So it's almost the end of July, where's the time going? It's been a pretty crazy month thus far and the next couple weeks will be just as crazy. As I mentioned in my previous entry, last week was Camp Kandi. Myself and two other health volunteers covered topic ranging from nutrition, to AIDS to malaria. It was a lot of fun but a lot of work and I didn't even have to organize the event which always tends to be the hardest part of any job over here. After Camp Kandi, I went back to post for a few days. On Wednesday I left to come down to Cotonou. Now, I know I've lived here for two years and all but I'm not sure how familiar you all are with the geography of Benin. My village is in the north east region of Benin. I am about an hour and a half south of the Niger/Benin boarder. The largest city in Benin, Cotonou, is on the cost and about a 10-13 hour bus/car ride. I did this on Wednesday, getting into Cotonou around 4 or 5. There were a couple reasons for this trip. One I had some paper work that I needed to get done which I am ashamed to say that due to reasons two and three didn't really get done. My really good friend Miriam left last night for America. It's been really hard watching everyone leave. I'm dreading my last month of service in a way because I'm going to feel like I am all alone. But anway, I wanted to spend some time Mir and get some teaching materials from here. She was an English teacher here and gave me a bunch of stuff to hopefully help me out when I go to Palestine in the fall. And then my third and final reason for coming down here was because the new volunteer arrived last night. Yep, our replacements landed in Benin around 8 last night. Where it then took them about 2 hours to make it through cutoms and get there baggage and make it out of the airport where several of us were waiting to greet them. There are 56 of them, I wonder how many will stay? We came to country with 59 and lost 20 some over the two years.

Me and Miriam at the airport

Camp Kandi

So this week marked the beginning of week two, the health week of Camp Kandi. What is Camp Kandi you ask yourself? Camp Kandi is a two week summer school designed by a PC English professor volunteer and led by various other volunteers from throughout the country. The camp is free and voluntary for any student in the local middles schools (there are 3) who wish to attend. The primary focus of this camp is to help these students develop their english skills, however the volunteer who created this camp wanted to take advantage of all potential helpers she would have with other pc volunteers as well as realizing that these student's education is in general greatly lacking so anything we could teach/do would be a benifit. So last week environment volunteer were invited to do sessions with the students once their english lessons were done and this week health volunteers are taking their place. Monday a volunteer taught the students about malaria, and today I talked about the three food groups, what they are, why they are important and which foods fall into each group. Tomorrow, myself and another volunteer will start talking about how AIDS is transmitted.

Today was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I've been doing this same lesson all around my region over the past couple months, and when I do the full session it lasts around 4 hours. Today I focused solely on the food groups, as well as making a comparison between the pourridge that they ate that morning before comming versus a reciept for a porridge that I wrote on the board. In total it lasted about 50 minutes give or take. But good grief was I tired by when I reached that 50 minute marker. And then I ended up doing it four times in all. I have developed a new found respect for teachers here. I always knew that their work wasn't easy, but wow.

Aren't Latrines Wonderful

So I have a latrine. This isn't probably a news flash since you know I don't have running water in my house. But I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about why latrines are such a joy to have. Incident one happened during my first year of service. I was standing in my latrine lifting the cover so that I could go pee. I had done this hundreds of times before, not a problem right? Not more than 10 sec after lifting the cover off a bat flew out of my latrine and at me. Needless to say I panicked, screamed and did a lot of waving my arms around. Ever since this I have taken to rattling the latrine cover a bit before I lift it up in hopes of making any such creatures fall to the ground before I lift up. The second incident happened just last week. Since my first year I've gotten pretty lax about covering my latrine. It's mostly due to the fact that I share it with the other people in my concession and they never ever cover it so it seems futile most of the time. Anyway, this time around I had hiked up my skirt and was standing on the little foot pedestal things squatting when I look down into the latrine and see a big mouse (i refuse to believe it was a rat) climbing the walls out of the latrine pit. Because I was in mid-going to the bathroom I couldn't leave my spot and had to just stand there motionless and hope that the mouse paid me no mind as it continued to climb out of the latrine pit and up the walls of my latrine on the the roof.

For the most part I don't really mind using a latrine. It's a pain when I'm not feeling well and I have to leave my house 20x a day and walk across my yard and the creatures that live there are definitely not friends of mine. But since becoming reliant on one it has shown me how much water a toilet uses and how wasteful they are. Just something to think about.

Strange Day, yet weirdly typical

So I've been traveling a lot this month. I had a workshop earilier in the month, then followed by a good bye party for a fellow volunteer, followed by our close of service confrence and concluding recently with a wedding. So I've been feeling pretty guilty about being away from my community so much so I made a decision not to do any more traveling for the rest of the month. the past two days i was in alfa kora the neighboring village to mine working with a fellow volunteer and his environment club. i got back to angaradebou yesterday evening. this morning when i got up i headed straight into the health center. for some reason, i don't know why, i decided to bring my wooden penis and some condoms with me. this was i guess just incase i had the chance to talk to someone, or the subject came up I would be ready with props in hand. there's not much i can do, but i like them to know i'm around so i go and hangout, chat with them, help with some of the paperwork if i can. i stayed till around noon, which is break time and also the medicine i'm taking now for my ears really upsets my stomach so I wanted to go back to my house and relax anyway. well i was leaving, walking down the side of the road when I heard someone call my name. It was this guy i generally avoid, but for some reason today I decided to be polite and go over and talk to him. He was sitting outside his shop with a couple other men. The conversation started off simple enough, how are you, you've been gone a long time, what did you bring me. yada yada yada. i don't know how it happend though but during our 2 hours of chatting our conversation hit upon topics such as voting, why did people vote for obama, teen pregnancy, what africa needs to develop, and finally AIDS. one of the questions first asked was whether or not it was true that the cure for aids had been found but that we just weren't sharing it with africa. that's when i had to inform them that there was no cure at all for aids and that americans die from aids just like african's do. they were a little suprised by this but then recovered to say that they(americans) don't die as much as africans do. I wanted to say that's your own fault, but I was more polite about it and said that that is because not enough of you use condoms when you have sex. Which led me getting out the wooden penis and condoms i had brought along. I sat there with these men explaining and demonstrating how to use a condom. i'm glad i did it, they needed to know and it's the only way things will change around here and it was refreshing to see that two of the men at least already knew the proper way to use one. of course questions followed about condoms breaking because there penis was so large and what not. typical guy stuff. one of the men then showed me on his very nice cell phone a porno clip where a man had a very large penis and then asked if a condom would even fit that one. it was so strange i couldn't help but laughing. it wasn't long after that that one of the men had to go off and pray and so our little group broke up. the guy i usually avoid wanted me to stay and keep talking but there was no way i was going to do that with no one else around so i made my excusses and head home...2 hours later.

Chick Killer (Random Story)

So a couple months back I was doing laundry at my house. Now doing laundry entails a large basin (metal bowl) filled part way with water, some powdered soap bought at local market, my pile of dirty clothes and me sitting out on my front porch with them scrubbing them by hand. So I had finished up with my laundry for the day but decided not to toss out my rinse water so that I could use it later that evening to wash my feet off before going to bed. (I wear sandles all day while walking in the dirt and sand, washing feet helps keep sheets cleaner longer) I left the basin outside while I went about the rest of my day. That night when I came back the basin was still there, but I noticed something floating inside. For a moment I thought I had left some clothes in there to soak since I do do that from time to time. I go over to look and inside were baby chick. I empty out the water and count the bodies of 5 babies chicks that I for some reason or another decided to jump into my basine.

Catch Up Round 2

So I've been a bit lack lately in playing catch up for all those months that I didn't post, but at least I've been trying to keep you all up todate on what's going on with me now. Anyway, in my last round of catch up I talked about Thanksgiving and the 2 day AIDS workshop I hosted.

December I tried to host a World AIDS day event for the 8th, but alas it fell through, well parts of it fell through and then no one showed up so thus it didn't happen. What I had planned originally was for the student peer educators I had trained during the AIDS workshop to come and do the skits they prepared during the workship for the community. Everyone seemed on board with this. The week before the event was to take place I was informed that the students could not infact participate because they had their semester exams during that period and could leave school. GRRR I wouldn't have been so frustrated if they had told me that in the beginning instead of letting me plan an event around them being there. I was still going to go on with the event only this time it would just be me and my work partner talking to people in the community and showing them how to use condoms. Unfortuantly, no one showed up. No one was suprised by this lack of turn out, but it did make me sad. It also made me grateful in a way that the kids couldn't make it, cause I would have felt really bad to have had them there waiting and then no one come.

So the planning of that event brought me to the week I was to start heading down to Cotonou to make my way to Accra so I could fly home and suprise my family for Christmas. I didn't get back til mid January. I was scheduled to go on my first vacation in Africa the first part of February so I had to use what little time I had left between getting back and leaving again to find out information regarding the cost of building a well, working on a grant so I could do nutrition workshops later on during the school year, as well as finish and AIDS mural we had started before I left for America.

Talking to God

So I received an email from Mona saying that I should ask God what I should do in regards to my post Peace Corps options. I have tried this in various ways not only regarding this decision but at various times/cross roads in my life which out much luck I must say. So I am asking now, how does one do this? And how does one feel generally during/after doing so?

I usually ask for guidance in making the right decision or for some sort of sign or something that shows that one choice what I am "meant" to do. But always I am left feeling as I did before I did the asking as if I said nothing at all. Never have I felt God's guiding hand, presence or anything which would lead me to believe that a. he's listening to me and b. that one choice is any different than another. So I am always left hoping that I make the right choice as I jump in.

How do you know that when you are getting guidance from God vs. letting your own wants direct you to doing what you want to do?

I'm confused