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.