Bisous du Benin!

(written 11jan2011)

Our inservice was just for the health and environmental sectors, which turned out to be awesome. We all got to see old friends that we haven't seen since stage, and it was really cool to hear what people are working on. We all stayed in a hotel together at Songhai, for a whole week. The food was incredible. They catered our lunches and breakfasts, and we had chicken and fries and fish and spaghetti, and tuna salad, and all sorts of magical things. The very last day, we got a “pizza salad”, which is a salad.. topped with mini mushroom pizzas. It was amazing. We also found this new restaurant in Porto-Novo, called le President, which gave me by far the best meal I have had in Benin. I had rabbit and fries. And the rabbit actually had a dry-rub on it. I was delicious in a way I can't even describe. So yay food!

The inservice itself was totally lame. Because it was like stage part 2. Classes about things we'd already learned. And the homologue were there for most of the week. The sessions were geared towards them. And we spent a lot of time sitting and zoning out. I will spare you details.

The last day I was at the inservice, me and my friends Alison and Julia went to see a Christian Celeste visionary. Christian Celeste is a weird offshoot of Christianity that exists here, that I frankly know nothing about. But if you go to one of their temples (there was one around the corner from Songhai) they will do a reading for you for free. You meditate on a topic, and they “see” a vision of you, and then explain it to you. It's pretty cool. Our lady was the nicest as can be. Here's what my vision is (fairly directly translated):

I am standing in the middle of a river, and the wind is blowing the water up around me, and I begin to be afraid. But these two (or maybe it was three) angels come down and take my hand. And they tell me not to be afraid because “this river is your country, and it cannot swallow you.”
Then I'm in this garden. And the garden is beautiful, there are flowers everywhere. I'm standing with my friend, and I'm holding a bunch of roses. My friend is also my fiance. When we are a couple, people will say, “Oh it's not serious”. And I will get discouraged, and it will cause me and my friend to fight. But I have to have patience, these people will go away, and we will be together forever and ever.
Also. I shouldn't be worried about succeeding in my village. It is already written on my palm that I will do good here. I will build a castle for my village. (Chateau can also be translated as a water type building- so it could be translated as a castle, latrine, or pump.)
She also said that if people offer me to smoke, I shouldn't because it's bad for my health. And also that I should not be outside in the deep night (midnight).

So all and all, good news right!

We spent a couple days in Cotonou after the inservice, which meant more good food at expensive restaurants, a trip to Mango (the one normal clothing store in the entire country) financed by my parents, and a trip to a hotel SPA. Which was totally legit. There were four of us who went, a couple people got pedicures and haircuts, but I got my legs waxed! Best decision ever. It was so nice to just have a girl's day out, and pretend we were in Europe for just a day.

(written 11jan2011)

So after all these adventures, being back in village has been both good and bad. It's always hard to go back to not seeing Americans after a nice trip, but it's good to be home in my own house, with access to all my clothes. And things like tweezers and nail polish remover. My first day back in village, the whole town was celebrating a whipping fete! This is a fete that happens in different villages throughout the winter season. It's a coming of age celebration, where a bunch of teenage boys get together and whip the crap out of eachother while everybody watches. They make three lines on their chests... which symbolizes....something. It was really interesting, especially because I missed the big regional one that happened in a neighboring town a couple months ago, and I thought I wouldn't get a chance to see it. But low and behold, surprise, it's happening in my village, and I only have to walk twenty feet to get to it! The celebration actually ended up going on for two days. There was really more dancing and weird posing than actual whipping, but you can't have it all can you!

That same night Reine had all the health center workers and their families over at her house for dinner to celebrate the new year. Which was delicious (she's the best Beninese cook I know). It was really sweet to see everybody again. Atticus has grown up so much just in the couple weeks I was gone, and standing, he comes up to my knees! As usual, all my village friends are gracious as all get out. They welcomed me back. They taught me new words in local language. They fed Atticus under the table. The next day they brought me food. They helped me clean my house. They walked around with me in village. They asked about my trip.
It's lovely to be home. But as always, also hard.

This week I'm working on getting girl's club up and running again now that winter break is over. Heather and I have roughly planned out our whole semester, and I've been spending time in Bassila helping Shannon get her stuff off the ground. There are these two seminar type things coming up for girl's and boy's camp this month, so I'll be on the road again starting this weekend. So I'm trying to keep busy and get back in the swing of things.

My goal for the next two months: learn local language!

P.S. Reine is definitely pregnant. I was still confused up until about a week ago when I realized that she had gotten giant. But still? Who is the baby daddy!?

Thank you all so much for your holiday letters, packages, phone calls and well wishes. I miss you all so much, but I want you to know I can feel the love over here, and I appreciate it!! I hope you had a lovely holidays season filled with the best things: family, friends and food! My thoughts are with you. Happy New Year everyone!

(written 11jan2011)

So for Christmas I went up to Malanville to hang out with Matt and a bunch of girls who were passing through on their way to Niger for vacation. Malanville is way way in the north of Benin, and it was really cool to see other parts of the country! We went up via the highway that is on the eastern side of the country, which I've never been on, because my village, Basilla, Djougou and Nati are all on the western highway. Does that make sense? I got to visit both of the workstations in Parakou and Kandi, so I have officially been to all the workstations in our country. It was so lovely to travel, because not only did I get to see fabulous friends I don't usually have a chance to visit, but I actually began to feel like I was in Africa again. When you spend all your time in your one little area, it becomes so normal that all the excitement is like totally drained from it. And I felt like it was impossible to travel up north just because of the distance and the roads, but it really wasn't as bad as I thought, and I'm looking forward to spending more time exploring Benin!

For Christmas Eve we all went to a hotel in Matt's village that had a POOL, and the most bomb-diggity steak with green beans, and chocolate crepes. We stuffed ourselves silly and went swimming. It was absolutely lovely. For dinner we made beef tacos with salsa that was heavenly. For Christmas day, we all exchanged presents (Secret Santa), and went to the marche in Malanville, which is beautiful, and really interesting because it sells products that come from Niger, Nigeria and Burkina, because M-ville is such a central hub for all those countries. I really like M-ville as a whole. It's kinda big, but it still has a small town feel to it. You can find all sorts of yummy treats like yogurt and beignets within walking distance of Matt's house. I realize that most of these blog posts are food oriented. But getting out of village and eating real food is pretty much the highlight of any trip.

(written 11jan2011)

So I had an inservice midway through December, so the beginning couple of weeks, I was getting ready for that. We all had to do presentations on our villages, so I worked a lot on my village map and found some really cool stuff in my town!

There's a real forest a couple yard from my house if you walk out my front door to the left, and that's where a lot of my community puts their fields. So I've been exploring that area (there's a river, and some really beautiful clearings, and a Muslim cemetery, which is really not that exciting). I take Atti on walks there in the morning. I found some cool areas of town with weird abandoned buildings. I found a fish hatchery. It was all pretty neat! And I feel like I know my village a lot better, and have things to show people when I have visitors!

(written 11jan2011)

So I realize that I haven't blogged about the holidays at all! I'm been so busy since the end of november, that I've just totally dropped the ball. SO- I had Thanksgiving at my workstation in Nati, there were lots of lovely people there, and we had an AWESOME meal. I was responsible for nothing, there were a couple volunteers who got there early and did the whole thing. We had turkey (bought live, killed, plucked, and roasted in a dutch oven) stuffing, gravy, mashed potato, green bean casserole, carrot cake, apple pie, pecan pie and pumpkin pie. Which....exceeded my expectations greatly.

Basically it was a blast. It was great to see everybody- we played Settlers of Catan- and it turned out to be total American magic.