Shrunken Heads and The Case of the Murdered Chicken

So I’ve heard through the grape vine that my posts have been a little lengthy, so I’ll try to keep this one a little bit shorter. Last week we had our technical visit, which has a few objectives. It’s right in the middle of stage, so we’re starting to get a much better idea of what we’ll be doing when we get to post. As a result, they wanted to give us a chance to see what the life of a typical volunteer is. In addition to that, we are supposed to also get an opportunity to relax for a few days and speak some English, and just get an idea of what it’s like to eat what we want to for a little bit.

Our adventure started by taking some Zemis to the market in the center of town, where we thought we negotiated a private taxi to Ahdjouhn, which is where we were headed for the visit. After picking up some wood and illegally smuggled Nigerian fully leaded gasoline (that’s how all of it is), we were on our way. I kept a keen eye on the guy in that back seat who was sitting in front of my bag, but I was told that he’d be crazy to steal anything from me as the taxi driver is ultimately responsible for my stuff. He’d prolly just light the guy on fire who tried to steal my things (and I’m not kidding, that’s just how things go here). After getting outside Porto Novo, we encountered some “Terre Rouge”, which is French for “red earth”, which is a fair description of the roads here. Luckily, it hadn’t rained in a while, so the roads had become relatively flat (for Beninese standards, I don’t think we got above 30 MPH). Once we approached Ahdjouhn, Andrew, the SED volunteer we were visiting, started talking to the driver to try to solidify the price. Well apparently, there was some miscommunication, and instead of paying what we thought was 3500 CFA (total) for 5 of us to rent a taxi for an hour, we ended up paying 4500 CFA. For those of you who are worried about my wallet after that, just know that it’s the difference between 7 dollars and 9 dollars…for 5 people…total. However, I was told that when you’re only making 180 bucks a month, you have to stop looking at the money in dollars….because then it just gets too easy to spend it. After a talk with the taxi police, they ruled that we were actually in the wrong. But there is that old adage “the customer is always right”, and in this case, even if we weren’t, him being a jerk to us cost him another fair to bring us all back to Porto Novo. What goes around….

After arriving, we unpacked and Andrew took us for a little tour around the village. Adjouhn was quiet, simple, and really provided the first natural beauty I’d seen since showing up. It is set just aside a river (whose name I forgot) that had recently flooded. This made for a spectacular view of the valley and flood plain. The picture really doesn’t do it justice. There was a wide array of housing for people, but most folks lived in mud huts. After greeting everyone in the village that we saw (literally), we had a chance to hang out in the garden, which is in the middle of the village. After a few refreshments, we headed back to Andrew’s house. He had spoken about another Non-Government Organization (NGO) that was in the area that was sponsored by the EU. Hoping that I’d run into some Italians, I suggested that we head over to say bonjour. Turns out there were no Italians, but we did meet the director, who was very cordial and gave us suggestions about all of our respective posts. Their goal as an NGO was to stop child trafficking, which is a really big problem in all of Western Africa. Though sex trafficking does happen, the larger problem is more when parents in Benin will send their children to Nigeria in exchange for money. Having children is a little different in Africa as it provides more mouths to feed, but also more hands to work on the house. In a sense, it is kind of how people invest in their own future. Back to the story.

So after our talk, we headed back to the house for a nice break of reading and nap time. It was nice to just have some time to myself that allowed me to relax a bit. Stage itself is fun, but when you are in an environment where everything is new, it’s also really draining. The rest of the week doesn’t need a play by play, but we did get a chance to go visit the CLCAM where Andrew works some of the time. It was nice to see some organization in a business that required a little more than stocking the one book case you have with an assortment of rice, peanut products, and other handy knick-knacks. CLCAM itself works as a savings and loan institution. In order to receive a loan, you must save with them. Each month, one will deposit however much money they want, and in return, CLCAM takes 1/31 of the money. This seems pretty expensive, and it is, but when there is such a large demand for lending, CLCAM can do this.

So since the beginning of stage, we’ve heard rumors that we’d learn how to kill a chicken. I finally got the opportunity. We were told to be at a friend of Andrew’s at 10 am, where his buddy’s wife was waiting with 2 chickens with their feet bound. So not to get to graphic, the way you kill a chicken, is first give it some water, and then tuck it’s head back so it can’t see you (apparently that’s bad luck). Then just make a small incision on the neck to let it bleed out. Sadly, after we let it bleed out, it started flying…so I had to lop off its head. YIKES

The other highlight of the week included a trip to a self-sustaining farm. To save some cash (and this is normal), we headed out there as doubles on a Zemi. That means that we had 3 people total on the motorcycle. Don’t worry, we have helmets :P . It was still pretty awkward though. The farm was great. It used the waste from the animals to fertilize the plants which would then go to feed the fish and rabbits. The guy who was running the place, named Pascal, actually started building some bungalows at the site that he is going to start renting out to people who want a place to get away. We get a special discount! It was incredible to see this guy’s motivation, and I’m sure that sometime we’ll head out there for a little down time. The ride back, though less scenic that than ride there, was far more eventful.

I explained in an earlier post about Vodun (or voodoo as it’s known in the states). Well, as we were heading back, the driver of our motorcycle stopped and told me that Laura, who was riding in back of me, needed to cover her head. I couldn’t figure out what he meant at first, but then I remembered how women aren’t supposed to see the Vodun because if they do, within three days, they will just drop dead…but not before getting a phone call! Sorry, that was insensitive, but it’s really hard for me to take this religion seriously when people claim that these guys can turn a man into a Yam. Other volunteers had told me that encountering Vodun was normal though, so I was a little nervous, but at least I’d been told ahead of time. To be culturally acceptable, the taxi driver took his sweaty shirt off and gave it to Laura, who then proceeded to put it over her head, then put the helmet on over the shirt (we need to wear that or else we get kicked out of the Peace Corps). So here we are, driving through a village with three people on a motorcycle, one of whom basically has a bag on her head. As we turn a corner, we start to hear drums and there were two men about 100 yards ahead holding an ivy rope across the road, signaling us to stop.

As we started to get closer, the drums got louder. A group of men ran up to the moto and started cheering and banging drums. They were all smiling, so I wasn’t too spooked, but Laura had her head covered, thus limiting her vision, and Beninese people are generally really loud, so to her, it sounded like they were yelling at us. I can’t imagine what must have been going through her head! A bunch of crazy eyed tribesmen with spears and shrunken human heads about to turn us into some sort of starchy vegetable is what I like to think. Anyways, they just wanted some money for the “toll” that everyone has to pay to pass, so because I only had 500 cent, or 1 dollar, I gave it to them. Normally you give like 25 CFA, so they were elated. They were patting me on the shoulders while I’m sure Laura thought I was getting beat up. I kept telling her “were ok” and “it’s just a group of men, nothing scary”. Either way, I don’t think there was much I could say to make her feel better given that she was riding blind, three deep on the back of a motorcycle in West Africa. So after cheering for a little while longer, they lowered their vine gate, and we zoomed away. Laura was visibly shaken after she took off this guy’s smelly shirt, but I just kept thinking about how tough these Peace Corps girls are. I think I would have peed my pants, which wouldn’t have been too good for the person in front of me…unless it was really cold. So that is all: crazy African story #1 in the books.

Getting back from Adjouhn wasn’t too bad. Just hopped on a zemi and zoomed on back. Not only was the zemi more fun, but it was oddly more comfortable because we didn’t hit nearly as many bumps. Yesterday, Papa and I had a chat (finally) about Christianity and Islam. It was great for about 90% of the talk because he was just explaining how Ramadan works, why they do it and so on. He also started showing me the parallels between Islam and Christianity (a LOT), and it really just gave me a sense of peace and community with him. But then….uh oh…we got into differences. He did most of the talking (mainly because of French), but needless to say, when you can’t defend your faith because you literally don’t know what the words are that you need to use, it’s frustrating. We just left it at, I don’t know why Catholics can eat pork, but I’ll get back to you on that. To him, I feel like any argument is a win/lose type thing, which is a far cry from what my discussions back in the States were. It was vaguely reminiscent of when I got into some arguments with my cousin Alfredo, in Italy, who is about the age of a grandpa. Religious arguments without citable facts never work out too well (call me if you want clarification on this, Fraser). Anyways, it was a great experience, and if nothing else, two hours of pure French.

Finally, today I had a neat experience where I misunderstood my sisters and brothers. I thought they said, “we need to go pray now”, and I said “ok”. Well what they actually said was “we”, including me. Still misunderstanding, I dropped to my knees and said, “ok, but when we pray, I need to pray like this”. Well I thought that maybe later we were going to go somewhere and pray, but they all dropped to their knees too and said “Soyez!”, which is kinda like “go”! It was really funny, because we were just hanging out with Mama by the well talking, and then all of a sudden there were a bunch of people of different faiths on their knees praying. Anyways, I thanked God for my “famille” here and asked that he give us whatever we need to be happy. They asked for money and food, which I guess equals happiness for some folks, especially in the world’s 9th poorest country. After the prayer, I headed off to bed.

I’m just so happy so far with my experience here. I’m starting to see how relative poverty really is. Everyone in the world has everyday life. If you are alive, you know what everyday life is. It’s just a matter of what a person values that determines how satisfied they can be with that life, everyday. People here in the capital don’t have much…at all, but they also don’t really realize what they don’t have, and that in itself is what I think makes anyone’s life seem normal. In a sense, the relative poverty that everyone shares here helps maintain the happiness of their life. What isn’t acceptable, and this is me the Peace Corps Trainee talking here, is when poverty results in preventable deaths and preventable crimes. I guess that’s one snippet of the reason that I’m here. Sorry to get all preachy, just thought it was a thought worth sharing.

And once again, I’ve gone and dropped another 6 pages of my life on the internet…sorry….deal with it. Thanks again for reading!

Prayer requests – That I’ll keep having good talks with my Papa and that I get more chances to share what I believe, assuming the other people want to find out. As always, the continued good physical and mental health and safety of the volunteers as we start to finish stage.

Holy Broken Toe, Batman!

So happened since last time. I actually had to look at my personal journal to get a little refreshed. I guess I’ll back it up to last Saturday. So it’s become a tradition now (since it’s happened twice) that the SED and TEFL volunteers meet up on Saturdays at the Cactus Bar to hang out for a while. Some of the posted pictures are from that event. After that I headed home to meet up with my brother. The plan was originally to go to “Panama”, which is a “nightclub” in Benin. In reality, it’s just kinda some dude’s porch. I had originally invited my friends to come out with us as well, but on my bike ride home, by brother had sent me a text saying that he was too tired to go out and had apparently informed the entire neighborhood of this, so nobody was ready to go. Long story short, I temporarily forgot French and couldn’t convey the message that I needed to tell my friends that we weren’t coming anymore. The more I asked if I should tell my friends that we weren’t coming, the more my brother delayed my answer. After about an hour and a half of waiting, we met up with my friends at Panama porch.

The club was quite an event. First off, there are hardly any women there, and those that are there are apparently of the “women of the night” (at least from the local crowd, I’m about to get beat up by the Peace Corps girls :P) So it’s a whole bunch of dudes, my group of American friends, and me. The club had its fair share of creepy guys too. I don’t think I’ve ever pulled the “sorority girl save” so many times in one night. If you’re wondering what that is, it’s what you see at bars back in the states when a guy tries to dance with an uninterested girl. The difference is, in the states, the guy will stop chasing her, while here he thinks he’s invited. In addition, with the giant lack of women at the bar, it’s a little weird seeing all these guys dance with each other. Homosexuality is a big no-no here, but apparently dudes dancing up on each other and holding hands while walking down the street is totally normal. Go figure. So after a sweaty night that I’m pretty sure got me this cold I’m getting over, I headed off to bed. The next morning, my brother woke me up at like 8, bear in mind we got home at 230, and then proceeded to instruct me on how to deal with the day after going out…in general. I tried to explain to him that it wasn’t my first rodeo, but they don’t have rodeo’s here so he kept knocking on my door. Apparently, the drill is: eat, shower, eat, sleep again. TIA.

I did make it out to mass again, which was nice this time because it was only 1:45 long, but unfortunately, I showed up about an hour early. Apparently that’s what you get for asking what the Catholic mass times are from your Muslim friends. No biggie though, I just ended up praying for a bit.

Monday was French…all day. I think it was about 6 hours total, and even though I love speaking French, 6 hours of any type of instruction can make anyone bored. Tuesdays are “administrative” days, which can equal tic-tac-toe, hangman, or a new one called stix that I just learned. Most the time I’m listening, but sometimes I get a little bit frustrated with having to be told how to avoid malaria (ie: keep mosquitoes away, take your pills, etc). I guess that’s part of the red tape of being in the Peace Corps.

Kinda random, but the pic to the left is my neighborhood.

Wednesday was the fateful day of the broken toe. After class we headed over to the soccer field at the other school. Now my papa had told me to make sure I played with shoes wherever I went…but nobody else was so I figured I’d take my chances. What I thought was sand ended up being up being just really hard, red earth and what I thought was a very stubbed toe ended up being a broken toe. It wasn’t until a chunk of skin came outta my other toe that I stopped playing. Oddly enough, neither of the injuries ended up being painful at all, at any point, and are currently healing well.

I figured I’d wait it out for a day, but when I saw how swollen it was the next morning (check the pic), I figured it might be a good idea to talk to the doctor. Before I did, I wanted to get a chance to make our presentation that was planned for the next day called Accounting for Illiterates.

The first of August was the Beninese Independence Day. 'The first of August, proud to be Beninese

So the deal is, in Benin (and most countries where the Peace Corps is), there is a big problem with small businesses not accounting for their expenditures and income. Another common problem that goes along with this also includes not knowing how to read or write. Luckily, the Peace Corps has devised a system which allows people who are illiterate to accomplish this seemingly simple task.

So the first picture is how money is represented. The left column represents the symbol for the money, and then the right indicates the value. Now I put together a little exercise for those of you who want to keep you minds fresh during syllabus week. Try to calculate what each of the values are, I flipped the answer and put it a little further down. Keep in mind, if you can’t figure it out, the only excuse you should have is that you are below the age of 3. Just wait, I bet I got one of them wrong. And, yes, I do have too much time on my hands….and Microsoft paint on my computer. So anyways, if you got the numbers right, you can then see a little further down how we represent numbers with tick marks. Basically, the way the actual accounting book works is that there are a series of columns, each column has a denomination at the top, and the top left corner has the month. Each respective row has the day of the week, and with each day, depending on whether or not it’s the income or expenses sheet, each purchase is accounted for and then summed at the end of the week. .

The experience itself was great. We had to present in French, but luckily, the people that we were presenting to didn’t know French either so we had a translator translate everything into Gun (Goon), which is certainly a language that I should learn before I leave . That made us seem a lot smarter than we actually were. Neat. They asked a lot of questions, and by then end seemed really interested in having another class. One of our volunteers will be posted there, so hopefully he’ll be able to get them some supplies and follow up on that.

One might ask, “why not just teach them basic math?”. I too have asked that question…and quite honestly I will probably give that a shot when I get to post. Apparently this method is able to at least get someone in the habit of keeping track of where their money is going because there are some businesses that frequently run in the red without even knowing about it. In addition, this is something that is really easy to pass on since its just tick marks and colors, where as numbers can be a little intimidating. Either way, this was a blast and I hope I’ll be able to continue to do stuff like this when I get to post.

That day, I also found out about my post assignment. Though I can’t say where it is on the blog, if you want to know, email me rich.pasquesi@gmail.com and I’ll send you my generic email about it. The work that I’ll be doing will be with an organization called CLCAM which does a lot of microfinance and savings. In addition, I’ll be working with women’s artisan groups to help them to get organized as best I can. I’ll give more details on this as my work comes at post.

After we left accounting for illiterates, I made a call to the doctor to let him know about my foot issue. He told me that I needed to immediately get on the shuttle to Cotonou, which kind of upset me considering we were all going to celebrate finding out our post. What it did mean was air conditioning and a quite room to sleep in, so I guess it was a nice consolation prize. Overall, a great night still, and I got to use my laptop with the internet, which was a fine break.

The next day, I headed downstairs to the doctor’s office in my PJ’s and he had a look at my toe. After telling me that he didn’t think it was broken, he sent me off to the X-ray clinic just to be sure. After going into 2 different waiting rooms and then waiting another hour for my x-rays, it came back that the top of my big left toe was indeed broken. Still, it didn’t hurt, but it was weird to look at the x-ray of my toe and see crack. The doctor ended up sending me to another doctor, who ended up using the athletic tape I just happened to have to tape my toes together. I’ll be riding the bench for 3 weeks as a result, but luckily it’s half as long as a normal break and even better, it doesn’t hurt. It was just really swollen…goo. After hitching a ride back to Porto Novo, I kinda fudged the truth about playing without my shoes on to my Papa, and then headed off to some sweaty sleep.

Saturday with SED TEFL was fun again. We made banana pancakes and hashbrowns. Delicious. The pic to the left is me going through pancake withdrawal.

Sunday was a crazy church day (again). JUST THE MASS, was 3 hours and 30 minutes. I left at 3 hours, which was well after communion. Apparently that’s not normal for it to be this long, but because there were 2 new priests and Marys assumption, they felt the need for an hour long homily in 2 languages and like a 30 minute jamfest in the middle. I’m all about church, but I had about 4 hours of washing my clothes to take care of later. Speaking of which, I don’t know if its that there isn’t as much dust or stuff in the US, but my family makes me clean my clothes until they are literally perfect here. Somehow all of the dirt comes out in the States with a weakly rotating spiraled plastic blade. I think it’s more that our thought of clean is “not smelly”, whereas theirs is “new”.

Overall, I’m still really happy about my experience here. My French gets better every day and I’ve actually moved up a level in my classes. Next Wednesday is our tech visit where we get to visit a SED volunteer and see how everyday life is for him/her. Life is pretty stress free so far and I’ve been working pretty hard on everything. Not really feeling the whole “tons of free time” thing I’ve been hearing about, but apparently that starts when we get to post. I hope not, I like being busy. Alright, I’m gonna get out of here. Take it easy!’

Prayer requests: That my big toe heals quick, that French improves, and that I can start to focus more of my energy on preparing for next month’s move to post. Also, my older brother, Fauzi, has malaria, so a quick recovery for him (don’t worry, he’s had it before and the family doesn’t seem too scared) God bless!

Ma Famille Nouvelle!

On Wednesday, I moved in with my family. We got the picture of the families before hand, and as you can see from the pictures, not too many people smile here. Needless to say, the whole “not smiling” thing had me a little bit worried. My family is called Agnide. I have a Papa, Mama, three brothers and three sisters. My brothers; Fauzi is 22, Faraj is 20, Sabour is 9, then my sisters; Firdaus is 16, Mandjidath is 12, and Chade’ is 2. When we left Cotonou, we traveled to Porto Novo to a development center, which is where we met our families for the first time. When I was looking for my family, I had my Mama in mind, who, as you can see from the picture, is very visible (don’t worry, that’s actually a very good thing here. All of their soap opera stars are a bit on the plump side.) After wandering a bit, Firdaus tapped me on the shoulder and showed me to where Fauzi was sitting. After speaking in some pretty terrible French, I found out how old they were, and we eventually got in the bus to head to their house.

Now there were some rumors that some of us would be staying with some pretty “rich” families, at least by Beninese standards. I pulled up to a gate and immediately some of my family was waiting outside to try to help me with my bags. As I headed to their house, I started to notice that our definitions of “rich” are different Hopefully, I’ll be able to take a video of where I’m living, but just to describe, we live on the bottom floor of what I’d consider a condo complex. As I walked towards the house, mama was outside cooking (which she always is), and as we headed inside, I saw my littlest sister sleeping like an angel on the couch. My other brother Faraj and my sister Mandjidath were also waiting to greet me. I was immediately shown to my room.

My room has one magnesium bulb for light for the whole room. Other than a desk with a chair and a mattress on the floor, I don’t have any other furniture. I have to admit that I definitely got a little bit of culture shock with this. I just kept on thinking “whoah…this is really happening! This is my life for the next 2 years!” After being shown the bathroom, which is a normal bathroom without any running water, dinner was up. They left me to eat by myself, which is apparently customary here. Dinner was great; some sort of potato, pasta, onion, tomato, and chicken mix. After thanking my Mama for dinner, I saw Mandjidath walking Chade’ around. I said in French, “Where’s my little sister?”. Mandjidath held her hand as she sleepily fumbled around the corner. As soon as she saw me, her eyes opened wide and she let out scream and started crying. Apparently I’m the first white person she’s ever come in contact with. The volunteer who was here last year was black and I think Chade’ was too young to know the difference anyways since she probably couldn’t talk. Well needless to say, she’s still pretty scared of me, though she does shake my hand sometimes and she even gave me a kiss on the cheek once. I told her that by the time I leave, I want to hold her in my arms…we’ll see!

Soon after the cryfest, Papa showed up. I warmly greeted him as Papa, and he smiled and said in broken English, “How can you call me Papa? You just met me!” I don’t remember what I said as I was about to make one of the worst first impressions of my life. He asked me, “What is your surname?” and I replied “Pasquesi”. He said, “No no no, here, in Benin!” I couldn’t remember…just kinda said “ahhhhhhhhhhhgg” with a smile on my face. He gave me a pat on the shoulder and walked away. My brothers tried to reassure me that it wasn’t a problem, but with all the business training sessions I’ve been to in my life, the first thing that came to mind is that first impressions mean everything. Ever since then, it seems like Papa is constantly evaluating my French, which I appreciate, but I’m still trying to figure out whether or not he actually appreciates that I’m here. Again, time will tell. I unpacked a little bit and then gave Sabour the soccer ball and pump that I had brought from home. He seemed really happy and the whole neighborhood has been using it ever since. Papa hurt his knee playing with it and kinda gave me a dirty look about it when he told me, but I hope he understands that it’s not my fault that he tripped on my ball when I wasn’t there, nor playing. For all my friends in Italy, this would be the first time I just smile and say TIA (this is Africa). So after teaching them how to play hearts, I headed off to bed.

They all stay up later than me and wake up earlier, so I really don’t know what to think about it. All I can say is “THANK GOD I lived in a fraternity!” because they are probably the loudest, albeit friendly, but still loudest people I’ve ever met. On top of that, the well/cooking area/hangout area is right outside my window which is always open, so I’m definitely reemploying the old “headphones routine” from college. The next morning I woke up to the call to prayer, which for all you non-Muslims out there, is one of five times a day the cleric at the Mosque gets on the loud phone and sings praise to Allah. In Saudi Arabia, everyone would hit the ground and pray every time they heard that, but the Muslims here have been described to me as “Friday Muslims”, likened to “Sunday Catholics” in the states. I guess that’s a good representation of my family as I have yet to see anyone praying. I did express interest in seeing their Mosque sometime though and maybe fasting a bit with them during Ramadan. Anyways, after another hour of interrupted sleep due to roosters and people at the well, I got up. After taking a bucket shower/bath, I had a breakfast of a whole baguette, margarine, and coffee tea (ya they mix them). I headed off to school after that with Faraj.

The school is a compound of about six open air buildings. We don’t use their chalk boards, but rather big sheets of butcher paper. I’m in the middle level of French, but I’m hoping that I’ll move up in the coming weeks. I have been doing pretty well with it. For anyone in the USA who thinks that our schools are inadequate, ours’ here don’t have lights, rarely electricity, and the only air conditioning we have is the wind that blows through the slotted windows that are on the outside walls of the building. We need good teachers first, then work on the buildings (Props to Teach for America). Anyways, the first day was pretty simple, but pretty funny as there are a handful of us with digestive problems (thank God not me) who were running in and out of the room all day stealing the toilet paper from the front of the room. During one of the breaks, one of the local Vodun tribes showed up called the Zambeto. The specific “god” that showed up was the guardian, which was a man that was under what appeared be a stack of colored hay. Apparently, its’ responsibility is to guard the streets at night. We were advised that if anyone sees them at night and they don’t know their “secret”, it’s possible that things can get violent. Only last night did I find out that their patrol consists of a parade of loud drums and horns, so I assume that it’ll be pretty easy to avoid them should I hear them coming.

After school, our bikes showed up (which are totally rad), and Mama showed up to walk me home. After getting home, I talked with the family a little bit about my day, what I learned, and then had dinner. After dinner, they asked me if I had a camera, and though I was a little reluctant to get it out immediately, I took some pictures of the family present. They just love seeing themselves on it! It’s kinda like some women in the states…”Lemme see…ewww I don’t like it…take another one” (inside joke for those of you scratching your heads). I was still suffering from some jetlag, so I headed off to bed. Friday was pretty standard, but I got to hang out with the family a little more. My brother asked me if I wanted to play some soccer, so I agreed and headed over to their field.

The field is really just a half road, half open space. Their goals are comprised of 2 rocks and an assembly of sticks and are misaligned by about 20 yards. This is why soccer is the most popular sport in the world; all you need is people and some sort of ball. Anyway, all the kids in the neighborhood wanted to see what the Yovo could do (that’s what they call white people). Before going my Papa made a big deal about me wearing shoes, but it wasn’t until I got to the field that I understood why. Everyone was either barefoot or wearing flip-flops, and they were doing this while playing soccer, very well. One kid got a piece of glass in his foot too. Well needless to say, this big Yovo was sliding all over the place, and after about 20 minutes (it was prolly more like 10) of running my butt off, I called it quits. I’m just gonna use the excuse that I was jet lagged, but the PC has a game on Wednesday so we’ll see how that goes.

After dinner and a bucket shower, I spent a lot of time just talking with my siblings about French, trying my best to absorb as much as I could.

Saturday was interesting too. I got the chance to get my exercise equipment out and get a quick workout in. You would have thought that I was a professional athlete because it seemed like every kid in the neighborhood was over watching me workout and playing with my jump rope and elastic band. I kept hearing “ Oh Rich, tu es forte!” and apparently my performance has earned me the title of “Rich d’or”, or Rich the Golden (or something to that effect). I joke around saying that I’m “Rich d’eau” or “Rich the Watery”, as I down about a gallon of water a day. I didn’t really realize how much of a stereotypical American I am though. Blond hair, blue eyes, athletic, and my name literally means “rich” in French. Hopefully I’ll leave a good impression of what stereotypical Americans are like.

Apparently my family is really popular around here, and there are people in and out of here all the time who are just friends of the family. It also makes me a bit weary because I don’t know if everyone respects my stuff as much as the family here does, so I lock up every time that I’m not at the house.

Faraj took me on a “promenade” yesterday, where we just walked around town. Every little kid I passed would say “Hey Yovo!”, and a lot of times, I’d hear it from adults as well. The walk helped a lot to start to build a mental map of the city as well. Things are just starting to feel a little bit more familiar, but I have a lot more work to do with the language.

Last night I helped out Mama with making dinner. Normally, she’ll cook over a charcoal stove, and for some reason, she doesn’t use any sort of candle, lamp, light…just the moon and the steady glow of the coals. I thought that it was pretty silly, so I went and grabbed my head lamp and strapped it on for her. She seemed so thankful, and I sat there with her the whole time she cooked for me. I’ve told her and my sisters, who pretty much take care of me, that I can’t let them continue to do everything for me. I think it’s pretty appalling how chauvinistic the culture is. Though I still consider my brothers friends, if they want a snack, they will send their sisters around the corner to go buy them something and not even say “merci”. Mama and my sisters do all the cooking, washing, and cleaning that there is to be done, while my Papa, brothers, and uncle just sit around watching tv or playing video games. I plan on using the excuse that “I have to learn how to live on my own” so that I can help them with stuff. I’ve started out by cleaning up after myself (thanks mom) when I eat, which they wouldn’t let me do before, and it will hopefully turn into me helping to cook and preparing my own breakfast. We’ll have to see how that goes. I’m confident that by the time I leave, I’ll be doing everything on my own short of cooking.

Sunday consisted of biking around with the other volunteers. It’s nice to get a nice dose of English once in a while. One of the trainees, Eric, was doing tricks on his bike and somehow managed to bust the frame on one of the wheels. I guess that means no stunts for me.

So overall, I really like my family. They are generally warm, curious, and protective of me. There is always something to do around here, and if nothing else, I can always study. I feel that we’re really growing closer. My situation here is funny too because in the states, I am the youngest and have 2 brothers, whereas here, I have 3 sisters and brothers and I am the oldest. Hopefully, in time, Chade’ won’t be so scared of me. Life is slow around here. Nobody is ever in a hurry to get anywhere, yet they are always curious about your life and how you’re doing. I have a feeling that I’m really going to enjoy myself here and I hope that my time here will continue to be as rewarding as it’s been.

If anyone is ever curious about calling me, my number is 011-229-96-35-39-68 from US lines. If you’re calling with Skype, just select Benin on the country and then enter 96-35-39-68. I’m always happy to talk, and the best time to call me would probably be from 11 am to 4pm central time. Anyways, I gotta get moving. Take it easy and I hope to hear from some of you soon!

Prayer requests: Continued good health and good health of the other volunteers. Also that I can continue to get closer with my family and learn French quickly. Thanks!