My Eyes Are Up Here, Yovo

Getting close to 3 months now. It’s been quite a ride. Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time with the women’s savings groups. Madeline, who is the woman with whom I go to these groups, speaks French to me but Yoruba to everyone else, so most the time Im left pretty clueless as to what is going on so I have started reading or studying French vocab words. Occasionally I help fill out the cards saying how much the women have saved at each respective meeting. As for cultural differences, most the women have babies, and wearing shirts is not mandatory for them, so to put it simply, there are boobs everywhere. Id liken it to guys having to wear shirts in the states; people feel more comfortable when you are wearing one, but it isnt mandatory. Needless to say, I get blindsided about 4 times an hour because Ill be reading a book and then look up to see a baby breastfeeding.

The CLCAM, which is the savings and credit institution that is sponsoring me, has already started about six different groups that get loans from the CLCAM contingent upon their saving 3000 CFA a week, giving 600 CFA at each of their five meetings. With that, each member can receive a loan of 30000 CFA, or the equivalent of 60 dollars. In order to receive this loan, each member also pays 2% interest back to the savings group and 1% interest to the CLCAM. So in order to receive 30000 CFA, each member ends up paying 900 CFA. Each one of the meetings, 300 CFA goes to the personal savings of each member and 300 CFA goes to paying back the loan of each respective member. Finally, the last stipulation is that each member must have some form of business, which is simply verbally confirmed. There is no need for any sort of documentation to prove this fact, which I kind of found funny seeing as how this sort of lending policy is what created the mortgage crisis and worldwide recession. I guess the only difference is that the individual loans are only about 60 dollars, as opposed to 200k, and the members in the groups are supposed to keep each other accountable so in case one member misses a payment, the other members will be able to make up for that loss. It works very well with the communal living that is the way of life here. The cool thing about this model is that each group is also taught the value of saving their money during each of the formations.

So you might be wondering why this is useful for me. Most of the women in the city here aren’t educated at all. Meaning, they don’t know how to read or write, much less speak French. It really is a perfect area for me to start doing formations of accounting for illiterates. All I really need to do is find a person to translate for me. In addition, I think I’m going to do a little experiment by doing one formation where I try to teach basic addition and subtraction, then go into accounting. With the other group, I’ll go straight into the basic system that was developed by the Peace Corps. The reason that I want to do this is because it’s really easy to make mistakes using the illiterate system, whereas with the number method, a calculator could be used (and calculators aren’t expensive at all). I just want to see which one is quicker in the long run too. The artisans also look excited to work with me, and I think that their counsel is starting to realize that America is not going to foot the bill for their new meeting hall. Although, I do think that they see the opportunity to take out a loan from the CLCAM in order that they can build it by themselves.

As far as secondary projects go, I am still on the lookout, but my French teacher has informed me about the amount of orphans that there are in my town. It’s actually pretty appalling; 20% of just one of his classes have lost at least one parent. He told me that they typically only go to school for about 6 years and then drop out. He added that there is really no center in town for orphans. Before I came to Benin, I was in contact with another volunteer who built an orphanage at his post as his secondary project. Obviously, this is the classic “saving babies” example that you hear about in the Peace Corps, but if the need exists, there is definitely a potential for me to do some real good in this town.

As far as my personal life, things have gone well. I made pizza at my house on a stove!!! It’s not as hard as you might think…just no cheese. I’ve had the opportunity to hang out with other volunteers once a week. Not much new about that. On Friday, I went to confession. It was my first confession in French, which proved to be very interesting. It’s the first time I’ve had to use my dictionary to look up a whole bunch of sins. The cool thing about learning new languages is that all new experiences present opportunities to build your vocabulary, so now I know how to say “I swore” in French, among other things. So the way confession works is pretty much the same in the states. I guess the biggest difference was that they confessional was in open air, and the priest faced the crowd, which kind of defeats the purpose of having the screen that keeps him from seeing who it is because he can see everyone as they approach. Not that it would matter for me anyways; I was probably the only person who did his confession in French out of the whole group, not to mention my accent. I spent the first 20 minutes at the church before my confession reviewing my conscience and dictionary, writing everything down in my notebook so I wouldn’t forget when I got up to the confessional. While the confessions were going on, there was also an adoration happening in Nagot. As I was waiting in line, I just quietly observed the priest scrambling from the confessional to the altar and then back again after he left the Eucharist on display. When it came to be my turn, I nervously walked up to the confessional, and sat down. I explained that this was going to be my first confession in French, all the while noticing the priest had to lean in with his ear pressed against the screen to try to understand me. At the pauses in my confession, the priest started to talk, and I had to kindly remind him that I wasn’t finished yet. Each time he’d softly laugh. I could tell that he was in a hurry once it was his turn to speak, and I could also see that things were wrapping up by the alter. He kinda scrambled through advice, and then I read my act of contrition in English though because I always keep one of those in my wallet. As soon as I finished, he sprung out of his chair and quickly navigated his way to the altar. To this day, I still don’t really know what my penance is, so I just did what I always do. It was a pretty cool experience, and has definitely helped get my faith back on track.

Last Sunday was the festival of Saint Theresa of Avila(maybe), which is the patron saint of our church. After a 3 hour mass with 3 different choirs and languages, there was a party with music, dancing and food. It was a blast and I even got a chance to have a beer with the head priest of the church who speaks English fluently, Father Agnude (really not sure about spelling). He was probably the most educated man that I’ve had a conversation with since I’ve been here that was not affiliated with the Peace Corps. I imagine though if there is anyone who would know the needs of the poor in the community, it would be him. I’m sure that he and I will definitely be working together for the next few years. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures L. Don’t worry; it was exactly what you imagine.

On my way home from the festival, I was passing the dirt park that is by my house. The men who own the corn field right next to it had just pulled up the dried stalks and piled them up in the middle of the park. There was a group of little kids who were playing in it, jumping in like I did as a kid with leaf piles. That event really stuck in my mind because during stage, there was an activity we did where we had to describe something that was unique to the US, or at least Europe, and leaf piles was one of them. I got bachelor parties…I’m sure those of you that know me can imagine the awkwardness that ensued from me describing that. But anyways, leaf piles. Not to be too cheesy, I guess it was just one of those simple events that reminded me of our common humanity, which is one of the things that drew me into coming in the first place.

I’ve also been taking French lessons and have had the chance to have some more intelligent conversations. One of the more controversial things that came up was whether or not women should have an education, which led into the question of whether or not there would ever be a female president of the United States. First off, even though I like my teacher, I really couldn’t believe how far back he dialed the civil liberties clock by saying that it is better to have women uneducated because then they don’t argue with you. I tried to explain that in addition to having a spouse that is your equal, you can both have interesting conversations, and at the very least, I tried to explain to him that children that have smarter parents are typically smarter too. He just kinda held his position that women should stay at home, make food, and take care of the children. As far as a female president is concerned, I kindly reminded him that Hillary Clinton (even though I can’t stand her) was a few super delegates away from getting the presidency. Continuing to hold his belief that women are too irrational to run a country (what about Margaret Thatcher?), the conversation started to trail off into other politics.
I guess what I took from this is that in a town like mine, I DON’T AGREE WITH, but can understand how the men could think that there is no way that there will ever be a female president of the United States; there simply aren’t many educated women here. I think with the younger generation, which still isn’t 50-50 boys to girls at school, people will start to realize what the rest of the world started to realize decades and centuries ago about women; they are just as capable and intelligent as men; not to mention prettier ;).
Alright, that’s all I got. Feel free to hit me up with some emails, but the internet card that I bought really sucks so I can only check my email once or twice a week.

Prayer Requests:
-A continued attitude of tolerance and understanding in my conversations with the people that I encounter
-Continued good health
-Success in finding a secondary project for the community as well as success in my primary projects