In the Groove

Eka Ro and Bonjour! Figure I’m due here for a quick entry. Things are going well! This week I got to start my formations for accounting for illiterates AND literates. I’m also in the early stages of planning out whether or not I’m going to build an orphanage. I’ve been keeping relatively busy also with my French lessons. I’ve been doing them for 2 hours, 4 days a week. Honestly, I didn’t realize how beneficial the Peace Corps would be in terms of my own education. For 1500 CFA and hour, a little more than 3 dollars an hour, I get my own personal tutor. Considering that I paid about 35 dollars an hour in the US, I’d say that it’s a pretty sweet deal. I’m also learning a little bit of Nagot from him that I’ll be able to use at my formations.

Trombone lessons

In an attempt to not forget everything that I learned in college, I’ve decided to start a science club. I thought it was a good idea after I ran into this kid at church who has been trying like crazy to build both a model airplane and model helicopter. I’d like to get a consult from my fellow alumnus of U of I Engineering: Please look at the attached pictures and let me know your professional opinion about why these craft aren’t flying. Please ignore the cords that are attached to them. Funny as it is, I’m actually really impressed with how crafty this kid is and even though there is no way these things will ever fly short of having a rocket attached to them, I admire his curiosity. He even managed to rig up motors that he took out of radios to make the propellers turn. He powered them using either an adapter plugged into the wall or a stick of about 6 D batteries taped together. He says he “kinda” likes math, so sadly I don’t know if I’ll be able to recruit another enginerd.

As for the formation, I guess it was more of just an introductory thing. Normally, Madeline(pictured here) and I go to the formations together, but this time she was running late. So, because I had done 2 lessons of Nagot, I felt confident enough to do one on my own. Ha. What really ensued was me standing awkwardly in front of a group of confused women while frantically searching for the Nagot word for blue, red, green and the different denominations of money. I guess my only saving grace was that I was actually speaking some Nagot, which amused them. Once my friend did finally show up, my group seemed a little tired from counting colors, circles, squares and converting them into numbers. I went into showing how they could use this, but because this wasn’t really an official session, I quickly noticed that they weren’t to content listening to me speak French (which they don’t know). When all was said and done, I’d say it was a partial success, I just hope they stay interested.

My house is doing alright, but I’ve been having problems with bandits stealing my bread in the morning (I think it’s just the girl next door). So, as any responsible Peace Corps Volunteer would do, I’ve hired a guard for my bike. I think people will think twice before trying to get through him. His name is Fauzad and he is 3.

Last weekend I headed to Porto Novo for a nice lunch and a gripe fest with all the volunteers. Andrew, who is the guy that I visited on my Tech Visit, and I just kinda stayed out of it. I’ve started to realize how easy going I can get when it comes to red tape and fun things like that.

It being Halloween, I guess that it wouldn’t be fair to not have a scary story to tell.
So after lunch, it was getting close to 3pm, so we figured we’d go hang out the local buvette and have a beverage. Well it started getting closer to 4:30 and I realized that I’d probably need to get going soon if I wanted to get home before sunset. When I got to the taxi station, I was informed that I was the first person to show up for a 9 person taxi and that the 5 person taxi had left literally 2 minutes before I got there. I wasn’t thrilled, because I had to leave my friends, beer, and English, and not to mention that I’d probably end up waiting another 2 hours to leave. Luckily, it was only an hour, but that put me leaving at 5:30 when the sun goes down at 7. So per usual, we crammed way too many people into the taxi and got underway. The man sitting next to me was a Pentecostal pastor that spoke English, so while it made for good conversation, I constantly had to defend misconceptions about Catholicism. Regardless, I still made another friend in town. I found out about half way through the trip that my new friend had come to Porto Novo on a moto which had broken down. This meant that we had to stop for another 30 minutes to strap this thing to the roof, and we weren’t even close yet. When we came over the top of a hill, I noticed that there was a wall of clouds coming in from Nigeria that was flashing like the 4th of July. Though beautiful, I was a little unhappy to notice that it was coming straight for us. As we started to get closer, I just sat in awe of nature’s beauty blah blah blah. It was really pretty neat, but as soon as we got to my town (which was at about 9:15) and everyone was out of the cab except for me and another lady, the skies opened up.

Really, I’d never seen a rainstorm like this before. There was lighting all around us and the rain drops felt like they were going to break the car open. Just as we were on the way to drop this lady off, the taxi stalled. As we were sitting there waiting for the storm to stop, I couldn’t help but notice the driver and the lady in the front say “Zangbeto” while they were speaking Nagot. Just what I would need is another run in with the Vodun in the middle of the scariest rain storm of my life. So it was nearing 10PM, and I started wondering when this storm was even going to end as water was quickly pouring into this 30+ year old Peugot. I realized that my headlamp, which I had debated buying before coming, was waterproof up to 1 meter! So I handed it off to the driver who pointed it straight at his nose after strapping it to his forehead, which I think effectively blinded him. He must have known the engine pretty well because he managed to fix it and we got underway. After dropping off the lady at her quartier, we headed back up the goudron to my place. The driver refused to pull up to my quartier since it is nestled back in the woods. So, I strapped on my headlamp, rolled up my jeans, and said a little prayer. Just as I was about to step out, a lightning bolt crashed about 200m up the street and knocked the power out. The driver looked at me kinda funny, and I gave him a “here it goes” look and I hopped out. At first I was a little confused because I didn’t remember there being a river in my quartier, but I guess that it only shows up during torrential rain storms. As I was sprinting back I just remember frantically repeating “Jesus don’t let me die” over and over again in between flashes of lightning. The last river I needed to pass was literally about knee deep and I almost got knocked over trying to ford it. As I recall, fording the river was always the thing that got you killed in The Oregon Trail, but there were no ferries or caulk handy, so I was forced to take my chances. I lost 4 oxen and Timmy drowned L . So after drying off, I managed to get some sleep. Probably the scariest Halloween I’ve had since the Hambone Haunted House. Needless to say, no more traveling at night.

Alright, that does it for me. Happy Thanksgiving if I don’t get a blog up by then! Odabo!

Prayer Requests:
Continued guidance with the possible planning of an orphanage.
Continued diligence with French and Nagot.
Safety and happiness of all the volunteers.

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

Well I’d like to start off by apologizing for just disappearing. It’s what some here call “Peace Corps Dark”. But, since my arrival at post, I’ve been a little preoccupied with just getting myself into a normal routine. Though my house is finally setup, I still think it could use a little work as it kind of has….how do I put this…a “jail cell” feel to it. At first it’s a little unnerving, but I must say that the whole sense of my experience so far has just been learning to humble myself and deal within my means; being okay with settling for something that isn’t as great (materially) as I’d hope it could be. Swear in was neat. There were some imortant people there whom I cant remember, but I will let the pictures do the talking when I get the uploaded. But with that, I’ll just start off with a brief summary of what I’ve done since I got here.

The Sunday I showed up was pretty shocking for me. I had to go back to the other volunteer’s house, which was filthy, at best, to retrieve some of his stuff. I later explained to one of the other volunteers that it reminded me of a post-apocalyptic video game I played as a kid called “Fallout Boy”, where you had to go around rummaging through the ruins of abandoned buildings to find things that, if repaired, would be quite useful. Well that’s pretty much what happened. I got 3 book cases, an armoire, a kitchen table, 4 chairs, two little end tables, and then another large table, which proved to be quite useful after I got rid of the mound of mouse poop and dead cockroaches that had accumulated over the last two years (the last volunteer didn’t cook). Needless to say, I’m a little surprised that I don’t have the plague now, but after refinishing the big table and washing EVERYTHING that I got from his place in bleach, I think that I’m well on my way to not having diarrhea for another 2 years.

That night I headed to church with my neighbor, Charles, who plays in the choir there. I told him that after I get settled in, I’d love to start playing in it as well (or at least sing, but I have a guitar now). The mass was completely in French, and actually tolerably short. Maybe that’s because the power went out and a giant storm was rolling through, but either way, I couldn’t understand the priest. Kind of a mumbler. After the mass, Charles and I walked back to our neighborhood while I stubbed my toe on probably about 10 camouflaged rocks along the way. Once we got off the main road, it was more like walking on the bank of a river than a path. I guess rain washed paths will do that to you. Falling a sleep that night was pretty terrifying. I was fortunate to find out that I’m not the only one living in my house; I have a colony of ants that continually burrow through cement, a family of pet mice, spiders and then the always popular cockroach. Thankfully, the last volunteer left me a few mouse traps and they have thus far caught 4. Apparently the reason I have so many pets is because nobody has lived here for 6 months, so they have had time to grow. I remember on my post visit seeing the tallies on the wall of how many mice had been killed there. He got up to 33 and then stopped counting, so thank God that I’m not at that house anymore! So after waking up a few times during the night to the sound of tiny feet scurrying across the floor, I finally got some solid sleep and woke up the next morning ready to kill. Needless to say, that was probably the worst night I’ve had since I’ve been in the Peace Corps.

Setting up the house was a gradual process. It was kind of difficult deciding where to put stuff because after the carpenter came, a lot of things were going to change. My self diagnosed ADD definitely showed up here as every task was interrupted by another task, which was interrupted by a mouse, which was interrupted by a cockroach, which was interrupted by someone coming to visit. After all was said and done, I think it took me about 7 days to get everything put away where I wanted it. When the carpenter came, my main goal for him was to make a hole in my table for a sink, which would just be a basin with a hole cut out of the bottom connected to a poorly fashioned hole in the wall that is not the lowest point in the kitchen area. How anyone washed dishes here before without taking a bath is beyond me!

As for food, I have been getting off to a slow start. Preparing beans here is a lot more difficult than the canned “Bush’s Baked Beans” I used to have for supper every night last year. I’ve turned into somewhat of a vegetarian after seeing how much effort goes into killing and cleaning a chicken. Quite honestly, it’s just not worth the hassle. Still, it’s better than eating everything fried or pat in snot sauce. I do miss good meat though, a lot. I’m sure as soon as my slap chop shows up here, I’ll be a cooking machine!

So you might be wondering, “Rich, it’s nice that you’ve moved in and are comfortable now, but when are you going to start doing something with your life?” That’s a fair question; one that I’ve asked myself as well. Well fear not, because the Artisan’s Association is in the process of trying to convince me why you, my fellow Americans, should help foot the bill to build them a sweet new meeting hall. At first, their plan was hurled because, in their opinion, the place they had wasn’t big enough to house all of the artisans. True as that may be, the plan for the building quickly changed into a training center for orphans and children after I told them that Americans would be more keen to donate their money to people who are really in need (i.e. orphans, single mothers, children, homeless people). Basically, because the last volunteer had helped to construct a handball court for kids and Americans had paid for about 65% of it, they assumed that the same would happen for them simply because the Peace Corps works with them. So, to humor them, at the second meeting, I brought a blank feasibility study with me to leave with them so that they could start to get some concrete ideas. The last question that I wrote was, “why do you believe that your project is more important to the community than other potential projects that could be funded”. That to me is the most important question, and I gave them that feasibility study because I wanted them to realize that if they took my time and resources to build this building, they would potentially be stealing from orphans, sick children, single mothers. If they don’t have a problem with this, well then I guess I’m just going to have to be blunt with them and say I don’t think that it will work, but at least this is helping them to get their ideas together while showing them that I am not just a black check with “USA” signed at the bottom. When it comes down to it, they just don’t need this building to be better artisans, they just want it so that when other artisans come to visit, they can think, “wow, these guys are ballers”. And I guess that brings me to my next lesson that I’ve learned time and again about relativism and capitalism: if some guy has a nicer thing (even if it isn’t that nice from a worldly prospective) someone else is going to want it or something better, or they won’t be satisfied. Oh ya, and nobody will ever really be satisfied as a result. It’s just human nature.
Sorry for the rant. Anyways, to wrap it up, these first 2-3 months won’t have too much intensive work, rather, I’ll just be finding out what the bigger needs are of the village as well as getting acquainted with local artisans and women’s groups so as to be able to facilitate effective formations. In addition, I’ll be trying to find what sort of secondary projects I can do, like the handball court, so I can involve folks at home too.

Don’t forget “Dieu te Regardes” J . Take it easy!

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.