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 :)