guerrilla gardening and incessant cluelessness

A couple of prologues before I get to the meat of what I wanted to talk to you about. 

Prologue 1: I totally meant to write all about the holidays I’ve been spending here, and the funny, interesting clash of Americanisms and Beninese-isms, and the cute and funny results. I had a super cute Halloween and one of the best Thankgsgivingses ever, with the kind of cultural exchanges worthy of lots of words. And I wanted to end it by describing the catharsis of our quiet Christmas, but here I am with something else on my chest.

Prologue 2: I am very hesitant to describe the kind of projects I want to start, just because I know that in 2 months I will hate all of these ideas and see all the flaws in all my plans, and I will hate it even more to know that it is immortalized in writing on this silly blog. But I also realize that you guys probably have no idea what I’m doing here, or how I spend my time, or what I’m trying to accomplish, or what a success would even look like. And I’m not sure exactly where this strong desire to shine a little light on what I actually do, but here you have it friends. Only about six months late, whoops!

I am an Environmental Action volunteer. Here in Benin, Peace Corps has four sectors, or areas of work: EA, Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Rural Community Health, and Community Economic Development. While most of them are pretty straight-forward and obvious, it’s usually the case that a health volunteer will start a community garden and an english club, and an environment volunteer will teach accounting for illiterates to her women’s gardening group and help the health center talk to people about nutrition and malaria prevention, and so on. There is absolutely nothing cut and dry about any of the work here in Benin, and the priority is to help where you can, try where you might, and talk to anyone and everyone about what the heck is going on. (The real work is just trying to alleviate some of the incessant cluelessness of being in a village that wants your help but doesn’t know how or where or what -- "just make it better," they say. Okay.) 

It would be much easier to describe the generic responsibilities of an Environmental Action volunteer, and over time we’ll just have to wait and see how I am able to manifest my abilities and can-do attitude into something useful. So that’s exactly what we’ll do!

Alright, so there are three pillars (pillars is kind of a douchey word, but I can’t think of a better one) for the work that an EA volunteer is expected to perform. The first is food security: making food more available (in the sense that more people can afford it, more people are able to consume it, and that it is available year-round instead of just during the rainy season or what-not) and more nutritional (in that there is a greater variety of food available and that people know how to prepare it in a nutritional way). Obviously there is a lot more to it, and it is a huge job to make sure that everyone is fed, and fed well, and able to battle the harshities of weather and environment and financial constraints and malnutrition and lack of technical skills. As for my particular post, I am working with a women’s group in my village who have an absolutely amazing garden, and hope to improve their financial earnings via the veggies they are able to grow. I definitely want to help them do so, and I am super lucky in that they are very motivated. AND they looooove to dance. It's always a party in Angaradebou. Also, because they already have all the gardening equipment and assistance they need (they even have agricultural technicians to help!) I am in a position that I can (hopefully) help them make money, increase the nutrition available to themselves and their families, and generally just improve their lot in life. It’s pretty amazing to see these women work hard and see the benefits of their labors. It’s very gratifying and I can’t wait to see what we can do together. (Especially since they have already done so much on their own.)

The second pillar (ugh, that word) concerns reforestation, and the consumption of lumber and lumber products. Oh man you guys, it is a totally different world over here: everybody (EVERYBODY!) cooks over a fire outside with logs and lumber that they cut down in the bush. Maybe in some of the larger cities and surrounding suburbs they’ll use charcoal or a gas stove, but where I live it’s burning wood all day everyday and cooking over a campfire, usually in a huge cauldron called a marmite. (You can make anything in a marmite. I use mine all the time, mostly for cooking popcorn.) So that’s where I come in -- how can we decrease the consumption of wood in these smaller villages? And can we find a way to sustainably plant trees (fruit-bearing to meet the nutritional needs of the community, and wood-producing so they will have a way to prepare all this new nutrition)? Now this doesn’t seem like it’d be a huge job (or maybe to you it does, it certainly seems like a huge job to me!) but there are all kinds of politics involved: who does the land belong to? can we use that land for planting crops? (and if so, let’s do that instead because who needs trees?) who is going to be responsible for maintaining a nursery during the dry season? why do we care about trees when our babies are dying from malaria and our children are malnourished? how can we decrease the use of wood and still cook food? 

(See what I mean??) 

And the third mainstay (I thesaurus’d pillar for a new word) of the EA program in Benin is environmental education. Phew, now we’re talking, I’ve been doing environmental education for the past 6 years! Can I talk to you about beluga whales? Do you know the difference between the taiga and the tundra? Did you know that the southern sea otter has up to a million hairs per square inch? I’m gonna just ask a bunch of questions because that’s how you engage your audience when educating them about environment-y things..... eek I am super unprepared for this country. Or at least that is how I feel 98% of the time.

Now translate that into french, and into relevant information for Beninese children, and do all that within the Beninese education system with completely different rules and expectations. Whew. But really, its an important thing, and where a lot of volunteers feel most successful, to work with the youth of Benin, especially if you are able to encourage leadership skills, literacy, gender equality and women’s empowerment, environmental awareness, hygiene and sanitation skills and habits, nutritional practices... I suppose the list can just go on and on. Many EA volunteers start an environmental club, or a school garden. In my village, it’s kind of difficult because I don’t have a high school, and while it is possible to work with a primary school, it’s very difficult because they don’t speak french very well yet and all Beninese kids have a million responsibilities in the home (especially the girls, but that’s another post for another day, my friends. And not a very nice one either, there is a huge gender inequality here, and it is heartbreaking). I have ideas for how I can reach the youngsters of Angaradebou. I might even work a little bit with Bethany to help her start an environmental club in Peonga, my closest high school. We’ll just have to wait and see how I can educate environmentally. 

There are lots of things I can do to help Angaradebou, and I have lots of ideas. Any and all progress is very slow going here, but I remain ever the optimist. One teeny tiny village at a time, right? One zucchini, environmental lesson, french verb conjugation, fulani greeting, mile ran, women's group meeting, explanation of nutrients, mosquito net, baby held at a time. 

cheers, my dears. I hope that 2014 finds you well!

How to Make Christmas/How to Be Good

You lucky devils, I have been sharing so much of my life with you this past month. Mostly it's just guilt because I didn't blog at all for a very long time, but also there are just so many little things about living in another country. Right now, it's been Christmas for 15 minutes, and I have been sitting in the presence of other Americans, all of us on our computers, facebooking and emailing and cramming as much mindless internet-time-wasting in the little time we all have internet. We are sitting around a tv which is playing a dvd of a fire burning and listening to the (very small amount of) Christmas music we have between us, with a tiny Christmas tree sitting in the middle of all of us. Tomorrow we will cook a lot of really good food, and continue our Christmas movie marathon, and make mimosas and be merry. We're doing a really good job of making do and spreading Christmas cheer, considering it's a million degrees outside and we are all a million miles away from home.

(To all the Harpers/Coopers that read this, I hope all of you are enjoying cheesy potatoes and summer sausage on crackers and making amazing no bake cookies, and eating Santa's cookies and arranging Christmas presents and stuffing stockings with precious moments ornaments, and watching Christmas Vacation and Santa Claus is coming to Town and It's a Wonderful Life, and loving each other and laughing and generally just being amazing. I miss you, and love you, and am sending all of my love and best wishes your way. And just know that I will expect so many cheesy potatoes waiting for me the second my plane touches down upon my return. Love love love. And a pre-emptive thank you thank you thank you for the care packages that are en route to Benin, I am very very grateful!)

There is no way to explain how my emotions work in this country, or what it's like to be eating antelope while everyone else is baking Christmas cookies and putting the photos on facebook, or having babies and getting engaged and generally being normal, responsible grown-ups. There is no way to explain what it's like to be a stranger to every person I meet here, and to be strange to every person I've left back home. Just know, I appreciate your attention as you follow me on this journey, and your patience as I make it work and share the amazing experiences (and the ridiculous ones and even occasionally the really sad and heartbreaking ones). There is so much I could say about what this experience actually is, and how I actually feel, and what I'm actually doing, and I will try my best to give you these little nuggets from Benin whenever I have internet, but for now, I really just want to wish everyone the merriest of all the Christmases, and the hope that you are enjoying your snow and cookies and white chocolate peppermint bark and loved ones and prettily wrapped presents and real fires in the fireplace. I miss all of those things, but mostly I miss the people that made all of those things amazing for me, and the people that made me who I am today. You, really. I miss you. And I hope the best for you and yours.

But also, I want to leave you with this incredibly eloquent description of life as a Peace Corps volunteer. It has nothing to do with Christmas, and this person doesn't even live in Benin, but he gives such an accurate portrayal of what Peace Corps life is all about, in a better way that I can. Or at least a better way than I can right now.

http://waidsworld.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/the-real-peace-corps/

Where the wild things go

So I keep wanting to compare Benin to my time in Alaska last summer. You wouldn't think it at all to look at them, but they do have quite a bit in common. Or maybe it's just my reaction to living in a wild west, frontier, remoter than remote situation.

So last summer, when I first got to Denali, I was so gung-ho about running, especially in the picturesque-ity of Denali. But after about my first week, a quite pessimistic higher-up told me a story about a young woman who had been running somewhere in Alaska (not in my neck of the woods) but she had been listening to her ipod, jogging along (as you do) when a pack of wolves stalked her, killed her, and ate her. Eek, how am I supposed to run in Alaska when there are wolves about with the taste of man flesh?? Haha, obviously it was not quite so dramatic as all that, but it definitely put me off running for a bit. And now, here I am living out in the picturesque-ity of West Africa, with the beautiful trees and the fields and the sunsets, and when I had decided to sign up to run a race (in February, yay!) my program manager told me to exercise caution and exercise with caution, since I'm so close to Nigeria. Not that I ever see any signs of danger, being waaaaaaay off any main roads and in a tiny tiny village. But still, I always seem to end up in these gorgeous places and with a desire to run with the odds just stacking up against me. (Don't worry Mom and Dad, I am very very safe!)

Also, I find that I am quite accustomed to living off the barest essentials and being able to throw whatever I have in my cabinets (or, in my present case, on some bricks stacked up on the floor) to turn it into a delicious meal. Surprisingly, I live much closer to a grocery store now than I did when I was in Alaska. (Isn't that actually crazy to think about? I was an 8 hour ride from the closest grocery store when I lived in Denali, and now here I am in a land of few grocery stores.) It is still quite a chore to get to any kind of well-stocked (and that is well-stocked with a grain of salt, mind you) supermarche -- the hour long zem ride to Nikki, the waiting for a taxi, then the 2-4 hour taxi ride to Parakou. From there it's quite easy, there are 2 nice supermarches to choose from, with quite a selection of tasty and sometimes odd things to choose from and spend all your money on. The best thing is when you get back to village and have the weirdest collection of things with which to cook: soy sauce, peanut butter, ginger powder, balsamic vinegar, regular vinegar... et cetera. And then I get the fun task of putting things in a pot and watching what happens. (It usually turns out pretty well, but it might the desperation talking.)

When I was in Denali, we were super aware of the risk of forest fires and what a threat that could be for... well, I guess everyone. But now that I am here, people just set everything on fire at the end of the planting season. So last night, I was on my bus to Nattitingou (where I am for Christmas, more on that later!) and we were just driving along and we would crest a hill and everything would just be on fire and spewing smoke everywhere. Its odd and ridiculous and unhealthy and bad for the land (like so many other things here), but its what they do here.

And now it's Christmas and I realize I haven't told you about how the Beninese celebrate any of these holidays we've passed to get to this point, Christmas Eve! Eek, well never fear my little ducklings, all that (and more!) to come! As stated, I'll be in Nattitingou, with all the internet and electricity and Christmas cookies my little heart can handle. (I've definitely already started on the Christmas cookies, don't you fret!) More to come, my friends! And I hope this finds you happy, and well, and surrounded by friends and family and puppies and kittens and Christmas trees and cinnamon brooms and those cute little porcelain villages and all the other lovely things of the season. 

This is what bragging in Benin looks like

Scene: three volunteers riding in the back of a bush taxi on the way to parakou, where they will part ways to spend Christmas in the far-flung places of Benin.

Vol 1: Oh, when I get any candy it's gone in like a day.

Vol 2: I have an entire box of chees-its waiting for me back in village. I had a bad day yesterday and I thought to myself... I need to eat those chees-its but I wanted to wait for a truly awful day.

Vol 1: Oh I have no shame eating an entire box of chees-its in one day. I get no less happiness if I eat them all at once or if I spread it out... so I just eat them all at once.

Vol 3: I still have half a bag of reese's cups still from when I went to America!

Vol 2: well you have to savor them! especially cuz they get all melty.

Vol 3: I unwrap the foil bit and then I eat the whole thing and spit out the paper wrapping when I'm finished since they are so melty.

Vol 2: Yeah I unwrap the whole thing--

Vol 1: BUT YOU LICK THE WRAPPER RIGHT??

Vol 2: oh yeah, of course. I unwrap it a little bit and then I stick my tongue in there and scoop the whole thing out.

Vol 1: Like an anteater?! Hahahaha



Now you have to guess which one is me. Good luck my little starfishes! Haha and merry almost Christmas!

A secondhand account replete with inaccuracies

My friend Raili and I decided it would be really funny to write a blog post describing what we think of the other person's life, throwing together all the snippets and fragments to create as whole a picture of each other's lives as possible. And if you guys at home think you are getting an incomplete picture, just remember that 90% of the phone calls my friends in country are getting are when something really devastating or traumatic just happened. But Raili did pretty good job - my corrections are bracketed.

The Villagoise Life of Pa(l)mudo – a secondhand account replete with inaccuracies

Camille lives in a small village in the northern Borgou called Ingardidaboo (more or less). [It's called Angaradebou.] Her village is in the commune of Kalalé, which she shares with two other environmental volunteers. It is in the middle of nowhere, where cell service does not exist and where it can take you all day to find a ride out of village, a feat which can break your fragile spirit if you cannot find a moto. [TRUE AND ANNOYING STORY; it took me 5 hours to get out of village one time. Dumb.) She is vraiment in the bush - it takes her 70,000 hours to get from her site to her workstation town of Parakou.

In village, she is known by its 200 inhabitants only as Palmudo, which in Fulani means roughly “a person who comes to fix all of the problems.” [Pamudo, and it means "one who pays close attention and thinks ahead. But I'll take it!] Each day, Camille strolls the red dirt paths toward her community garden, illustrious hair disguised under a fulard, sword at the hip. [I don't have a sword YET but I can get one any time I want at the market, and when I do I'm gonna wear that shit all day everyday, and I'm gonna intimidate all the annoying children. Swords are the northern version of machetes, which are the southern version of "unnecessarily large and scary thing that does everything."] She’s growing all of the things in her community garden (the best in the commune!), and trying to convince her fellow women gardeners to eat things like lettuce and eggplant instead of just tomatoes and onions and peppers.

In addition to the fruits of her garden labor, Palmudo eats a lot of pounded yams, and the meat and cheese from the Fulani cattle who roam freely throughout the bush. [I don't eat the meat, it really grosses me out.] She does not eat poultry because she simultaneously despises and is terrified of them. And occasionally she also eats Cheeze-Its, when someone from America is awesome enough to send them to her. (Cough, cough.) Because the village is so small, she can’t buy food in her village, but instead has to go to market in a nearby village and cook food on the floor of her house. It’s kind of like indoor camping, complete with the gas cookstove, lack of electricity and indoor plumbing, and the mosquito net tent. [TRUTH.]

Because she has no electricity and because she is a machine, Palmudo reads a book a day. Other hobbies when she is not working in the garden include: scrubbing bat poop off the walls of her home, biking out into the bush in search of cell reception, practicing extensive Fulani greetings with everyone in her village (“Napinday! Seyja! Wodeedama!”), and blaming any and all her epidermal problems on the sun because it’s easier than trying to explain it in Fulani. Oh, and trying to avoid accidentally wandering into Nigeria. Dumb. (But not really...actually, it's pretty rad.)

Pretty good, huh? Welp, that's my silly life. You can read my idea of her life here:

http://journeydujourbenin.blogspot.com/

And my lovelies, c'est tout pour maintenant. I have to jet off to market before I go back to village. Or I could wait a week for market day but I ain't got no food and that don't work. I hope this finds you well and enjoying snow and drinking hot chocolate with real marshmallows, and watching Christmas carols and decking the halls.

When I write a book about my life

So a bunch of volunteers are all together right now, celebrating the end of IST (In Service Training) and enjoying the last moments of our free hotel rooms and all the perks of city living... air conditioner, A POOL (!!!!), pizza, eating an entire block of cheese, boxed wine straight from the box, electricity, fan milk (which is kind of like ice cream, but not really in the slightest), other people who can speak your language, sharing new music/movies/tv shows... et choses comme ca.

Right now we are playing a game where we try to name our biography, and here are some of the best ones to describe my life:

Malaria of the Face: The Camille Harper Story

(Everyone is always very very concerned with how awful my skin is here. Everyone in my village gestures to my face and asks me in Fulani what's wrong with my face, and since I'm unable to answer in Fulani I just gesture to the sun, or to water, or to any likely or unlikely scapegoat or actual goat. The absolute best time was when I had malaria and I met with the doctor and he asked me if my skin problems was a symptom of malaria... hence malaria of the face.)

Pamudo, what do you think you're doing? The Camille Harper story

(I already explained that my village name is Pamudo, right? Everything I say, do, or try to do, everyone thinks I'm acting a fool.)

Things Falling on my Face: The Story of Camille

(During my two week post visit, when I visited my site for the first time during training, I was staying in my house and the women, in their excitement, gave me a headboard and a footboard to prop up on the wall. It doesn't actually connect or prop up a bed, but they were really excited for me to have it and it proved to be very useful when I hung up my mosquito net. One night, towards the end of my two week visit, I grabbed a handful of mosquito net and pulled gently, accidentally pulling the entire headboard with it. It came falling towards me in slow motion, so I very confidently put out my hand to catch it, only for the metal bar to sail right past my hand and smash into my face. I had an awesome bruise on my face when I met back up with all the volunteers I trained with, and naturally they all thought it was hilarious. 

To add to the things-falling-on-my-face phenomena, about a week ago I was trying to hang up curtains in my house. I don't have a hammer but I was able to use my beninese hoe, which is basically just a club with a metal plate stuck loosely into it. So I was hammering away, so proud of my homemaking skills and ingenuity, when the metal plate flew out and hit me in the face. AGAIN. But now I have a pretty awesome scar from the gash I had on my face for a week. And the next day, when all the women were tasking what happened, I just blamed it on the sun. If they can blame malaria on the sun (which they do all the time here) then I can certainly blame a gash in my face on the sun.)

PAMUDO ARE YOU SLEEPING RIGHT NOW? BECAUSE WE'RE GONNA TALK TO YOU IN FULANI AND PEEK IN YOUR WINDOWS UNTIL YOU COME OUTSIDE AND SAY HI: A Volunteer's Story 

(This is pretty straightforward actually, but this is how I'm woken up almost on the daily. And my window is right over my bed so the women will just come to my window and peer down at me while I'm laying in bed. I's not a great thing.)

Other contenders - 

Living with Giardia: The Camille Harper story

Do I have to eat that? A Volunteer's Life in Benin

How to get away with Washing your Hair once a Month: A Guide to Surviving Peace Corps

Sitting Around and Watching the Chickens

My life according to 30 Rock

"Guess who has two thumbs, limited french, and hasn't cried once today? this moi!" -Liz Lemon

Azonto! Azonto! Azonto!

I am here to satisfy all your senses, my friends! I gave you pictures yesterday (with many more on facebook) and today, I give you something for your ears. But first, a non-story story.

So as you know my village is not electrified, but Benin would not be the Benin it is today without cell phones. (Not so much in my village, but everywhere, regardless of what you eat or what you wear or where you live, you have a cell phone.) And naturally, they must be charged! So I take my cell phone to the only place in village with a generator, and pay 100 francs to charge my phone. C'est facile. Conveniently, the charging station is very close to my house, just across the street. And to advertise their business (they also provide the services of hair cuts, a small television which might show occasional soccer matches, and the only working fan in village) they play INCREDIBLY loud music, at all hours of the day and night. But, because they are Beninese above all else, they tend to play the same song on repeat. For hours. They really like Nigerian music. This is one of the songs they particularly love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grPJ8DemVrE

What's particularly amazing is that this tends to be a hub for the young men of village to come and, I don't know, gossip? Watch football only occasionally? Glory in the breeze of that one, hard-working fan? I really only hang out with old women so I have no idea what the young men do. But every once in a while, when I come back from taking my evening jog, there is a group of teen-ish boys all dancing in the middle of the road to some simultaneous, boy band dance routine. It just warms my heart. And then I come slogging through, sweating my face off, breathing hard, and hating life because I just went on a run in Africa, and everyone laughs at me and dances. It's cute.

Trippin' around in someone else's home

Eep my friends! It's been so long since I've talked to you about my life! It's kind of ridiculous that I'm approaching my six month mark, n'est pas? I kind of can't believe I've been in Benin for that long, the days can be long but time goes by soooo fast, especially in village.  I'm in Parakou for IST, a week long training sesh, which means a week of electricity, internet, running water, cold beverages, and food that isn't yam-based. That also means I get to see all my friends from training, most of whom I haven't seen in the three months I've been living and working in my village. And I realized that I haven't even told you about my village, how awful am I? (Not that awful, I'm actually pretty great thank you very much!)

Well, I live in a teeny tiny village in the commune of Kalale called Angaradebou. (I know, quite the mouthful, huh? It's pronounced An-GAR-ah-DEH-boo.) You won't be able to find it on a map, but it's about 3 1/2 hours from parakou, which is where I am right now, at our lovely volunteer workstation. Angaradebou is a small Gando village, which means that even though everyone speaks Peul, the language of the Fulani people, they are actually Bariba who, when they were young, were thrown out of their village because it was believed they had an evil fetish (bad juju, it's a voodoo thing) and were raised by the Peul people. Complicated cultural and historical nuances aside, there are around 250-300 people who live in Angaradebou, and the population fluctuates as people travel for work and school. The main language spoken is Peul, but there are small sub-sects of people who also use Bariba occasionally. Very very few people are able to speak French, which makes my job equal parts more interesting, and more complicated, and usually really funny as we try to cobble a language everyone can understand - usually lots of hand gestures. 

Angaradebou has very few amenities. While most villages have at least a weekly market, Angaradebou does not, which means I either have to ride my bike (or zem, because I'm lazy)to Matchore, which is another small town with a terrible market about 3 miles away, or go to Peonga, where another volunteer lives, and go to the much better Fulani market there. Market day is a glorious day: soy cheese (which tastes much better than it sounds), couli-couli (which is like this spicy friend peanut snack, very tasty), tissue (which is what they call the very distinctive fabric here, usually printed with some garish pattern in ridiculous colors), gateau, which is French for cake but market-speak for savory fried dough, and a varying selection of produce. And because Bethany, the volunteer who lives there, and I are friends, we usually run around the village looking for adventures and mischief. Angaradebou is situated along one road which bisects the village; it is a small road, not even pictured on most maps and almost impossible to reach by car in the rainy season. Because it is so far out in the bush, it is incredibly quiet on most days, and seldom in my time here so far has it hosted many events outside of the religious holidays. My village is primarily Islamic, with a very pretty mosque within shouting distance from my house (I am often woken by the call to prayer in the mornings, which always sounds like they are saying "Allllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaah hot butter!" It's actually quite nice and comforting) but there is also a small church. Also my village is not electrified; the closest village with electricity is Kalale, the seat of the commune and about an hour by zem away. Naturally, my village also lacks running water. It wasn't nearly ass hard to get used to no electricity or running water as you would believe. I get absolutely ecstatic when it rains, because then i can fill my water barrel with rain water instead of going to the well and pulling up well water. (Not that I'm complaining, because usually when I get to the well theres a bunch of kids pulling up water and they just pull it up for me. No one lets me do anything in village.)

Well, that is the briefest of brief overviews of life in Angaradebou. And since I'm in Parakou for a week, I'll be sure to catch you up on all the silly misadventures of living in the bush, the tasty triumphs of gardening, the outrageous miscommunications of learning another new language, the perks of being chief of a tribe of children, and all the other ups and downs and sidewayses of living in a teeny tiny village in Northern Benin. 

Down in the valley with the whiskey rivers

oh you guys, I’ve been sitting on the floor of the work station, staring at facebook and trying to drum up the steam to type up everything about my life to tell you guys. I’m exhausted already, there’s just so much to tell and it’s gonna have to wait. BUT I will give you a couple of anecdotes that will give you a bit of the flavor of my life here.

I shaved my legs for the first time in a month the other day, and as my actual legs were revealed (a month is a loooong time, just in case you didn’t know) I noticed that my legs were actually covered in a bunch of small bruises that I’d never noticed because of all the dirt and hair. (I actually know where most of these bruises are from though, which is pretty uncommon in la vie de Camille. I got thrown off a zem the other day because there were a bunch of giant cows in the road who wouldn’t move. It was quite an adventure actually, and all I got out of it was a bruise and a good story. I was telling my dad about it last night and how normal it is when it dawned on me that, to me, my life is completely normal but it’s such a different kind of normal. The getting thrown off zems and giant cows in the road and not having to shave kind of normal.)

After the Volunteer Swear-In at the Ambassador’s house (we took the Department of the Interior oath and became real volunteers, not trainees! whoop!) a couple of us went out in Cotonou, the biggest city in Benin. There’s a road that is just full of Western food, where you can get schwarma and burgers and Italian food and Indian food, and we decided we wanted Indian food. We go, and get our chicken tikka masala and everything is just so amazing. We even got to speak in English with the staff (they actually yelled at us for trying to use French!) and we are sitting here, just so happy with our tasty tasty food, and we decided to splurge on some water. He brings us this giant bottle of cold water and we all just melt... oh my god cold water... you don’t even know how tasty that cold water was. It’s the little things, my friends.

I don’t have service in my house so when I talk to other volunteers or my parents, I have to walk out into the bush. I actually have a nice shady spot that I go and I sit under a neem tree just far enough the road to be noticed by some of the passersby. Usually there’s a group of kids standing at the road just staring at me, trying to figure out what I’m doing. Everything I do is weird to my village, they just don’t know what to do with me. Whether I’m running, or gardening, or washing my hair out my door, they just stop and stare and try to puzzle out what this strange white girl is doing in their village with all this hair and movement and speaking french. 

I actually have to go, we’re going to the supermarches to look for can openers and chocolate and toilet paper and all the tasty/important things you can find in the city. More late my sweets!

Happy-Making

friends of the world: I have a new address! (I say new because I've been posting addresses all over the place on Facebook, but for the bloggerverse it's the only address I've given you so far. However, its the best and fastest way to get something* to me.)

Camille Harper Volontaire
BP 358 (Corps de la Paix)
Parakou, Benin
Afrique L'ouest

*And by something, I mean letters and packages and pictures and candy and cheez-its and play-doh and whatever other lovely things you can send to a cheese starved friend in Benin. Thank you in advance, thank you to those who have sent things already, and pleas for kindness to those in the middle.



And I actually hate to do this, but these are all the things I am hurting for in Benin:

lots of those mio squeezy drink packets. I'm absolutely terrified of running out. I have been pacing
myself but damn, I can only drink hot boring water so much. It's my special treat of the day.
dark chocolate m&ms and reeses pieces.
CHEEZ-ITS (girl, you know!)
new music 
magazines! cosmo and natgeo and newsweek and anything lovely or gossipy or smart or trashy. except people, people pisses me off.
stamps and letters. sooo many letters, I can't even begin to explain how happy a letter makes me
pepperoni/summer sausage
sauce packets (pesto, alfredo, mushroom gravy, taco, asian story-frys and teriyaki, anything that looks tasty) and seasonings
That sprinkly stuff you put on popcorn to make it taste buttery/cheesy/ranchy whatever. I found popcorn at the market and it has changed my life.
parmesan cheese

anything else lovely/tasty/dancey/awesome/fun/happy-making. I trust you guys. Thanks a million!

People Call Us Renegades 'Cuz We Like Living Crazy

I've been in village for one month today!! AHHHHHH! obviously I'm not in village right now, since I don't have electricity or internet in my village, but it's crazy that I've been living out in the bush for an entire month now, and it's kind of a big deal how NOT a big deal village life is. The village I live in is called Angaradebou, which is quite a mouthful, and I will tell you all about it and it's crazy, kooky inhabitants and beautiful garden and ridiculous children and colonies of goats on another occasion. However, they all really love me, and they gave me a new name: Pamudo. It's Fulani for "one who pays close attention and thinks ahead." 

So, I’ve been blogging the old fashioned way, in my handy dandy journal. But I promise I have been hoarding ridiculous things to tell all you lovelies, about life in Benin and eating soy cheese and reading too many books and gardening under the African sun and jogging in the savannah and all the other things I do and think and watch. A running theme throughout the first month of being in my village are the things that are normal, which otherwise would not be at all. 

Things That Are Just A Part of my Life Now

• Riding around on motorcycles on roads that were probably never good roads but, because it’s the rainy season, are now barely passable. I was riding on a zem the other day to Kalale (the seat of my communes mayor’s office) and it started raining and the roads turned into mud and we were soaked in a minute and lakes formed in what used to be the road and it was a grand adventure. 
• I traded tundra naps for bush naps. One of my first days in village, like a giant fool, I rode my bike to my market village, Peonga, which is about 8km away. (In all fairness, that is not far but bush distances are a whole different ball game.) In the heat of the damn day. I almost died. Instead of dying though, I decided to take a couple of breaks under some shady trees along the way. At one such point I was so tired that I just laid down in the bush and closed my eyes. After about 5 minutes of repose I looked up to discover that I was surrounded by about 30 giant cows, white and black with giant horns and massive shoulder blades and swatting bushy tails. When I sat up and they were startled and ran away like I was an alien. (I guess I kinda am.)
• Haggling. It was a joy in Thailand but incredibly stressful in French but now that I’ve got my language under control I’ve got my groove back. The secret in Thailand was the walk-away but here, it’s the disbelieving “Eh?!”, the all-knowing head tilt (“Now you and I know both know better than that.”) and sometimes it’s the joking and laughing that get you where you need to be. At least that worked when I bought my buckets in the market.
• Siestas on the floor. This has been my life since I’ve been here, and it’s quickly becoming my favorite part of the day. A girl can get used to socially acceptable napping; also it’s completely necessary, as another volunteer told me it was 109 degrees in the shade the other day. 
• Kids coming to my doorstep just to watch. Whether I’m cooking dinner, watching my water boil, or reading on my mat, I seem to provide hours of entertainment to the kids in my concession, mostly on account of being white and having eyebrows that weren’t drawn on with eyeliner. They must listen for the sound of my door to open (it is certainly not quiet, my old creaky door) and then begins a day of trying to sneak in the door, touch my things, peek in windows or, maybe, just the silent watching of a white girl turning oxygen into carbon dioxide. 
• Watching the rain and napping. I absolutely love it. I’ve always loved the rain but here it’s just so earnest... “I’m gonna rain, dammit, and I don't care if you need to go somewhere or do something today. I might rain for 10 minutes or 3 days and you’ll have to deal with it.”
• Goat or baby? It’s my new favorite game. It’s usually goat, for some reason the Beninese goats just shriek every chance they get, and they sound like crazy humans being murdered.
• Sand in my bed. It’s like going to the beach, without the beach. I think my homemade bush broom is my favorite possession, I use it like 5 times a day. There is sand EVERYWHERE.
• Thinking every sickness is malaria. I was deathly ill the other day and all I could think was “Please don’t be malaria! Oh God, I have malaria.” Well, that’s what I though after “Please don’t pass out in the middle of all these people and crash into a pile of soja cheese or get run over by a zem!” Of course it was market day in Peonga at the time, so there were people everywhere buying and haggling and selling and yelling and walking and trying to buy my hair. (I was actually in the market today when somebody asked me for my hair. "Il faut me donner ca! You must give me your hair!" Obviously I declined. My hair gets just as much attention as my clear skin on most days. That's what they say, we're not white we're clear.)
• Sitting and Watching. Not to be confused with Sitting and Waiting, because I’m usually not waiting when I’m S&W-ing. My favorite place to do this is the garden, leaning against the cistern in the shade. You get to watch all kinds of extraordinarily normal things this way - the other day I watched a couple of cows bumble good-naturedly into the garden, and the melee that followed when their young cowherds had to chase them out. It was all quite amusing.
• Not being able to tell if that slide of something under my shirt, across my ankle, down my leg, is sweat or a bug. It is equally likely to be the bug or the sweat, unfortunately, though I’m not sure which one is better or worse. 
• The smell of kerosene. I’m starting to find that I have more in common with the heroines of Jane Austen/sexy historical novels than my formal life. Also, I must write more letters than Elizabeth Bennet ever did. 

Of course there are a million other things, pantomiming and just-say-yes-ing and children touching me and people asking me when I’m going to get married and have kids (or pantomiming it, which is rather amusing) and eating as little pate as possible. But here’s one last thing for tonight, a kismet welcoming present from the fm gods on my first night in my village: I was sitting in my room, taking a break from packing, when I hear from my window... “All I need... is a beauty and a beat... who can make my life compleeeeeeete.” In the middle of the smallest village of this nobody’s-ever-heard-of-it country on this lightyears-behind-any-progressive-culture continent, I hear Justin Bieber singing one of my all time favorite Bieber jams. Welcome to Angaradebou, Pamudo. 

A teut a l'huere, my cheries!

Work Station Days and Nights

oh my god, my life here is so ridiculous. Last night I was flipping through a month old Rolling Stone and I didn't recognize any of the top 10 songs on iTunes right now, so I made another volunteer who had just returned from America sing them for me. I want everyone who reads this to take a private moment to be grateful for the following things: cold water whenever you want it; fall weather; the fact that your feet are probably clean right now (mine haven't been clean since I got here); salad whenever you want it; fried pickles; fans that actually work (I have a ceiling fan in my house but no electricity, someone explain that to me please); the ability, and reason, to look cute; TACOS.

"It's because white people always look lost and hungry, which is usually true."

First of all, I would just like to explain to you how I got to have internet today. I took a twenty minute ride on the back of a zem, or one of the taxi-motorcycles that are the only forms of transport, piled three people deep. Then I went to one cyber cafe, whose internet was down. Then I zemmed to another internet cafe and negotiated the price of internet in French. Altogether, it probably took an hour and a half to find internet. I say that not in a bitter way, because it was kind of a hilarious adventure and I managed to find some lebanese food along the way; instead I say that as an excuse for why you I have been silent as a church mouse, and for that I am sorry and have this one excuse: I LIVE IN AFRICA NOW! And I really rather like it...

Africa is so many things, all fighting and scrambling to be the first impression on your mind: hot, then vibrant, then loud, beautiful, impossibly old, wonderfully kind, dirty, alive, practical, tired, full of growing things, skinny children, the freshest fruit, trash, laughter, moto upon moto upon taxi moto. Every moment is divided into two things: first the vision with American eyes, in which I look upon the event/person/task with unfamiliar eyes and compare it to America; and then there is the realization that of all the things I know, these capable women know how to do everything better than I (except perheps be idle or make compost). I say women because, although this society is incredibly, heart-breakingly patriarchal, while the men are off looking for second wives or driving cars, the women are running and feeding and washing this entire country.

And speaking of women, I went from being an only chid to gaining five sisters, a little brother, three darling little nieces, a princess mama, a jolly old papa, three chickens, two skeptical guard dogs, a skinny little kitten, and innumerable lizards. I’ve never been very girly, which my sister’s have picked up on, and they have taken on the task of fussing over my fluffy hair (all the more fluffy for the incessant humidity), gifting me with earrings and hair bows, and making sure all my new dresses are as kick-ass as possible. (Rest-assured this is true - every dress I’ve had made is better than the last, and this is a country that knows how to do clothes. Maybe they got that, as well as their language and their school system, from the French.) My little brother likes to boss me around in french and promenade me around the village, showing off his yovo to all his neighbors and friends. (Yovo is the term for white person, which is shouted from packs of wild children every where I go, as well as from uncles and neighbors and, occasionally, the other volunteers in various shades of irony and humor. The humor is slowly being seeped out of the term, however there is no malice - the villagers just like the novelty of white people.)

I live in the village of Misserete, which is posh in that it has electricity, and some of my comrades even have running water and televisions! Imagine coming to Africa only to watch James Bond in French! My family, with it’s gaggle of women, has a television, whose sole purpose seems to hold up the sullen photos of my family. For such an alive culture, the Beninois like to present themselves as stoic and mean in their photos, which can’t be farther from the truth as I’ve never met so many women constantly shouting laughter and jokes in a language I don’t understand. (My family, along with their scraps of French, speaks Fon and Goon. I know about 5 words in either language.) For you googlers out there, Misserete is about 10 miles outside of Porto Nove, the largest city in Benin and the place where you can find hamburgers and olive oil if you know where to go; otherwise its pate blanche and palm oil, all day everyday. (Pate blanche is kinda like grits without all the butter and salt and cheese that makes it good, and more solid.) There’s actually quite a few yovos in Misserete also, which is nice. All of the Environmental Action volunteers, like me, are in Misserete for training, so we got to school for nine hours a day and learn french, french, french, some stuff about gardening, french, and french, and then we’ll go grab a beer at the local buvette (the bar) and sit under the mango tree, gossiping and unwinding and talking about how EA volunteers are the best. 

Obviously, being two months in, there are a million other things to tell, gossip and food stories and funny language trip ups and long bus rides and always being sweaty and dirty and making vegetables with my hand, but I'm afraid there is just not enough time. But, my dearies, I'm getting the hang of it and having as many adventures as I can, all so you'll know these few things about Africa. A teut a l'huere!

FAQs

One big fat week before my big fat adventure begins! AHHHHH! And because everyone knows a little bit about the peace corps, but not a lot about Benin or what I'm doing or why I'm going or when they'll see me again or if the food is tasty, I'd like to enlighten all your wonderful selves in one fell swoop.

Q: How long will you be gone? WHAT??

A: My term of service is for 27 months. That includes three months of training in Porto Novo, the capital of the country, and two years of actual service. As for where I'll be once I begin my actual service, I have no idea. I'll be sure to fill you wonderful creatures in once I get the glorious news myself.

Q: Will you come home during your service?

A: Honestly, I have no idea. From what I've googled randomly, it is very expensive to fly to Cotonou, one of the largest cities in Benin, and the Peace Corps does not pay for weekend trips to the States for air conditioning and bacon cheeseburgers. They DO however fly me home for family emergencies, so you guys need to start pretending to be my cousins and maybe plan a "catastrophe" around Christmas. And I do have the option of coming home with my own money and vacation time (which I do earn!). So if you guys want to start donating to the Camille-wants-to-come-home fund, we are now accepting donations. But as of right now, I have no idea if I will a) be able to, or b) want to use my vacation time to come home or to go traveling or both, or whatever.

Q: How can I get in touch with you?

A: Oh you! I know I know, you already miss me and my wit and charm. Obviously my internet will be spotty, as bringing wi-fi to the rest of the world is kinda low down the priority list. But I do have this here blog and my Facebook (naturally). I will be sure to keep them updated on all my shenanigans. Also, once I get all settled, apparently you will be able to call my cell phone from a skype account. For the interested parties I will be happy to pass along my phone number for phone calls from the bush. And there are always letters! I'll post my address soon but I would love love love to receive some letters, especially the kind with stickers and trashy celebrity news and juicy gossip.

Q: What will you be doing?

A: Ummm... My official title will be Natural Resources Advisor in the Environment/Agriculture sector! Yay!

Q: What does that mean?

A: Ha! I'm not quite sure, and that's where that three months of training will come in. Obviously part of that will be language and cultural immersion but that also will clue me in on the environmental issues within the country, and from there I'll know what needs to be done and how I can help. From what I understand, mostly that will mean working in schools, with kids mostly, and teaching them good environmental and agricultural habits and creating a sustainable basis to grow the country towards the future. What a mouthful! Secondly through hundredly, I'll be teaching AIDS education, language training, healthy habits, progressive gender roles, et cetera, et cetera. I will definitely fill you lovelies in on all that once I get the deets as well.

Sound like I'm still not sure what exactly is going on? Yessiree! I'm flying by the seat of my quasi-français-speaking pantalons.

That's all for now my dears! Perhaps I'll follow up with a part two soon. 

Limbo

I find myself in a very strange kind of limbo these days. I have three weeks to go before I set off for Benin, and as I've (mostly) finished working, my life has taken on a very lethargic pattern: Game of Thrones, swim in the pool, lay in the hammock, drive all over the planet, google everything Benin, and read a thousand books until the next episode of Game of Thrones. I'm trying to strike a balance between Be-As-Lazy-As-Possible (since I imagine this brand of HBO and  cheez-it laziness will soon be a thing of the past) and See-Everyone-And-Do-Everything (since I'll be hard-pressed to find baseball games and picnics with my dad in the bush). I can only imagine how different my life will be once I get to Africa, and I know these cat-nap days are numbered, but my! how they are sweet.

Limbo definitely describes the doing, but also the thinking. I've definitely come to terms with the fact that it's happening, and I am looking towards it with a kind of reverence reserved for the actual and not merely the possible. This manifests itself in minor panic attacks ("How many ponytail holders should I bring? Is fifty too many?! What about BOBBY PINS??") to a small stockpile of toothpaste and granola bars. My mom jumped on the bandwagon today by being uncharacteristically worried about the durability of my hairbrush.

I suspect I'll have to store these moments up for those long African summers, and winters that feel like summers, as I struggle and succeed and sweat and teach and laugh and cry and eat strange things and wash laundry and plant seeds and speak français and everything else I couldn't even guess at.

that's all I have for you, lovelies. can't wait to tell you about the exciting things, I just have to get there first! 

All the Words

I hate blogs, but I like adventures and writing and trying new foods and changing the world, so as a compromise to those I constantly leave behind I present this gift: all the words that enter my head as I prepare, travel, and live in Benin, West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer.

At the moment I'm watching Game of Thrones and drinking a local beer, so my report tonight will be brief and probably boring. But hear you me, I'm in for adventures and if you think of me occasionally, I look forward to sharing them with your lovely self, my curious mom, and whoever stumbles upon this while googling "quirky, good hair, West Africa, obsessed with Game of Thrones and saving the rain forests."

cheers loves.

oh, and if you managed to find yourself here and are of the few wondering how they can help me prepare, book suggestions and REI giftcards are where it's at. A million times thank you my little darlings for your time, love, and support.