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.
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