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.