Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts

it's official!

(written 28Sept2010)

I guess I should tell you guys a little about swear-in! I think it'll be short 'cause I'm running out of writing energy. So we had swear in at the ambassador's house in Cotonou- it was very fancy. The ambassador has a lovely lawn, and this like Native American art collection in his sitting room. And big fancy couches, and air conditioning, individually wrapped American flag dessert mints, and official matchbooks with the United States seal. I stole two. His wife is just midwestern and lovely. Apparently they both lived in Niger for like 5 years working as anthropologists with some random tribe. They are cool peoples. There were camera men, and important members of the Beninese government, lots of Peace Corps officials, and our host families at the event! Except my host family didn't come even though they told me they would. They suck. When we repeat the official swear-in oath, I got all misty eyed, and it ended up meaning a lot more to me than I thought it would. We were all elated and giving each other hugs and congratulations. The whole thing was even better because each sector had their own matching tissue, and what is better than having a matching outfit with twenty of your dearest friends?
Afterwards there was a little cocktail hour and we got free sodas and beer, and there were tiny pigs in a blanket and cheese sandwiches, that got eaten up in about three minutes. It started absolutely POURING, and the beautiful lawn turned into a swamp, and a couple of us took off our shoes cause it was just too squishy. It was a really fun day.
For lunch me and Shannon and Matt went to “DFC” which is like crappy Beninese KFC. I got a hamburger, and the bun was made out of a waffle. A waffle bun. Think about that. It was not that good, cause it was just so dense, I couldn't finish it and gave the rest to Matt.

A note about the goodbye to my host family: there was no dancing, dancing, exhaustion, like my dad claimed there would be. My parents gave me a beer and I read a book in the living room while my aunt got her weave changed. And when the time came for me to leave in the morning, I never got to say goodbye to my dad because he went and took a shower when it was time for me to go. They suck. And even with all their sucky-ness I am very grateful to them. They were my family, good or bad. And they always will be.

MY CONTACT INFO HAS BEEN UPDATED!!! (as has the list of things i want mailed) Please don't forget about me, I love to hear from you guys, and I miss you all so so much! Write me!
Sending lots of love.

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choas theory

(written 23Aout2010)

I am going to try to explain something that is near impossible to explain. My impression is that this is not just Beninese, but African, from what I've heard from friends who have studied around and about the continent.

This is my favorite thing about Benin besides fried plantain and getting a good price on a zem- I never (and let me say, NOBODY EVER) have/has any idea what is going on.
It is like chaos is just a required part of the culture. Let me emphasize- this is not just me, and not just Benin, and generally it really has nothing to do with language. Seriously. I love it.
Here are some actual examples that I hope will give a glimpse:

- Are we going home after the party? Oh we are? Oh, we're not. We're going to hang out at grandma's house. This is not at all what you said.

- Didn't that banana-lady used to stay on that corner? Where is she? Why are there no bananas anywhere? ANYWHERE? Does this have to do with Ramadan?

- I didn't give you those earrings, can I have them back? Yes? You say yes, but you are looking at me blankly. You are never giving those back, I can tell.

- I ordered a banana crepe. This is a flaming banana.

- I told you that I wanted to go to the high school. Why are we at a church? This is totally the wrong place.

- I thought there was a voodoo spirit coming to our neighborhood tonight. Why are you looking at me like that. How can you not know what I'm talking about- the entire city is discussing this.

- Has the schedule changed? Does anybody know the schedule?

- I ordered three zems to come here at 9:00. It's 10:30. You are busy when I call? Yes, you are zemming OTHER PEOPLE. Could you zem me? Like an hour ago? Like we discussed? Yesterday.

- Yes I realize your husband is the village chief, however I already have many husbands and I don't know if I could take another- although it does seem this man can materialize Pepsi from the jungle itself.

- Are we at a distillery? How did we get here?

- What? My brother lit a small fire? How is this possible.

- You said the wedding was this Sunday. Now you say it's next Sunday. I don't believe you. There will never be a wedding. NEVER!

- Where did these children come from? And why are they spending the entire weekend in my living room?

- Oh the village wants to give us some oranges. Wait. This is an entire cement bag full of oranges. This is 30 lbs of oranges. What?

- I thought I was giving a lecture on malaria today. Diarrhea? Okay.

- You said you couldn't help me with laundry because you had to go to church. You haven't left the house all day.

- Where is everyone in my family?

- Who are these people?

Why do I love this??? Because it ensures that anything I am doing at any given moment is absolutely hilarious. I can tell you about life here until I'm blue in the face- but if you want to really imagine what I'm doing the very second when you are thinking of me- picture me doing something ridiculous and inexplicable. And that will be exactly what I am doing.

P.S. There will continue to be a delay in picture putting-upage. My dad is mailing me a computer program that will let me upload pics quicker, because every time I try the internet errors out. So it'll prob be a couple weeks while I wait for the package, so I'm sorry!! Please be un peu plus patient.
To anyone that is reading this sentence right now- mental high-five for being so awesome! Thanks for taking the time to read this- 'cause as I whined about earlier- it's kind of difficult to put together. I love you very much.

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cotonou (continued)!

(written 19jul10)

Still in Cotonou! We've had a lot of free time the last day, and brought my netbook to the Peace Corps office to use their connection. It's not really free time. I should be studying French. But....you know....it's optional....

CONTACT UPDATE
So I'm going to be getting a cell phone at the end of stage (September). If you want to talk to me not on skype, I would recommend getting Pingo or something similar. It's really expensive for me to call the US, so I'll probably like call you and then have you call me back. I do have some phone credits, so I might call from some other volunteer's phone in the next couple weeks. But... that's still kind of a pain- we'll see.

So this is a copy/paste of part of an email I sent- I decided that it was a lot of information and I should just tell everyone:

So I'm leaving Cotonou tomorrow for my host family- I hope I get someone good cause..blech.. Everyone just says that you need to just hang on through stage and just one training after another because post is what everyone really wants to do. I definitely already am looking forward to post announcements, and would rather forget all this learning altogether.

We did another tour of the city yesterday and it was pretty rad, we got to see the ocean at a not nice beach. (We're supposed to be going as a group to a good beach in Porto Novo in a couple weeks.) So the PCVT we were with (PCV Trainer- they are current PCVs that come to help out with stage) was telling us about how he was drunk once and went to go hang out in the ocean (there's a tikki looking bar right on the water that looks exactly like the one in blood diamond). Anyway he looked down by his feet and saw a hypodermic needle. And then he decided not to hang out on the beach anymore. One of the biggest issues in Cotonou (and everywhere) is trash. Your village just makes giant piles and burns it when it's full. But kids are like playing in the trash pile in the meantime and like putting everything in their mouths. So if you have tampons or razors or batteries that can't be burnt you throw it down your latrine, or you dig a giant hole and just bury it. That's nuts.

Anyway, I'm still having fun- although already it's totally hard in moments- I have a really close girlfriend named Shannon- who's from TEXAS- hint hint Mary. I also have a great friend named Veronica, and we trade Sillybands all the time. It's hard because you're always split up by sector (i.e. health, business, agric, tefl) so you get separated from your buds. But really, the people I adore are really too many to mention. This evening I copied 108 movies of my friend Matt's external drive. Um.. yes.. my life just got 80% better. PLEASE SEND ME SILLY BANDS IN THE MAIL. THEY ARE THE GREATEST THING EVER!!!!! AND I WOULD ALSO LIKE OB TAMPONS!

I have like no bug bites at all and poor Shannon is getting eaten alive. I do however have two GIANT bites on my butt that must be from like a raccoon cause they are huge! And it hurts when I have to sit for hours in the hard wooden chairs.

Benin is pretty incredible, and really like an alien planet (as everyone says). I was sitting on my bug bites learning about malnutrition and I looked outside and it was just beige and beautiful and breezy, and everything I've always wanted. Africans say once you go to Africa it will be with you forever. I always had Africa in my head and my heart, and now I know it's part of my soul and my body itself.

I miss you, I love you. TELL ME WHAT YOU'RE DOING! Mel and Grandma- I got your update emails, they were absolutely lovely, thank you! I love you're comments and emails- I'm reading them all, even if I'm not getting my act together to write you back quite so soon!

P.S. I also put some stickers on my zem helmet this afternoon- which pretty much makes me awesome. Everybody loves to take pictures of each other with the helmets because they make our heads look giant, but I couldn't find my camera in my luggage for two days- but now that I got it again I'm hoping to get back on track with that.

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