Finally in Cotonou

Bonjour tout la monde! Well what a few days it’s been. We got in on Friday night. The airport in Cotonou was pretty crazy with getting all the papers together and some of our baggage being suspiciously opened as it rolled out of the door. One of the girls put her backpack in a bag and when the bag showed up, her backpack wasn’t in it. Other than that, there were no casualties. As you can see in the first pic (and maybe video, not sure if I can upload it), they just got a rickety truck with canvas on the sides and threw all our stuff inside. We then got into a crammed “bus”, which was more like the size of a pickup truck, (pic 2) and drove to the Saint Jean Eudes, which is a Catholic retreat compound where we were shielded from outside for a few days. As you can see from the pic, we fit 16 people into the bus and it was pretty tight. When we showed up a group of the current volunteers came to greet us from the bus. It was oddly reminiscent of my days at leadership camp when we’d all run out to meet the campers. I guess a lot of the same types of people do it. So after dropping off our bags, we got to try out a Beninese dinner, which was hors doeurves (sp? I don’t know French yet…) and spaghetti. The meat was definitely different. After dinner we went to a little bar that is inside the compound and bought some beers, which can be dangerous because they cost about 500 Francs, or about $1.25 , for .63 liters.

The next day I woke up to crowing roosters, which apparently is a pretty standard occurrence. Luckily, that will keep us from sleeping too long. After a cold shower, I headed down to a breakfast of a baguette and butter and tea (not bad) and then did a whole bunch of administrative stuff. Lunch was the first of about 5 consecutive non-breakfast meals whose main course was a really boney fishy-fish, but apparently I’m going to love this stuff because one of the volunteers who’d been there for a year was just devouring it. After lunch, we headed to the Peace Corps HQ in downtown Cotonou and got more of a view of the city. To put it plainly, it’s pretty filthy. The pollution in the streets is worse than the worst streets in Chicago and there is trash and standing water/sewage on a lot of the outskirts. At first, I was a bit intimidated. I had seen some pretty dirty stuff in Bangkok and Beijing, but none of it really compared to this! The Peace Corps HQ is really nice. There is a bedroom just for the volunteers where we will be able to come and relax if we need a weekend to rest, internet access, not to mention all of the Assistant PC Directors who will be our bosses throughout this whole event. It is run like a military compound though with a big gate and spiked walls. So later on, I got to see my brand new bike and got my helmets; one for the bike and one for when I have to take motorcycle taxis. It is still an ongoing process, but I also got a chance to get 2 more shots in the arm. Still sore.

Later on, we headed to the camp, had dinner, and then the dance party started. We all danced until about 2 in the morning and I kinda felt a little bad since the place was outdoors. Apparently the Beninese would have done the same thing, so it’s not a big deal.

Sunday, the morning was full of a bit more administrative stuff and in the afternoon, we had the guy talk while the girls had the girl talk. I’ll just say that ours was much shorter and probably a lot more shallow, while the girls were talking for about 2 hours. They were just coming out of their meeting place when we were getting back from a walk. We got a chance to see one of the main road which is called several names, one of which is “the way between Lomo and Goudamay”. They really don’t have road names here…just landmarks. Along the walk, there was a kid peeing on the side of the road as we walked by. It was really surprising for me, but shouldn’t be since it’s something that I’ve heard is relatively common. Just kind of demonstrates the general culture here that people don’t really pay much attention to the cleanliness of the city. On the way back, we walked through the gates of the compound to see a crowd gathering in and around the church for mass. It would soon be what was probably one of the most grueling and fun experiences I’ve ever had inside of a church.

So after putting on my Sunday best, I met up with a group and headed to church. We asked some ladies outside and were told that there was space inside. That wasn’t entirely true. We entered the church and immediately started walking through trying to find a seat. I could just feel about 800 pairs of eyes drilling into the back of my neck. So when we got to the door on the other side, we turned around, and as suspected, everyone looked a little confused to see us. So we headed outside to try to find a seat there. In all, we estimated that there were about 800 people inside and 1200 on the lawn, which would make any priest in America have a heart attack. Just as we thought that we wouldn’t be able to find a spot, a women came up to us saying that she could find us a seat. I was placed next to a mother and her two daughters, probably 6 and 3 . I tried saying “thanks for letting me sit here” in French, but the little girl just rolled her eyes at me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so small. So the mass started with what I later found out was a list of people who had donated to the church, then a deacon started saying how “If you give more money to the church, God will grant your wishes”. I’d say give to Cesar what is Cesar’s. I realize our church isn’t perfect, but it really upsets me when churches exploit people’s situations like this. Instead of telling them to save money to go to school so they can better their lot in life, they tell them to donate to the church. I’m not against donating to the Church, but I fear that they might need an education instead of donating, at least for the time being. The mass was pretty standard, longer, but standard. At the homily, the priest had us all stand up and thanked us for our service, and I guess I didn’t realize that the direct translation for Peace Corps, or la Corps de la Paix, is “The Body of the Peace” in French. So he went on to talk about how we are all part of one body, the church, and reminded them that all Catholics are all part of the same body of the church. Honestly, it was pretty neat. Since it was the loaves and fish reading, he also talked about how we need food for the body as well for the soul, peace. Overall, it was a good homily, but the really cool part was the offeratory. They started to play a song, and everyone started dancing a little bit, then the song started escalating and everyone was going nuts. Something that resembled a conga line started as people started dancing up to the front of the church to donate some cash. One of the girls, Sara, started dancing around on the way up and all the women in the church started cheering for her, so the other guys and I did too. We got back to our seats and that little girl who had been so cold to me earlier started showing me dance moves and singing. It went on for about 20 minutes, and I never thought I’d say it, but I caught a sweat in church from dancing! It was great. We were at about the 1:20 mark, and I thought we’d be done, but this was just the beginning. We had communion, sang, then the mass ended…but the service didn’t. Now we had adoration, were women gave testimonials in another language and then they walked around with the Eucharist blessing everyone. It took at least an hour. The priest just had a really flat look on his face as he processed around the church with the Eucharist and the women would bow down and talk to it, pleading, begging, and it was really moving. Given, this could be somewhat of a cultural tradition, but even though I couldn’t understand what they were saying, their expressions were definitely that of someone who was in a lot of pain. If it is genuine (and who am I to doubt), I am jealous of their faith, but feel bad that this many of them had something so seemingly tragic that had happened to them. It makes me thankful for my life and empowers me a bit to try my hardest while I am here to do what I can to improve the standard of living in this country. When all was said and done, I had kneeled down about 20 times and had been there about 3.5 hours. I was exhausted, but also astonished. After dinner and a beer with my new friends, I headed off to bed.

Monday was a great day. I had the chance to meet with my program, SED and see the kinds of things that I will be doing in the next day. After my interview with my director, I told him that I would prefer to either do microfinancing or work with artisans. My work experience indicates that I should probably work with artisans as it is a form of low level manufacturing, but microfinancing really interests me as well. It’s something that I understood very well in finance and something that I think is somewhat of a novel concept because it allows one to empower a community, particularly women, to improve their own situations. I was also asked if I would like a postmate, which would be another volunteer who lives in the same area as me that I could go visit if I needed to talk about something. I told them that I’d rather be with a postmate if given the two options, but if they couldn’t find anyone to fill the position, I’d agree to live on my own. Either way, I’ll probably be about 5 Km minimum away from other people. They also asked me what could make me leave, and I just mentioned that it would take a lot of problems over a long period of time, so I could probably deal with a lot, but I jokingly said that I hope it doesn’t give them permission to make me suffer :P . So we’ll see what happens with that. After the interview, it was time for zemidjahn training, which is what they call the moto taxis here. They taught us how to negotiate with the drivers and gave us a big helmet to wear, then we got on and did a lap around the block. It’s actually pretty fun. If you check out my video of the streets, you’ll be able to see an example of some folks riding around on them. That was pretty much my day, and I’m sure I’ll have many more stories to tell.

As for how I’m feeling about the experience, I’m very comfortable with everything right now, and having people around to answer my questions has heIped me a lot, not to mention having the other volunteers here to share the experience with me. It’s starting to become more familiar to me and I think that as of right now, I’m pretty much adapted. I’m very happy right now  . I move in with my family Wednesday night! Please send me any emails with questions at rich.pasquesi@gmail.com. Talk to you soon!
Au revoir!
-Rich

Prayer request: That everything go well as all the trainees move into our new homes with our stage families and that we adapt well to the change in language, food, and culture.

If you want to send me packages, you can send them to me at:

Rich Pasquesi, PCT

Peace Corps

BP 971, Cotonou

Then write on the package, Dieu te regarde. That means, God is watching you so i don't get things stolen. See ya!

*The opinions expressed in this blog are mine alone and do not represent the views or opinions of the United States Peace Corps.