Post Visit

So here it is folks! My home for the next two years! Again, I can't say where it is, but I will say that it's beautiful. After meeting my homologue, I had to make it to the market at 7:30 am so I could catch a ride up to post. After cramming into a taxi with Jackie, the volunteer one town over, we headed to post. The second half of the ride was beautiful, not to mention spacious, because I was literally alone in the taxi. We actually passed one of the other taxi's on the way up, which had like 10 people fit into an 8 person vehicle, and then there I was completely alone. It was pretty funny.

Upon arrival, I noticed that the CLCAM was just next door to where I was dropped off, and since that's where I'll be working, I just walked in the front door and introduced myself. Everyone there was really friendly, and as I discovered in the following days, incredibly capable and reliable. Obviously, since this is the institution on which I'll be depending for any kind of advice for the next 2 years, I was obviously pretty excited about it.

Evan the Giant, as he's affectionately known, is the guy that I've come to replace. He's 6'7", so I think it might be a shock for the Beninese to not get a cramp in their neck when looking at me. Evan was a pretty cool guy. It didn't seem like anything really bugged him, which I suppose is the ideal attitude for a PC Volunteer. Over the next few days, we slowly made our way around the town, once in a while stopping to point out where the good places were. I got a chance to meet the Chief of Police, who took down my info and informed me to make sure I respect the traditions of the town…check. I also got to meet the king of my town, who is apparently the most powerful Yoruba king in all of Benin and Nigeria.

He has a palace and a throne, but I couldn't take a picture out of respect. When I met with him, he was extremely kind and well spoken (I guess anyone is who speaks French fluently), and he even spoke some English! After asking me if I have any questions, I kind of froze up and just repeatedly said, "I don't know" in French. He smiled and continued on in. After that, we headed to the Sacred Trash Pile (it's exactly what it sounds like). Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on me, but I did notice while climbing it that people in my town eat a lot of escargot!

It was at first pretty overwhelming, but at one point, the other volunteer had to meet with someone and I got the opportunity to walk around by myself. Though the children probably call me Iyovo more here than in Porto Novo, it seems that adults don't do as many double takes as you walk by. I hope that I'll be able to at least have one strip in the town where everyone knows my name. So on my walk, I introduced myself to some folks, but I also stopped off at the bakery. I started talking to the women outside, who continuously asked me how my wife is doing…ha. I told them that my family is part owner of a bakery in the states. Not 2 minutes later, the owner of the bakery came out and introduced himself to me, and after a bit of me explaining, he was happy to show me around. Overall, the place looked pretty awesome, and I told him that I'd be happy to work with him on some business process management, not to mention giving him some other ideas. Either way, I have a bakery 2 blocks from my house and fresh French bread every day!

My house is simple. I was surprised to find out that I didn't have a toilet, but rather a buggy latrine. I suppose it'll just add to having that "classic" Peace Corps experience. I do have electricity though, so I will be quite content not having to set my solar charger outside every day. Overall, I'm sure I'll have to repaint…and stuff. It'll be interesting to see how I handle all of the bugs. I am at least ½ the distance that the other volunteer was from the center of town too, to it will be easy for me to head home and make myself lunch. I can't wait to start making Italian food!!! Just gotta wait until I get my slapchop….

The last thing I did before heading out of town was go to the inauguration ceremony for the handball court that the other volunteer had built. With a maximum 75% of the funding coming from the US, this is a great way for communities to get a hand up while still having to take some ownership of the project. It was great to see that Evan had another project that was outside of SED. It's nice to know that I can mix up my responsibilities while I am there as well and not be stuck with CLCAM the whole time. Overall, I am glad that Evan has paved the way for me in giving the Peace Corps a good name and putting me in contact with the right people to be able to get some valuable work done.

With that, I'll leave you all with some pictures of my trip to Ouidah, where I got to see the sacred forest and the OCEAN! It was not without a bit of a melancholy note though as we also had the honor to visit the slave trade trail where thousands of Beninese were sold off to Brazil. Ok, I'm out, and under a 1000 words!!

I'm working on the pictures, theyll be up saturday probably.

Stage and more Vodun

Pics were sparse, but the next post will be good, I took a bunch, I just have to write it. Talk to you soon!

So last week didn’t have much going on until Thursday. On Thursday, everyone in SED got a chance to go to various businesses in the neighborhood of the school to get some information on their business, and if they wanted, we’d teach them some basic accounting. And when I say basic…believe me, all you need to know how to do is arithmetic. I got to go to a little photo shop, where the guy had pictures up on the wall that I swear were at least 15 years old, and not because he’d been doing it for a while. Alfred was the owner, and he couldn’t have been older than 30. After talking to him a bit, he showed me his shop, which was about 10 feet deep, the back 5 feet of which were his studio that had a random painted city in the backdrop. His equipment consisted of an antique camera and a video recorder from the beginning of the 90’s. He had told me that he was currently saving with the CLCAM in Porto Novo, but was distressed at the fact that CLCAM wanted some sort of collateral to go along with their loans when he got the opportunity to take one out. I guess this problem is something that I should probably look into when I get to post, but I’m sure that there’s still a path for this guy if he’s really serious about improving his business. Even so, after speaking for a while, he seemed smart and willing to learn some accounting. I took care of that the next day

Accounting for the basic business is divided up into five books, or cahiers. There is the cahiers de caisse, which pretty much takes care of all transactions, then the cahier de stock, which controls stock, and the cahiers de credit which track the suppliers and buyers. I did a really basic lesson in which we just did a sample inventory and what happens to the cahiers de stock and caisse when items are purchased, created, or sold. Like I said: basic. Anyways, he got a little confused at the end, so we decided to break until a later date. I would bet that that day never comes, but at least I got a little practice for post.

After class on Friday, we had the chance to visit 2 different Vodun sites in Porto Novo. Both were pretty neat. These are some religions that have been around for a long time, but because they didn’t really have any recorded history, nobody really knows when it began. The first place we went to had this tree in the middle of the courtyard that they would worship and keep different types of festering water beneath it. Apparently, putting this water on wounds is supposed to have magical healing powers…I don’t know. Then across the courtyard from the tree was a little hut where the Fetish is kept. When I say fetish, I’m referring to what the locals consider a physical manifestation of a spirit that lives in whatever respective inanimate object they have picked. We didn’t see the fetish in this place, but to give you an idea, the Zangbeto, which is another Vodun, walks around in what looks like a giant pile of hay. As you can see in the picture, there is some sort of melted junk at each fetish part which is supposed to also have different healing powers. I still have a really hard time taking this stuff seriously.

After this site, we took a bus to the second Vodun site. The high priest, which was a really elderly man with a mouth half full of teeth. His fetish was represented by a pile of cola beans. The man sat us down on some benches right next to the small walled in hut where he kept the fetish. A whole pack of what I’m sure was children and grandchildren just stood there watching us and saying “Yovo” quietly once in a while. He told us that the fetish must be performed 5 days a week, except for Monday and Friday, which is when he needs to rest to have sex... ya it caught me off guard too. The fetish was called Thron. He never really told us where it came from, but he did tell us that its main purpose was to combat sorcery. As we finally entered to see the fetish, he told us that normally we would have to be naked when we entered, but he was willing to make an exception for us if we just took off our shoes. We happily obliged.

Upon entering the gate, we say a small walled in garden with different colored cola beans in the middle. Upon sitting down, I couldn’t help but notice that I was sitting on the same bench that naked men and women normally sit on. I felt like a cowboy ready to draw with my hand sanitizer as soon as we got outta there. The old man sat on the ground in front of us and played around with four rocks, which supposedly were supposed to tell the fetish to do something, depending on the way that they fell when he dropped them. We were all a little baffled. So after about 10 minutes of some sketchy translation, he wished us well and told us that because we had come to the fetish, we would now be blessed with whatever we wished… be it money or babies, we’d get it. Finally, he gave us some “sacred oil” to put on our faces that smelled curiously like brut, which I was quite honestly thankful for given the other options of what it could have smelled like.

The weekend was relatively uneventful after that besides picking up about 15 pounds of ground beef for burgers on Sunday. The butcher didn’t bother to put our meat in water proof bags, so the poor zemi driver got cow blood all over is crotch on the ride back, whereas I just got it on my foot.

Today, we finally met our homologues, who will be our contact in the neighborhood when we get to post. Mine is named Fakorede Kola Charles. He’s a 28 year old accountant and manager at CLCAM and quite honestly seems awesome. He’s full of energy (or so it seems), and the only flaw I can find so far is that his mind kinda wanders when I’m searching for the right words to use in French. I’m sure I’ll compensate for that at some point, so I think we’ll make a good team. He further reinforced the point that I’ll be helping with formations and making sure that the artisans in my town will be informed about the opportunities that they have to take out loans as well as save with CLCAM. I was told that I’ll be busy all the time, which by Beninese standards is kind of hard to judge. Either way, I’m sure I’ll figure it out

I have my post visit on Wednesday, so I’m fairly certain that I’ll have plenty to write about, not to mention having a plethora of pictures of my future home. I’ll be staying with the volunteer there as well, so I’ll have a great chance to see what the good and bad parts of my village are. It’s very exciting! Stage is starting to wear on me, simply because I feel as though I learn quicker just by speaking to people as opposed to being in class all day, so I’m certain that this will be a very welcomed break from the classroom. That’s all I got…take it easy!

Prayer Requests: Safety for all the stagiers as we travel to our respective posts and a safe stay as well.

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!

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.