Bisous du Benin!

(written 14July2011)
As you can see from my other post- lots of new things have happened! It's really exciting, because it makes me feel like I have a new beginning. Everyone was so sweet to me on my return (naturally), and it's really good to be back. Everything about the weather right now, and the way my house smells, is exactly the way it was when I moved in last fall. I'm in the same place and same time. All the villagers are doing pretty much the same thing. But the way I view everything is different. It's an interesting, almost eerie feeling, because if you blink, it could seem like no time has passed at all.

The hardest thing about being back is going from being so busy to not. I've spent the last couple weeks in Penelan and Bassila, just quietly running errands, watching movies, and finding little jobs for myself. Before I went to America, I was at In-Services for Peace Corps for like a month and a half. I've gotten really used to seeing my friends, and having things to fill my day. I've had to sort of remind myself what village life is like, and it's been a bigger readjustment then I thought.

Matt got his job as boss of one of the workstations (in Kandi) so it's very odd to talk with him on the phone now. He's usually eating good food, hanging out with volunteers, and watching MythBusters on DVD (or some such wonderfulness). Shannon's been in Ghana all this week with her boyfriend who is visiting from America, and Heather's in England visiting her boyfriend there. All this has been pretty weird too, just cause I've gone from being surrounded by people to what just feels like.... stillness. But in a way it's been really good. I've been taking my time to refocus, and I'm really looking forward to doing some real work the next couple months. Coming up at the end of July, I'll be a counselor in a week-long Boy's Camp in Manigri (which is near Bassila). I've known about it since March, so I'm glad it's finally here, I think it's gonna be a lot of fun! And it'll be my first chance to get back in the swing of things (aka projects).

So for the last week- with lots of time on my hands- I've taken a piece of advice from the mind of great philosopher Morgan Spurlock, who shows us that just about anything can be done for 30 days. I've put together a list of things I'm always meaning to do:
work out
sketch
floss before bed
go outside and do something!
And I'm gonna do these things, every day, for 30 days. And see what sticks! So far, it's been a lot of fun. The part I'm most excited about is exercising, which I haven't regularly done since the last session of my college yoga/pilates class in December of 2007. I think I actually like crunches! (for now.)

No pain, no gain! Try something you've been putting off, just for thirty days- you might be surprised!

I love you all, and miss you dearly. I hope you all are having wonderful weeks, and I'll try to make my next update come a little swifter!
xoxo

(written 24March2011)

This is kind of a project heavy couple of posts- but I wanted to let you guys know about the other projects I'm lining up for the next couple months. So you have an idea what I'm doing!

PAPAS CLUB IN PENELAN
I talk about Boys and Girl's club all the time with my nice neighbor in Penelan, and he suggested- independently- that we start a Papa's Club. Which made me ecstatic, because that is an actual thing within Peace Corps health, and I've been thinking about approaching him with it for a while. It's basically a vehicle to encourage birth control use and fair treatment of women and children. Cool, huh?

BOYS CAMP
The boy's camp for our region is happening in July, and I'll be a counselor for it. Like most boy stuff- a lot of it is about learning to appreciate women, and how to be “a good husband”. But you also get to hang out with a bunch of kids, which is fun. I'm most likely taking over the planning of this camp next year.

COMPUTER LESSONS IN BASSILA
Shannon's girl's club is have internet and computer lessons and the cyber cafe in Bassila in April. I'm gonna be there for the week to hang out and help, and we've invited my nice neighbor to come too, because he's super interested. And lives in a village without electricity, so getting him near a computer would be adorable.

BIRTH CONTROL FORMATION
(fall 2011)
Shannon and I really want to do some birth control formations in Bassila, Pennesoulou and Penelan. There would be three formations in total. The first would just be a general information session about different kinds of birth control, the importance of birth control, etc. Ideally we would have married couples come to the event, and split them into two groups: male and female. Shannon works with a man in Bassila who does talks on birth control, and he could talk to the men, while we talk to the women with my homologue. The second formation is about training health workers to talk about birth control with others. And the third formation would be a training session for male community leaders. We are sort of unsure about how successful this is gonna be.... but we'll see. Peace Corps Washington has official taken family planning out of the health goals, because it's too hard. But that's dumb. It's important, screw them.

HEALTH BABY CONTEST
(fall 2011)
Starting next fall, I'm doing a six month “health baby contest” in Penelan. If you read “Nine Hills to Nammbmkdsookijaaa...” it's the same thing she did in her village. The contest would last six months, with a sensibilization on a different subject each month. For example, birth control, malaria, first aid, and the basics and importance of baby weighing. I would be available at the health center during marche days to help women with baby weighing. In order to win the contest, women must meet certain criteria, go to all the meetings, and weigh their baby X times per month. At the end of the six months there will be a fete and presents for the women who are the winners. Fun!

ART CLUB
This is a pipe dream. I don't know if it will happen.

MURALS
(summer 2011)
If I get an art club going, they can help with this, but if not than I will get the girl's club to help. I want to make murals of the world, africa, benin, donga, and penelan inside the classrooms at the elementary school in Penelan. I'm gonna do it over the summer, when there are fewer children running around making a mess.
I would also like to do some murals on the walls in the health center. But I'm gonna let Reine pick what that's all about, cause I'm sure she's got an opinion on the subject.

Still ongoing and admin:
GIRL'S CLUB IN PENESSOULOU
Same old, same old.

TRAININGS IN COTONOU
In May, I have three different trainings happening in Cotonou, so I'm pretty much spending the entire month down south. The first is for trainers of the new stage coming in July, the second is just a health in-service, and the last is a food security workshop that I requested to go to. Although...I'm not entirely sure what that is... so... I'll keep you posted.

NEW STAGE
Is coming in July! I don't know when I'm going to be down south helping out, but I'm already getting really excited to meet the new kids!

Unrelated:
GARDEN
I'm trying to get a little garden built outside my house. Mel sent me some seeds, and I'm getting pumped. I found some old flowerpots at the penessoulou dump, and I'm cleaning them out so I can have some flowers in my house. Joy!
Nice neighbor already took some carrot and bean seeds of mine and planted them in his garden a couple months ago. He does all the work, and I get vegetables. Doesn't that seem a little off to you? The carrots are ready, and we've been eating some here and there. Today I'm gonna make him some carrot cake! His hot son sold some of the carrots when I was out of town, and I think he got in trouble. When I was talking to him yesterday, he tried to give me mille franc ($2) for the carrots he sold. It was absolutely ridiculous!! I obviously refused. I try to tell them that they did the work, they can do whatever they want with the veggies. But it's a hard sell.

RABBITS
I'm also trying to get a rabbit huch built (everything's so complicated) so I can raise some yummy rabbits! If they're too cute I might need to get nice neighbor to kill them for me.

(written 24March2011)

Hello all! I have been absolutely awful about writing blog posts because I've been traveling a lot and have been suuuuuper busy the last monthish, so I figured I should just fill you all in on what I've been doing!

For the last month or so I've been planning (with Shannon) for a Journee des Filles (a girl's day) which is going to happen April 2nd in Bassila. It's basically a mini-conference for the girl's clubs in our region. Ten girls from each of the five nearest clubs will be coming- and we'll have eight volunteers acting as counselors. The purpose of the day is to make a mini-girl's camp. We have a weeklong girl's camp every year during the summer, but only two girls from each school can come. So this is to benefit the girls who won't have the opportunity to make it.

At the day, we're gonna have two different midwives come and speak about health, periods, pregnancy, and birth control. There will be a career panal made up of important women in the community. There will be skits from each club- currently the Bassila girl's are learning Bad Romance. I'm trying to upload the video to my facebook- it's super cute! We'll have a environmental conservation lecture, tree planting at the high school in Bassila, and a screening of Planet Earth (in French). We're serving lunch, we've made T-shirts. Am I forgetting anything? So... it's been a lot of work to put it together. I've been spending my time applying for grants, creating the schedule, putting together the manual each girl is going to get on the day and talking to the volunteers who are coming. But that doesn't include the travel. I've been to Parakou three times to resolve issues with our t-shirt order, and to meet with one of the NGOs there. I'm going again this weekend to pick up our shirts which are finally ready! I was in Nati to borrow the Planet Earth DVDs from another volunteer. And for the last week, I've been in Bassila with Shannon, handing out invitations to the midwives and the career panal, requesting sound systems and projectors from the mayor, arranging the taxis to pick up the girls in the different towns, reserving the high school and basketball court, and bargaining with the restaurant who is providing the food. Next week I'll be back again confirming everything before the big day. Busy right!!?

I'm really excited for the day to finally come! It could be really awesome, but it could also be a disaster, which is kind of half the fun. Everyone I've been inviting and requesting things from have all said yes. But often in Beninese culture, a yes doesn't actually mean that you'll show up. So I have no real way of gauging what's gonna happen. Exciting! It has been feeling REALLY good to be actively doing something, and to be keeping myself busy. I've been having a lot of fun putting it together, and I'll let you all know how it goes!

P.S. If you like this project- most of our day is being funded by GAD grants from Peace Corps Benin! It's not to late to donate to our GAD fundraiser in April if you so desire! (Check out the blog post before this one for more info.)

Also- new pictures are up on Facebook! Enjoy!

(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 24 Oct 2010)

So I may have mentioned that for the first three months, I'm not supposed to be working, and I'm just supposed to be getting to know my village. Wellllll... Reine got me started doing mini-sensibilizations the first week in. And I call them mini, cause it's really just me giving a speech while she provides most of the meat of the presentation. If I were doing what I would consider a real sensibilization it would be longer, and interactive, and include a game, and it would generally be awesome. Soo... I'm working on that.
A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to start a girl's club, and Reine got a group of girl's together in like a day. And now I have a girl's club. And these are all projects that I want to do, and have big plans and visions for in the long term. But I had my first real girl's club meeting this week (there were two others that were just logistical). And it was hard. I had flashbacks to my Lynhaven Elementry school days, because there were girls talking over eachother, and my structure was kind of weak, and I wouldn't say it was a disaster, but it wasn't necessarily the inspirational “Dead Poet's Society” type moment I envisioned. And I realized- I'm not ready.

The reason they give us three months without work is so that we can develop our plans fully and get to know the village fully. But the issue is- that that's awkward.
Here's the Peace Corps volunteer! Yay, she's finally here!
Why isn't she doing anything.... Wait, she isn't even allowed to give injections?

So here's the problem now. I can't really back out of girl's club- I mean I could- but I hear from other volunteers that these things are much more successful if you start them at the beginning of the school year (which is what I did), rather then try to do them second semester. And I do want a girl's club. So do I just hold on and attempt to do something not totally lame for a month or so until I figure out what the hell I'm doing?
There was a volunteer (Naima) before Heather in Penessoulou and her girl's club was hard-core. I've been helping Heather start her's up in Penessoulou, and working on mine in Penelan, and a lot of the girls we're working with are girls that were in Naima's club for the last two years. They have songs, and games, and they know what's going on. But this is an issue for us, because they don't get why we aren't ready, why we aren't Naima, and why things are the same as they were when Naima was here. Naima knows those songs. Naima used to dance with us. You should wash your dog like Naima did.

Poor Heather is teaching her English classes four days a week, and running Naima's old girls club and English club, which are each once a week. And those are just her activities at the school itself. It's too early and it's too much. But how do you let what an old volunteer started just drop? As a new volunteer, I have to deal with the stares in village. As a replacement volunteer, Heather has to deal with not being Naima.

(written 24 Oct 2010)

Oooph. The last couple weeks have been rough. The main problem is that I really want things to be progressing more quickly than they are.
About two weeks ago I realized I was in quite a rut. It is not an exaggeration to say that I am mildly frightened to leave my house- just because anytime I do anything I am treated with celebrity status. People are sweet as can be, but I can't go out on the main road without being followed by children, and having to saluate every single man, woman, and child I come across. And there are also those who want to have extended conversations with me about my health and how my local language (Ani) is coming along. And it's emotionally exhausting. It's very difficult to understand what people are saying, in French or Ani, and reading each situation is draining. So for the most part, I stay indoors.

Which is also bad, because each moment I spend indoors, I am telling myself that I should be outside. Or I'm anticipating that a visitor will come by any minute and interrupt what I'm doing to do something really nice, like bring me a bag of oranges.

It doesn't sound like this celebrity thing is that big of a deal, so let me try to put this in an American context. Imagine walking down the street to buy a latte, and every single person stops you, knows your name, wants to ask you a question. You don't know them but you are obligated to be nice to them, and at least say hello to each person. When you find the latte and buy the latte, a child insists on carrying it back to your house, while another chases your dog with a stick. Rumor starts spreading in the village that you like lattes. People want to have conversations with you about what kind of lattes you prefer. They suggest your dog drink lattes. People come to your house bringing lattes at inappropriate hours when you would like to be taking a nap.
All these individual actions are quite sweet and lovely. Together.....difficult.

So about two weeks ago when I realized that I was living a rather unfufilling life of sheer cowardice inside my American hideaway, I had a long heart to heart with Heather (from Penessoulou) and my friend Eric who lives further away in Pelibina (and who I don't see very often). I came away with a renewed sense of purpose and motivation. I got ideas for more projects I would really like to be doing, and that got me raring to tackle the issue of my village situation. The only way to improve the situation is to leave the house. Obvious, right? So I decided I was going to make a village map- of every house, every cornfield, every well and shop. Which is actually a great idea, because it forces me to go to every single part of the village. It's a big project, and will probably take me about a month. But I definitely have the time.

So for the past two weeks, I've been going out for maybe forty five minutes a day and I make my map. People bombard me- I am courageous and courteous, and it's good! I'm making friends, I found a bunch of new areas I didn't know about. I've actually started talking to my neighbors. But here's where I start feeling a little worse. Because I've made this major shift in my mentality, I'm putting a lot of effort into this, and I'm working towards fixing something that literally plagues me by the minute. And I'm not really feeling a change. I'm still afraid. And I want this map to be working. I was counting on it working. And I know more than anything else that I know, that it will work. But I can see now that it's going to be harder than I thought- that I'm going to have to leave my house in a state of fear every day for a month or two months or three months, or how ever long it takes for me to not be afraid any more.

I did not expect my adjustment to village to be this gradual and this draining. I must say, that a lot of it is due to the fact that I'm the first volunteer at my post, which makes me the first white person for a lot of people. So it's sort of understandable. When we say that the Peace Corps is “hard”, everyone quickly thinks that doing my dishes in a bucket, and having no electricity are the things that will affect me most. I thought so too.

What's hard is making a friend in your village, and trying to explain Jello. And knowing that this person will never ever have any basis to understand what you are talking about. When you are new in a place. And alone. Jello becomes important. Being able to communicate your thoughts about politics and art becomes important. Speaking English is important. Privacy is important.

Nothing is more dear to me then the days I go to Penessoulou to see Heather. She talks about her problems, I talk about mine. We come up with plans and give each other pep talks. We eat bread with jam and make American macaroni and cheese. But at the end of the day, I go home and my house feels even emptier. And when I wake up, I'm exactly where I was before. My bed. In my house. In Africa. And the things that were hard yesterday, are just as hard today. And it starts all over again.

Something that's been helping me these few weeks:
“Courage delayed is fear embraced”
Take this and do something brave for yourself today!
We can all use encouragement.



I've added link to the blogs of some of my friends that live near (and some far)- if you wanna check out what other people are doing they're on the right side of this page!