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. 

guerrilla gardening and incessant cluelessness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(See what I mean??) 

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

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

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

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

How to Make Christmas/How to Be Good

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

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

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

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

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

Where the wild things go

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

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

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

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

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