June

Here's a quick update since I am bored in Cotonou. Michelle and I's ravioli was sooo good last weekend, check out the pictures! It was a lot of work and pretty time consuming, but totally worth it. To top it off, we watched Forrest Gump during dinner :)
Then Sunday I headed to Azove to work with Jordan on Camp GLOW stuff. She gave me a lot of good information. It is going to be a lot of work to run this camp next year, but I am really looking forward to doing it. One of the possibilities for funding it is to start an online donation from people back at home, which I may consider doing. I will let you know!
This week at post has been pretty uneventful. I filled out my end of the year report for Peace Corps, and was pretty disappointed to see that just under half of my students "passed" (got an average of 10/20 or higher) English this year. Before you freak out like I did (I was holding back tears in front of my work partners), remember that this grade is based solely on 2 very difficult tests and one quiz, and also know that 50% is pretty high for an English class. I talked to my homologue and censeur about this and we discussed reasons for this and how I was feeling about it. I also had a good talk with my censeur on how I see we can do things better next year, namely the weekly staff meetings. He told me that he wanted me to follow my four classes on to next year, and I politely refused. I think he was surprised that I didn't just obey him, but I told him why I wanted a new batch of kids and explained that me being a volunteer gives me a little leverage in terms of what I want to do here. I also really wanted to teach the beginning levels again next year because I like giving the kids a strong foundation in English.
As I said, uneventful otherwise. I have been feeling better this week (seeing the doctors tomorrow to see if I got rid of the parasites, again), but I have been having trouble sleeping. I have been cooking a lot this week. This morning I had just made up pancake batter and put the first one on the griddle when my gas ran out! It was really sad and all the batter went to waste (except for the bit that my cats devoured).
Now I am in Cotonou turning in reports, work forms, seeing the doctors, etc. I realized that I landed in Benin exactly eleven months ago today! Anyway, I got two packages which was a nice surprise, and for dinner tonight I went to a place called DFC that serves- you'll love this- fried chicken! We got fried chicken and fries and soda, it was absurdly American and delicious. The restaurant even has a playplace out back! We didn't get to play in it, though :( I am heading back to Lobogo tomorrow but I think I will be back here on Monday or Tuesday to finally bring Fifa to see the eye doctor. Then later next week, I have a friend or two coming to visit which is exciting. So far, the summer has not been boring!