HUMID!

Needless to say, I may be coming back with really short hair…that’s only if my host Mama allows me to cut it which she has yet to do. Guess I’ll continue the braid and headband look for the next two years. Don’t worry Erin, I won’t be coming back with dreadlocks for your wedding ☺.

Where to start…so last week we had our technical visit. We went off in groups of 2 or 3 to visit current volunteers. The visit is meant to give us a little taste of what life is like being an actual volunteer and how we can fill the long days ahead. Me and my fellow environmental volunteer Bailey, visited a volunteer in a village outside of Bohicon. After a 4 hour taxi ride from Porto-Novo, with ten volunteers crammed in a 7 passenger car, we arrived in Bohicon. We split up and headed off to Katie’s (the current PCV) village on the infamous zems (moto taxis).

I was pleasantly surprised at how nice her house was; she had a living room, bedroom, kitchen, and even a dining room. She also had a flush toilet and shower! It was a much needed break from the go-go-go mentality of the first month here in Africa. We relaxed quite a bit and took the occasional stroll into town to buy food and then hurried back to the quiet village. It was awesome to see how much a part of the town Katie was; my favorite part of the weekend was when we walked around saying hi to people around town. The relationships that a volunteer makes with the “village people” (not to be confused with the “YMCA” musical group), is sooo important because that is when you begin to feel like you are part of a community.

We did some other pretty cool things like visited the archeological park that another volunteer works at, went to the fetish market which is really just a bunch of dead animals for sale to Voodoo practicers (anything from monkey heads to frogs to dried skins…we only stayed for about 7 minutes), ate dinner with a few French people and felt completely intimidated by their phenomenal accents (by the way, West African French? Not that pretty), took a zem ride home after it flashed flooded on Saturday which was quite an adventure, and we lazed around and watched a few American flicks as well. It was great not to be in language class for 5 hours a day or working on technical stuff either!

Other than that, everything has been going pretty "normal..." Au revoir!

PREKETE here I come...

I got my post this week!! I’ll be living in the village/town of Prekete in the Donga department (Benin’s word for state). It is a NEW POST so I’m the first Peace Corps volunteer Prekete will have. The town is right on the border with Togo, about half-way up the country. I really wasn’t sure what kind of post I wanted, but I definitely wanted to be away from the southern part (ie Cotonou and Porto-Novo). I don’t have too much info but the activities/work in this town are gardening with woman’s groups, environmental education, forestry stuff, and I’m sure tons of other projects. The town is right by a huge forest so I’m hoping to do some work with the protection of the forests as well and there is a Forestry office and and Agriculture office! I have “post-mates” in the towns above (Bassila) and below (Pante ?) me and there are many other volunteers who are just an hour taxi-ride away. There is internet in Bassila too! There are 4 Peace Corps workstations throughout the country that are for volunteers; they are in Kandi, Parakou, Cotonou, and Natitingou. I’ll be using the Natintingou station most! Its supposedly the nicest and is along a main paved road that passes through my village. There is soo much I could say about my post and my feelings…the gist of it is that I’m excited to finally know where I’ll be living and working. I don’t know what local language I may have to learn, probably Anaga (sp?). My host Mama knows it so I might start getting the salutations down J. As soon as I know more about my post I’ll pass on the info.

What else…oh I went to church on Sunday. We put on our finest tissue (yes, I got my first African shirt made!) and headed around the corner for church. My host family is Evangelical and the service was not so different than what I’ve seen before…besides the fact that it was in both French and Fon, and just about every child that saw me didn’t stop staring throughout the 2 hours. Good thing I’m getting used to seeing people’s jaws drop when they see me; too bad they look like they’ve just seen a ghost too J. Everyday has its challenges, that’s for sure, but with the support of fellow stagiere’s (we are not considered volunteers til after we swear-in) I think we will all make it through training. Actually, 2 guys have already “ETed” (early terminated). A bunch of current volunteers are also in the process of leaving because their service is over; its weird because we get to know them and then they’re gone! They serve as our main “teachers” during training. The training has been going really well too!

This week we, the EA (environmental action) group, went to a nearby village and built some mudstoves for a few Mama’s. So far the mudstove building has been my favorite technical part. It was so funny cause the Mama’s were getting jealous of each other because some stoves had just one place for a pot and others had two…let me explain the construction a bit. First, you have to dig for “terre rouge” or red dirt, add some dry grass and water, and then you mix it all with your feet! A great African pedicure I might add… then you ball-up the mixture and move it to the location of the stove. You have to find out what kind of pot the Mama uses most so that the stove can be built around that exact pot for size. You place the pot on some bricks and start throwing the mud from the bottom up…its kind of hard to explain so I’m going to try to put some pictures up of the first one I built J. Anyway, it was really cool and very functional and economic too. It save time cause the water will boil faster and money cause it uses less wood, which means it is environmentally friendly, yay. I think it’ll be one of the first things I do at post!

Well, that seems to be all for now. Hope all is well in the U.S. of A.

Au revoir!

Don't let the bed bug/mosquitoes/gnats bite...

Woops, too late...Yep, I’ve been getting eaten alive by something! I usually wake up in the middle of the night scratching frantically at my calves. Luckily, I found some “maximum strength” anti-itch gel in my Peace Corps med-kit that allowed me to sleep all night last night! YAY! Unfortunately, my “Mama” said that there are bugs in the salon (living room) that bite me while I eat. I can’t really help but laugh just a little at the situation cause it seems like everyone, even the bugs, know that there is fresh (white) meat in town ready to be picked on. Other than that things here are pretty good. Difficult, but good. It’s amazing how many highs and lows a person can have all in one day and I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing these almost everyday for the last 3 weeks. But, as I’d say here, “Ca va.” It’s a catch-all phrase for “it’s good.”

Anywho, Sunday was a very cool day. It was Benin’s 50^th Independence Day! There were parties all over Porto-Novo this weekend; including a large Voodoo festival in the soccer field next to my house and I got to watch a bit of it from my rooftop. My friend Veronica and I attempted to go to the main parade that was happening on the only paved road in Porto-Novo. We got there late but were able to see all the military guys before they left. Man, do they have some interesting armed forces. Hopefully my pictures will be up soon cause it is difficult to explain how bizarre some of the uniforms were. The jandarme, who are a sector of the military, the actual military, and even the firefighters wear camouflage and different colored hats. The navy wore white and the most interesting sectors, the BAC and CRS wear all black. The BAC can be compared to snipers and the CRS are straight-up Ninjas! They wore black facemasks like they were going to rob a bank and had ropes around their necks for repelling down buildings and such. They actually scared me when they walked past. Anywho, it was an awesome cultural exchange.

When I got home, I sat outside the front of the house with my host family and we just hung out. My French is getting better by the day and I can actually have decent conversations with my family! My brother Thierry brought out a checkers board and we played a game outside (while people were passing by and their jaws dropping to see a “blanche”). It was nice because you don’t really have to speak in checkers, and I can’t usually understand Thierry anyway even when he speaks French so it was a great activity for us. Even though there seems to be a language barrier, my host family and I get along great. They are all really funny and I can usually guess what they’re joking and laughing about, especially because they try to include me by explaining stuff in French when they’ve been speaking Fon. I really enjoy my time with them. They also give me lots of freedom and if I say I need to “study” they’ll leave me alone.

This is a big week because….I FIND OUT MY POST ON FRIDAY!! It seems so soon but I’m so happy that I can start planning and buying things before heading off to the village! I’ll keep you guys updated on where I’ll be as soon as I can!

Hope all is well in the good ol’ USA!