Spirals and Tidepools

I want to tell you something about the Sneaky Hate Spiral. The Sneaky Hate Spiral, SHS, is this never-ending circle of things being annoying and irritating, and because of that you get more annoyed and irritated. It starts out like thus:

Something hits you, or you have a bad day. Some times these are isolated incidents: someone says something mean, your stomach hurts, something you were really excited about failed in a glorious show of catastrophe around your feet. Sometimes, this incident of catastrophe jumpstarts the SHS, and that bad day makes you so annoyed and irritated that lose all hope in the system, yourself, your village, whatever. And because you've lost all hope, you spend the whole next day hidden in your house because your kindle never disappoints you and everything else is the worst. Then that causes you to feel guilty, and to be scared of leaving the house the next day because you're scared somebody will say something nasty about how you didn't leave your house the day before. So then you spend two days in your house, or you avoid certain people that you like the most and don't want to hate you, then you feel guilty and terrible and like a big fat failure. And because you feel so lousy, you become more annoyed and irritated, and want to go out and do work even less. After a few days of this, you try to convince yourself that it's all Benin's fault, that it's right to close yourself up like a hermit because that's perfectly acceptable in America. It's weak, and you know it, but you go with it. But after a few days you feel even lousier.

Finally you break out of it, or get a break, and you have a good day, and all of a sudden Benin is this magical, motivated place with so much potential. You become satisfied with your work, which makes you want to go do more the next day, and you set up meetings and plan out formations, and those go well, and they lead to other work, and because you're so happy to being doing work you're glowing and happy and optimistic. Then something hits you, or you have a bad day....

I think you get it.

At the moment I'm in that right between space, clawing my way out of the sneaky hate part and into the everything's gonna be great part. Also I'm kinda venn diagramming, because simultaneously I'm also right in the middle of a completely different Spiral, the Never Satisfied When You Know Theres Something Else Is Out There Spiral, the NSWYKTSEOTS.

The NSWYKTSEOTS goes like this: I kind of always dreamed about Peace Corps, so I built up this huge great adventure, this idea that I could live in a cool place, use my talents and experience for the greater good in a community that needed me, gain skills along the way, travel. Those are all true things, but after about 6 months you get complacent, because thats just what happens. So you start dreaming about being in America, being able to go to book stores and drive and having a nice kitchen, meeting friends in coffee shops and eating mexican food with your parents. But then, when you get to the place where you are doing that, the America of your dreams, when you're all settled in and recovering from your last adventure, just happy to be in a place thats home and normal, 6 months pass and you get bored of that. You start itching for your next adventure. You want to go aimlessly traveling. So you do, you quite your job, or you save your money, and you go hop around Asia for a while. And that's great, relaxing and interesting and fun, but you feel selfish because while you're having a blast you're not contributing to the world. So you start to cast about how you can find your next great adventure, this idea that you could live in a cool place, use your talents and experience for the greater good in a community that needed you, gain skills along the way, travel... You look for your next Peace Corps, so to speak.

You see?

And as if one of those weren't enough, I'm being thrashed about between these two whirlpools like a guppy, almost to the point that I'm scared that I'll never find that nirvana part, that place where I can do all these things and be all these things and have all these things. What if I've spent all this time in Benin just dreaming about how delightful America is, only to go back and be disappointed and bored? And what if that drives me to another place, only to be bored with that in 6 months? What does this mean for my future?

These are the things I think about when it's late and you don't have electricity. I guess it's not the biggest problem, considering that that world is my playground. But still, it's worth a good ponder. 

Fielding Odd Questions

The other day I walked into the office that I occasionally work in, carrying my lime green water bottle. I sat on the edge of the desk, as I only had a couple of questions to ask the accountant of the ONG. While he was finishing up his work, he glanced at my water bottle and asked me if there was mary-wanna inside.

Huh? I asked.

Mary-wanna. Mary-wanna.

???

Mary-wanna!

OH! Marijuana! No, I did not put liquid marijuana in my water bottle before coming in to work today, thanks buddy.

It's in moments like these that I don't know to be the American who can correct and instruct, or the American who is ignorant and innocent. 

Parlez-vous Francais? Parfois.

At this point the new kids have been here for six months. (At some point I'm gonna have to stop calling them new kids... but they might always be new kids, as we probably were to the year before us.) That's incredibly weird, considering that we got here a year before them, so that means I've been here for 18 months. And the weirdest part is that the new kids consider me a source of wisdom and advice. I know that because they've told me (at least a couple of them have) and every time I just don't know how to respond. It's weird and hard to consider that you're good at anything here, because every day something happens that makes you feel stupid. But every day you get incrementally less bad at things. I keep telling the new kids that you don't see it happening, that it happens so little-by-little that you keep it in your head that you're as incompetent as when you arrived, but all of a sudden you're a year in and you're not stumbling over your French as much, you can have entire conversations in another language without having to go through point by point and conjugate and make sure you have a script built up in your head. You go to the market by yourself, instead of asking slyly if someone more experienced will go with you so you can ask them to do all the talking and negotiating for you. You order what you really want when you get food, instead of saying "meme chose" (same thing) as the person in front of you because it's easier.

But obviously, you are learning. I am learning. And now I think in French, but almost exclusively when I'm mad or have to argue, or when I'm thinking of lesson plans and new concepts. I dream in French occasionally. And what I'm noticing is, I have a completely different personality in French. I'm more patient, but more aggressive and argumentative. I'm kind (I "s'il vous plait" more than anyone in this country) but I follow that up with the kind of demands I will not budge on. I'm sassy, and I make jokes, but I turn on a dime and will not stand down. I'm authoritative in French. I have no idea how to compare that to who I am in English, because I'm just me in English, or at least the me I've always known myself to be.

I remember Sandy said to me that French will always be a language of anger for her, and I think the same thing has happened to me. Sometimes when something makes me mad, even something American or a conversation I had in English, I instinctively start yelling in my head in French. But I hope it makes me powerful. I feel like it's kind of leaking into my English too. I used to be a little scared of how... demanding? unrelenting?... my mom used to be when she had to fight for something (almost only at work, my mom isn't actually mean or scary, but when she means business she means business!) and now I'm recognizing that same quality in myself. I hope that I am using it for good, when I argue why girls should have rights and protections in a country that sees them just as chore-doers and sexual objects, when I argue that women are smart and strong, when I try to impress that my white skin does not make rich or stupid or weak.

I feel dumb a lot of times when I use French, but I also feel powerful because I almost always communicate strong, important messages. I don't gossip in French, or tell silly jokes or puns (although I do joke with the mamas in the market, and I think it's funny when I get sassy with zemidjan drivers, even if no one else does), I don't chatter idly. When I'm using French its to teach or instruct, to negotiate, to demand, to communicate. When I use French, I mean business.

So I guess what I mean to say is, thanks Mom!

How Beninese people make me feel

What smart people have to say about it

A Day in the Life

So my friend Melissa's mom and friend came to visit, and since Melissa is one of my close-mates (close being a relative term at about two hours away), I went to visit and fete with them. Melissa had organized a big huge party, inviting the traditional dancers and drummers to come to her house, which in turn drew a huge crowd consisting of almost her entire village. It was incredible: the dancers wore women's clothes and seed pods wrapped around their legs, and danced in a frenzy like you would not believe. I say this to you now because, before having jumped in the circle myself, I thought, hey, that looks easy, I'm actually not that impressed. (Let me tell you, after about ten minutes in the middle of that circle, seed pods itching all up my calves, knees exposed, feet hopping at lightning speeds, I changed my tune. Also, my calves bore the brunt of my ignorance for about four days afterwards, burning every time I moved or thought about moving.) 

But now, to the point of that story, hanging out with Melissa's mom is the first time I've interacted face-to-face with an American stranger. I had to explain myself, and my village, and what I'm doing, and how I live; every funny story, every poignant experience, took about three times as long to describe because I had to explain everything. (And bear in mind, her daughter was a year into her peace corps experience, so she knew what was up. And she had been in Benin for about a week by then, in which I'm sure she soaked up everything Beninese. And that's a lot of things to soak up.) But the question I had the hardest time answering was, so what does your normal day look like?

Honestly, I have no idea myself. This morning I woke up at seven, got on my bike and rode to a nearby village, wrote an official demand for an act of donation of a half-hectacre of land to be given to a women's group to start a garden (IN FRENCH!! I even corrected my work partner's grammar and spelling!!), rode around on my friends motorcycle as we went from one person to the other gathering signatures and official stamps, organized the transport of said letter first to the chef d'arrondissement (kind of like a mini-mayor, for a smaller region) and then to the maire (the mayor of our commune, the equivalent of a county in the states). Then I rode my bike home, took a nap, hand-washed some clothes and hung it up to dry, grilled some corn and soy beans on my stove so I could take it to the mill, and carried the two big bowls of grilled things on my head to my friend Hawaou's house so she could get it milled while I was gone. On my way, I was greeted by the president of my women's group, who has been gone for the last month harvesting cotton in another village, and since she is one of my favorite people, we sat and joked for a while. Then I got a zem-moto and came to Kalale, where I will take a taxi to Parakou tomorrow to feast and fete for Thanksgiving. (I normally listen to music on zems, and at one moment I took my headphones out to greet a friend and my zem driver grabbed it, saying "Musique americaine!! Tres bien!!" It was really cute.)

And that was just one day. And no two days are the same. Yeah they take on a kind of pattern: staff meetings in Kalale every two weeks, women's group meeting in Djega every week, garden meetings and work days every Thursday in Angaradebou; mornings in the garden, weeding and watering and spreading cow manure, afternoons biking to other villages, market days in Peonga haggling for onions and beans, hours of hand-washing my clothes and hanging them up to dry, reading in bed with my cat, going on walks with a parade of children, promenading through village to survey my latrine project, scheduling trainings and then shuttling across the countryside teaching women about nutrition. Some days I never leave the house because I'm all caught up reading the Lord of the Rings, although those days are much rarer now that I'm super-busy. Most days I'm out by eight, either zooming to this place or walking to that place or biking here and there. But believe you me, there is no such thing as the "typical" day. There are good days, and bad days, and boring days, and days where I would trade my left elbow for a nap, but no normal days. 

overheard le dousieme

On writing the VRF:

"What if you had to write up how many hours you spent watching Pretty Little Liars? Or pretending you weren't home when your neighbors knocked on your door? ORRRR how many hours you spend eating popcorn with Furrlock on your belly??"

"Oh my god, can you imagine?"



(Another entry for the dictionary of terms you probably don't understand: VRF. (Yes, another three letter acronym. So Washington.) VRF stands for Volunteer Response Feedback. We have to do them twice a year, a total of four times during our service. It doesn't sound like so much when you put it like that, but it is tedious, and so bureaucratic, and such a painstaking exercise in meaningless numbers and goal-setting and -reaching, monitoring and evaluation, self-examination, and all the dreariness of filling out a very very very long form. There's a part where they ask you to write up a success story, something you felt good during your service. It is hardly indicative of our lives here, but it's a fluffy Washington initiative to make everybody feel good. Blegh.)

Because you know you can

It's not my story to tell, so I'm not gonna tell it. It is a story that involves many characters, some I don't know, one I know and love very well, and I suppose a smattering of those that fall in the middle. Needless to say, someone very dear to me has had a traumatic upheaval, which has not only had a very big effect on her life but on someone very dear to her. While you can choose to see this as just one more situation in which I ask you for money, try to look at it as your opportunity to do something good.

If you have some time, please click here and read about her crazy/beautiful life. If you don't have time, you should make it. If you are exasperated at how little I write, if you are curious about Benin, about Peace Corps, about what its like to be an interesting person in an interesting place, you will very much enjoy your time inside her brain. (I've been meaning to point you her way for a while now. No time like the present.)

If you don't have time, just skip to here, and feel around in your heart, your wallet, your cup holders and couch cushions, and please help someone who truly needs it.

This is a crazy, insane, mixed-up, messed-up, darling, interesting place. Sometimes in a good way. Sometimes in a bad way. Sometimes to good people, sometimes to great people. 

Because another ebola post felt necessary... for SOME reason.

Let me tell you something about living in a concrete house with no electricity: you do a lot of thinking. You think about what makes you mad. (A lot of things.) You think about what makes you sad. (A lot of things.) You go over conversations you had that day and correct your french grammar. You think about what movie or tv show you would watch if you could. (Mindy Project Mindy Project!!) You think about your work, you ponder the past, you dread the future. You think about how outrageously hot you are, and what you would do for a cold fizzy water. 

Also, you think about all the blog posts you would write if you had a computer. (I suppose I could write it the old fashioned way, with a pen and paper, and Lord knows I have the time, but not the patience.) I have a very long list of funny stories about my cat, what it feels like when the rainy season starts, what I’m actually doing here, how I spend my days, the cast of characters I spend my days with. And now here I am, only five minutes spent on facebook, and I am MAD. Everything that I intended to write just flew out the window, because I have something even more important to say.

CAN WE PLEASE CHANGE HOW WE TALK ABOUT AFRICA PLEASE??? Like seriously. I just flipped through my newsfeed and it was such a bipolar mixture of my American friends being so maddeningly flippant and my Peace Corps friends sharing the most interesting, well-rounded, uplifting (mostly) news about Africa. Make whatever assumptions about what you think I’m trying to say here, but there is more to Africa than ebola. 

Let me repeat that, there is more to Africa than ebola.

And you know what, even if there weren’t (shudder) can we please just remember that this is a crippling disease that hurts people, kills people, devastates families and economies and childhoods, in a place where families and economies and childhoods are already incredibly fragile. But fragile like the kind of glass you expect will break when you touch it, but survives fall after fall and proves itself to be incredibly resilient and strong. And beautiful. I don’t know why I have to say this, but this is not about you. It’s not about me because honestly, I LIVE on this continent and the idea of being scared hasn’t even occurred to me. It worries me how my generation has reacted to this devastating epidemic. It is not something to joke about, and it is not something to panic about. Can we please find a middle ground that actually lives in the neighborhood of accurate and truthful? 

Like about how there is more to this continent than this disease? Like there are projects that are really inspiring? Like there are people, Africans and otherwise, who are doing really good things here? Like how I personally have had a meeting or worked on a project every single day for the past two weeks with a handful of EXTREMELY motivated Beninese people, of varying levels of education, doing work in three different villages? I know, dear reader, that it is not your fault, that you are reacting to the reactions of the media. 

Just do me a favor, pretty please. Be better than that. 


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/opinion/dont-let-ebola-dehumanize-africa.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

Dictionaire

Talking to my dad the other day and hearing him trip over the name of my village made me realize something: I speak a completely unique language. I speak English-French-Fulani-ese. And I totally take it for granted; I've been tripping over these weird guttural Beninese-French-hybrid words that I don't even notice that half the things I say aren't even words. Not only do I have some wicked Franglais, the cure/blessing of every francophone volunteer, but I don't even notice anymore when I drop in words like atcheke and atassi, words you have undoubtedly never heard. My franglais is slowly making me a Frankenstein's monster of languages that is inaccessible to anybody but the madcap group of continent-straddling weirdos here with me in Benin. When I talk to America, my speech becomes stunted as I search rapid-fire mental Rolodex style for how to say "discuter," "regler," and "reseau" in English. (To bargain, to fix, and telephone service for the record. It took me a hard minute to figure that out, because I never EVER say those words in English.) Also, my English sounds like a crazy person's, when it doesn't sound Nigerian that is. Oh boy, going back to America is gonna be rough.

 So, for your benefit, I offer up a bit of the PCBenin lexicon, things that mean everything to us and probably nothing (yet!) to you.

Pamudo (pah-moo-doh) - my village name! It means "the one who thinks ahead clearly," but I've also heard "the one who sees the future." Pretty sweet huh?!

Angaradebou (Ang-GARR-eh-DAY-boo) - my village!! Also known as Diddy-boo to those in the know, or those unable to say Angaradebou. Don't worry if you're in that group, many volunteers here haven't gotten it yet. It means "the place off the beaten track where you go to get really good food."

Peonga (Pay-on-guh) - The village next day where I often go for market on Sundays. It also has my closest health center and high school. You might recall Bethany, she was the volunteer there before, but she just left and was replaced with Sierra, my new close mate. Yay! It means something like "the wellspring" because they have a water source that never dries up.

Kalale (Kah-la-lay) - A village about an hour away, where Sandy lives and where I often go to charge my electronic things, catch early taxis to Parakou, have meetings with the mayor and the local bigwigs, occasionally visit the large Fulani market, and drink cold beer on Sandy's porch and watch Battlestar Galactica. It means "the place where you stop to rest on your way somewhere else." It is my commune head, which is kind of like the county capital, and therefor houses the mayor and lots of other official types.

Fulani (Foo-lah-knee) - A race of nomadic people; also the language spoken in my village, even though my village is Gando, not Fulani.They are known for having awesome face tattoos and scarring, cows (milk and cheese!), and super pretty jewelry.

Gando (Gahn-doh) - Another race of people, with a very complicated and interesting history. They are the cast-offs of the Bariba people, who are the kings of the north. By castoffs I mean the very suspicious Bariba (Ba-ree-ba) people would throw away or kill any babies who they suspected to be sorcerers or have bad gris-gris. (Their methods of testing this are bizarre and not-quite-humane, but can be as simple as the baby doesn't cry/cries too much, grew bottom teeth before top teeth, is the "wrong" color, etc.) The Fulani took all these abandoned babies and raised them as little more than slaves, and now the Gando are their own subset of people. They are of Bariba heritage, speak Fulani, are outrageously poor and usually uneducated, and are at the bottom of the bottom on the social strata. And my village is one of them!

Parakou (Para-koo) - The big city in the Northeast, and also where my workstation is. It means "the place where everybody lives" because almost every single Beninese ethnic group is represented here.

Atassi (a-tahssy) - A delicious beans and rice mixture. Very very common, very good. It has about a million other local names, but atassi is pretty universal in Benin.

Atcheke (uh-check-ay) - A Cote D'Ivoirian food made up of a cassava-root couscous, beans, spicy peppers, fresh and cooked onions, and an oily-vinegar sauce. It's very very tasty.

Bissap (bee-sap) - A boiled hibiscus flower sugar drink, often frozen in small bags and sold at markets. Always good on a hot day.

Akassa (ah-kahssa) - a boiled corn flour fermented white blob thing, with a consistency of thick jello, that is used as a vehicle for all kinds of sauce. It is DISGUSTING.

Wagashi (wuh-GAH-shi) - The Fulani cheese, usually friend and always delicious. Nothing like any other cheese I know of.

Igname Pilee (yam pee-lay) - huge yams, boiled then pounded until it makes a sticky thick paste that you dip into sauce. It tastes waaaay better than it sounds.

Doucement (doos-mont) - French for "carefully" or "sweetly." Every single Beninese person says this approximately 8000 times a day and it can mean literally anything: sorry, be careful, watch out, don't be stupid, you dropped that, I dropped that, it was your fault, it was my fault, you're stupid. Every volunteer says it approximately 7000 times a day.

E.T. - Not the extra-terrestrial, this is Peace Corps Washington lingo for "early terminate." Anyone who leaves early from their service ET's. You ET Benin you ET from my life. Just joshing.

C.O.S. - Close of Service. At the end of your service, you COS.



I could probably go on forever. We're weird here, and no one understands us when we speak.

Turkiye, pt. 2

Let's just be honest, I'm never gonna get around to posting about Turkey. Instead, here are a string of nonsense words that I'll call highlights: walking around Istanbul and not getting harassed/called "White Person!", all-you-can-eat cheese and olives (and bread and fruit and healthy stuff but whatever) buffet FOR FREE at every hostel/hotel, sunset hikes, staying in a cave hotel, swimming in the Mediterranean, going to Greece for the day, hiking in old beautiful valleys barefoot, wearing cute clothes, buying orange juice in the street for 50 cents, taking a sunrise hot air balloon ride over Cappadocia, going to Asia for the day (Did you know Istanbul straddles the European and Asian continents??), going to the Blue Mosque, getting lost and finding the Grand Bazaar, making friends with every Ali in Turkey, learning to play a tradition handmade guitar in a strangers living room, overnight buses with personal tvs and air conditioning, eating ice cream every day, eating kebabs and salad and lentil soup and hummus and more cheese and olives and sandwiches, draft beer (!!!!), walking on bridges, riding on ferries, Scuba diving, making sea turtle friends, eating mussels, taking artsy pictures of grapes/boats/cats/funny looking kids, eating on roofs, eating on terraces, eating on pillows, people watching, flirting, fast internet (youtube videos!!!!), napping, buying spices, eating turkish delight, getting lost and getting found.

Photos here.

Because Nell and I are ridiculous people, we attract ridiculous people. I think that's how that works... Anyhoo, while we were eating a sidewalk cafe in Cappadocia (google it, it's amazing) we made friends with a nice silly man named Ali. What started as a conversation about should I get the chicken or the lamb morphed into maybe the most beautiful explanation about Peace Corps of all time.

Camille: But the lamb is more expensive!
Ali: But you're on vacation! You should get it anyway!
Nell: We are volunteers, we don't have a lot of money.
Ali: Where are you from?
Nell: America, but we don't live in America. We live in Benin. It's in Africa.
Ali (completely flabbergasted): Reeeally? Why do you live in Africa??
Camille: We work there! We both live in little villages and help them out.
Ali: That's no good. I would never live in Africa.
Nell: Yeah, that's why we don't have a lot of money.
Ali: How much do you get paid?
Camille: We get $8 a day.
Ali (slaps forehead): WHAT??? Reeeeally? How many lira is that?
Camille: That's 16 lira.
Ali (slaps forehead again): WHAT??? Reeeeally?
Nell: We are rich in our villages!
Ali: No, that is no good. What are you doing there?

We explain that we are both doing agriculture work. Later he finds out that we are staying a little bit outside of town, and tells us that is not okay. He lent us his iPhone to find a closer one, and of course neither of us know how to work a new iPhone.

Nell: We don't know how to work this. But we have a computer, we can look it up later.
Ali: You have computers in Africa?
Camille: Well, no, I borrowed this from a friend because mine is broken...
Ali (slaps forehead for like the 80th time)
Nell: See? This is the kind of phone we have. (Shows our terrible nokia bricks, straight out of 2001)
Ali: That is not a phone. The only thing you can do with that is throw it at your friend when you get mad at her.


And to be perfectly honest, I think Ali is right. We live in a place that is 50 (100? 200?) years behind most of the rest of the world. But at least I'm not scared to throw my phone at people who get on my nerves anymore. 

Overheard

"It's hard to describe Peace Corps to people in America. People post a lot of pictures smiling with black babies and that's not what it's always like."

"Well yeah, nobody's gonna post a picture of them crying in the shower."

Turkiye pt. 1

Two plane rides, three cities, five hostels, three overnight buses, one hot air balloon ride, a ferry to Greece and a different ferry to Asia, two Lizzie McGuire-esque scooter rides, a dive boat, and our own two (usually lost) feet later... back in Benin. 

 I guess if I were a real blogger, I would've taken advantage of my first-world, high-speed Turkey internet to update you on my every move and every meal. I am obviously not a real blogger. I've been back in Benin for about 14 hours now, and there's a lot to wrap my mind around. Mostly I fear that I will spiral down into a deep depression at the thought that my cheese-and-olive breakfasts are over, that my indulgent attitude towards pizza and ice cream every day will do me no good here, and that I can't just go jump into the sea when I get too hot.

And now I'm gonna go take a nap. I'll get around to telling you all about all the things, but for now:
Turkey was glorious in every sense of the word. Glorious.

Re: Ebola (aka, don't worry Mom!)

Ebola, shmebola. I put that as my facebook status and then immediately deleted it because, even though I can have a cavalier attitude about it, it being far away and the chances of my getting it are microscopic, I have to remind myself that it is a Big Deal, and it is people's lives. However, I a little bit stand by my cavalier attitude, not at all in a disrespectful way, but in the kind of way that can assure my friends and family that I am not at all worried about contracting ebola. Again, I AM NOT AT ALL WORRIED. So you shouldn't be either. I am trusting in Peace Corps, that they care about my health and my welfare, and that they are being very very vigilant in making sure we are safe. I trust Peace Corps, so should you. Also, trust me, and even more than that, trust my teeny tiny isolated village. There is no way in seven hells that ebola is going to wiggle its way to me undetected, so don't you fret, moms and dads. I am gonna be just fine. Also, let's try to find that place where we aren't panicking uselessly but we are also helping some countries that, honestly, really need our help.

See also:

http://www.macleans.ca/society/health/frontline-physician-tim-jagatic-on-the-worst-ebola-outbreak-in-history/

Wakka wakka eyy eyy!

After a year in this country, I have decided that there are two ways you can choose to view this country. Obviously there are infinite ways to view this country, but in my experience it seems to go in one of two ways. Probably interchangeably. Some tend towards cynicism, and see Benin as this impossible swamp sunk in a mire of sexual harassment and political and economic corruption and a completely backwards way of thinking and doing. Others look for humor where they can, and spend their taxi rides smirking at the weirdo kids on the side of the roads and the silly mamas. I like to think that I lean more towards the amused than the cynical, with a hefty sprinkling of working-on-my-patience and losing-it-at-a-taxi-driver. And the occasional antisocial laying-in-bed-with-a-book day. But because I do exercise my humor muscles I often find myself in the middle of conversations that are laugh-out-loud funny. As an almost bilingual American expatriot living in an third-world country completely different from anywhere I've ever been, and as a young white woman carrying America on her shoulders into a tiny African village with no concept of life outside of the region, these odd interactions illuminate the differences of our lives, interests, tastes, and experiences.


Let me set the scene - In order to advertise that the charging booth (the only generator in town where the few people who have cell phones can charge them) is open for business, the owner plays super duper loud steel-drum-heavy Nigerian pop music, usually starting in the early afternoons and well into the night. Of course, this booth is right across the street from my house, so I am party to all the DJ-ing done in Angaradebou. My friend Mamadou and I were sitting outside my house making a salad when he cocked his head in the direction of the overpowering sound waves washing over our serene lettuce party.

Mamadou: I don't like this music. Do you like this music? It is not serious. I only like serious music.
Me: It's okay. It's very different than the music chez moi.
Mamadou: Do you listen to music like this in America? Non-serious music?
Me: I listen to all kinds of music.
Mamadou: Well, I only listen to serious music. Like Shakira. Do you know Shakira?
Me: Yes, I like Shakira. But Shakira isn't serious!
Mamadou: That's okay, I like her anyway. And Beyonce. She is serious.

Okay Mamadou. Whatever you say.

Later, Mamadou came to my house while I was reading and asked me about my book. I was reading Game of Thrones at the time, and please, dear God, how on earth do I explain Game of Thrones to a Beninese man??
Me: Umm, there's a king, and he dies, and there are -- big lizards that fly? C'est "dragons" en anglais. And people die a lot, and people kill... it's about a family... in a... how do you say the land where there's a king?
Mamadou: Is that real? Is he a real king? Is this in America??
Me: Haha, nooooo. How do you say.. when it's not real... and there's fake people...?
(Because I knew all this stuff about a fake king in a book, he then decided to tease me endlessly about how I don't know anything about any of the kings or presidents in Africa. Which is totally fair.)


I am single-handedly creating the impression that white people are weird weird weird. And that we all like Shakira, which if it isn't true it should be. During one of my language interviews, in another conversation about books, I had to describe the time traveling romance novel I was reading at the time. ("There's a girl, and she lives in England, but she goes back in time in a machine du temps...?" "Machine du temps??" "A time machine?? I don't know. Don't worry about it.") There are a lot of don't-worry-about-it moments in my life. In an effort to be honest, I often talk myself into a French black hole that I can't get myself out of, hoping only that one of us will call it and say, eh, it's really not that important. On va laisser.

But maybe the best culture-sharing, eyebrow-raising, what-will-you-white-people-think-up-next moment was when I was called by the acquaintance of my Spanish nun friend to explain the running with the bulls in Pamplona to a roomful of Beninese men in French. Umm... people die but it's for fun? Like I said, weird weird weird.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say, even though there is sexual harassment and political and economic corruption and a completely backwards way of thinking and doing, there are also really smart, funny, interesting people, and really smart, funny, interesting conversations to be had.

Advice from the eye of the storm

My life has been awfully transitory lately. I am constantly on my way to or from one place to another, this occasion being no exception. I have been hopscotching my way across northern Benin, going from one fete, one market, one meeting, all in hopes that I will eventually make it down south. I can't tell how apparent I've made it over my rambles here, but I travel quite a bit, but nothing is as daunting as the Bus Down South. We are quite isolated up here in north; once you're here, the idea of having to travel south is enough to make you want to never go past Parakou (which is already quite a trek). But tomorrow morning, six a.m. sharp, will find me squishing myself in an overheated, overcrowded, overly-long eight hour bus ride to Porto Novo. I know, you must be thinking: what can POSSIBLY be worth such a hike? There at least better be ice cream and a pepperoni pizza waiting for you at the finish line! Alas, there will probably be neither of these things, but something better. NEW VOLUNTEERS!!!!!!

I've been awfully cavalier (here at least; in person I'm sure I'm downright obnoxious) about all these landmarks I've breezed past - six months in country, one year, being elected the task of training new volunteers, the arrival of new volunteers... But these have all happened, sailing past in that weird blurry-too-fast-sometimes-sluggish pace known only to Peace Corps volunteers. And now here I am, on my way to mold the young, uncorrupted minds of the innocents new to Benin. Oh the darlings, how lucky they are to never have been proposed to, offered second or third wife position, cussed out a taxi driver, drunkenly call home wailing, thrown rocks at goats who poop in your house, crashed on a zem, had their computer smashed by an 18-wheeler full of cotton, found animal corpses in their house, been bitten on the face by a spider, traveled halfway across the country with malaria, yelled at their close mate, cried with their close mate... They have also never watched The Sound of Music with a bunch of nuns, experienced the glory of an overindulgent market day, been overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers, cried happy tears over a well-timed letter, eaten an entire box of cheez-its in one sitting, held a new-born baby/kitten/goat, cooked a meal for a wary Beninese neighbor, had a song made up and sung for them by a bunch of dancing mamas, received jewelry/a round of applause/a handful of yams or eggs, had heartfelt lying-on-the-floor chats or six-way spooning cuddles under the stars. (Unless they have, in which case good for them! Maybe.)

Anyhoo, it has me thinking a lot about what I'm going to tell them about my time here. I remember this time last year we were frothing at the mouth with questions, brimming over with insatiable curiosity and that odd mixture of self-doubt and self-confidence. And so, here is a weird mixture of advice and thoughts about how to live in Benin.

When people yell at you/scold you/tell you you're not good enough/compare you to another volunteer, only wallow enough in it that it makes you better. Unfortunately, this happens a lot; this culture is particularly brusque, and honest, and not that understanding to the volunteer experience. This has happened to me on multiple occasions, and it sucks. A lot. But it also makes you better, if you let it. Take their advice with a grain of salt, allow yourself a small amount of self-pity, call a friend and get mad that they don't sypathise with your position as a stranger in a strange land, then get over it and take their advice (to the extent that you can). It's kind of a purification by fire type of thing. Let it make you better, not bitter.

Embrace that moment when your leg goes asleep in a bush taxi. Riding in bush taxis are kinda sucky until you get the hang of it - but trust me, there will come a time when you are thankful for the squishyness of the fat mamas crammed in that tiny space with you. You'll probably never miss it in the way you'll miss couli-couli (crunchy friend peanut sticks) but there's a kind of comfort in knowing that if you do get in that car wreck you just know is imminent, you are so completely wedged in that you aren't going anywhere.

Savor every rain, cherish every chilly morning. Le saison chaleur (the super super hot dry season) is real, and it's really rough. However, you're not gonna die. There might be many sleepless nights when you are sure you will, it is just too hot to go on. But you will. You might be extra cranky, especially when a friend from home calls you and tells you its raining and snowing.

It's okay to not like the food. You can admit it - boiled flour is just not that good. And fermented boiled flour is even worse. You might be one of those people that just doesn't like ignam pilee, the sticky mashed yams served with some weird (maybe not tasty) sauce. It's fine. I'm by no means a picky eater, I will eat almost anything, and I have finally come to terms with the fact that Beninese food just isn't amazing. And while that's not ideal, it's okay.

It's not okay to not like bisap. Oh bisap, that delicious sugary-flower-juice-tea. Frozen in a little plastic bag and sold at markets or on the side of the road, or even in big bottles that you slurp down too fast... it's just too good. Actually, an amendment: It's not okay not to like frozen things sold in sachets. I've yet to try anything not delicious - frozen yogurt, frozen flavored water (even the green ones that just taste like green), and especially sulani, our northern delicacy, a sweet frozen kinda vanilla-y milk. Mmm, so good.

It's okay to eat popcorn for dinner. Everyone knows it counts as a meal if you put garlic powder/chili powder/milk powder on it (maybe not all three at once...). But when your hair starts falling out (like, scary cancer patient falling out), maybe try to throw some veggies in there. 

GLOW big or GLOW home, baby!

Oh man oh man… I don’t even know what to say. Today is Sunday, the day after Camp GLOW has ended and the day I had planned on returning back to village. In the grand tradition of not doing the things I thought I would, I am staying in Parakou for one more night to recover from ALL THE EMOTIONS. (I’m trying to say that in such a way that doesn’t sound like I dissolved in a puddle of tears in middle of the bank, but since that is what happened, whatever.)

Camp GLOW was amazing. Top to bottom, left to right, and every which way, it was absolutely incredible. Bethany and I brought six amazing girls from the Peonga girls club (my village is too small for a high school so I’ve been working in Peonga for all high school-y things.) Our journey began when we piled 13-deep in a 6 person car – just the beginning of the “things that would never work in America” list from this week. During the week long camp the fifty-something girls were divided into six teams, each led by two or three volunteers. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but Equipe Violet totally stole the show with our extra-loud cheering section (Devon and I) and our glitter signs and outrageously displays of spirit and camaraderie. Throughout the week the girls participated in sessions for nutrition, hygiene, feminine health, sexual harassment, Q&A’s with professional Mama’s from all over Benin, study skills and goal setting, and the occasional water balloon fights. (It just melted my heart to see these girls just soaking it all up like a sponge, to have someone to talk to, someone to ask questions, someone to play with.) It was the weirdest summer camp I have ever attended – the girls sang songs, like at any old camp I suppose, but the songs were about how if you get malaria you die. I taught a girl how to jump rope. (She was terrible but she loved it.) I mean, is there any girl anywhere in America who doesn’t know how to jump rope??? In America summer camp is extra fun because you’re away from home and doing fun things. In Benin summer camp is fun because you’re away from home and not doing unfun things – this is the first time these girls didn’t have to wake up 5 in the morning to sweep and pull well water and wash clothes and take care of babies. They got to have fun! And study! And be young girls who sing and dance and play!!

As if my heart weren’t melty enough, I taught yoga to an enthusiastic (and patient) group of young ladies. You can only imagine, I’m sure: Et maintenant, on va faire le chien. Et la chien difficile gauche. (Downward dog became difficult dog in french. To make things more interesting we had the tree pose, but then also the tree-with-strong-wind pose, and the tree-who-jumps-around-a-lot-and-giggles pose.) At the end of a very weird week, the girls presented their new yoga skills to the full camp, who seemed impressed but mostly confused. (The volunteers watching were especially confused: “that’s the weirdest yoga I’ve ever seen.”)

Not only did I have my lovely Peonga girls making me all proud-mama-bear happy, but then I had my team Violet girls (totally won the award for best team spirit!), and my yoga girls, and the exemplary girls chosen to come back next year and help. (Oh by the way, I’m helping to run it next year. Wooty woot!) So by the end of the week I am just SOARING on this we-changed-their-LIVES kind of high, and then yesterday I just crashed. I made a scene in the bank, I yelled at a friend, I called America and made ANOTHER scene, I sat in the rain and cried. And that is just SO indicative of what it’s like here, to go from soaring to wailing to drinking gin out of mayo jar to napping in the work station because you are just so emotionally and physically drained. I went HARD this week, and I’m so happy I did because Camp GLOW is by far the most amazing thing I’ve done in this country. Maybe that was the best I have ever felt about myself, who even knows. This country is just kicking my ass – hopefully in a I’m-being-refined-like-a-precious-gem kind of way and not I’m-being-whittled-away-to-nothing kind of way. 

If you are interested in taking a gander at some pictures, feel free to click here! A big huge thank you to everyone who donated to make it happen and to the amazing group of volunteer who came together and made it happen. 

Pearls (and dust bunnies and black plastic bags) of wisdom

Oh Peace Corps. Before I even started writing I heaved a great sigh... maybe for myself and my rollercoaster good attitude/bad attitude complex, maybe for living in a fishbowl culture that constantly requires self-examination and self-loathing, maybe because of my place in the volunteer culture (it's like summer camp but the stakes are higher and judgier)...maybe it's just me burping up olive juice because I just ate an entire jar of olives because I'm too lazy to go get real food.

Anyhoo, hello my darlings! Sorry I've been the worst blogger ever, I'd like to say its because I've been busy (which I have) but really I just don't know what to say. It's so hard to paint the picture of living in Benin when your only colors are black and white, and you only get to paint once a month, and when you do get to paint you're so overstimulated by city life (I wish you guys could see Parakou so you know how ridiculous a statement it is to be overwhelmed by Parakou, of which about only half the streets are paved) that you don't even have the energy to find real food. But a couple of things happened/are happening/will happen that have me thinking about what I've learned, what I've done, and what I can do. Obviously there is humongous merit in the projects and the actual things you've accomplished, but for right now I'm really talking about my attitude, and the peculiar brand of street skills I've picked up. I have a great deal of people to thank for helping me along to this place of semi-self assurance and lessened cluelessness, but there were a few little nuggets of knowledge that really stuck with me, as you'll see.

Nugget #1: "If I just go out and try to do something, even if it completely fails and no one shows up, I feel accomplished." Any volunteer who reads that statement will be nodding their heads - constantly we are setting meetings, or trying to go somewhere with someone, or trying to have a girls club, or making plans to meet the mayor, and no one shows. It is quite possibly the most frustrating thing on the entire planet (among the 3000 other frustrating things here) and it usually comes attached with a feeling of guilt and failure: because I could not make this thing work, I have failed. But really, this is not a reflection on you, at all. As long as you are trying to get things moving and shaking, most of the times that's all you can do until someone hitches them self to your wagon to help things along.

Nugget #2: "You know it's time to go when all of your electronics are dead." The person who said this is such an outstanding badass and has gone through two computers and an ipod (probably amongst other things) in this country and doesn't even care because she is too busy saving babies to watch orange is the new black. I look way way up to her, partly because I have already lost my very own tv-watching device. But there is so much truth in this statement: she is (very very sadly) about to leave and here I am, halfway done and halfway through my electronics. The irony is certainly not lost on me. There's a term that Peace Corps Benin loves to throw around: bien integre. It's french (obvs) in praise of integration into the host society and I'm doing really well in the fancy things department. Just give me a few more years and I'll be sleeping on dirt floors and pooping in the bushes.

Nugget #3: "No wonder everyone thinks we are incompetent. We have literally had to relearn how to do everything. You think we know how to eat with our hands without being disgusting? How to chop vegetables without a cutting board? How to hand wash our clothes? No wonder no one takes us seriously, we are more incompetent than their four-year-olds." This is in regards to how a volunteer feels during training, and pretty much constantly. You got a bruise from falling on your bike? 'Your white skin is just so much more fragile.' You want to go to the well and pull your own well water, because it makes you feel strong and independent? Your five year old neighbor physically pushes you out of the way. People will come behind you and redo everything you just did. You are constantly reminded how different your life was than any child's. About 130% you feel guilty about that. About 25% of the time you still feel entitled to complain. (And then you feel 100% guilty for complaining that your iphone just broke.) About 95% of the time you have to actually pause everything and remind yourself that this is the real world, not the cushy life you left behind. Sometimes it feels better to remember that you can go back to it whenever you want. It never feels better to know that the people in your village never get to leave, that there's not a two year limit to the suffering and difficulty. All of the time you feel guilty: that you were born in America, that they weren't, that two years isn't enough, that you will barely make it two years before crawling back to America where things are shiny and fun, that you have to leave your village for work, that you have to leave your village for fun, that you have to leave your village to not go crazy, that you can't pack up your entire village and take them back with you, that some days you can't wait to leave them behind.

I had intended to save the whole guilt thing for another day but there it is. I described it best in a letter to a friend (my own little nugget, if you will!): it is like being in an abusive relationship, this country. You're never sure if its healthy, your friends say you've changed, you kind of hate it and it seems like it always hates you, but you love it. You want to walk away from it -- like a lot -- but you just can't quit. You can talk shit about Benin all day long but the second someone who doesn't know says a word you get defensive -- it's only okay when I say it, because I love it and I want it to be better. 

Who run the world (GIRLS!)

Hello my little tater tots! It has been a minute, huh? Sorry about that, I have been a busy little bee. And yes, laying on the concrete floor, staring at the ceiling and meowing at my cat is busy. Oh by the way, I have a cat! His name is Furlock Holmes and he is a furry little angel and I love him. I promise I'm not going to turn into a crazy cat lady but seriously, he is a serious cutie.

I have lots and lots to tell you, and I promise to give you all the juicy details, but right now I want to talk about the ladies. Being a lady in Benin is a thankless task. Women in my village do EVERYTHING, cooking over a hot smoky fire, washing dishes and handwashing all the clothes with burning lye soap, pounding yams with a giant mortar and pestle, chopping firewood, rasising children, working in the fields, working in the gardens, carrying giant basins of water from one place to another on their heads, selling things at market... I could literally go on all day. (They do.) And they do all of this with a baby on their backs. But maybe even harder than being a woman is being a girl, because you have all the weight of the world on your shoulders as well as the pressures of men pulling you in every direction. Most girls can not survive going to high school without having to sleep with their teachers, or their principal, or with a man who agreed to pay her school fees. And that's only if she manages to make it to a school, because most parents see no use in girls going to school, refusing to pay their school fees and instead marrying them off. Many Beninese people will tell you that arranged marriages are a thing of the past but even in my area you hear of girls having to choose between marrying the man their parents chose or running away. (Just imagine how hard life would be if your on your own in the African bush. And many girls make that choice, only to be beaten and then married off when they return.)

The stories you hear about what a girl goes through everyday, and especially what a girl has to do to be able to go to school, is enough to break your heart and make you want to punch the next man you see. It's a culture of child whores and multiple wives, of violence against women and negligence. And it is a culture that sees no end to the usefulness of an educated man and no end to the uselessness of an educated woman.

That's where Camp GLOW comes in: Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is an annual girls camp hosted by Peace Corps volunteers for high school girls from around Benin. It's a chance for the girls to discuss their experiences, their desires, their wishes for the future, women's health and nutrition, family planning, career planning, study skills, and all the fun stuff of camp.

And now comes the asking for money part: it's expensive to throw a camp and get these girls there! Please help in any way you can, big little, your lunch money or what you would've used to send a care package. I'm happy to forego that box of chocolate and cheezits if it means something extra for our little camp. Please please please, every little bit helps and you KNOW it's for a good cause. And donations to Peace OCrps are tax deductible! Yay!

Click me to donate!!

The Power of Voodoo. Who do? You do. Do what? Remind me of the babe!

And now for a little bit about voodoo. Yes, voodoo! Exciting right?! Magic, sorcery, witch doctors! (Now take all the movie nonsense out of your head, it’s nothing like that. Although there are drums and dancing ceremonies and weird crazy potions.) Yeah, as if there weren’t enough un-dull moments (actually, there are a ton of dull moments, hence the laying on my floor all the time and the 38 million books I’ve read since I’ve been here) but just to get things up and running a little bit more, Benin decided to throw some voodoo into the mix. Fun Fact #1: Benin is actually the birth place of voodoo! There are many names for it here (the french voudon, the fetish, and the names of all the different sects of voodoo, including Oro in the South. Fun Fact #2: Oro is serious business because if you look out your window or see it you get killed by the “fetish,” or spirit of the voodoo. Many of my fellow volunteers in the south have to leave their villages when Oro is happening because it is serious business.). But because I live in the highly Muslim north, it’s not something you see a ton of, and what you do see is very different from what you see in the south. Also it’s not quite exclusively religious, in the sense that my devoutly Muslim delegee has been dabbling in the voodoo magic lately. More on that later. 

The first instance of outrageous voodoo didn’t happen in my village but in Devon’s village. She is a health volunteer so she spends most of her days in the health center, diagnosing malaria and delivering babies and generally just being awesome. So recently, one of the young girls in her village apparently got a little chubby (and here “a little chubby” is like gaining a pound or two, which can only mean that you are pregnant of course). Over the course of some small amount of time, she came to give birth to a can of Nescafe instant coffee. SHE WAS VOODOO CURSED AND GAVE BIRTH TO A CAN OF COFFEE. Oh, and it was wrapped cloth and twine with a little bit of blood smeared on top to make it more authentic. But everyone just accepted it immediately, that somewhere along the line she was gris gris’d (gris gris is the local nomenclature for a voodoo curse) and naturally, something bizarre and incredibly unlikely would come to pass with little to no doubt or disagreement. And that right there pretty much explains the sloppy attitude of voodoo here: it’s real, it’s unexplainable, it makes no sense, you should definitely steer clear of it but you should also take it a little bit seriously, if only because everybody else does.

Of course, when that story trickled down to me I laughed it off, haha what a silly village, crazy voodoo, haha that would never happen in my village, of Africa! (Oh what a young fool I was.) Naturally, and really only a week or two later, that would come right around and bite me in the village. So, what happened (is happening?) was that the delegee, who is basically my village papa and the only elected official in Angaradebou, brewed a voodoo tea that will make him rich and prosperous. However, the cost of his riches and prosperity is that it brings down death and destruction on the household, stealing the good fortune from others in the household to give to the drinker. (Kind of like the genie on the sims - remember how sometimes he would give you an expensive baby grand piano, or sometimes he would burn up your fancy expensive bed? You never really know what you are going get, essentially.) So then one of his many wives (I can’t even figure out how many wives he has, waaay too many is probably the only answer I will ever get) objected, terrified that he would die from it, or she would, or one of their sons would. Not only was she the treasurer and very influential member of my women’s gardening group, she is an amazing, generous, and affectionate woman, and my village mama who always made sure I was eating. Well, she raised up a fuss, very unlike the traditional Muslim wife, until he kicked her out and moved out all of her things, thus resulting in their Official Divorce. It is crazy and sad and very, very weird. Sandy just described it as “straight out of Harry Potter,” its more sorcery than voodoo. But still craycray. And of course all this went down as soon as I left village, which is just my luck. Although if thats the only bad luck I see from this whole business I will not mind it a bit.

Pret for the Fete, Tardy for the Party (Part 2)

Okay my friends, I did promise I would tell you all about the rest of my holiday season, starting at Christmas and moving on to my birthday. I kind of don’t feel like it, so in the spirit of compromise I’m going to tell you really fast and with little detail, so we can move on to (what I think are) more interesting things. Like how excited I am that a friend of a friend brought a digital version of Catching Fire back from America and I can’t waaaaait to see what good old Katniss has been up to. Killing people and being awesome, I presume.

So Christmas. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I made my way over to the western city of Nattitingou and met up with some friends for a lovely, low-key Christmas. Mostly everyone else went down to Grand Popo, which is a little beach town where people go to get rowdy and ridiculous. While that is something I generally like, it is not how I wanted to spend my Christmas. (Of course, I really wanted to spend my Christmas somewhere that felt cold, or with my family, or in a place were cookies and hot chocolate were widely available. Alas.) So we planed an Alterna-Christmas, and kept it low key, hanging out mostly at the Natti work station, spending most of our time in our pajamas (in the true spirit of Christmas!), and eating everything. Oh my goodness, how well we ate! We ate schwarma! We made a quiche! (QUICHE!) We made delicious potato things! We made vegetarian lasagna! We tried to make mimosas but like a bunch of un-bougie fools we bought red wine instead of white (forget about champagne, not in this country!) so we made sangria instead. It was a glorious, all you can fest. We had multiple kinds of cheese! We had cookies, and muffins, and chocolate! It was fantastic. (Have you noticed yet that all the things I celebrate in this country revolve around food? I celebrated the birth of Jesus by eating all the cheese in Nattitingou.) But, maybe even better than all the food we ate, was the dvd selection available in Natti. First we raided the stores and found Elf, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Then Raili, angel of perfection that she is, brought the party by supplying Christmas Vacation (a Harper family tradition, mind you!) as well A Christmas Story. And then, maybe the best ever, was a dvd that was simply a recording of a fire burning. No seriously, stop rolling your eyes, it was amazing. It crackled, it popped, the logs slowly burned away... it was an incredibly strange kind of glorious. All that on top of trying antelope for the first time. (Which by the way, super tasty. It tasted like roast beef.) There was more Christmas spirit in spirit than in attendance, though we did bring a tiny Christmas tree to the party. And I held up the quiche-baking by insisting that we use the left over crust dough to make a little crust-tree and crust-star (the crust-present fell into the egg-goo and was lost forever). It was lovely, and strange, and surprisingly Christmas-sy, considering that it was like 90 degrees outside. 

(I tried to put a picture right here of Raili and I posing with out tiny Christmas tree and all the other Christmassy things we could find but the internet id too slow. I'm afraid you'll have to use your imaginations.)

And then of course there was New Years. For those of you that know me, you know that I don’t love New Years. It is an empty holiday, an excuse for people who don’t drink to go out and get sloppy drunk and ruin everything for everyone. The expectations are always crazy high and the reality is always crazy low. It’s dumb. So I went into this New Years with the same low expectations as usual, surrounded by my lovely closemates. (Have I told you guys about my closemates yet? I have some lovely lovely volunteers posted near me, in the haven of Kalale. There’s Devon, a health volunteer who has a crazy crush on bill Clinton and is applying to grad school after this; Geof, who knows all the words to Moulin Rouge and just ran a marathon yesterday, woot!; Ashley, a TEFL volunteer with a dog named Moonpie and who is one of the funniest people I know; Melissa, who narrates the life of any animal I meet and is half Kiwi; Bethany, who I’ve mentioned before, and with whom I share matching tissue, a secret handshake, and a million of the most ridiculous inside jokes ever; and Sandy, who is not technically Peace Corps but is totally one of the gang, sharing her house and bounty of electricity and generally just being an all around badass.) Anyhoo, so mostly all of the gang gathered, where we played beer pong until the New Year, had a little bit of gin, and let our hair down. (Literally: Sandy and I were Team Hair, the team to beat in the Beer Pong Championship of 2013/4. And by team to beat I mean we got beat every time.) It was good times to be had by all. My favorite moment at the tail end of 2013:

Sandy: (after completing some kind of transaction at a boutique) Thanks, I’ll see you NEXT YEAR, haha.

Beninese Man: No, I will see you tomorrow.

Sandy: But, NEXT YEAR!  I will see you in a YEAR! Haha.

Beninese Man: No, I will see you tomorrow.

Sandy: No you get it? Never mind.

Silliness.

And that brings us to the best holiday of all time! Yep, you guessed it, my big, fat, twenty-fifth birthday! Ahh quarter of a century! For those of you that read my last blog post (or will after this because it’s right below this, haha) you will know that January was not the brightest moment of my service. I’m not exactly sure why it wasn’t awesome, maybe it was an end-of-holidays drag, or I felt pressure to get things moving and I was stuck because things move at a glacial pace here, or any of a million other little things. Anyhoo, I was just sitting on the floor a lot, with my feet up on the wall, feeling sorry for myself. They were not my best moments. But because my birthday was approaching, and I love my birthday, I rallied and met my aforementioned amazing postmates in Kalale and we did what we normally did: beer pong and gin and tonics. (I probably sound like an alcoholic but I promise I don’t drink that much, and when I do it’s a nice restorative drink or two!) Also, I think the presents I received are Camille all over: cheese puffs (a Nigerian knock-off of cheetos), an inner-tube for my bike, a stack of books, a bottle of gin, and a personalized romance novel from the ever-amazing Bethany. Yes, a PERSONALIZED ROMANCE NOVEL. Starring Camille and Alfonso. (Alfonso is a fictional inside joke, not a sexy Italian volunteer posted in a neighboring village. Sad face.) It was wonderful. And then a week later I came to the work station, where I was greeted by not one but FOUR absolutely amazing care packages from the glorious folks back in America. (A million thanks to Lexie, and my amazing aunts Nancy and Lisa, and my wonderful Mema, and of course my dad, sender of the most amazing and tuna-filled care package of all time.) And then, another week later, I get another care package from Raili (she of the blog-post switcheroo) which contained a recent US Weekly, so I can catch up on all my Kim and Kanye news. I have the loveliest people. You guys are amazeballs and I love you to the moon and back. 

Even at twenty-five you gotta start sometime

I had a conversation, shortly before the new year, with a couple of first year volunteers and some second year volunteers. (If you can believe that Benin slowly tears you down until you become a salty little nub of nerves and emotions, which I firmly do after almost eight months in this country, you can just imagine the incredible difference between a bunch of idealistic new kids with slightly jaded second years.)  We were discussing new years resolutions, and it was decided that, on principle, we were exempt from New Years resolutions because our entire life is a New Years resolution. A New Day’s resolution, if you will. And it’s totally true, I’m constantly setting goals that I can constantly fail and feel bad about myself. It’s a shame spiral that I don’t recommend. (Although not unlike the New Years resolutions of Americans in America.) 

January was a rough month for me. Partly because Peace Corps is hard. It’s hard in all the ways you anticipate: you miss birthdays and weddings and Christmas and people put pictures of macaroni and cheese and pie on facebook while you’re eating bouillie. (Bouillie is like a boiled, lumpy flour soup that tastes like glue. Not my favorite.) And then it’s hard in ways you didn’t even know existed: sick babies that will probably not make it to their first year; having no friends in village; being surrounded by bossy women who yell at you in languages you don’t understand; living up to the expectations of the Greatest Volunteer Ever (maybe it’s another volunteer, or maybe it’s just the idea of the GVE); being stared at, tugged on, followed by, and generally all around bothered by bratty, noisy, messy, nosy children; and so on in a million different directions with a million different results. That’s no to say that I don’t love it, some of the times most of the times. It’s hard, and hilarious, and ridiculous, and creates 78 million emotions on a daily basis. Sometimes on an hourly basis. Ask me how I feel about my peace corps experience in an hour and I’ll have a completely different response.

Like I said, January was tough for me. This is not the place for perfectionists to be perfectionists. This is the place for perfectionists to learn patience and humility and how to just... be. I guess. (There is probably a less new age-y zen way to say that but alas. I’m being up in this joint. Whatever.) And I am certainly not unique in that I am having to let go and let flow, to CTFO and wait until I get the hang of things. Some volunteers live in the thick of everything, and do all the things, and usually do them well, and know all the people. But in Angaradebou, it is just too small a world to do all the things. Instead I am slowly learning to accept how to be happy with some of the things. And how to just sit around an eat glue soup and hang out with children. How to be a gracious host, how to fling my doors open and greet the day (and everything an Angaradebou day contains), how to be a gracious guest. How to hold babies and eat weird meats without making a face. How to not look bored when I'm sitting in the middle of a Fulani gossip session. And how to garden, been doing a lot of that lately. Lot of eggplant, lot of tomatoes. 

So far February is looking up. February has actually been pretty great. And as far as resolutions go, I’ve given up on those. Although I did write a very forceful note to myself on my wall, right next to my pillow. To spare my parent’s good impression of me I will not repeat it here, but it’s a missive to get out of my house. And it’s signed “Love you :)” and surrounded by pink chalk hearts. And I think that sums up my February resolutions: get out of the house, go be good. And forgive yourself, and love yourself. 

Pret for the Fete, Tardy for the Party (Part 1)

Hello again my dear friends! Seven months down, one year older, four hours of sleep (my bush taxi left at 3:00 this morning which got me to Parakou at nap o’clock), and finally three days of good food, internet, and all the other lovely things of civilization. (I realize I must harp on and on about how glorious it is to be sitting on a cushy couch under a ceiling fan and drinking cold tap water, since the only times I ever write to you are when I’m experiencing all these lovely things. One day I will write a blog post while sweating on my cement floor, being stared at and bothered by my village army of children, drinking warm well water, and probably being all around cantankerous, and you’ll be wishing for those days when I was a carefree lass whiling away the hours in Parakou and talking up the glories of running water.)

Anyhoo, let’s party my friends! No seriously, I wanna talk to you guys about partying. Or rather, how this American parties in Benin. Or rather rather, how this American, and her group of closemates, translate Americana to the people of Benin. (Benin is rather a stretch, so for my purposes here we’ll just stick with Kalale commune, which is the specific region where I live. And the best and most dazzling commune in all the land. Except on days when it sucks and I hate everything.) Now that the fete-ing season is officially over I can tell you all about it in one fell swoop. Now most of you probably think the fete-ing season ends January 2, but oh how wrong you are. The real troopers among you know that it doesn’t end until January 21. That’s right all you lovely creatures, I am another year older! (And about 60 years wiser and 70 years more foolish all at the same time, if that makes any sense at all.) But let’s rewind back to October, and start at the beginning.

While all you guys were wearing your boots and eating your pumpkin-spiced everythings and crunching leaves underfoot while eating apple pies, I was experiencing the monotony of the West African heat. It actually wasn’t crazy hot, but the dry season had officially started, forcing me to visit the well regularly instead of just putting buckets outside and letting nature do all the work. Alas. On Halloween proper, I went to Chez Sandy’s, who is a dear dear friend and one of the Americans who live nearby. (She is actually not a Peace Corps volunteer but she used to be PC here in Kalale and now she works for the NGO that donated the gardens that we all work at. Full circle. Also she’s awesome and has a really awesome house with a fridge (!!) and she’s a bit of a stalker so I’m sure she’ll be happy to see that she is now blog-famous!) So the 6 of us volunteers in Kalale commune all met up at Sandy’s house, and we invited all the neighborhood kids over and introduced them to s’mores! Collectively, we managed to pile up all the supplies, collected on various trips to America, and built a fire in her front yard, and roasted marshmallows and told scary stories in french. (The kids were waaaay more into the s’mores than the scary stories, I think they just sat through out ridiculous made up stories in the hopes that we would cough up more marshmallows. Now those were a hit!) It was super cute. And taught them how to say trick or treat, and now they come to Sandy’s house and say “twick oh tweet!” for gummy vitamins. It is tres cute. The next morning we all slept in and drank pumpkin spiced lattes. (Take that America!) Afterwards I went to Parakou and we all played beer pong and people dressed up. I went as Peace Corps Barbie, which basically meant I couldn’t be bothered to dress up. 

And then comes my (and let’s be honest, everybody’s) favorite holiday: thanksgiving. Now thanksgiving is actually the most glorious holiday there is, and for those of us with a true spirit of thanks (i.e., huge appetites and desire for anything that’s not yam-related) it can even be glorious in the middle of West Africa. And it totally was! We woke up early, went to market, and started cooking ridiculously early. (It didn’t help matters that all we had was a two burner gas stove with which to do all of our baking, boiling, frying, and all manners of cooking. But we did pretty well, we managed to crank out two pumpkin pies (with fresh whipped cream), homemade stuffing, a humongo salad, rice, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, guinea hen (our original stand in for turkey), and in a true thanksgiving miracle, we even found REAL TURKEY! Oh my goodness, it was absolutely amazing. Almost, maybe, perhaps, (I’m sorry Harpers!) the most delicious thanksgiving ever. And maybe it was so amazing because we had been slaving away and forgot to eat all day. Or when we had finally finished everything (right on time and right when all of our beninese guests arrived for the feast) we had to stand around and explain the history of thanksgiving while our stomach grumbled and complained. Or because after we explained the history of thanksgiving we had to go around the room and say what we were thankful for. So by the time we ate, we were more than ready to feast. In our explanations we explained that this is the guilt-free holiday when Americans just eat and eat and eat, but still everyone made fun of us when we went to the table for seconds and thirds. (Not many Americans go in for thirds when it’s Beninese food being served up.)

Alrighty, I’ll leave you here for now, and soon to come will be a mighty part two for all your reading pleasure. As for me, I’m going to go drink my orange juice and enjoy my papaya. Papaya season is on it’s way out, and then smack in the middle of chaleur (the outrageously hot dry part of the dry season) comes mango season. Bethany and I shared a sneaky pre-season mango the other day and it might be the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Of course by this point I had been in my village for over a month so my tastebuds were kinda going crazy.