My life according to 30 Rock

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

Azonto! Azonto! Azonto!

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

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

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

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

Trippin' around in someone else's home

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

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

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

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

Down in the valley with the whiskey rivers

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

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

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

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

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

Happy-Making

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

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

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



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

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

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

People Call Us Renegades 'Cuz We Like Living Crazy

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

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

Things That Are Just A Part of my Life Now

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

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

A teut a l'huere, my cheries!

Work Station Days and Nights

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