That night, we traveled to Porto-Novo (the real capital) for the swear-in party where the new volunteers have a chance to relax and let loose with each other after the 9 weeks of training and before heading off to their respective posts. There was a lot of dancing so it was fun. Then since I had 2 days til my med exam, I went to visit another PCV at his post. He has a MANSION. Apparently his host structure thought that he was a real doctor when they got him so they wanted him to be comfortable. It rained more. We made a delicious chili with beans, corn, cilantro, tomato, onion, green peppers. It was one of the best meals that I have had. Then I came back to Cotonou to start my med stuff. I had to poop in a cup 3 times, pee once, have my body poked and prodded, and blood taken. I get the results today so hopefully things went well. Meanwhile, I've been eating expensive and delicious foods and enjoying the nightlife. I found out about this game called Qwirkle which is fun. I also found out that the funding for my project will soon be available to me so yay! I'll be training 20 peer educators in my village to talk about HIV. Then they will go out and give presentations for 3 days on what they have learned. Then there will be a free testing and finally the closing ceremony. Hopefully it goes well. Anytime that you don't speak the same language there are large risks of not understanding. So hopefully by using lots of pictures, I can convey the ideas to them in an easy manner. That's it for now!

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My second kitty died. I got back from the south and saw the volunteers who were watching the kittens and they said that they have something to tell me. I guessed that my kitten died and I was right. Right after I just named it "please stay alive", so that didn't work. The volunteer of the other kitty doesn't want to give me hers so the search is on again and the mice continue to win our little battle. Apparently my friend was woken up at 4am to a screaming kitten and went to look and saw a big cat hurting and biting it. Its back was broken, bleeding, etc so that is all.

Funding for my project might not come through. Internet has been down here so its hard to be in contact with the Peace Corps people who I need approval from, but Im trying.

On the bright side, I have my mid service exam soon so i will get to see all the parasites and stuff that are living in my body! So after giving my stool samples i figured i would treat myself to a full body massage for 7 mille so roughly 14usd. That's it for now.

So I'm sitting in Cotonou, the day after the Akon concert. The concert was pretty cool after quite a few setbacks. First, we went to the stadium around 5:00pm and there were a host of Beninese, Cote d'Ivoirian, and Ghanaian artists. Time kept going on and on and on. Then they did a whole ceremony re-enactment of the country's independence, kinda like they do for Olympic opening ceremonies and that went on for about 45 minutes. Then it was time for Akon to come on, about 11pm and so the stage is getting prepared and of course it starts to rain. The rain halts for a moment in time and then people start jumping over the balcony trying to get to the field to be close to the stage. The police security men with their sticks run around trying to stop people and hit them with their batons. We wait, we wait, we wait. A few people of our group decided to leave and finally around 1am, Akon comes cruising out riding on top of his SUV with police on rollerblades following the car. So Akon is there! It was pretty cool to see him in person, but I thought that him being "from Senegal" would mean that he knew some French...WRONG.

At one point, he told the guards to let everyone come down on the field because we were all very separated from the stage area, but of course he said it in English so nobody knew what he was saying. Finally he said, "See, that's the kind of bullshit I'm talking about" and then he asked for his translator to come onstage. A few songs later, he started yelling at everyone to back up. So there was about a 5 minute pause for everyone to back-up, but again...English. Nobody understood. You could tell he was getting frustrated and kept saying it over and over so finally his translator came back out. He continued again playing all his big songs for 1 minute each and then he came out in a life-size hamster ball and went crowd surfing. At first, I gave him credit for not being afraid to go rolling into a crazy crowd like that, but then he started getting tumbled around in that ball and I started wondering how desperate he was for money. Tickets were only the equivalent of $10. So after that, a few of us went out to go dance a little til 6 in the morning.

Other than that, things have been somewhat busy at post. The mice have been CRAZY in my house. They have started dive bombing into my house from the ceiling. For the past year, we have lived contentedly in our separate halves. Me on the first floor and them in the ceiling. They make a lot of noise, but I put up with it as long as they stay there. So I reach the one year mark here in Benin, and they start entering the first floor. There are about 7 and so I put some tape up in the big spaces they were coming through, but then...they started biting holes in the middle of the plastic bag ceiling pieces and so they just drop in like that. I usually get in bed, then hear them start moving around so I keep my flashlight with me and shine the light on them to let them know that I'm there and that makes them squeal but then they continue to eat everything in my house. So that's fun. One night, they took some bubble wrap back up top and continued to chew on that for 30 minutes or so. All of that has prompted me to get a new kitten so I have 2 coming to my house when I get back. They are really cute, but still lacking names. Mine is a nice little Calico, and the other I will be babysitting.

Project-wise, I'm currently working on getting funding for and HIV/AIDS project in village which I will explain in more detail as long as I get the money for it. But I would train 20 peer educators and then do a testing in village and cool things. But for now, I'm going to do some Cotonou things since I'm never down here!

Click image to visit my website.

I would have to say that my local language is probably the coolest in

all of Benin. You can carry on a whole conversation with only saying

"mmm" or "ooo" and bowing to show respect. Anyway, I went down to

Porto Novo for the independence day fete and 50th anniversary of

independence. There were a ton of people in town, lots of cool

clothes and hats. There was a uniform fabric so that whomever wanted

to wear the same tissue [fabric, dress] could go buy that and match about half the

people celebrating. There was a parade, some motos did some tricks,

people in weird costumes, but that was about it. Oh yeah, there

were also fireworks, but many of them went off on the ground instead

of in the air. I visited my host family and they took me to

another fete, then we went back to eat some good salad and pate rouge!

Delicious.

After that, I started training the new volunteers. They have a 9-week

training program in Porto Novo and so I worked weeks 3 and 4. The

first week we talked about nutrition and they also received their post

announcements, a really exciting day. My region is getting 5

new volunteers and they all seemed pretty cool. During the weekend,

another trainer and I went to visit a trainee and his host family

where there was a funeral party. We were given a shot of local

liquor, then beer, then we danced for a long time, and then we were

given the spiciest food of my life. That was a memorable night. We

danced until 2:30 and then went home to sleep in. The next day

was another fete at a host family's church. Pretty much, Porto Novo

is just a big party town. Every weekend there are constant parties,

but that sounds a little better than it is. A party is basically just

a bunch of plastic chairs brought out, beer, local liquor, a bunch of

people trying to get the free food, and music, with the occasional

man yelling into a microphone too loud you can't really hear

what he is saying. The 4th week of training, we made enriched

porridge and soy cheese (tofu) which was really good. Now, I'm on my

way back to post to see what damage the mouse has done to my house.

Now I begin my search for a new cat aka Le Tigre deux. (See post below)

More good news! Just found out the Akon will be in Benin on 8/28 so I think I will make a trip south. It's a 12 hr trip for just one way but how often is Akon here???? That's it for

now!

[Akon is a Senegalese-American R&B singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, businessman, and philanthropist. He is known as one of the most successful and versatile R&B singers of the 21st century, grossing over 30 million dollars a year according to Forbes.]

My host brother.

Our girls camp just finished so I'm pretty happy. It was a lot of

fun, but extremely tiring. The days were basically 6am-midnight or

later. Those girls don't tire out. The sessions that I did went

really well. My work partner came to talk about breast cancer and a

couple of the girls volunteered to learn how to give themselves a

self-exam in front of the class so of course they removed their

shirts. That was humorous. But I may have seen more women without

shirts here than I have women wearing shirts. So that was normal.

Then I co-led a session on Moringa and so we made porridge and put

some moringa leaves in at the end and talked about how healthy it is

for you. Then I did a musical instrument session that was pretty

cool. We made toilet paper roll tambourines and moroccas filled with

rice. Then I let them decorate paper to wrap around them and color

them and fill them with stickers. They went crazy but it was really

cool cause at the closing ceremony they used their instruments and

sang a song. The girls that I brought all did awesome. One of mine

was voted the favorite by all the other volunteers. When I took her

home, she ran home to go bring me some eggs. They all learned a lot

throughout the camp, they learned about computers, I don't think most

of them have ever touched a computer. They learned about malaria,

HIV, health in general, instruments, they got to watch some of Planet

Earth (they saw a lighthouse in the ocean and everyone yelled out

'mosque' so that was funny), I also led a soccer session that went

really really well. They were pretty good at headers. It was also

good to see them play because one of my girls from my village team

came and she was definitely a lot better than them which is nice to

know that she has been improving from our practice in village. They

also learned about entrepreneurship, geography, a bunch of stuff so it

was pretty cool. As for logistics and stuff, it all went fairly

smoothly without any problems which was a huge relief because at

another girls camp in the country, one of the girls was sent home for

leaving the compound at night and selling herself. Yeah. It sounds

bad, but that's cause it was.

Today, to celebrate the end, some volunteers and I went to the pool up

north more towards Niger, ate hot dogs, 7-layer dip with velveeta

cheese, and American things. Tomorrow, I'll stay to take care of some

things and watch the World Cup and then head back home.

My garden is looking good. The zucchini plant is gigantic so

hopefully it produces fruit. The cucumbers and beans and radishes are

doing well. Slowly, my family is learning what to put in the compost

so that's progressing. My girls who went to the camp want to have a

girls club so I'm more than willing to do that, but it might have to

wait until school starts in September because everyone is out in the

fields. Speaking of the fields, one of my friends who was supposed to

help and be a counselor at the camp got bit by a scorpion the day

before on her foot in the field so she couldn't come. At the very

last minute, a friend's sister came and she couldn't have been better.

She was awesome with the girls, so willing to help out, and willing

to continue to help after the camp. It's so nice when you finally

find someone who is motivated and wants to help, unfortunately she

will be leaving again when school starts back up.

My next plan is to start a young doctors group and teach kids some

stuff about health. Then I'll be helping train the new volunteers

which is cool cause that means I've been here a year!!!! Time flies!

Then, I'm gonna go visit another volunteer in the south and help

organize a "Iron Chef-Benin" to see who can make the healthiest dinner

and educate them a little on nutrition. Then there are summer courses

in village that I've been asked to help with.

So things are good. I heard about all the crazy stuff with the NBA.

Hope everything else is going well.

Some sad news is that Le Tigre has died. He had been sick and

wouldn't eat for 3 days and one day he just stopped walking, and my

family came over to me and said "c'est finit" That was sad. I almost

cried but crying in front of people here gets really awkward and the

Beninese don't know how to react and they kept coming to my house to

ask me if he really died when they saw Maman throw him over the

wall....but they were kind and said it was God's plan, even though

they are Muslim. Le Tigre was the cutest cat in the world. He purred

non-stop. You could look at him and he'd purr so maybe in the future

I'll get another, but as for now there is already a new addition. The

day before that though they brought this tiny tiny puppy to the house

and it looks about 3 weeks old, wayyyy too young to be away from it's

mom, but it's their new guard dog since the old one got hit by a truck

one morning. They call it Champion and I feed it so it tends to stay

2 inches away from my feet at all times which is cute/annoying. I

just left for a week though so hopefully he is still there and being

fed.

So it's still chaleur, meaning extremely hot, but there have been

occasional bizarre interruptions of 2 minutes of rain and some

hurricane-type winds. Unfortunately, it only makes it hotter the next

day. I went all the way down to Cotonou for a training, and secretly

hoping to escape the heat and heat rash but I ended up being hot still

and staying in a room with no AC. Not there is AC anywhere in this

country, but I thought maybe a Peace Corps function would pay to let

us be luxurious for 4 days. No luck. Instead we worked and talked

about objectives of PC for 4 days which was a waste of time, but at

least I ate amazingly good food. I went out dancing, saw the other

volunteers, and had a good time.

In village, I like to say that it is mango hunting season. You see

kids sitting under the tree with their slingshots, shooting at the

mangoes to knock them off the tree. You see women with long corn

stalks to shake the mangoes, kids climbing trees. It's all a big

hunt. But I end up profiting from it. Occasionally I buy a mango.

There are both grafted and non-grafted but the non-grafted ones are

tiny and very stringy and get stuck in your teeth. Most of the time

though, people give them to me as gifts. I made a nice mango chutney

with a huge sack of mangoes my friend brought over and one of the kids

in the concession brings over a lot of large grafted ones. I made

mango bread with that and it was delicious!!!! I also learned how to

cut a mango pretty effectively.

Some sad news is that Le Tigre has died. He had been sick and

wouldn't eat for 3 days. One day he just stopped walking. My

family came over to me and said "c'est finit". That was sad. I almost

cried but crying in front of people here gets really awkward and the

Beninese don't know how to react and they kept coming to my house to

ask me if he really died when they saw Maman throw him over the

wall....but they were kind and said it was God's plan, even though

they are Muslim. Le Tigre was the cutest cat in the world. He purred

non-stop. You could look at him and he'd purr so maybe in the future

I'll get another, but as for now there is already a new addition.

The day before they brought this tiny, tiny puppy to the house

and it looks about 3 weeks old, wayyyy too young to be away from it's

mom, but it's their new guard dog since the old one got hit by a truck

one morning. They call it Champion and I feed it so it tends to stay

2 inches away from my feet at all times which is cute/annoying. I

just left for a week though so hopefully he is still there and being

fed.

In terms of work projects, I went back to the school and did an essay

competition on malaria. How malaria is spread and so on since rainy

season is coming and the mosquitoes get really bad. I told them to

write something creative like a song or something, and so of course

most of them copied something out of their notebooks from a class. At

least they had to write and practice their handwriting. I'm trying to

get mosquito nets to give to the winners. I also talked to a

professor and got the soccer balls back for the girls. Now we can

start playing again! Yay! It's always comforting going to the school

and having all the girls run up to me with excited looks on their

faces asking when we are going to play again.

As for my next projects, I'm going to do another mural because for some reason my

work partner really wants one, even though they don't use my first

one. But I will make them do something with it next week and say they

don't get a new one until they use the first one. Other work, I don't

know. I'll be going to Ghana at the end of the month for the GRE,

going to another training right before that and that is May so time is

still flying by. I painted the door and window of my house. And when

I say that I painted it, I drew an outline and the boys took over and

painted the rest. It's okay, that was a REALLY hot day and I

shouldn't have exerted too much energy anyway. So now my house looks

awesome and you can clearly spot it from the road, the lovely bright

colors!! I'll try to get pictures up at some point.

Click image to visit website.

Things are gonna get scarce during the dry season, meaning fewer tomatoes, hotter weather. I met a guy from Cote d'Ivoire tonight and he said he cried when he first came here because it was so hot and he is partially conditioned to it so for me... it's gonna be bad.

I returned from my training, got back to post, made some awesome pizza with the pepperoni's my mom sent me! Gave some pizza to some villagers and they were a little baffled but food you eat with your hands is easy here. Roasted some marshmallows from the US for breakfast and they thought it was cotton. What a pleasant surprise. The girls don't play sports so I'm gonna try to get them active in something fun that isn't cooking. The basketball team is slow to get off the ground so I'm now working on a girl's soccer team in the village. It will be easier to get to practices. I went to a village in the bush today and made some enriched bouille with soy (tasty!). Talked to a guy about how he hates chaleur (heat) and he cried the first time he endured it and he's from cote d'ivoire. So that's great news for me. The heat is coming. The nights are no longer as cold as they once were. I did eat some fresh cashews the other day though! Mangoes are also coming in but this also marks the end of good foods like vegetables including tomatoes.

I just found out that the place I was going to plant my garden is where the family buried the Papa. Good thing I found out before digging. I saw my sage femme hit a woman giving birth with a stick. I really don't know if there is anything I can do about that. It's more of a problem everywhere, not just with my post. She can be so nice but if she gets mad...its on. As for next week, I'm going on a bike tour meaning a group of volunteers will get on our bikes and head out to middle/high schools and give awareness seminars on HIV/AIDS en francais of course and then bike home for 3 days. I think we are doing like 6 schools so that should get my muscles working. English Club is still going. Still writing lots of awesome songs. I recently wrote the remix to "I like to eat apples and bananas" to talk about the food groups so that I can get some health info in there. Gotta run, its kinda late here and I'm getting up early!

I'm now on my way back to my post after 2 weeks of training. It was really hot and humid here but good to see all the other volunteers and talk about things that have gone on at our respective posts. A lot of the training was repetitive, it was more the discussions amongst ourselves that we found the most useful. I did get to eat a lot of good food though. Hamburgers, salads, mashed potatoes! Yummy! The days were long, but the rooms were air-conditioned, a nice luxury. I learned more about HIV, some about creating goals and visions for projects, project funding, and most importantly, how to make enriched bouille (a breakfast food). My homologue, work partner, was there for the first week so we worked together on some things. She never has been the friendliest person but she really showed it here. She was arguing with many of the volunteers and at the end she lightly shoved one of my friends. I think she still likes me but she's definitely not the easiest person to work with. She likes to yell at the pregnant women who come for consultations and hits one of the girls who works for her. That's not easy to watch...But in other news, I have gotten to see a few African Cup of Nations soccer matches on TV. A few of us went out to a bar with a projector to watch Benin play Nigeria and we all bought Benin jerseys and shorts and wore them and took a picture and some guy wearing an American flag shirt jumped in with us so we had our countries represented well. Tonight Benin plays Nigeria so that's a big game and I'll get to watch it in Cotonou which is the biggest city here so hopefully the excitement will be out and about.

It was 2 long weeks but I know it will take some readjusting to get back into the French but I'm excited to try to start some work!

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Things have been going well. I did manage to faint this morning though...I'm completely fine now. Not sure what happened, but I couldn't have been at a better place. I was watching my homologue at the health center cut the umbilical cord of a baby and I started feeling hot and sweaty and I looked around and no one else seemed to be hot so then another nurse started talking to me and I felt the faintness coming so I started walking towards her and murmuring in French but of course I couldn't think of the word for faint so I fell into her and blacked out and woke up to them pouring water on my face. I was very calm throughout it all. They told me its cause I was standing up too long so I'll say that is what it was. I think my knees locked too long or something cause I ate well this morning, homemade granola that I made yesterday with fresh honey. Other than that, my health has been great! I think that was just an unfortunate accident. But tomorrow I'm going on safari for a week to help another volunteer with a formation on giving tours so that should be fun.

People wonder what I eat. I tell them everything, but they don't believe me so when they see me shovel some rice into my mouth with my fingers they really enjoy it. This is like my taste of being a celebrity. People like to stare at me, tell me my skin isn't tough enough, laugh at me, talk in high pitched voices imitating the french women's voices they hear on the radio or just touch me. But I like it all. Everybody knows everything I do. My prince friend came over and told me that somebody told him I was wearing bracelets and they weren't pretty. 0

Click image to visit website. So I'm gonna keep this short....maybe. Okay so I just got back from a banking weekend in Parakou. I went to the club. The owner paid for me to get in with my friends, then he gave us all a beer, a bottle of whiskey, sucreries, a bottle of amarula. Ton of stuff. All free, we stayed til 4 and went back home. Club was good, they played a lot of salsa music which I don't know how to do but it's okay. Came back after eating a hamburger and some ice cream. Bought some food to make a cake with. Made a pound cake for the people I work with. Went to a party for somebody who died in my village. There were 3 men playing instruments, 2 women singing on megaphones, and 2 people dance at a time. Me being me, they told me to dance so me and my friend in village went for a spin. When you dance well, people come up to you and put candy in your hand. I also got a few 5 and 10 franc pieces. We left to go get some food. Then, came back when it was more crowded and I went for another dance with the pharmacist I work with. Danced, got a ton of candy. Some guy put a 5 Nira bill from Nigeria on my forehead and everybody laughed and clapped at me, but mostly with me. Kind of reminds me from a dancing experience in Ghana...okay gotta run! Erika

Click on image to visit website. The 1st 3 mos we have no appointed job. We are to just get to know the town, people and resources. I've been looking for projects to help me keep busy. One idea is to organize a girl's basketball league. I've also gotten to know a volunteer in a neighboring town who is teaching. I may be able to help her with something. I'm slowly finding things to do. Tomorrow, I will be teaching, hopefully, 3 classes about hand-washing since it is International Hand-washing Day! Use soap and water! I wrote a song to Akon's "Smack That" about washing your hands so that should be fun. Akon never knew he was all about some good hygiene. My house is basically finished now. My furniture is inside; a bed, table and chairs which were expensive because they are really good quality which I didn't really need but my homologue knew the guy so she took me to him. I had screens put on my windows and a screen door put in. The mason had to come cement things in so that is all coming along. For sending LETTERS, send to my post at Erika Lobe Corps de la Paix BP 126 Kandi, Benin Afrique de l'Ouest For PACKAGES, its safter to send them to Erika Lobe Corps de la Paix 01 BP 971 Cotonou, Benin Afrique de l'Ouest My French, eh, don't know if it has improved. My Bariba has stayed the same, but after these classes I won't really have anything to do so I can study study study in the heat. So far, I've only had 3 babies pee on me. Somebody brings me water from the pompe so that I don't have to and somebody in my concession washed my clothes for me. They seem to think that because I'm foreign, I'm not capable of doing chores so I have started washing my dishes inside which they probably think is really bizarre. Some vielles (old ladies) came to saluer(welcome) me one morning as I was doing dishes and they took the dishes from me and finished washing them. I tried, I guess that's not really something to complain about. Gotta run!

Today I swear in as an official Peace Corps volunteer!!!! 50 of the 56

stagieres remain and we will have a grand ceremony this morning and then take off for post on Monday!!!!! Click on image to visit my website.

I saw that someone tried to call. The service is bad every now and then so I could answer the call but I couldn't hear you. I'm on post visit now so I'll try to send a quick email to the group about my post at Kassakou, but I doubt its on the map. You should see Kandi and Kassakou is 5km south of that off the main/only road. I have no electricity or water and my village doesn't have a big market but I'm close to a bigger city so that's good, I can easily bike here to get things I need and to be at the workstation. I'm taking a bus back tomorrow so you can try to call then. I leave here at 7:20 in the morn and I should get back about 12 or so hours later. Click image of northern village to visit my website.

Peace Corps life is very busy these days. I'm living with a host family. Mama, stay at home mom, and Papa, an architect, have 5 children ages 4, 6, 12, 15 and 16. They're very eager to help me with my French, which is coming along, though not fluent yet. My meals have given me a taste of a variety of foods. The main staple is a corn based mash that you roll up into a ball and use to pick up sauces and veggies. I've been eating goat regularly as well as beef.

I've been taking some pics but haven't gotten to a computer yet to upload them. Stay tuned.

My day is basically waking early around 7, eating breakfast and conversing with my family then hopping on my bike, wearing my kickass helmet, heading to Peace Corps training center where I train until after 5, then head home. A little time for conversation, relaxation and eating dinner. Then off to bed. This is 6 days a week. Sunday is my free day.

On my following blogs I will be more descriptive and hopefully will be able to upload some images. Don't have much time now. Click image to visit my website.

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I will be taking off from RDU to Philadelphia on Wednesday morning, embarking on my 2 year and 3 month adventure in the country of Benin, West Africa. I read today that Benin is about the same size as Pennsylvania. I have been studying French and trying to learn as much as I can so that I can adapt without too much difficulty and culture shock. Although, from my last experience in Ghana I didn't really have so much trouble with culture shock, but the reverse culture shock was pretty tough. My address for the first 3 months will be:

Name, Peace Corps Volunteer

Corps de la Paix

B.P.971

Cotonou,Benin

I still have a lot of packing to do. I am trying to finish moving out of my apartment and pack all my suitcases in 2 days. Then I have to say my goodbyes and eat my last American meals, eat my last pieces of ice, sleep in air conditioning, etc...

Click on image to visit my website.