Hey hey, here's another looong blog post coming your way! I met my school principal and visited my village this week so I have a lot to write about :) Before you read this post, though, be sure to check out the new pictures I posted on previous posts!
So, at the beginning of last week, we (the TEFL volunteers) each met the director (i. e. principal) of the CEG- College d'Enseignement Generale, combined middle and high school- where we will be teaching. All but one were men, and all of them are... unique. Being the director of a CEG gives you a lot of prestige here, so they all have big personalities! We then had 2 seminars with them where we discussed the differences in American and Beninese cultures and how that may effect our work. The best part about these seminars? They were held in an AIR CONDITIONED hotel :) (It's the little luxuries here, people)
Wednesday morning we headed off for Lobogo! We were able to rent a taxi because there were 3 volunteers and their directors heading in the same direction, which is a huge luxury here. As I've said, taxis are usually oooold and broken cars that are absolutely and miserably packed with people. And even though our taxi was private, it still leaked rain water on us the whole way there. We also bought some illegal Nigerian gasoline on the way- see photo! (Better then our taxi back, though, who kept gasoline in used water bottles on his glove compartment!) When we got to a town called Come, my director and I got off and took zemidjans the rest of the way to Lobogo. It was an hour-long drive, which is quite long to be riding on the back of a moped taxi! Plus the drive was all on bumpy dirt paths/roads, which didn't make it any easier.
The drive WAS, however, extremely beautiful. The are around my village is quite hilly and very green and lush with all different kinda of fruit trees and of course the ubiquitous palm tree. And the best part was the HUGE lake in the middle of it all! The lake is big enough that you can't see the other side of the lake while on the shore! It was very odd to have rolling hills, a peaceful lake, and... palm trees!
Lobogo really is in the middle of nowhere. There are two even smaller dirt paths that lead off the main dirt path that connects Lobogo to other villages, and the paths are lined with corn, palm trees, and some of the biggest (baobab?) trees I have ever seen. The town itself is obviously all dirt roads, and fairly spread out over quite a large area. There is a huge market, lots of voodoo temples (the family I stayed with lives right next door to a voodoo temple, and when I looked into the window of it, there were blood stains on one of the walls- creepy!), and plenty of small dirt foot paths on which people live. There is a really nice outdoor two-story buvette (bar) where there is always an awesome breeze, and a small super market where you can buy necessities like toilet paper, canned vegetables, notebooks, and imported French wine :) (Great thing for someone to send me: a wine opener!!!)
Speaking of the family I lived with, I had my first experience “roughing it”! My bed consisted of a small pile of hay (= lots of little bugs as bed fellows) covered with a pagne (length of cloth) on the floor. The shower area was just a small area demarcated with a few palm branches stuck into the ground, and- prepare yourselves, folks- a pit latrine. Yes I, Angelina Hurst, am now a pro at squatting over a fly and cockroach infested hole in the ground to go to the bathroom. For this, I am giving myself a huge amount of credit. (I have to get used to it, though, because that is the kind of bathroom I will be using for the next 2 years! The picture is the latrine at my house) I stayed with the family of the president of the APE (Association des Parents d'Eleves), the equivalent of the PTA. The family raised rabbits, chickens, ducks, pigs, goats, and bush rats to sell at the market. The weird thing about the family was that the mom was a year younger than me! People get married and have kids soo early here. She had a 5 month old baby that absolutely loved me and that I loved too! I held it for hours and hours :) (Remember how I used to not like babies? I have decided that I love them and am becoming slightly less adverse to the idea of coming home and thinking about settling down instead of my usual run-away-and-stay-single-and-independent-forever self. Scary, huh?)
The first evening, Ryan, the Small Enterprise Development volunteer who is in the village now but is leaving in a few weeks) introduced me to some people in the village and showed me my house! He also showed me his livestock collection and his garden which I have the option of inheriting! I have yet to decide if I will do it or not since I think it would take a decent amount of time and I don't know anything about gardening... but it would be nice to have all the things he grows: carrots, lettuce, cabbage, avocados, guavas, green beans, potatoes, watermelons, and herbs, among other things! That evening Ryan, myself, a few of his friends from Lobogo, and the two volunteers Ryan had doing their post visit with him went to the buvette and danced! It was really fun. When I got home, my family insisted that I could not sleep alone, so one of the teenage girls in the family put a straw mat on the floor of my room and slept there, haha.
The next day, my director took me to Bopa, the main village in the commune where the mayor and police are located. He introduced me to the mayor and the chief of police and showed me the post office. He also showed me the school where I will be teaching (see photo) and introduced me to the administration and several teachers. Random side note: there was a HUGE ant swarm at going across the school yard; there literally were so many that it looked like a massive black river. They bit me, too, and it hurt! It was a huge pain to keep getting on and off the zemidjan because I wore a modele- hence a skin-tight full length skirt- because I was meeting important people and wanted to look culturally appropriate. One very in-fashion clothing item in my region is to wear a towel around your neck. Not only is it bizarre, but it is completely disgusting because people constantly blow their noses into it and wipe their sweaty faces on it. My director was wearing one the whole week, and when I was riding on the back of his zemidjan it would flutter back towards me and stick to my legs and arms, sick. That night, Ryan and I and company went to a late-night village celebration where there were bizarre little musical and dancing acts that usually consisted of people lip syncing to come awful song and people throwing money at them.
Yesterday was August 1, Benin's independence day. My director took me too the celebration in Bopa, which was once again a 2.5 hour assortment of odd singing and dancing numbers. Some of the cultural dancers and musicians were cool, but 2.5 hours is a long time to sit still. We got there late, but of course, since I am a yovo, they made a seat for me in the front row and a cameraman filmed me the whole time- awkward. Afterwards we visited Possotome, a village that is right on the lake and not too far from Lobogo. The hot springs are there, which were pretty neat. We also visited Possotome's 2 hotels, which were about as close as you can get to paradise on earth. These were gorgeous tropical hotels right on the beach where you sit under a palm tree and people come by and serve you cocktails and fan you. One hotel had a floating bar/restaurant on the lake where instead of chairs they had couches. The grounds of the hotels were beautiful too, with plenty of flowers and palm trees. I am DEFINITELY heading there when I need a break from volunteering! There is an Environmental Action volunteer posted there this time around, so I will be visiting him a lot I think!
When we finally got back to Lobogo, we walked around the village for about 4 hours “saluer-ing” sooo many people: in essence, we had to go to about 40 peoples' houses just to sit for a minute and say hello and maybe have a beer. They said we were going around so that I could meet people, but they always spoke Sahoue, the local language, instead of French when we were there so I could never participate in conversation. In our culture this would be considered rude, but not here.
Before leaving Lobogo today, Ryan, the 2 other volunteers and I went to the market because it was market day. (There is a HUGE market that rotates around the region and makes 5 different stops. It is therefore in Lobogo every 5 days and today happened to be a market day) It was pretty incredible. There was tons of clothing, household items, more corn than I have ever seen in my life, tons of fish. There were also the biggest snails I have ever seen there that people buy all the time to eat- something I will NOT be trying. I mean, these things are the size of your foot. The thing that got to me the most, though, was the livestock. There were goats, chickens, geese, ducks, and kittens. They were all just tied up and crying,and most of them were going to be someone's dinner tonight, which really bothered me. I know I need to get over my soft spot for animals, but it will be really hard. I will never be able to kill and animal to eat, and I am going to try to avoid having to see one be killed. People throw rocks at the animals here and kick them. I know this is because they are generally seen as diseased and a nuisance to gardens and whatnot, but it is nonetheless really hard to me to accept. Today I saw a man tying a BABY goat onto the back of his bike seat to take home and the poor thing was just crying and crying and it made ME start to cry. (Mom, you wouldn't be able to handle it... in fact I wouldn't be surprised if you are on the verge of tears just from reading this haha)
For lunch Ryan got goat that this lady was cooking, and I made the mistake of looking into the pot: The entire goat's HEAD was floating in the middle of it, eyeballs, teeth, ears, and all! That definitely made my stomach turn. I have gotten much less uptight about my food already from being here, just because it is simply a fact of life that there might be bugs in it and things sit out uncovered all day long- c'est la vie! Since it was market day, we were able to find a taxi direct to Porto Novo, a 3 hour ride for the equivalent of $7.50 :) (The hardest things for me at the market is going to be figuring out the real price of things; everything is cheap in terms of US dollars, but they always quote a WAY high price in francs to white people, so you need to bargain it down.)
Well, that was my sejour in Lobogo! The phone service that I currently have does not work there, so I will be getting a new phone number shortly and will post it here once I have it. I have finally gotten a few phone calls from the states, but I still really want to hear from you all! Once again, the number is (229) 98 68 18 15 (if I gave the wrong number in a previous post, this one is correct) I love you all, and happy August! [Yikes, I have now officially been gone for over a month!]
Hello! It has been quite en eventful week, so here goes: This week was the last week of model school, which meant lots of extra work for us. We had to write a final exam and grade it, which took quite a long time. I was in a new class this week, cinquième, which is the middle of the three grades I will be teaching. The kids were not at all well behaved! Many of them simply ignored us teachers, and had no interest in paying attention during class. I guess it was good practice for some of the problems I will deal with during the coming school years! We had some really bright and adorable kids too, though, and the class average on the test was fairly decent. They were tested things like city vocabulary, nationalities, and cardinal points. My personal favorite section, though, was the fill-in-the-blanks for giving directions. There was a small map of a city, and we asked kids to complete the directions from the tailor to the carpenter using words from a provided word box. One of the available words was “cross”, meant to be for “Cross the bridge,” and another word was “left.” The last sentence was supposed to be “The carpenter is on the left,” but many, many kids ended up saying “The carpenter is on the cross.” This really made me laugh, and some of the teachers joked that the kids were trying to be poetic and theological. Too funny. The kids took the test on Thursday, so Friday was a day for us to do fun things with the kids. We played some hangman, and then all of the classes had a singing/dancing competition with each other! Each class learned “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night and made dance moves to it, then performed for a panel of judges I'm proud to say that my class got 2nd place out of 4 classes, and lost to a class of older kids :) It was a lot of fun. Last weekend I went to the market to shop for some things that I will need at my house in Lobogo. I had a fairly productive trip: I ended up getting 3 pots, some forks and spoons, some plates, some serving spoons, some baskets, some wash basins, a sturdy shopping sack to take to market with me, this really cool scrubby thing that is the hardcore African version of a loofah, and some gorgeous green and brown fabric that I got a skirt made out of :) The market proved to be pretty frustrating, though. Every vendor wants your business and screams yovo at you, which is an automatic turn-off for us. When we inquire about prices, they give you ones that are riiidiculously high and refuse to back down much because they assume that we have a ton of money. We did our best and bargained the prices to the death, but still overpaid on almost everything. I bargained with one lady and ended up buying some plates and utensils from her. I had bargained hard and was pleased with the deal I made. However, a few minutes later she approached me at another stall I was at, claiming that the price should have been 100 francs higher and that I therefore owed her that money. I was incredulous: that argument doesn't work when there are no fixed prices! I refused her, and she sulked away. A minute or two later, she came back to me yet again and tried to take the things I had bought from her! I was really upset with the scene she was causing and walked away, telling her how rude she was being. On Tuesday the regional Peace Corps doctor came and gave us a talk about health. He was a fabulous speaker, and gave us catch phrases to remember the advice he gave us, such as: “Get medieval on it” (when you have exposed raw skin, take 3 shots of whiskey and then roughly scrub the exposed skin with a plastic brush for several minutes in order to prevent infection. The whiskey is for the pain), “All men are pigs” (most men here just want to get in your pants), and “She's a prostitute, stupid” (nearly every woman in this country that initiates a conversation with a man is a prostitute, so don't think that they are actually interested in you). Needless to say, his speech was humorous, direct, un-PC, and wonderful. [He also mentioned that many men guilt-trip white women by calling them racist if they refuse their advances, which, as I think I mentioned in an earlier blog, has already happened to me! It's really such a rotten thing to say to someone who has chosen to live in West Africa for two years.] Speaking of the “All men are pigs” mantra, I sure had an experience with one this week. I was reading in the living room at my house when a man who I had never seen before walked in and sat down. This in itself is no shock: people show up unannounced all the time here. I said hello to him and continued reading. After a minute or so, he said “I want to watch TV.” I assumed he was asking if it would be alright to turn on the television since I was reading, so I replied “OK, that's fine.” He proceeded to give me an odd look and then said “So go turn it on for me.” I was so shocked that I didn't even get angry at first, and asked “What?” He replied “You're the woman, you should get up and turn it on.” I took a deep breath, and proceeded to inform him that he has 2 legs and is perfectly capable of turning the TV on for himself. He then laughed and called for one of the younger girls in the house to do it. I wanted to stop the girl from doing it but she speaks no French, so I couldn't. What an (excuse my French) asshole. It is SUCH a male-centric culture here, and that is proving to be one of the hardest things for me to deal with. Wednesday night, the mayor of Porto Novo had all of us to city hall for a gala that included dinner and live music and traditional dancing. We all wore our nicest Beninese-style outfits, and it was wonderful to see everyone dressed up in such beautiful fabric. The event itself was pretty interesting. We were served a decent dinner (complete with snail-kababs that I did NOT try, see picture) and lots of beer, and the entertainment was great. There was a live band with women, girls, and muscular men who danced in various traditional styles. The whole thing was lit from the front so that the dancers made huge shadows on the back of the stage that were really dramatic. The gala lasted until 11pm, which was so late for all of us who are used to going to bed between 9:30 and 10 :) They finally delivered my refrigerator this week. They claim it is new, but I'm not sure if I believe it. The handle is broken and the whole thing is a bit dirty, but they say this happened when it was shipped here from France. At first I was really unhappy, and then reminded myself that I am Peace Corps volunteer and I am lucky to even have electricity, let alone a refrigerator. The fridge cost me about $150, whereas the brand new and really nice ones at the appliances showcase in Porto Novo all cost at least $300, so I think I will just settle for this one. I just hope it truly is new and therefore energy-efficient, because electricity is quite expensive here. We had our final language interview this week to determine our level (everyone needs to be at an intermediate level in order to swear-in as a volunteer). I thought my interview was so-so, but I was determined to be “superior,” which supposedly means fluent! I don't quite feel fluent yet, but I think I'll get there someday. Everyone in TEFL reached the necessary level, so we will all be swearing-in this week! Now for the best part of the week: our trip to paradise- I mean Grand Popo- yesterday. Grand Popo is a small resort town along the coast in western Benin, near Togo. The day didn't start off well at all: it was pouring (after about 3 straight weeks of sunshine), the van picked us up an hour late, and just as we were leaving the door fell off one of the other vans, so we had to pile a ton more people in our already-packed van. We got a flat tire on the way there which took a half hour to fix, and one of the other vans had a radiator problem and was stopped for an hour an a half, so they missed some of the fun in Grand Popo :( Despite all of this, the trip was amazing!!! Just as we got there the clouds disappeared and it became sunny and gorgeous. We were at a resort on the beach that has stout thatched huts to sit under at the beach, were given money with which we could buy lunch/goodies (they had a western-style restaurant there!), and a full bar! The waves were HUGE as they tend to be in West Africa, so we didn't do much swimming but we put our legs in. We ate our yummy lunch on the beach, and then some of us got cocktails!! It was quite the experience: lounging in a hammock on a gorgeous beach, on the equator, sipping a mai tai. (And you thought Peace Corps volunteers had a hard life :) After the cocktail and laying in the sun some more, we got delicious gelato! It was a really relaxing day despite the rough start. Yesterday was the first football game in Ann Arbor!! I must tell you all, I happened to look at the clock at about 3:15 Michigan time yesterday and teared-up because I knew that pregame was just starting. It is so weird not to be there and be a part of it all this year! (How weird, M Fanfare just came on my ipod) I still don't even know who won yesterday! I can't wait to hear about Rich Rod, the new stadium, the new traditions, etc! Send me newspaper clippings! Knowing all the excitement that is going on in Ann Arbor right now makes me pretty bummed to be so far away. But, hopefully I will be there for the season opener next year! To cheer myself up, I have been spending a lot of time with the little kids around my house this week. They are so cute and curious about everything. There are 2 little girls who I absolutely adore, and I find myself playing their mom all the time when no one else is around. I cleaned up one girl's knee when she scraped it, tell the mean older brothers to stop laughing, and hold them until they stop crying after they have been hurt. I love them so much and want to take them home with me!! Swear-in is this Friday in Cotonou. It will be so nice to finally feel the accomplishment of our hard work during training! All of the host families are invited, and they are so excited to meet the president and wear their new outfits made of the 40th anniversary fabric! I am not sure what all the ceremony will involve- probably lots of groveling to the government officials like they seem to love to do here. I will be giving a short speech in Sahoué, the language of Lobogo. I am also in the swear-in choir, and the facilitators wrote us two songs to sing, one dedicated to JFK about the different work that Peace Corps Benin does, and one about the 40th anniversary. The words are kind of silly, but the music is pretty. Tons of press will be there, so I will be all over the Beninese news :) After the actual ceremony, the president invited us to his home for dinner, which should be really cool. This coming week will be nice, we don't have much in the way of classes, and get to open our bank accounts and get ready to leave for our posts. We are staying overnight in Cotonou after swear-in so we can celebrate and do some shopping there. I think I am going to have a carpenter make me a bed frame this week, too. I leave one week from tomorrow, Monday Sept. 8, for my village. Peace Corps rented us each our own taxi, so we can load it up with stuff for post. I will be sad to leave Porto Novo, my family, and my friends/the other Americans, but I am also really excited for the calm of independent life in a village, where I can be on my own schedule, meet new people, cook for myself, etc. As I've said, since we can't leave post overnight during the first three months, I think it will be a lonely time. There are a few volunteers that I can make a day trip to visit, so I'm sure I will be doing that. I will definitely need your phone calls and letters/packages though! I got phone calls from two more of my best friends this week, which was really nice. Speaking of packages, hilarious story: my parents sent me three packages on July 23, and we were getting frustrated that I still didn't have them. Well, I finally got them on Friday, and stamped all over them was “Missent to Belize.” So, don't feel bad if you had never heard of Benin: people at the post office doesn't know it exists, either! Past of the problem might be the “Afrique de Ouest.” You should probably write “West AFRICA” instead, just to make sure they understand :) I will wrap up with a “wish list” since so many people have been asking what I would like them to send me: -hand sanitizer -face wash -American condiments (BBQ sauce, ranch dressing, olive oil, lemon juice, hot sauce, peanut butter, jam, etc.) -tampons -scotch tape -spiral notebooks -good books -deodorant -munchies/candy/gum (beef jerky especially for some protein) -nail polish -art supplies for teaching and for little kids to use (also things like this and little cheap toys to give to kids) -pictures from home! I will update this as I think of more things later. Anything sent is much appreciated, even if it is not on the list! Getting mail/packages here is like a mini-Christmas haha! Alright, sorry this was so long! I miss you all, especially knowing that it is football season in Ann Arbor! Later :)
