Texts From Last Night, (+229) Edition

My friend Nell saves all her texts that are funny. I made so much fun of her when I found that out, but the other night I found myself going though my own inbox/outbox, and I found more than a few gems. (Yes, I am aware that sounds a little cocky, very 'oh look at how funny I am!') And as I was reading through them, it struck me what an oddly clear lens my texts are as a way to view my life in Benin. Some of them are silly, some downright bizarre, some just completely unexplainable. But I'd kinda like to share them with you, so you can see my strange day-to-day experiences, and judge me if you want. I didn't ask my friends for their permission, so if they ever see this, I'm sorry but our lives are too ridiculous not to share.

Me: OMG IDRISSOU JUST TOTALLY TOOK OUT THE ROPE ON ONE OF THOSE DOUCHEY FAKE POLICE STOPS WITH HIS CRAZY MOTOCROSS BIKE. It was an accident but it was so badass. The fake gendarme just crossed his arms and gave us an angry look. It was so great.

[So, all over the bush there are these guys who like to pretend that they are the military, usually complete with fake guns and sometimes military garb, and they try to charge money to pass as a kind od informal toll booth. I don't know why they do this because everyone knows that they are fake and no one ever pays, and I've never had a problem because they know that white people, who they just assume are working with the government, are not required to pay fees and tolls. But still, you get a kind of satisfaction when they are bested, because they are usually really annoying and terrible people.]

Sierra: Our meme tiss is so good.

[This is SUCH a volunteer thing to say. So 'meme tiss' is basically volunteer-french for the same tissu, or fabric. Beninese people love to get matching tissu, so naturally volunteers jump at any opportunity to get matching tissu. Also it's usually a nice close mate kind of thing, which is why Sierra and I made the specific effort to find a good matching fabric to represent our proximity and awesomeness.]

Nell: Babies doing or wearing adult things is always adorable. Full bomba plus shoes on a four year old? Might be my favorite thing.

[A bomba is the full tissu outfit, shirt and pants for boys, shirt and wrap skirt for girls, and it is pretty rare to see a kid wearing one. Actually, it's super rare to see a kid wearing pants, so when you see a kid all dressed up for church or whatnot, oh man it is the cutest.]

Me: I woke up from a nap in some rando's concession surrounded by kids making flowers out of toilet paper. It was some serious Martha Stewart shit.

Nell: Do you think you'd be happier in this country if it weren't so damn hot all the time?

Literally Everyone: Resend!

[Because I have terrible service, and because a lot of other people have terrible service, often times you'll get half of a text message, or a few straggling words that don't make sense. So at least once a day I shoot out a text saying simply, 'Resend!!' It's not my favorite. My friends are very patient with my lack of service.]

Nell: I know it was your dream to shit your pants in a fancy PC car, but throwing up might be just as nice.

Sierra: I appreciate your faith in the magic chicken box. You hold on to that :)

[So, Sierra and I were walking through Kalale one evening and out of nowhere there appeared a lighted rotisserie box, complete with rotating skinny chickens. In the middle of the bush! Out of nowhere! I was so amazed, and now we are constantly marveling over the unlikeliness of a rotisserie chicken box in downtown Kalale.]

Nell: Also have you really thought about finding a tooth in your food before? That's never crossed my mind before. I should probably be more grossed out than I was.

[Shudder.]

Raili: I'm on an ATT bus with no tv. Dreams really do come true!

[So, we northerners have to take a looong, 8-14 hour bus ride when we go down to Cotonou. Most of the busses are overcrowded and have no air conditioning, and you stop once at the halfway point to buy avocado sandwiches and oranges. While all of that sounds pretty bad already, usually at some point a guy will get on and preach for HOURS about his magical juice with sticks in it, which corrects anything from a cold to erection troubles. Honestly it doesn't matter what they are selling because they are just yelling forever about something or another, walking around, trying to engage the white person. I ignore them as hard as I can, usually to no avail. But the worst part is that oftentimes the bus driver will put on some video, a Nigerian soap opera, Ghanain music videos, whatever it is, but as LOUD AS POSSIBLE. It makes an already painful ride that much worse. So when you get a bus with a broken tv... Ahhhh, heaven.]

Nell: You're obsessed with your best friend. Who is a cat. Maybe this country is a bad influence on you. In a bad way.

Me: The accountant just poked my belly and said, 'is that a baby in there or is it ignam pilee?' Neither you jerk.......... it's cookies.

[Oh, Beninese body issues. So, here in West Africa, it is a compliment to point out someones weight gain, or to acknowledge someones heft. I wouldn't say that I'm hefty, per se, but I'm certainly not waifish, and I can not tell you how many times people have poked me in the belly, or asked me if I'm pregnant, and told me how fat I am with pure joy on their faces. If you are fat then you are healthy and well-fed, so I get that idea. But I don't love when people tell me, 'Oh Pamudo, you're so fat! Did you visit your husband recently? Are you pregnant? Felicitations!!' Shut up jerks. So what if I just ate an entire chocolate bar...]

Lizzy: Ugh is it september yet?

[OH MY GOD, I think this almost every day. We are just hanging on until September.]

Nell: Right? A no nap day is a wasted day.

Sierra: You know in Mean Girls when Regina can't fit into her prom dress and the lady tells her to go to Sears? That's how I felt at the tailer's today.

[See above and our body issues. Also, how on earth are you supposed to manage your weight when the ONLY things to eat here are carbs and starches? You know that whole food pyramid thing? I'm lucky if I get an onion a day, not to mention the countless servings of fruits and vegetables suggested. So yeah, moving to Africa does not mean you get skinny. I've made peace with it.]

Of poop and cats and soccer

Real fast I just want to spend a second apologizing for my lack of updating. I’m not going to bother making up an excuse, although if I did it would be along the lines of “it’s too hot! I’m too not-quite that busy! I was busy reading every silly novel I could get my hands on!” In the spirit of being a good blogger, I’ll give you an actual update on my life this time, instead about waxing poetic about Big Thoughts. (Because this blog is more me yammering on about whatever “poignant” thoughts are rattling inside of my head than any kind of coherent or useful rendering of my life here, this will probably be far more useful and informative than most of my posts. You’re welcome!) 

I just got back from Parakou a few days ago. I came bearing the way-too-much stuff I’m usually dragging around this country, as well as a giant sack overflowing with soccer balls. Soccer balls?! Yes! I have started a girls soccer team/club. It’s equal parts let’s gather weekly and talk about girl-type problems and why boys are bad and why you should study and grow up to be the beautiful, intelligent, and successful women you absolutely can be, with some soccer thrown in. It, like almost any other volunteer-driven activity, is kind of a mess, with me bumbling around in my french with these big ideas and then being met by a sea of wide-eyed girls staring back at me uncomprehendingly while they wait for their teacher to translate my french into french. But, as every country in the world that is not America knows, soccer speaks a universal language and it doesn’t matter that half of the girls don’t speak french and that my Fulani is limited to “Good morning, this tastes good.” Everyone knows what to do with a soccer ball. I have an infinity of wishes and hopes for these girls and this club, and if a fraction of them come to any kind of fruition than I will be very happy and proud. 

I think I’ve alluded to my latrine project, in which we will construct 18 self-composting latrines all around the village, giving every single person access to a latrine (as opposed to pooping out in the open, which I’m sure you can spend way too long thinking about why that is a bad and terrible thing). Other the last few months they have slowly been going up, bricks made, doors added, the mason walking around town and heckling me for running about and always being on the way to somewhere else. If you are surprised that this major project, that I have barely mentioned, is already on the eve of completion, then you know exactly how I feel. These latrines have completely snuck up in slow-motion at me, and though I know in my head that that is ridiculous, that I am there to watch them grow from sacks of concrete into corporal buildings, well… I guess there’s a metaphor for my entire Peace Corps service hidden somewhere in there. You watch every minute ticking by so slowly, then you look back and see how far this road stretches and the math just doesn’t add up. I guess, in the latrine project’s case, my part hasn’t really started. I’m not an engineer, I can’t design a composting latrine, but my engineer friend can! I’m not an accountant, I can’t pull together a budget managing many many thousands of dollars, but my accountant friend can! (Actually I can, and did a little bit. But I digress.) I’m not a mason, I can’t build a structure out of nothing, but my mason friend can! But now my cue is quickly approaching, and here I find myself standing on the wings preparing for my part in this community drama: talking about poop! I am on the precipice of having many, many, many conversations about poop. Shit. Caca. Feces. Defecation. My mother is incredibly proud. I can joke but it’s actually pretty cool that my village wants to be the cleanest, prettiest, healthiest village ever, and that the road to that goal is paved with the absence of poop everywhere. I can teach, and lead, and help my village make and enact big awesome ideas, and will! 

That’s the best definition of a Peace Corps volunteer I can give you: we’re not masons, we’re not engineers (actually, some of us are), but we are leaders and guides and friends and big-idea facilitators. Sometimes we have the ideas, and sometimes we take the ideas of others and make some calls and find some money and hire some people who do know what they are doing, and maybe it sticks. I know a lot of things about how to be healthy and civilized, some from very selfish places, but if they fall out of my pocket and mean something to someone else, then that’s not nothing. I don’t hold any illusions that I carry a massive weight on my shoulders, but I do hope that I can pass along these little nuggets that create the kinds of small changes that snowball into something bigger and better. Maybe that’s not how it will actually turn out in the long run, and this whole development thing is actually the mess people say it is, this white guilt change-the-world save the babies thing that people say. Maybe it’s just a strange social experiment with no measurable results. But maybe I will have planted these small seeds that grow into something, and continue to grow after I’m gone. And that’s not such a bad thing to hope for, I think. 

I have other things going on too, of course. Soon you’ll be hearing from me about Camp Glow, which I am directing this year. We’re working on the grant and getting more and more excited about it, and I’m sure I’ll come knocking on your email and Facebook doors, asking for money. I find myself getting more busy as the time grows shorter, which absolutely anyone could have anticipated but still manages to surprise me. I’m sure the next time I find myself wandering on here I’ll tell you all about the bike tour we have planned, in which I and a handful of volunteers and very enthusiastic Beninese partners bike a not insignificant distance, leading trainings in villages along the way. Sierra, my close mate and co-conspirator on this project, and I are competing for the position of Not The Most Pathetic Biker, but as we have waited for the hottest part of the year I think it will be a close call. We keep each other going by day-dreaming about what spectacular physical specimens we’ll be by the end of it. (It’s only four days, mind you, but let us have this one.) 

And, if you guys would be so kind, please send happy thoughts my way. My darling and dearest little gentlecat has been missing. I fear he has been eaten, which unfortunately is not a joke. (I say it jokingly in order to keep myself from actually believing it because, really, it IS ridiculous.) It’s only been a few days, and I hope that when I go home this afternoon that he will come meowing out with a good story, but like any good catmom, I worry. 

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.)