Ready to change Villages!

Yes, it is true…I am staying in Benin a bit longer than my original end of service date.  I’m extending my service for a few months which means I’ll be back “home” in December/January-ish instead of September.  I haven’t set a REAL date yet. 

Why am I staying?  Well, I will be continuing and expanding upon a project that was begun by another volunteer.  The project is focused on the conservation and protection of a Sacred Forest.  This forest is also home to a unique species of monkey.  The monkeys are said to have direct lineage with the villagers…thus it is a very bad omen if one of the monkeys dies because that means that someone in the village will also be meeting their end.  One of the biggest threats to the monkeys occurs during the dry season when the monkeys leave the forest in search of water elsewhere.  People who come across them when they are not in their sacred forest often kill or capture them to sell.  If they stay in the sacred forest they cannot be touched but once they leave it becomes a problem. 

The village I’ll be working in is called Kikèlè and is only about 50km north of where I live now.  Some of the activities I’ll be doing with the villagers include: a forest clean-up/waste management program; enforcing the use of the newly built latrines instead of using the forest as a toilet; sensitizing people in surrounding villages on the importance of the forest and the effects of deforestation; planting trees (!); and trying to make this site more tourist-friendly.  We may even start apiculture (bee-keeping) in the forest to generate some money from honey for the village. 

As sad as I am to be leaving Prèkètè, it is time for a new volunteer to take my place and time for me to start anew.  Benin in general has shown me so many things I never knew, especially about myself, and I’m not quite ready to give that all up just yet.  Thinking back 2 years ago when I was getting ready to leave the US I had no idea what to expect from my future Peace Corps experience and was anxious to begin.  Here I was moving to a French-speaking country when I had just a few weeks of French under my belt, and was pretty naïve about development in general…now, 2 years later I feel like I have come full circle and the fear I once had is long gone; plus I went from the novice low level of French to advanced high!  I always say that a person can get used to just about anything; you just have to learn self-reliance. 

I want to thank my friends and family for their continued patience.  It hasn’t been an easy 2 years for the ones closest to me but knowing you support me has helped me endure more than you can imagine. I am coming home, a little later than expected, but I’ll be there soon. 

Also, Congrats Erin and Jesse on your beautiful, bouncing, burgeoning, bubbly, baby boy Colten :)  

The HEAT is On

Yes, the hot season has arrived. Bye bye cool nights of sleeping in my bed with a sheet and hello to nights of sleeping on my cement floor next to my screen door.

I’m sure you’ve all been wondering where I have been for the last 6ish months and why I’ve not written about my weird life, the crazy happenings, and other miscellaneous events that have taken place here in Benin. The truth is I’ve got words coming out of my ears! I have so much I want to say and can never seem to find the appropriate way to explain. A new year means new habits (or broken resolutions) and one of mine will be to better document these remaining months I have as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Weather report:

December and January I used 2 sheets at night and wore a sweater in the mornings. A sort of African winter.

February is hot. Not much else to say but the heat is here. L

About work:

I have been BUSY these last few months. As most of you know I have been planning my latrine project since last year and have finally begun construction. The “Prekete Poo Pit Project” is officially underway; a big thanks to everyone who donated or spread the word about the pits. (Look for pictures through the link to the right!) It’s pretty amazing how quickly the mason and his helpers can make the platforms and bricks with just their hands and a shovel. Manual labor is the name of the game. No pre-fabrication by machine here.

I’ve been really lucky to have a great counterpart who is helping me organize the project. I was so afraid that I would be the only one trying to organize buying materials, transporting them to my village, and getting the families on the same page but that fear has dissolved thanks to my counterpart and other helpers in the village.

Honestly, I had my doubts about the value and sustainability of constructing anything here in Benin because there are so many foreign agencies, NGO’s, and international aid that comes in and builds wonderful buildings that are not used because they’re not really needed. The problem is that these groups give money just to give but it doesn’t trickle down to the people who really need it or it is wasted on an office building that is not necessary. Luckily, since I have been living in Prekete for a year and a half now I can say that I really understand what the village could USE; hence the latrines.

Another project I have been working on is my environmental club. Sharing information (ie education) is the KEY to development and change. My reason for even applying for the Peace Corps was to teach people skills that I’ve learned and more specifically to do environmental education. I attempted a club last year but my French level wasn’t really all that great and I was still adjusting to EVERYTHING. This year I have great students who understand my broken French and are eager to learn. The kids are about the age of 6^th-8^th graders. Last week we chose the President, VP, secretary, and disciplinarian (these kids can get a lil wild) and the kids are even more invested in the club now. This week we are planting our garden and hopefully we can use our vegetable money to take a field trip to the sacred monkey forest about 40 km away.

I really just want to give these kids something different. There are not many (or any) extra curricular activities for them, which is so different than our American uprbringing, right? One thing the kids here are not is OVERPROGRAMMED! But that can be a little boring so hopefully this silly American girl can get them interested in protecting their fragile environment.

I have some secondary projects too such as helping with the pre-natal consultations at the health center (I am basically the scribe), helping the gardeners improve their crops by teaching about compost, natural pesticides, etc, and planning the Girls’ Empowerment Camp for June. I am also planning a bike tour with the volunteers of my region; we are planning to do a tour of the villages along our road for a few days in May. We will stop in each village to do an environment related session.

Things have really taken a turn for the better these last few months and I’m hoping the momentum will keep me going strong til the end! I will officially be finished in Prekete in September of this year. How the time has flown. I have had some of the longest days of my life in this village where time passes slower than you can imagine. Thankfully I have found some outlets to the mundane. It’s amazing how different my life is this year compared to last year even though I am in the same place. It took me about 9 months to get completely comfortable and really learn my limits here.

If you can speak a little of their local language, learn to greet people every morning (between 6 and 8 am), eat their food, wear their clothes, and change your daily routine to mirror theirs you’ll have a much easier time just living. In America we have a thousand things to distract us or to “do” to keep us from monotony; they usually involve technology. In Benin, if you are bored, the best thing you can do and sometimes the only cure is to go outside and be with REAL people. Funny how the best form of entertainment here is people (or often dirty little children), huh? You can’t be a hermit in this society.

If you've ever read Kerouac's Big Sur, living in Prekete is much like living in the desolate cabin in the canyons on the coast of California. Sure, I am not alone but I often have the same realization that Kerouac had; he says he went crazy (or possibly stir crazy) after just 3 weeks of isolation. Again, I'm not isolated in that I'm alone but isolated in a culture I am still trying to grasp. Well, I think I beat Kerouac in that I have endured being somewhat stir crazy with a dash of cabin fever for the last year and a half; but, I am afraid I will have the same realizations he did upon returning to what he calls the "gooky city." Guess we'll see when this is all said and done.

Farewell and I hope I didn’t ramble too much.

Summer Camp...Beninese Style

For the last 2 weeks I have workin’ to get kids to THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX! So where was I? Science, Art, and Engineering CAMP!

The camp was organized by NoviAfrica, a Beninese NGO that has partners in America, and 30 girls and 30 boys from 12 different villages were chosen by the NGO Plan Benin (they work to support education and children’s rights) to participate in this totally original camp in southern Benin. Myself along with 2 other PC volunteers chose to help out and we were the “animators”/teachers for the classes. Elaina chose science, Bailey taught Engineering, and I taught ART! I know what you’re thinking…”Lauren, you didn’t go to Benin to teach art, right?” No, but I did come here to teach kids things that they may never have the chance to learn again, hence the artistic aspect of my last 2 weeks of work.

The education system here in Benin is quite different from America’s. Students are rarely able to do hands-on projects where they apply the knowledge they have spent hours memorizing. That is where this amazing camp has succeeded; it has given these students the chance to be creators and thinkers, and not just repeaters.

Here is a little information about the projects we did in each class: Science class made bottle rockets, terrariums, xylophones, hot air balloons, solar distillation...

Engineering class made solar cookers, biogas (mixed cow manure, cabbage, and water and connected the bottle to a balloon to capture the methane and it worked!), wind turbine that could light-up a lightbulb, steamboat….

Art class made paper mache balloons, practiced sculpture with the infamous flour/salt/water mixture, did many drawings, worked in teams to complete a puzzle, and painted a mural at the nearby primary school…

We also made mudstoves (more efficient stoves than the usual 3 stone method and made of clay) for families in the village as a community service project.

The most interesting thing, and perhaps it sounds boring, was to have the kids complete a 100 piece puzzle in teams. They were given about an hour and no teams actually finished. Why? Well, remember the shape and color matching games that you did since age 2? Those don’t exist here, therefore this puzzle was perhaps the first time these kids were asked to match shapes and colors to create a picture. It was fascinating to see how they went about putting it together and also very frustrating. In the end, they worked incredibly hard to get it together and were so proud to have accomplished it.

Drawing is always a great activity here because the students not only love to use the colored markers, which they don’t see in school often, but they love to copy what their neighbor is drawing. This was so confusing to me because originality is such an important concept for us but here, students struggle to come up with things to draw. They use rulers at school (heaven forbid your writing is a little crooked), so I saw a lot of houses and symmetrical drawings. By the end of the first week I had to ban rulers from the classroom to show that art does not have to be perfect all the time.

This camp was more than just 2 weeks of teaching kids; it was a chance to work together with motivated Beninese entrepreneurs.

I could go on for days about this camp but I think the pictures will do it more justice:

https://picasaweb.google.com/laurensmith6140/ScienceArtAndEngineeringCAMP?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCL3uj8bMw7iJQQ&feat=directlink

PS My latrine project is still online and will be until I raise $8,400 :) Donate if ya can at www.peacecorps.gov/donate and enter the project number 680-215!

Merci beaucoup

Paix et amour

YOUR CHANCE TO HELP MY VILLAGE OUT!!

Greetings Friends and Family!

Well, you all knew that the day would come when I would ask for alittle monetary support for a Peace Corps project here in Benin...THAT TIME IS NOW!

I have been working with my village, KPrekete, to get a latrineproject going and we have finally received approval from Peace Corpsto start fundraising. This project will provide 65 latrines forfamilies in my little village and is also a great way to spread hygeine awareness and all that good stuff.

This project cannot happen without the support of my friends and family back in America so if you could donate just a few dollars that would be spectacular!! The people of KPrekete thank you for your support, and of course I will be eternally grateful to all who donate!

To donate go to www.peacecorps.gov/donate and use the code 680-215. ITIS SIMPLE and will only take a few minutes.

I cannot thank you all enough for the support you have shown me during my Peace Corps service and this is just another way to help those who are a little less fortunate than you. I would appreciate if you could forward this information on to anyone who may be interested in donating. I only have a few months to raise the funds so the more people who know, the better!

Thank you all so much and hope all is well in America!

Sincerely,
Lauren Smith
Peace Corps Volunteer
Environmental Action
Benin 2010-2012

Back by popular demand...

I’ll start with the cliché of saying…where do I even begin??

Here is the conversation the I have with myself on a weekly basis:

I have been in this country for almost a year now. Really? 12 months has passed? Yes, Lauren, 12 months has flown by quicker than anyone can imagine.

Oh yeah and I’ve been to America and back and truly feel like I have never left. Is this a good thing? Bad thing? Something not worth dwelling on? Well, whichever it is I suppose it is time to give a bit more info about what I actually DO here. When I was in America for the nuptials of Mr. and Mrs. Jones (Congrats btw) the top questions from all who were curious were as follows: 1^st: “So how do you like it?” 2^nd: “I hear you have a boyfriend…how is that going?” and the 3^rd question: “What do you over there?” I guess I’ll take some time to answer these 3 inquiries as best as I can…

Oh and THE OTHER QUESTION…WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO JOIN THE PEACE CORPS??

On the matter of how do I like it?:

Honestly, my experience in Benin has been a 10-month long rollercoaster ride. I have said this before but it truly is the best way to describe the extreme ups and downs you can feel all in one day, one week, one month… the funny thing is that not having electricity or running water are the “easy” things to adapt to. It’s the constant feeling of being an outsider…no matter how much Beninese food you eat, Beninese clothing you wear, or how much local language you speak; your every move being scrutinized by the “villageoise” (village people), they notice EVERYTHING and are not shy about making comments; and, last but not least, not having a schedule to fully fill the days. This last point is both a blessing and a curse...

But, all these difficulties aside, I am truly happy here in Benin. I like to think that I have learned to live with these people and not against them. Understanding their culture and their way of life is crucial to integration. If you don’t accept the way certain “cultural things” are here, you will always be frustrated. You have to remember that volunteers are here to promote new ways but not expect complete and utter abandonment of the old ways. Initiating change here is the most difficult thing that I have ever faced. On the other hand, people normally want to here what I have to say and are interested in the information. But, just like in America, we all know what we really need to do in terms of change but we stumble when it comes to taking action and actually CHANGING. We say “petite au petite” (little by little) we initiate change.

Once you understand “how” to live with these people, live is not so difficult. That’s what I mean when you have to live with and not against them. Accept the things you can’t change and be thankful for the little victories along the way…

Basically, this place is entertaining. The best thing is that if you’re bored just find a place to sit and people watch. This is an acceptable way to pass the afternoon, as is laying on your floor listening to music or pondering about how it is the kids outside are managing to make wailing noises for hours and not tire of it. The kids. Oh man, the kids. They are my best friends and my biggest nuisance. Kids are ALWAYS excited to see you, will ALWAYS take your bags for you even if the bag weighs more than the kid, will ALWAYS jump at the opportunity to help you, especially if it has to do with housework or manual labor, which is pretty awesome, and will ALWAYS bother you after you give them candy, but what little kid doesn’t?

So, yes, I like it. I am happy. I am sometimes frustrated and bored and lost but give it some time and something always turns you day or week around.

I’ve compiled a list of things that will always make me smile, no matter what…

-A child yelling Fatima (my African name) as I walk by. Simple and sweet.

-Kids rolling tires down the street.

-Old Mamas greeting me in local language.

-The look on their face when I respond.

P.S. LEARNING LOCAL LANGUAGE IS THE WAY TO A BENINESE PERSON’S HEART!!!! French is NOT their first language…

-Baby goats.

-Seeing how many people we can fit in a 5-seater taxi. My record? 10 people + 2 chickens and a goat.

-Women carrying mass amounts of stuff on their head. Seriously, it is amazing how much they can balance.

-How stunned people are when I go to the “farm” with the girls in my concession. They really think white-folk are fragile as glass.

-Eating igname pilee and wagashi (my favorite dish here…glorified mashed potatoes and their “cheese”)

-Going to bed a little cold! NOT HOT!

-Waking up to light rain on my metal roof.

-Watching my cat hunt for lizards.

There are hundreds more I can write but for now I think this will suffice.

Didn’t mean for this entry to be a cliff-hanger but I have to run and get on a taxi to go to Djougou…about 10 of us volunteers are putting on an empowerment camp for high school girls in our region this week. Should be pretty awesome and I will be writing more next week! So I gues this is ta ta for now!

TO BE CONTINUED…

Il y a 2 jours

…which literally means, “There are 2 days!” and is the French equivalent of “Long time no see!” Even if you’re gone for weeks people will still say that it’s just been 2 days, sometimes 3.

Ok. Yes, I realize it has been months since my last post…and yes I realize you are all waiting on the edge of your seats to hear what I’ve been up to and the anticipation is just killing you….and yes, I know that last bit is most likely false….BUT I’m back on my computer after a few months hiatus and am ready to share all the wonderful, bizarre, eye-popping, and sometimes stomach churning things that have happened since the start 2011.

You may remember one of my earlier posts where I shared from my “observation journal,” well I’ll be doing the same here.

Let’s go back to…

November 2010
-It’s the culture to be barefoot, and naked if you are under the age of 7 or happen to be crazy person.

-It’s also the culture to take at least 3 showers a day before and after rolling in the dirt.

-Baby goats are my favorite of all the indigenous African animals.

-Found sweet potatoes today in the market.

-Beninese have no shame. I think that’s why they can spit, pee, go #2, and make any other bodily function in relatively public areas without a care. I’m thinking it’s because they are not ashamed of their normal bodily functions like westerners are. I’m not saying that I will or have done any of those things listed above (at least not the really offensive ones) but there is something to be said in realizing that when you gotta go, you gotta go and when you have no toilet or running water, you don’t really have a choice. Needless to say, I have been working on starting a latrine project to address the issue of squatting since it’s not so sanitary.

-The women are always trying to get me to buy new sandals. Are mine really that disgusting and ugly?

-Advice for any visitor: NEVER eat, carry food, or buy mass amounts of food in front of anyone, especially children if you are very hungry. They will 100% of the time ask you to share. NOT because they’re starving but because their culture is to ALWAYS share what you are eating with the people next to you.

-The leaky Chinese batteries that I must buy if I want to use my fan are going to give me cancer I swear. They always explode!

-It’s great to realize that I do have something in common with the villagers: we are all human. Heck, even the Muslim Mamas in Prekete drink beer!

-I also realized that what we call “common sense” is not universal. But, the gesture of a hand-wave to say hello is, so at least that’s something.

December 2011
-It seems as though all of the “strangers” are flocking together. By strangers I mean people who have come to “work” in Prekete especially at the schools. I found myself showing others around town, ironic. I'm the strangest of all the strangers.

-Note to self: your day can start off frustrating, hot, miserable, and you’ll be ready to leave but I can guarantee that by the end of the day you’ll feel so blessed to be here.

-All the young men who have been working the farms in Nigeria (supposedly their soil is better) are coming back into town on their fancy new motos. This means there is a whole new wave of people that have to get “used to” me being in their village.

-I HAVE A KITTEN.

-The boys are shooting bats out of the mango trees. Very entertaining because the bats fly out for 0.5 seconds and are right back in the tree.

-How funny to be able to guess what an entire country is eating for dinner…PATE (pronounced “pot”… the corn, stiff-porridge dish) with sauce.

-Visiting the school today I felt like a circus freak. You’d think I was made of candy the way the kids were herding around me.

-Woke-up to dense fog. Very eery and amazing. I’ve been wearing long-sleeve shirts too! Wintery weather, well kinda.

-I’m convinced that African food tastes better when eaten with your hand. I have become quite accustomed to the whole no fork thing.

-How are the students expected to understand what’s happening at school when they don’t really understand FRENCH? French is rarely spoken in their homes and NO ONE will EVER say French is their FIRST language.

-Quote from Tao of Pooh, “No matter how useful we may be sometimes it takes us a while to recognize our own value.”

-Fact: Everyone loves gossip, arguments, fights, and other people’s business. Not many interesting things happen everyday here in village so when you hear people yelling its only a matter of seconds before every person in a 23 kilometer radius is listening in.
They yell quite a bit.

-African kids really do love chasing me on my bike. That stereotype is dead-on.

-What is their idea of home? I really don’t think it’s their physical house…it’s gotta be the people that they see everyday, their village, Benin, and most of all Africa.

-Felt like the coolest kid in school today when about 20 students walked me home after class.

-I saw a chicken hunt and devour a cockroach today. Maybe I need a house-chicken?

-Old man asked me why the Anglophone countries are so much more developed than the Francophone countries. Ask France...?

-How can people not know their husband’s name, their child’s name, or even their last name? Perhaps when you don’t have to have a birth certificate or an obligation to register yourself in any official way with the government you can't blame them.

-It’s cold! I’m drinking hot coffee, wearing a hoodie, and long pants!

-For a culture that lives, works, eats, showers, and even sleeps outdoors, they are not very “outdoorsy” in the “we love to be out in nature” sense.

January 2011
-Partied with all the women for New Years’. Even danced and drank Beninoise beer and wore fancy clothes, kind of like American New Years’ right?

-Sounds of the New Year: Young people walking around beating drums and playing trumpets, churchbells allll the time, and lots of loud music as I walk down the road coming from all the places with generators.

-The Fulani (a lighter-skinned people who live “in the bush” and are nomads across West Africa) had a whipping event today. Basically all the young boys beat each other with sticks to show their manhood in hopes to impress a young lady. Romantic? Chivalric? Violent?

-Celebrated New Years’ on January 1st NOT on December 31st. Woke=up and it was 2011.

-Why is it that the dirtiest, most unsanitary, and always naked little twin girls have come to really like me?

-The 20-year old girl in my concession told me today that if there was a medicine she could take to get pregnant she would. Here, if you are 20 and don’t yet have a child you are pretty bizarre. Reproducing is the priority in this society.

-On that baby note…I never knew African babies are born with pretty light skin. Every time I hold one people assume it’s mine.

-All the citizens have been registering for their identity cards this month for the election in March. Think a makeshift DMV set up at the school, but one that functions a little better.

-Some guy had a Tuolomne Meadows shirt on today. I must say it made me a bit nostalgic.

-The other night I had a sort of art hour in my house. I was invaded by the kids and to keep them occupied I told them to draw. What did they draw? The digestive tract (they are currently learning it in school), a square bag, and robots.

-Top 3 questions I have been asked this week:
1. Why do white people make pornography?
2. Why does she (a women in a magazine) have red on her lips?
3. There’s no corruption in America, right?

February
-THIS IS AFRICA is a phrase that is the equivalent of “That’s the way it is.” People never say “Well, it’s Benin…” It’s always “This is AFRICA” as if all of Africa is the same.

-I woke up thinking the following thought: Peace Corps is not for the faint of heart.

-Went into the forest with the foresters and Sarah, the volunteer in the village near me. Pretty interesting to see the “forest…” no mountains or pine trees but much deforestation and brush fires. Unfortunately, people start the fires so the animals will run out and they can poach them and sell the meat. It sounds way more intense than it really is, I promise. They're hunting elephants or gorillas but rather bush-rat (literally a giant rat) and antelope.

-The kids and Mamas LOVE to look at my magazines. It offers a little window into the strange western world of which they have never seen and know very little about. National Geographics, Reno magazine, and the Arabian horse magazine are the favorites. You can just see their eyes growing wide with each turn of the page. While looking at my Peace Corps magazine the Mama swore that the women in the photo was someone who lives in Prekete. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the photo was taken in Ghana.

-Sometimes I just sit back and think, “Wow, my life is weird.”

March and PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN and ELECTION
-The campaign…how it works: starts one week before the election (which was postponed twice due to complications distributing the identity cards); because there is no tv the candidates (there were 3 major guys but 15 total candidates) print posters and give out flyers and have huge parades to get their name out there. People get pretty involved in the process perhaps because the candidates pay them to campaign.
-Voting…each person is given a sheet of paper with all the candidates’ faces and names and they stamp who they want. The votes are then hand counted that night.

-Complications: The current President was declared the winner with 53% of the vote. The runner-up filed appeals saying the votes weren’t counted correctly and demands a secondary election…the appeals were denied and Yayi Boni will give his “state of union” address next week. There have been a few demonstrations and protests in the big cities but nothing to lose sleep over. Benin has a repuation for being incredibly peaceful…lets hope it stays that way for the next year and a half.

-A white guy’s car broke down in Prekete today. Of course people went to help him push it out of the road but what caused a bigger fuss was when he took of his shirt to fix the car…I believe that was the oldest and largest amount of white skin anyone had ever seen. He caused quite the commotion.

-I bought 4 “dead yovo” (dead yovo means dead white person…the Beninese think that all of the white people clothes that come to Benin are because that white person died, hence the name dead yovo) shirts today for 400cfa. 400cfa is less than $1.


WORK…yes I DO work.

I have started an environmental education program at the primary schools in my village. I teach to students who would be 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. So far so good…it gets frustrating but I think the students are genuinely interested. Or, perhaps they just want to hear what their white stranger has to say. Either way, as long as I reach a few kids I’ll be satisfied. I am starting an environmental club at the other school to see the difference between a more formal setting verses the club setting and what works best for the students.

Next week I am helping the health center do a formation/information session/sensibilization for the mothers who bring their children to get vaccinated. I believe we are going to discuss malaria and how to avoid it but the theme may change.

I’ve been making frequent visits to the gardens just outside Prekete to get to know the gardeners and learn how I can help them improve their crops. There is a guy who is trying to gather the gardeners to form an organization and I’ve been helping him promote the idea. This will really help me because I want to do formations for them on topics like natural insecticides, composting, diversifying their crops, etc. but it is nearly impossible to get them all together. Communication to large groups of people is usually by word of mouth so if they were more organized, I would be able to better help them. Hope this happens soon. Things here take a while to get going. No one is really in any hurry to get things finished which is a nice laid-back attitude that I have had to learn to accept and not become frustrated with!

My favorite activity lately has been riding my bike to Biguina, the post of my closest fellow volunteer, to help her with her girl’s club. The girls are in middle/high school and many come from Prekete because there are only primary schools there. It has been so fun to get to know these spunky young girls. They are much more motivated to learn about new things than I thought they would be. I doubted how receptive they’d be because of course I think of the apathy of young people in the states to new ideas and information. But, I haven’t seen much of that here. We have covered topics such as sexual harassment, female and male reproduction, how to avoid getting pregnant and contracting stds, etc. We truly take for granted how much we know just by exposure. Here, they are not exposed to as much information, especially concerning family planning, as we are. Plus its fun to just hang out with the girls and get to know their likes, dislikes, boys, girly stuff, yadda yadda yadda. What I have come to realize is that girls here go through the same problems that girls in the states go through. I'm not lying when i say we are all HUMAN.

To sum up…I have been incredibly happy over the past few months here in Benin. Even though work is slow at times, people are always in my business, and I’ve been taking 3 bucket showers a day because of the heat, life is good. Plus, its mango season AND there has been a lady selling salad in the market every Thursday, what a treat! I have also been blessed by an incredible distraction in the shape of a young gentleman named Christian Allognon. (No, I will not be surprising y'all by bringing him to the wedding.)

Honestly, you have to search for those little victories here and accept the life that has been “given” to you in the form of your village and work opportunities. There are many volunteers who will never stop complaining about blah blah blah because yes, life is challenging here and everything is a process but the truth is, there are always those comforts of home that we will miss but we also have this amazing chance to learn to do without all of those unnecessary distractions and complications. I’m sure enjoying the simple life.

Through this time of war, crisis, and disaster across the world it is a wonderful moment to realize how lucky we are to have a safe place to rest, good health, and the millions of opportunities to make our lives better. That is not the case for the rest of the world, which may seem obvious but it really couldn't be more true than in the year 2011.

Of course, I can’t wait to be back home for a while. May 11-June 2 is going to be a great time to rejuvenate!

See you all soon

Peace and Love

Lions and Warthogs and Europeans, Oh My!

After a lovely Christmas in Natitingou (“Nati”) with fellow volunteers, 7 of us headed up to Park Pendjari, the national park/animal reserve/safari locale here in Benin. It’s only about a three-hour ride North from Nati; only 2 hours of which is on a red dirt, very bumpy road. We hired a guide and a driver and even brought a mattress to put on the top of the car so when could more comfortably view the animals from the rooftop! Even though my legs are pretty bruised from the mishaps on the roof, it was totally worth it.

We left Dec. 26^th at 6 am to get to the park as soon as possible. The first stop when we got into the park was at this lake where we saw crocodiles, hippos, and huge birds, which I later named “human birds” because of their creepy resemblance to humans. Instantly we realized that this park is not for Africans, but rather for Frenchies, Canadians, and other ex-pats who happen to be in the country. In fact, most Beninese people do not even know what Park Pendjari is. It was strange to be considered a “tourist” in Benin but also amazing to have a bit of a vacation and stay in a hotel and have a real shower! After the lake we headed to the hotel, which is on the very far north side of the park. Along the way we saw warthogs, monkeys, and tons of antelope/gazelles-type animals.

The hotel is more like a compound with big open paiute for a dining hall, about 40 rooms, and even a swimming pool (even though it was not filled). The only food you can find in the park is pretty expensive (for poor Peace Corps volunteers at least) so we baked bread and brought it in with us along with other snacks. After taking a short nap we headed back out around 4 pm. We saw tons more animals like elephants, baboons, really cool birds, more antelope things, monkeys…and watched an amazing sunset!

The next day started around 6:30 am and boy was it cold!; we climbed to the top of our van, bundled up in blankets and sweatshirts, and headed out to watch the sunrise. By this time we wanted to see one thing and one thing only… LIONS. The other animals are great but we really wanted to see Simba or Nala. We saw tons of Timon and Pumbas and even Rafiki but we there’s nothing like seeing a lion in the wild.

On our way back to the hotel for lunch we saw a cute little family of elephants about 30 feet off of the road. Naturally we stopped and watched them until Mama started charging our car to protect her little baby Babar! That was the scariest moment of the safari as elephants are quite large, intimidating animals and could have knocked over our van with their pinky toe. Thankfully, we lived through it and made it safely back to camp. We headed out again around 4 pm and saw some more creatures lurking in the distance. Supposedly, there are hyenas, rhinos, and leopards in the park too but they are very rarely seen. The tall grasses make for a great hiding place for most of the animals. I imagine there were many that we passed but missed because they were lounging beneath the trees.

The landscape of the park is SO diverse. Dry, marshy, savannah-like plains, trees, palms and ferns (I called this area the Jurassic Park terrain because it felt like a T-Rex was going to crawl out of the jungle at any moment). The park is relatively flat and is speckled with tall baobab trees, which make for a stellar horizon. [Refer to pictures to better understand.]

After looking at the stars and being creeped out by the things moving in the dark where we were sitting (by the way, the hotel is not fenced in at all and any kind of animal can wander through) we headed to our bungalow to sleep. Mind you, we are cheap and have 5 people in one bungalow, which is a circular hut-like thing with a thatched roof. It was very cozy J.

Day 3 started early and we headed back to the lake to see animals come down to the water to drink. After arriving at the lake, with 4 other cars full of whiteys, we heard a fierce growling in the distance. Pretty soon all of the guides were scampering to the vans and drove off to find the creature that was making this terrifying growl. They came back and waved all of us clueless tourists to get to the vans because there was a LION close by! We piled on top in true safari fashion and headed down the road to hunt down this lion. After about a minute of searching the grasses we saw her walking about 40 feet off the side of the road!! We stopped and watched her for a long time. She napped, yawned a lot, and then called for her husband. Unfortunately, word got out that there was a lion and tons more cars started showing up so Mufasa never showed his mane but we were just excited to see the female. She was so majestic. I went into the park wanting to see a lion...mission accomplished! After the lion citing we were satisfied and headed back down the road to Natitingou.

My first safari experience was a HUGE success and of course the people I went with were a major reason why I had such an awesome time. So, if you ever come visit me in Benin we can go on our own little safari here in this Pennsylvania-sized country haha.

Happy New Year and stay warm over there J

PS Look at my pics!!