Working or Should I Say Not Working in Africa

Who knew I would be posting again so quickly, not me that is for sure. but today has been an annoying day so i thought i would share it with you all to get a hint of the frustration peace corps volunteers often face. i am not even really sure where to begin. i guess i zill start with what happend today. you see, once in the beginning and once midway through our service our pc bosses will come up to our village and ask us a bunch of questions regarding everything from safety and security issues, to the type of work we are doing to asking us to talk about our cultural integration. After we finish up we go and meet with our in village bosses to discuss the kind of work we are doing, what problems they are having and what not. today was my meeting. it started out ok. i told them about how much of a struggle it was to get any work and how unless i do everything and pretty much hand it to my work partners it doesnt get done. i know we talked about a bunch of things and not all totally work related some had to do with peace corps and their training of us; what works and what doesnt, that sort of thing. my biggest issue in that regard had to do with language training, unfortunatly i did not really have any ways that i thought they could do it better. so after we finished talking at my house we went over to my health center where my me, my pc boss and another staff member met zith my village boss, the nurse and doctor of my health center. it totally felt like a parent teacher confrence. this is where things began to get uncomfortable. after talking and talking it came out that basically they were dissapointed in me as a volunteer because i was not doing the work they wanted me to do or thought i should be doing. this pissed me off because not once in the 14 months i have been here have they ever mentioned any work for me to do. for example, there are people who work with the health center by going out to other villages and give lessons over various health issues; they want me to be going to these and helping out. this meeting was the first time i even heard that they did this. i knew that water is a problem in my village so i offered to look into building a well for them. when i brought this decision to them they did not seem excited at all. they were very much whatever. today they bring up to my pc boss that water is a problem and they want to know if it is possible for pc to help build a water pu,p of some kind. did they tell me they wanted/needed this, no. it is times like this that i want to just wash my hands of it all and be like whatever, i am going home. i know that is not the answer though. i will keep you all posted as to what happens next.

On the Road Again, Just Can't Wait to Get on the Road Again

Well, as you can tell from the title of this entry I am about to get traveling once again. I am happy to report that after little over two weeks I am finally going to be returning to post. I've been gone forever and a day because on the 6 of this month I had to come down for a middle of service medical evaluation (all volunteers have to do it so don't worry) and i'm happy to say that i'm pretty damn healthy. i have ameobas which i have to take meds for when i get back to post but other than that i'm probably in better shape than i was when i left home. but anyway, the exam went to the 8 because i had to have a tb test (all health volunteers have to do this, so once again, don't worry). again i'm happy to report no tb here. the reason i did not go home after this was that health and environment volunteers had to do a HIV/AIDS training starting the 13. Well you see, i live so far away from where this training was being held that it would have been pointless and just plain uncomfortable to travel from the medical unit to post and then back down to this training. so i stayed down here. i'm pretty sure i've already explained all of this in an earlier post. i'll try to post pictures in the comming weeks from the training and give you a better overview of what we did. it wasn't anything too special, but like always it's nice to get everyone together. and it's not like i'd turn down an opportunity to spend a week with a shower, cnn, and air conditioning. you may be wondering why, if the training was done on friday am i still not back at post, well the answer is that i am taking advantage of a free ride. my peace corps superivors is scheduled to come by and visit my post this tuesday. so me and meagan have decided to wait around and ride up with her because peace corps staff always get to travel in nice air conditioned suv's. i'd take an suv trip over an 10+ hour taxi or bus ride anyday. the only down side is that having stayed here i've spent even more money. in the past two weeks i think i've blown 100$!! i'm a little freaked out about this b/c i'm suppose to be saving this money for my vacation to mali. gotta live like a hermit the next couple months to make up for this huge splurge. i guess that's it for now. i hope to have an opportunity to post again, but i have no idea when.

so until then...

Trying to Play Catch Up

Well, this was going to be letter (sorry gram) but I thought ya'll might find it interesting to hear what I've been up to, so here it is.

So last Friday after two weeks of planning and being up off one other time I actually was able to do a cooking demonstration for the women who come bring their kids in for vaccinations. Basically what the cooking demonstration consists of is teaching these women how to make the foods that they already more nutritiously. People here tend to eat a lot of empty calories, most carbs, stuff that really has no nutritional value. So what I did was take a food that everyone feeds their children bouille, or as we know it porridge, and show them by adding things, in this case peanut flour and mashed bananas they can make this be nutritious and help prevent malnutrition in children.

In the left corner is a mix of mashed bananas, sugar, and oil and in the middle is a mix of peanut and corn flour.

I want to focus what time I have left here on nutrition and trying to teach the people here how to use what they have more efficiently. I don’t know if it’s going to work because honestly, they don’t like change. We are talking about a nation that will literally eat the same thing every day for days on end. You may think you eat a lot of the same thing, say for instance you like spaghetti and meatballs, but I bet you can’t imagine eating it every day for lunch and possibly dinner for weeks at a time. We’d get sick of it first. So bringing in any kind of change is slow to say the least;

This is Safia my in village work partner. Here she is putting the whetted flour into the pot of boiling water to heat up.

which is partly why I am in the process of trying to plan/schedule nutrition lessons around my region. I want to target young girls and boys and teach them this information and get them to try some of the food so that when they become adults themselves there is at least a chance that they might bring some of these practices into their households.

This is one the women who had come in to get her child (the lump on her back) vaccinated. Somehow she become in charge of dishing up the food for the other women.

Earlier in the week I went up to Niger with Meagan to do a radio show over nutrition and Morainga. For all of you who don’t know what morainga is, it is a tree that can be found growing in most underdeveloped countries. It’s called the tree of life because every part of this tree can used for something, from putting the leaves in a sauce to eat to using bark and roots for various things. Anyway, this tree is incredibly nutritious and parts of our training when we first joined pc was to learn about morianga so that we could go back to our communities and teach them about it and encourage them to use it. It is a good supplement to make up for the fact that they are all malnourished pretty much too some degree.

Here are Meagan and I a couple minutes before we started the show.

The show went off without too many hitches. My French is bad which makes me super nervous when I have to speak it in front of others. And because I'm so nervous I tend to scew up even more, but I think I did better this time than last which makes me happy and proud of myself. The more I do this the more confident I hope I will become. I'm determined to keep improving my French. I also did a section of the signing off in local language. Well Meagan's local language not mine. I managed to fummbled my way through it, though lord know if anyone listening actually could understand what I said. It was good for a laugh though.

This Week in Cotonou

Every volunteer half way through their service must go through a middle of service medical exam. It's not fun. The doctors are wonderful, but when you are use to the efficience of American doctors/nurses it can sometimes get a little rough. Anyway, originally we were asked to make our appointments around the shuttle schedule. The shuttle is car that leave Cotonou and delievers/picks up mail and other goodies and delievers them to one of the three regional peace corps offices set up around the country. I was a good volunteer and did this. Well shortly after doing so, word got out that PC got funding for all of us to go through HIV/AIDS training. The problem was that this was schedule to happen two weeks after my medical exam. Now 2 weeks might not sound like that big of deal, but for me to get home and do so comfortably it takes 2 days and so thus leaving post to get to cotonou takes 2 days as well. The medical exam takes about 3 days. So basically I would have come down, when finished gone home and then like 4 days later turned around and come right back down again. There is no way I wanted to do this. Traveling in this country is too damn slow and uncomfortable. So I tried to reschedule my exam, and I was lucky enough to be able to do so, a bit. I got it pushed back a week to the 6, which exaplains why I am currently here in Cotonou.

So my midservice started on wednesday. It was a pretty routine thing, what health problems are you having yadda yadda yadda. Based on my answers i had to have some blood drawn and put on some medication for ameobas. I also had to have a TB test done, but that is standard for all health volunteers. Don't worry anyone all my tests came back normal, besides having ameobas, i think I'm healthier now than I have been in my life. The problem is now that my medical stuff is done, where am I going to stay because you see I still have like 4-5 days to kill before this HIV/AIDS training. Life is always an adventure here, even when it shouldn't be. I could stay in a hotel but that's a bit expensive especially after several days. Last night I got the doctor to let me spend another night here in the medical unit, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that much longer. I'm hoping so because it allows me tons of time on the internet. I've been able to talk to Patrick for the past three nights which has been fun. I miss being able to talk to people back home. But also the tons of time online is why I wrote this incredibly boring post. It's early, I can't get my stuff out of the room b/c everyone is sleep and since I have time I feel like I should write something. So here you are, one very boring blog. I promise to write something better soon. I will catch you all up on what I've been up to prior to comming down to Cotonou.

So here are some highlights about staying in Cotonou...

1. Hot Showers, I can't tell you how much I miss hot showers and for the first time in months I actually feel clean. We'll see how long that feeling lasts.
2. Internet access, it nice to be able to check email when I want and to do more than just check email, to have the time to surf a bit and look things up is refreshing
3. food, there is so much more food here than at post, i've had delicious pizza while here, as well as hummus and some sort of middle eastern cheesy dish, yummm (this is also a bad thing because you go through money like water whenever you come to visit)

That's it for now, more to come later.

Once More Before I Go

So I'm heading back up to post today, well at least back to Kandi. I don't know if I'll make it back up to Anagara today or tomorrow due to the fact that I want to get some stuff done while I'm there and I'd rather do it all at once then go home come back into town and then go back. So what am I doing you ask? I am trying to get a radio program up and running in Kandi. I've had the opportunity to help out Meagan, another PC volunteer, with hers and I really feel that it is something pay attention to and get something out of. I've approached the boss of the radio station before and he like the idea, but he needed to talk it over with other people at the radio station he said. Fair enough, well he also said that since I don't have cell phone reception that one of the men he works with will stop by in my village and talk to me since he lives in a village just past mine. Very cool, i thought. Well he never showed up, very typical and very frustrating. When he didn't show up I decided not to pursue it anymore for awhile because I knew I'd be traveling and be gone for awhile, which makes getting things started rougher than they already are. So now that I'm back this is at the top of my priority list. Keep your fingers crossed.

Not much else to report. The anniversary party and swearing in ceremony of new volunteers was nice. I'm glad I went and saw everyone but I definetly could have done without comming down so early. As it is, I have now been away from post for over a week and I am ready to go home, lol. I have to travel down to Cotonou at the beginning of October for a midservice medical exam that all volunteer have to go through half way through their service, fun fun. And then I'm staying down there because PC recieved funding from someone to have us and someone from our village recieve hiv/aids training. So basically I am going to be gone from post again for two weeks next month. it defiently makes getting things done a bit harder.

I guess that's all from here for now. Not sure if I'll get a chance to update again before I head down south in Oct. But until next time...

A Very Long Time

Wow, it has been a very long time since I last wrote anything, and for that I apoligize. I will be suprised if anyone actually even reads this since I'm sure many of you have given up on hearing anything from me. But I am here, 3 months later, but here none the less.

So, what am I up to these days you may wonder? Well to back track a bit, when I last left you I was in Lokossa just finishing up a confrance with my supriversor with all the other health volunteers and I was getting ready to go to Nattitangou to turn boardgames into health games for kids. It was a fun time up in Natti. We made Shoots and Ladders and Candy Land and made them health related so that we can play them with elementary school aged children. What was also nice is that the volunteer at whose house we were doing all this all at lives in one of the most beautiful places ever. She lived near these waterfalls that we were able to walk to and swim in during our down time.

When i got back to post from that it was closing in on the end of the school year so I was in a bit of a rush to do any last minute things with my girls club. I decided to do a world map mural on a wall of one of the buildings at my school. I basically decided to do this project because it is a popular peace corps project to do and i needed/wanted something to do. though the actual doingof the project wasn't as much fun as i was told that it was, the reaction to the painting by my community was much greater than i had ever anticipated. so that in and of itself has made the project worth doing. the director liked it so much that he is interested in me doing another one at the new school that was just finished being built this year.

In June or July (I can't remember right now) I participated in a 3 day bike tour where we visited several small villages and gave talks on malaria, the symptoms, where it comes from, how to treat it, how to prevent it, and how to properly take care of a mosquito net. I was suprised by how many of these people already knew the information, but I would be interested to see how many of them actual do any of the things we talked about. That being said, we are still fighting a common belief that malaria is caused by the sun. It can be a frustration at times. But who would have thought that I would ever be able to take part in a 3 day bike tour. Even if I had wanted to I don't think I was ever in the shape to do so. During the 3 days we covered roughly 35-40 miles, pretty impressive huh. Unfortunatly I don't have any pictures with me at the moment to share, but sometime soon I hope I can share some with you.

Since then work has become pretty nonexsistant. It is the rainy season here which means everyone who can work is doing so in the fields. My village is like a ghost town. So I've been reading a lot and trying to take walks and just get my face seen by those in the community.

Right now I'm down south in Cotonou because we are preparing for the swearing in cermony of all the new volunteers who came in this summer. It is almost impossible for me to believe that that was me just one year ago (and that I only have one year left, time flys). We are also celebrating the 40th anniversary of PC being in Benin. So all of us are down here which is fun and overwhelming. I like when we get together in small groups, but when we all get together like this it makes me miss my village and my quiet life there.

So I guess that's it in a nutshell, or at least the highlights. Hopefully the internet will become more reliable where I'm living so that I won't go another 3 months without posting. But just think everyone, in 12 months I will be back there with all of you. (Beware, lol) Anyway, I thought I'd close out today with a picture from my house. This was taken from my doorway just a few nights ago, pretty beautiful huh. Until next time...

What's going on in the world of Jenn?

since i have some time on the computer for once with no one trying to get on after me i thought i'd take a bit of time to fill you all in on what i've been up to the last couple days. so every sector in peace corps has an early service training usually during the first couple months after volunteers have moved to post and then an in-service training a couple months after that. one of the big differences between the two is that early service training is just for us volunteers and the in service training we bring our homologues with us as well. this means that our inservce training is done all in french, which let me tell you was hard, very hard. so i have spent the last three or so days in the village of Lokossa learning about this new technique called PD Hearth. Basically this technique is based on finding someone in our villages who is doing things right, like their baby is at a healthy weight and they have all their vaccinations and what not and usuing them to teach sessions to women who aren't doing it right. we talked about things like why this would work, how to find a good teacher mother and how to motivate woman. the man who came with me, my supervisor, doesn't seem to be too impressed with the program. he doesn't think it'll be possible to get the women motivated to attend these teaching sessions which take place for 12 days. which is partly true, movtivating and organizing people hear seems to be the hardest part in getting anything up and running. same with anywhere is suppose.
this has been an incredibly stressful couple of days for me because well, i hate my supervisor. he's not helpful, he thinks himself better than others, well at least other women and i get this feeling that often he wants nothing to do with me. so having to see and work with him directly for these couple of days has been crappy. one good thing to come out of this was that he was this way towards others around me, so now they know that it isn't just me whining. he really ticked off admin because he left the confrence early without telling anyone. we came in for the last session and everyone was there but him. what an ass!
in other news i am going to be traveling even more. tomorrow i leave to go up to nattitangou which is in the north west side of the country. it is, in my opinion, the most beautiful region of the country. one of the volunteers who lives up there lives near these waterfalls and she has intevent this game to play with elementary school kids to teach them hygine. she has been cool enough to invite all of us up to hear place to show us this game and let us have some fun at the waterfalls.
i guess that's all i've been up to really. i'm pissed to say that my camera is dying. my zoom button broke who knows what's next.

Bush Taxi

Hey everyone. I got to thinking the other day that I often talk about going here or there to do various things. Sounds simple right? Well if I was living in America it would be. I mean come one, if you are over the age of 16 and have a licsence all you have to do is hop into a car and you can go anywhere you want to and more importantanly, when you want to. Travel here for us, isn't so easy and it in itself is a huge part of the peace corps experience. Peace Corps volunteers are not allowed to drive cars or motorcyles but we are allowed to be passengers. Actually Beinin volunteers are the only ones allowed to ride on motorcyles. For me, my main way of transportant is bush taxis, this is due largely to the fact that I live in a small village and there is no need for actual taxi motorcylces in village.

Anyway, what I usually have to do is go and sit by the road until a taxi is driving past. This can be anwhere between 10 seconds to over and hour, you just never know. When you see a taxi comming flag them down by waving your arm and hope that they aren't full, if so they'll honk and keep going. If they have room for you then they'll pull over and ask you where you are going, once they understand price negotian then begins. Sometimes if you're lucky you'll get an honest driver who will tell you the right price, but more often than not you get someone who sees white skin and thinks dollar signs and will then try to charge you an unheard of amount. For example, I had been away from my village for almost two weeks due to confrences and what not. I'm on my way back and I'm actually on the final leg of the trip, the part that will actually bring me into my village and the driver starts out at a price 3x as high as it should be. It was insane, i had to totally fight with this guy and take my stuff from him and generally be nasty for him to do the right thing.

So you get the the right price, the driver takes your bags and puts them in the back. Now it's your turn to get in. In America there are laws about how many people a car can hold and what not. Well things like that are unheard of here. If you were in a car, say the size of my old Mazda, they would put in the front with the driver at least two people maybe three depending on how greedy the driver is. And in the back there would be at least 4 adults, several children maybe tossed in as well. Now keep in mind that it is like 100 degrees out side too. Fun times huh? LOL

But it gets even better because they often put animals into taxis as well or strap them on the roof of the car. I know several volunteers that have had goats pee on them when they were on the roof of the car, or who have had chickens shit on their bags in the back of the car. Gotta love Africa.

I thought I would include some pictures of one of the taxis i took not so long ago. Often cars have to be hot wired because keys have been lost. Usually most if not all the panelling is missing and there have been times when there are gaps in the floor so i can see the ground as we are moving. Kind like the Flinstone mobile isn't it?

Cockroaches

okay, so i'm like literally running out the door right now, but before i do i wanted to send a quick note to let you all know how vile and disgusting cockroaches are and they are everywhere in this damn country. everywhere!!!! i was just washing up some dishes of mine before i leave, i move a plate and what scurries out? a cockroach! why don't i use my latrine at night and pee in my yard instead? because of cockroaches!

just a little rant before i head back home. talk to you all soon, hopefully by then i'll have something a bit more plesent to talk about.

Birthday Part Une

So as i mentioned in the last post part of my birthday was celebrated with the date i had bought at the guy auction the night before. Here are a few pictures of that event.

This is the view from the inside of little cart thingy that ryan got for us to take us from the market to where we were eating.

Meagan, Me and Ryan inside the cart. Not a great picture of Ryan as he is obviously the one taking it and trying to make sure that all three of us are in it this time. I think we had tried one before and his head had been chopped off. That's what is so great about digital cameras, if something doesn't go right you can do it again.
So this is the cart thingy that i keep talking about. isn't it awsome!?! That's me and Ryan inside.
Me and Ryan waiting for our soup, i had the pomme de terre soup (potato soup) while he had the french onion. Both were very good.

And here is me and meagan, and i'm still waiting for my soup. :)

Ringing in my 26th year of life

okay, so it's not my birthday anymore, but since i didn't get to celebrate it with any of you i thought i'd fill you in on what i did. okay, so the night before my birthday was kind of the kickoff so to speak of the GAD dinner/auction the next night (my actual birthday). each year the night before the auction and such is held they have a guy auction with the money going towards the GAD project funds, which all of us volunteer can write grants for and use if accepted. anyway, after the consumption of too much alcohol with all honesty i'm unsure how i ended up bidding on a man. one that is second year volunteer and did not know. i do not remember doing the initial bid and i have a small belief that the auctioneer since knowing me, picked me to help get things started since it was kinda going slow. but like i said, alcohol was involved (so much so that i jumped fully clothed off the high dive into the pool later on in the evening, but that's another story) and it is possible that it looked like i was bidding when in fact i was doing something else stupid. but long story short, me and my friend ended buying a date with Ryan a second year SED volunteer (small business enterprise). the date was set for the next night, my birthday. thus setting the stage for my birthday celebration.

since the conference ended on friday, i was able to spend my entire birthday relaxing at the hotel. this consisted of a buffet breakfast, swimming in the pool and taking a nap. meagan and my date with ryan was set for four that afternoon. part of the bidding/date procedure was that each guy had to tell what the date would consist of before bidding began so that girls would know if they actually wanted to do it. our date consisted of tissue shopping (cloth for us to get clothes made from) and then snacks before the actual GAD dinner and auction later that night. so we went out and bought tissue, ryan ended up going above and beyond with what he bought us, we were originally just going to buy a piece big enough for us to each get a skirt or something made, instead he got us enough to each get a dress made. and let me tell you the material is beautiful. meagan and i got the same type but in different colors her's is a brown and mine an orange. it's kinda southeast asiaish in style and i can't wait to get something made with it. when we finished up we headed out for pre dinner snack, instead of flagging down zemmi's for us to take we stumbled upon this guy that was driving a three wheeled vehicle that kind of looked like a motorcyle but inclosed so that we could all sit down inside. it's hard to discribe, but it was awsome, anyway we got this thing to take us to the restuarant we were snacking at. we all had soup and bread and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for GAD dinner and auction. This event is also known at Peace Corps prom because we all get dressed up and try to look nice and clean for once in our time here. Before the dinner begins everyone has time to check out the items put up for auction (i didn't end up getting anything because i had already spent so much money) the bidding stops when dinner starts. And then after dinner the dancing begins.

And that is how i celebrated the beginning of my 26th year of life. I hope I have as much fun the rest of this year as i did on this day. i have pictures, but they'll have to wait until a later date.

until next time...

A Brief Update

Greetings everyone...

I'm heading back to post today after being gone for almost 2 weeks i think. It's the longest I've ever been away from post since I moved there and I must say that even though I'm dreading the heat, I am looking forward to being back home. That's something isn't it, looking forward to going home? So what have I been up to for the last few weeks? Well I the orignal reason I came down was because my friend decided that she was done with the PC bullshit and left for the states. It was really really hard to see her go, for selfish reasons that is. But I understand why she had to do it and have talked to her since and she is doing well. I must say though that it really is Peace Corps loss, she was one of the best health volunteers in my group volunteers.

After she left I had about four days till i had to be back in this end of the world anyway. and since it takes me forever and a day to get from my village to cotonou (the capital) i decided to just stay down here because by the time i got back up north i'd have to turn right back around come back down and let me tell you that is not a trip i'd want to make more than once. it's hell!!! close your eyes and imagine if you will a car, built to cary 5 people, two in the front and three in the back. Got the imagine in your head? Well, a car like that in Benin would have four people in the front seats and four to five in the back. Now imagine being in that car for like 4 hours till you get to the next city where you'll get in another taxi, just as full to continue on the next leg of your journey. That my friends is how travel is done here.

Anyway, I digress.... for about four days i hung around cotonou and helped with the GAD auction stuff. Which leads me to the what I've been up to for the last couple of days. Every year Peace Corps Benin has an All Volunteer Conference for obviously all the PC volunteers in Benin. We talk about various things, typical confrence crap really. The highlight is that the day after the confrence finishes up is what we call the GAD (Gender and development) dinner and auction. We all have to buy a ticket for about 20$ and that pays for our dinner before the dinner we have an auction with the proceeds going to the GAD grant funds. The auction was filled with amazing things, hand made stuff donated by craftsmen here, food and goodies sent from parents as well as various other items. Volunteers and ex-pats who come all can bid on this stuff and the money goes towards GAD. Throughout our service if you have project ideas that need some funding many volunteers go to GAD to funds. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the general idea anyway. Anyway, after the dinner and the auction there is a dance that this year went on till like 2ish in the morning i believe and because the hotel has a pool after the music wrapped up most of us dove in for a bit before heading to bed.

There is more to tell, but this post is already freakn long so i'll wrap it up for now and try to give a more detailed account later.

until next time

Thanksgiving Photos

So even though I couldn't spend Thanksgiving with my family, I was still able to enjoy a pretty nice holiday. The second year volunteers worked really hard to put together an aswome meal for all of us. I guess they started a year ahead of time asking friends and family to send them various items like stove top stuffing mix and what not. Be prepared people, because requests will be coming.

In trying to make things more festive we decorated our tables in as close to fall colors as we could find. We even made place cards with everyones name on it. This was in hopes of getting us to mingle more between first and second year volunteers. We can be kinda clicky.

We couldn't afford a whole turkey, so we just bought some a couple of legs. That's the first thing followed by I don't remember what exactly, but it was all wonderful.

And these are the people I got to spend the holiday's with. Several of them don't live in my region they just came to spend the holiday's with us. Aren't we special :)

Pictures From Halloween

So I finally have internet connection for a bit so I thought I'd take the time to put up some pictures. As you can tell from the title these all come from last Halloween. I was a Power Ranger. Those of us who live in Alibori and who were around got together for a bit of a costume party. From left to right is Becca as Pebbles Flinstone, Me the Blue Power Ranger, Megan was Zebra, and Emily was an Eggplant. The back row was Audry a Zemijohn driver (motorcyle taxis in this country) and Kacci as a greek something or other, i forget what.



Part of the nights festivities consisted of bobbing for apples.

Proof that I'm Alive and well

Just a quick note to let you all know I am a live and well. The insects and other creepy crawlies haven't gotten to me yet. It's been a rough month, but I am trying to remain hopeful and keep a positive outlook.

The picture below was taken on New Years Eve so it's a bit old. But I wanted to show you what I looked like these days. I am a bit thinner and my hair is a bit longer but generally it's me. That afternoon we rang in the new year with the Chinese volunteers who live in Malanville with Meagan. They have a satilite dish so we were able to see the count down and know when it was 2008 in China. In this picture I was drinking tea and it reminds me of a tea advertisement.

That's all for now. More to come later. I miss you all a lot.

Until next time...

"Spider"

So earlier I regailed you all with my tale of the 10 legged spider. But I didn't have pictures then. Well here they are baby. I carried the sucker on a piece of paper out side and took these shots. This first one is how he looks on top.


Just so you can fully understand how creepy and gross this thing is I flipped him over so you could see what he looked like from that angle as well. Enjoy!

So what the hell is this thing? One of the guys here thought it might be a scorpion since they are common, but it doesn't have a tail. Can scorpions loose their tails?

Benin is making me afraid of the dark

So about two nights ago I couldn’t really sleep. Not that is anything new because now that it is getting hotter I’ve noticed that I don’t sleep real well. Anyway, I was tossing and turning trying to fall back asleep when I heard a rustling noise around my door. A little freaked out I couldn’t deicide on what to do. My lantern was next to my bed because I read before I go to bed, but my matches were near my door and thus near the noise. Thankfully the other day I noticed that I had a book of them in my kitchen cabinet so I carefully got out of my bed, I didn’t want to frighten whatever it was making the noise, and made my way into the kitchen and fumbled through my cabinet until I found the matches. Lighting up the lantern I look around my walls and ceiling, which has become a habit of mine. Why you may ask? Because you never know what is creeping and crawling around and at various time I have found various insects (spiders, cockroaches) on my walls. Sure enough, I saw the biggest “spider” of my entire life. It had to be at least 4 minutes long. I was torn, do I try and kill this scary scary monster in front of me or do I go and investigate the noise I in my living room/bedroom. I attempt to kill my “spider” but it moves to fast and I can’t reach it. So I decide to investigate the creature in my living room. I take my broom and hit my screen door. Nothing runs out, so some of my fears of giant rats are gone. So I use my broom to push open the screen door and again I don’t see anything. I would have left it at that and gone back to bed except for the “thing” in my kitchen. My bug killer was outside; going to open the door I look down and guess what was there? A lizard, I hadn’t imagined hearing noises. I can deal with a lizard more than I can a mouse or god forbid a rat. Anyway, I go and get the bug spray and armed with it in one hand and my lantern in the other I go in search of my “spider”. It had moved while I was gone but with the spray I could still get it. I sprayed it once and it fell onto my kitchen table but the damn thing was able to crawl right back up. I spray it again, and it falls to the table once again, it still doesn’t die right away instead it crawls away under my stove. With that much poison on it, I was convinced that it had crawled under my stove to die. I went to bed. The next morning while lying in bed I see something out of the corner of my eye on the floor in my kitchen. I think at first that it’s a mouse or a lizard. Putting shoes on (shoes always make me feel more secure when killing something) I grab my broom once again and go to investigate. Thankfully it is neither; it is instead the “spider” from last night. I couldn’t tell if it was dead or not so found something heavy to drop on it. Satisfied that it was dead I found a piece of paper to pick it up. It had 10 legs so it couldn’t be a spider. And if it wasn’t at least 4-5 inches long I’d be surprised. The body on the thing was huge and I could even see the hairs on its leg. So what hell was this thing that I killed? I took a picture of it, but I don’t have a way to load it up right now. I will try and show you all soon. Things like this are making me afraid of the dark.

I am the scary house

So I was sitting at the health center like I normally do, writing in my journal when I look up and see two little girls a couple yards from me, staring at me. Being stared at is nothing new, comes with being the only white person for miles and miles and the first one most have ever encountered. Anyway, these two girls were giggling and then one ran up to me, said hello shook my hand and ran off. This must have given the other girl courage, because before I could blink the other girl was over doing the same thing. This brought the me to the realization that I have become the scary house that is often used in tv shows or books have a bonding experience for kids. You know what I’m talking about; usually a show will have an episode where there is talk of a haunted house and how the kids dare each other to run up and touch the door. I have become that door, that scary house.

Forever and a day

This is from the 11 of this month

It’s been forever and a day I know. It’s not my fault, blame it on African internet, or recently the lack there of. It’s amazing really, you get use to having something and then when it’s taken away you’re like, what the heck, I was using that. Only to remember, oh yeah, I’m in Africa stuff like that is suppose to happen. So what was I up to during the lovely month of January, since I am pretty sure I didn’t post anything, or if I did, I only posted once. Well, I welcomed the New Year in with style, rocking it out in Malanville with Megan, Audrey, Ryan and Michael. Dinner, dancing, wine and Dawson’s Creek what more could 5 twenty somethings want/need to welcome in 2008? A few days later I found myself on a bus heading down south to Ouidah for training. Periodically throughout the year different sectors (in my case the health sector) get together and talk about what they’ve been doing and get further training and ideas about what they can be doing at their posts. It lasted a week, and though I was looking forward to seeing all my health pals, I was not really looking forward to the conference its self. But I’m glad to say that I was wrong, and that the conference went really well. It did what any good conference does, it inspires you to want to go out and change the world, or at least in this case your village. It is not until you reach your village however that reality starts to crash down around you and you realize that this new wonderfully awesome things you were taught about, well they are easier said than implemented. So for most of the month of January I have been trying to figure out what to do with myself over the next two years. Big surprise, huh, since I believe in most of my posts or letters to you all, I have mentioned this “trying to figure out what I’m doing here”. The PC gives us things that they would like us to work on, such as Morgana trees, soy, mosquito nets, mud stoves and so on. However, over the past few weeks I have realized that my village already knows and uses this kind of stuff. Well, except for the mud stoves, but I was told that people would probably not want to use them b/c they are comfortable with what they have and know, and are not likely willing to change. So the few ideas I came here with are slowly one by one being shot down. So I’ve kinda been in a discouraged frame of mind here lately. But then this past Friday, I did my first health lesson for the women who come in to get their babies vaccinated. I give the information in French and the midwife that I work with translates it all into local language for me. Or at least I believe she’s translating it into local language, she could be singing the lyrics to a Greatful Dead song for as much as I understand local language (which is Mokole, incase I’ve never mentioned it before). I was so nervous before I started, and I told Safia (the midwife) this and she asked me why, and I explained that this was the first time I had done this before and she was like it’s going to be okay, you’ll be fine. And I was. There were times that she didn’t understand what I was saying; thankfully I had everything written down so between that and my retrying to explain the concepts in more basic french everything went really well. It is amazing how something so small as a half hour lesson on breast feeding can change my disposition. To finally feel as if I have accomplished something is so wonderful, I actually feel like I am earning the right to be here, instead pretending like I actually have the right to be here like I usually do. May the work keep coming. My hope is to keep doing the lessons every Friday with the women who come for vaccinations, but change the topic I speak on every month or so since different women come each week. I am going to start up my girl’s club health lessons this week as well. My two new project ideas is to start a prenatal group for women who pregnant with their first child and to do a health conference of sorts on women’s health for the fathers in my community. Men rule everything here and very few have any respect whatsoever for women. I want to explain what it is important for the woman to go to the doctor for prenatal check ups, and why she needs to eat better than what she does, stuff like that for the most part. I am hoping that I can get enough interest to start a weekly or month group to continue on teaching them. But we’ll see. Everything here is just wait and see for the most part.

Greeting from Far Away

So I'm actually at a computer for once, one that actually has an american keyboard instead of a french one. for those of you reading this who doesn't know the difference basically the m, z, a are all in differnt places an there are so many more punctuation marks available. anyway, so i'm in cotonou for the day because i had been down south in ouidah for the past week going through some health training. it was a pretty great week over all. this was the first time all 10 of us had been together since we all left for our posts, so basically 3 months. the week was a typical american style confrence, filled with lectures both good and useless. What was totally awsome was that first the place was air conditioned, which probably seems like something pretty minor, but when you are use to 90 degree weather at least every day a little bit of air conditioning is like a bit of heaven here on earth. The other great thing about this week was the food!! i had a week full of vegetables, fruit and actual 3 meals a day, plus snacks, it was way cool. i probably gained 10 lbs. for those interested ouidah is on the coast of benin and played an important part in their history. the bay of ouidah is where many slaves were shipped out from. to mark this location they have this monument that is an arch way that dipicts men and women in chain, i cna't really discribe it, but it's pretty cool and very moving. the monument is called the point of no return, which would be a pretty awsome name for something had it not had the history that it does.
the week overall was a great motivator. i am really excited to get back to my post and try and implement the new strategies and information we recieved. Also during this week was the voodoo celebration. i'm sure i talked to most of you before i left about how voodoo is thought to have originated in benin. it's actually pretty interesting, unfortunately, because i come from the north i don't have a lot of experince/interaction with it. but the annual celebration was this week and i guess it is a pretty big deal. we went, but i was pretty disapointed. there was more speeches than anything else. maybe i'll check it out again next year if i'm in the area, but i definetly won't travel the 10-12 hours needed from my post to do it.
i'm sad to say that the safari i was suppose to go on at the end of this month/beginning of feb has been called off. we couldn't agree on a week and then those of us who didn't care got upset about the constant change and back out. so now it is up in the air.

i guess that's all for now. i'm heading to parakou tomorrow and will spend the night there because, well i live too damn far from cotonou to do all this travel in one day. more to come later...

Happy New Year!

Happy 2008 everyone! Where in the heck did 2007 go? So how does one ring in the new year in Africa? By having a dance party of course :) I spent New Years Eve in Malanville with two other volunteers. Benin is different than the USA in that they celebrate the new year actually on the new year, where as we do everything the night before. So during the day of new years eve, me, meagan and ryan went on a pirogue ride along the Niger River. A pirgoue by the way is a tiny wooden boat. The one we were on was only big enough for the three of us and the two boys who steared/paddled. It was really fun and relaxing, well maybe i wouldn't go so far as to say relaxing because it was a tiny boat and any shift of body weight caused the whole thing to move. Not great on my nerves. After that it was about lunch time, which being in Malanville of course ment igame pile, which is pounded yams (not sweet like in the usa) served with a sauce. it is great, a specialty of the north. After that we headed back to Meagan house because another volunteer was suppose to be comming into to celebrate with us also. Sure enough she was waiting at the house when we got there. Because it was the hot part of the day we mostly just sat around her house for awhile, chatting and listening to music. Because it was a holiday and there was a fairly large group of us together, we decided to go out for tchuck which is a noncarbonated, fermented millet beer made i think only in the north. it kind of reminds me of apple cider that has gone bad, but better tasting than that makes it sound. By the time we wrapped up there, by there I mean this tiny shed like building that we were sitting in drinking, it was getting late so we decided to head back to Meagan's for dinner. Ryan and Meagan made dinner while I dj'd the dance party. Let me just say Audrey can dance. After dinner we moved our chairs outside and sat around talking. It was a really good conversation, something that went beyond the general stuff the most volunteers talk about when they get together (poop, food, where do you get your water from). I remember we discussed where we were this time last year. I knew of course that I was at Becky's house because she always has something at her house New Years Eve. I believe we played charades that year but i could be mistaken. We then went around and answered the question, what makes us tick. This was a hard question for me to wrap my head aruond. The best I could think of and I know I ddin't articulate it was well trying to be a global citizen. Trying to figure out what my role in the world is and will be and trying to do as little damage as possible. It was after this that i reprised my role as dj and moved our dance party outside, much to the delight of Meagan neighbors who watched from their doorway. So 2008, the year of Benin, was brought in with good music, good friends, laughter and dancing. If this is a sign of what the new year is going to hold, i think i'm in for a great time.