Support Girls Empowerment in Benin!

Dear Friends and Family,
As I’m sure you’re all aware, I’ve been living in Benin for over a year serving with the Peace Corps. For the last few months, I’ve been working on a grant for a girl’s summer camp, called Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). The camp started in Romania in the early 90’s and spread to Benin in 2000. Since then, it’s been held every year in various parts of the country.
To put it bluntly, Benin is a very male dominated society where unfortunately, women are not granted many of the same opportunities. Antiquated cultural norms and traditional beliefs still permeate the country, especially in the remote villages where many volunteers work. Girls often quit school at a young age to help take care of their multiple younger siblings at home. Many of them become market vendors, are forced into marriages, or even worse, become prostitutes. In extreme cases, those that do manage to stay in school but do not have the proper marks can advance by sleeping with their professors. Polygamy, although outlawed in Benin, still occurs and the numerous wives, unfortunately, must tolerate their husband’s actions as they lack the power or the education to do anything about it. On the grassroots level, many are still illiterate and do not even know French, their national language.
As for my own personal experiences, you know that I teach 7th and 8th grade English as well as doing tutoring with other students. I try to empower the girls that I work with on a daily basis as well as doing things like tutoring in the market on market days, when they must work for there mothers and had never thought of studying at the same time. I tell them that it is important for them to study all the time, when they can catch a few moments, because generally girls are given more work to do and therefore less time to study for school. The males outnumber the females by about three to one, and as the levels progress, the disparity increases. Last year’s 6eme class (5th grade level) of 400 students had about 100 females. In the 1er class (11th grade), there were only three females in a class of fifty students, and not one of them passed onto the final grade, terminale. I’m more than confident that this discrepancy is not a singular occurrence with just my community. In addition, after elementary school, there’s a fee to go to school, regardless of public or private institution. The price varies depending on location and size. At my high school for example, it costs 35,000 CFA/year (roughly $70 USD), which is more than many people make per month. With multiple children in the family, it’s often only the boys that get to continue with their studies, leaving the girls behind with just the bare minimum education.
As you can see, there is a great need in this country to educate women and young girls about the importance of staying in school. That’s what Camp GLOW strives to do. It’s a week long girls empowerment camp where they can acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to become better students and more powerful leaders in their communities. Throughout the week, various topics are discussed including financial planning, sexual health, computer and Internet literacy, goal-setting, HIV/AIDS awareness, study and leaderships skills, and malaria prevention techniques. The girls also participate in arts and crafts, sports and games, and take excursions to national government institutions and museums. All sessions are held by respected successful Beninese women who serve as excellent role models for the girls. To illustrate how important this can be I will tell you about a conversation I had with some girls in 2nd (10th grade). I asked them how many girls were in their class of 63, they told me 9, which is about average in their grade. When I asked them why there were not more girls in their grade, and what had happened to their former classmates they told me, "Elles sont parents." "They are parents." When I think about this it makes me sick to think that if some of these girls had just had some education about sexual health and reproduction, they might still be in school. I know that in the US there is a lot of debate about teaching healthy sexual practices vs. abstinence only education, but here there is NO sex-ed at all, and many of these girls are taught by their culture that it is unacceptable to say no to men and even boys.
I know that many of you donated last year, and I thank you for your contribution. You can see what your money did in these pictures! These were all taken at our camp last year.
The budget for this year’s camp runs close to $6000, so I ask your support in please providing as little or as much as you can. Even a dollar in Benin will go a long way. The camp isn’t slated to start until June, but the sooner we have the money, the quicker we can start planning, organizing, and finalizing all the details. There are about 20 volunteers involved in this camp, and if we all ask our loved ones to donate a few dollars then we can reach our goal easily, so anything that you can spare will be very much appreciated! And don't forget that your donation is tax deductible!
If you are interested in donating, please go here: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.donatenow and search for projects in Benin. The grant was just recently sent to Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington D.C. for final approval, and should be online within the next week or two. Please continue to check periodically if you do not see anything. The project is called Camp GLOW – Porto Novo.
Thank you for your continued support and warm wishes. I hope all is well back home, as trust me when I tell you that there is no finer place on earth than the United States of America.

Thank you so much for all of your support!

An Extra-Ordinary Weekend

SO I came to Cotonou this weekend really for one thing- my friend Kara's Halloween Party. So, I left my house Saturday morning and made a stop in Porto-Novo to visit my couturier, she has made me some really great dresses- 2, maybe 3 of which I can wear when I go home (as summer dresses anyway) so I was really excited about that- now I have cloths that fit me! Oh, it was really funny the last time I got my measurements retaken. I have been going to the same woman since about 2 months into my training in Porto-Novo so she has my measurements from then. I have lost about 10 cm, or around 4 inches all around my body, that was pretty telling, no wonder I'm swimming in the cloths that I had made last year! OK, so after I that I stopped and bought a dictionary for one of the kids in my class I headed to Cotonou. After a traffic jam and a nap, I was in Cotonou.

I lucked out this weekend because the wifi is actually working well and so I got to skype with my mom, who I talk to pretty regularly but I love getting to see. Then it was off to the party where I was dressed as a 'Marche Mama' meaning that I was wearing 4 pagnas (2m long pieces of fabric) and had a bucket full of cookies on my head. It was a really fun party which ended with most of us up on the roof of the building watching the stars and the clouds and the airplanes take off from the only airport in Benin. Also, its always a good idea to take cookies into a room of drunken PCVs.

So the next morning I was here at the PC office and realized that there is no school on Monday because it is All Saints Day and as I wasnt really feeling up to the taxi/moto ride back to post I decided to stay for another day. Sunday night was a much calmer affair. My friend Laura and I made this really great chili, which I bought a TON of veggies for. Because I dont get many different vegetables at post, when I am standing in front of all that produce my eyes get a little bigger than my stomach. So in the chili there were tomatoes, shallots, zucchini, carrots and eggplant. It ended up being more of a stew with beans than a chili, but with liberal amounts of chili powder and taco seasoning it did taste like a very tasty chili. Then we took our hot, spicy chili up to the TV room here and blasted the air conditioning to simulate winter while watching 'White Christmas'. This is how we pretend that it is winter in Benin and also how I will attempt to prepare myself for the cold this Christmas in London.

So this is Monday and I will head back to post. My APCD (the boss of the TEFL volunteers) is coming tomorrow on Post Visit and will see a class of mine and also inspect my house and ask me a bunch of questions so wish me luck!

A Week in the Life

October 24, 2010

A Week in the Life

So I know that I have described a typical day for me here in Benin, but recently I have decided that there is not so much a typical day for me here so much as a typical week. So I decided to write about the week, day by day and maybe that will give you a better idea about my life here.

Monday.
Monday is one of my long days, I teach for 6 hours from 8-10, 10-12 and 3-5. Today I was totally exhausted because I didn’t teach last week so my sleep schedule went back to my more natural night-owl sleep pattern. It’s not that I am so tired when I am in class, but getting myself to leave the house can be difficult. This week I finally am teaching all of my classes, even if two of them are “les classes volantent”- “flying classes”, meaning that every time we met we have to search for an empty classroom. Finding empty classrooms has been pretty easy up to this point, but mostly just because many of my colleagues have not started teaching yet, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed that I can still find some empties in a few weeks. Usually, on Monday the whole school has the flag ceremony, at which we all stand around saluting the Beninese flag, singing the Beninese national anthem (I know it now too!) and then having announcements. Today though, by the time the ceremony was supposed to start it was raining cats and dogs so we all kept (mostly) dry in the classrooms. And I tried to keep my class busy even though they couldn’t hear me above the sound of the rain sheeting down onto the tin roof. I also wrote the word “write” up on the blackboard so many times (making a verb chart in 2 classes) that it did that weird thing where the word starts to loose meaning and I second-guess myself as to wither or not it is spelled right.

Tuesday.
Tuesday is my shortest day, I only teach from 8-10 and then I have the rest of the day free. Normally, I go home and do chores, but I promised my classes that I would let them know how much a French-English dictionary would cost, then they could bring me the money and I could by the dictionary on one of my fairly frequent trips to Porto-Novo or Cotonou. So I went straight from school to the bookstore in Porto-Novo and found out that they are between $4 and $5, which is a lot of money to most of my student’s families. That’s about a quarter of what it costs to send a kid to school for a year and about as much as a day laborer makes in a week. So last week I also offered to let the kids come and do chores for me to earn money, for their school fees, a dictionary or just if they want to make some money. While I was in Porto-Novo I also got myself the very healthy lunch of French-fries and Coke and then I got some Blackberry jam at the supermarket. Jam and peanut butter are two of the things that I spend money on because they make my life here so much more pleasant. When I am having a bad day I can have biscuits and jam or toast and pb and it makes life bearable sometimes. I know that seems terribly odd, but hey, it works for me so I keep it in stock. When I got back from P-N I found two of my students waiting on my porch, wanting to work for me. Unfortunately it had just started raining really hard so I had to find something for them to do in my house (at least until the rain stopped). So, they did my dished and swept my house for less than a dollar for both of them and when I gave them the money they looked at me like I was crazy. This was the first time that I have had students work for me and I think it went pretty well.

Wednesday.
Wednesday is another short day. I have one class from 8-10 and then an English department meeting from 10-12. Class was fairly uneventful, except that I noticed that some of the pencil wells in the desks in my classroom were still full of water after it rained so hard yesterday. Boy, am I glad I wasn’t teaching! It’s bad enough when the class can’t hear you, but when they start getting wet all hell breaks loose. The way they react to a little bit of water you would think that they would all melt like the Wicked Witch of the West! Department meetings are fairly pointless and frustrating. My principle is also the head of the English department and since he is busy being the principle and is always running out of the meeting or being called out of the meeting and nobody will continue on without him there tends to be very little that goes on at these meetings. Although today we all did get the chance to coordinate our classes within each grade and decide how far we want to get before the exam, which is scheduled for right before Christmas break. Last year I had one grade-level all to myself so I could pretty much do whatever I wanted, but now that I have two grades I share the 7th grade with one person and the 8th grade with two other people. It was interesting to see how the other 7th grade teacher was really anal about the whole thing- in a very Beninese way. He is making a chart of what we are going to teach week by week and then he will give me a copy of it. The two guys who are also teaching 8th grade were totally the opposite- they were super laid back and we just basically agreed that we would get all of our kids to the same point by the end of the quarter. Oh, that was the other thing that I found out today, the whole Beninese school system has switched from semesters to trimesters, just like that. The other profs don’t know what to think of this and I don’t really either, but I guess we’ll see. The principle told us that and then just moved on. I just thought it could be worse. Like in Rwanda where they switched the whole school system from being in French to being in English the same way- no phase out, no pilot program, nothing, one year school is in French and the next year school is in English, with no warning or anything. I know that cant have gone down so well there if only because I know that it wouldn’t go down so well here.

Thursday.
Thursday is my other long day, same class schedule as Monday, but it always seems longer than Monday does. In the morning I have one 7th grade class followed by an 8th grade class and I noticed for the first time how much bigger my 8th graders are all of a sudden. Last year I had all of the 7th grade, so most of the students (except repeaters and transfer students) in my 8th grade classes are kids I know. When did they get so huge?! Part of the reason I noticed was that I was in the same classroom for both classes and there were about as many kids, but the 8th graders took up way more space. For example, when 3 7th graders are sharing a desk built for 2, sometimes it takes me an hour or so into class (until I start counting them to write down in my notebook) because even thought there are 3 of them at a desk, they are still sitting comfortably. But when 3 8th graders are sharing that same desk they look very uncomfortable, the same way 3 adults would look, all elbows banging and butts hanging of the edge of the bench. When I walked home from school for lunch it was very hot, so hot I could feel the sun burning my skin on the short walk from school to my house (yes, Mom, I was wearing sunscreen!) but by the time it was time to go back to school it was thunder and lightening and raining buckets. I also was freaking out on the inside as I walked through the half-grown cornfields, praying that I wouldn’t get hit by lightening. To make matters worse, just what I predicted on Monday happened and it took about 10 minutes of running around the school to find a classroom. They are building 3 more classrooms at the moment, but I have no expectation that they will be finished before January, that way if they get done before then I will be pleasantly surprised. (I was told it would take 2 weeks- and those are my classrooms). I had one kid give me the $5 to buy him a dictionary- yay! I really think that all of my 8th graders should have dictionaries, this is their 3rd year of English and I have talked to the 9th grade English teachers and know that they need them even more next year, as a the end of 9th grade there is a huge nation-wide exam and if they don’t pass it they don’t move up to the upper school (I teach in the lower school). So if they have to have it for next year anyway, then why shouldn’t they buy it this year and get more use out of it? Especially when I’m offering to go and pick it up for them.

Friday.
I have no classes on Friday. So when 3 students of mine showed up to do my laundry I was still in my sweatpants. This was I think weird for them as they have never seen me in anything but teaching cloths, which are my nice cloths, mostly Western-style in an African “tussu” or printed fabric. They did a good job on my cloths though, but since today is overcast and not very hot my jeans are still out drying after 6 hours on the line. There was a bit of excitement in the capital of my commune (county) last night. As you may have heard, there has been some really bad flooding all over Benin, including in just the next village to the West of mine, which for 4-5 months out of the year is a stilt-village (there are pictures of it on facebook) but it has rained too much this year and that village and many like it as well as some that are usually just barely above the floodplain have flooded. Well, as you can imagine the government and also many of the NGOs in Benin have been really good about giving supplies (not money-they know it would just get stolen) to the mayors of the communes to disperse to the displaced. Things like rice, corn, condensed milk, tents, sleeping mats, mosquito nets, water purification tabs and the like. Most of these things are expensive, especially right now as the most fertile part of Benin in underwater and vegetables and fruits are hard to come by. Well the mayor of my commune gave out very little of what he was given and held back all the rest of the donations. One of the TV stations got a hold of this info and late last night the mayor and his cronies were caught sneaking out of city hall with carloads of things that were supposed to be given to people who have lost everything in the last few weeks. It’s kind of like if after Hurricane Katrina instead of FIFA not delivering trailers to the newly created homeless of Louisiana and Mississippi they were selling them on the black market. Of course this is a huge scandal and because our mayor is a member of the party of Yayi Boni, the President of Benin, this whole thing reflects really badly on him and could swing the election away from him in the next election. I was talking to my friend Sylvester about this and asked him why the mayor stealing these things was different from the president or any of the ministers or the mayors or even the principles of the schools stealing money everyday and the only answer that he could give me was that those people don’t get caught sneaking out of their offices with pocketfuls of cash by GOLFE TV. Moral of the story: if you are going to steal something in Benin, make sure you can just wire it into your off-shore bank account and you don’t have to load it into your car.

I know, I know, I have been remiss

New pictures on facebook!

October 22, 2010

C’est Deja La Rentree

It has started again! The school year. This year is looking to be good. I get to go ahead with two of my classes from last year, and I get two new classes of the same grade that I taught last year. I got a week of class in last week, but then this week all the teachers are having a training. That makes sense right? Start school and then have the training. I’m sure I will hate that kind of training when I have to go to the same kind of thing in the US, but here if I can get out of it by saying the French is too hard (which it isn’t, even if it is difficult to keep it up for 6 hours) I will! Although it was very nice to have my new post mate Katie there to commiserate with me, and also very entertaining to teach a room full of grown men the ‘Hokey Pokey’.

More updates on the school year as things actually start to happen!

September 28, 2010

I Love Having Visitors

Last week I got to have visitors! Yay! My friend Alice, who I met on Medical Evacuation, and her husband Jesse came down from Niger and stopped by to see me for a few days. I took them to see most of the cool stuff in Cotonou (I forgot the Zinzu Museum, oops) and we spent a lot of time chilling at what the volunteers all call Sunset Bar, which is a bar on the beach. It was good to be reminded of how awesome Cotonou can be, as it seems like a poor man’s Dakar to me now, but they really liked it. (At least the food!)

Then we headed to my post. During this time of the year I have the distinction of living right next to a stilt village. During the rainy season the river floods its shallow plains up to around 3 or 4 feet and the people who live on the river, fishermen and farmers who farm the rich silt deposits when the water is down, have build ingenious houses that float above the water. So I got my friend Sylvestre to rent us a boat and a guy to guide it and we went out on the river. It is really pleasant to be out in a boat on the water cruising by everyone’s houses. We even stopped at a bar in the middle of the afternoon to have a cold Coke.

The main stilt village in Benin is Ganvie, which all the TEFL volunteers went to during stage. They call it ‘The Venice of Africa’, but the thing is that it is really overrun with tourists so you get called ‘yovo’ a lot and kids follow you around asking for money. Most people don’t know that there are many stilt villages in Benin and most of them are much more pleasant and more authentic than Ganvie, you just have to come during the rainy season!

September 1, 2010

Senegal - Where Oranges Are Orange

So my big summer vacation trip this year was to Senegal. This was a big deal for me because it was the first “vacation” that I have taken- meaning the first time I have used my vacation days thus far. I chose Senegal because I really wanted to see another side of West Africa and I also wanted to see my friend Camille, who is a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal.

To get yonder, I decided to fly. This is always a big deal in Africa because while air travel is a little more regulated and timetabled than other forms of travel, this is still Africa and delays and cancellations are bound to happen, meaning that every African airline can be alternately called “Air Peutetre” (Maybe Air). I flew Air Ivoire, and I’m glad I didn’t have high expectations, because that means that I was pleasantly surprised when the plane was only 20 minutes late.

So anyway, I got to Senegal in one piece and was REALLY, REALLY excited to see Camille. I was mean and made Camille plan everything, which turned out great for me, because I got a great, stress-free vacation.

The first few days we spent in Dakar which is a weird mash-up of Africa and Mediterranean Europe and has a real character. We spent one day on Ile de Goree, an old Dutch slave trading post. It was really interesting to see a very well preserved Porto-Novo. It has a very European feel to it and is very colorful. We went to the slave museum and saw all thing things that you are supposed to see there, but mostly the exhibits were reading a bunch of stuff in French and instead of doing that I got distracted by the pretty view. I know a lot about slavery already, I don’t need to know it in French too. Although I thought it was interesting that they make a whole big deal out of Goree and that there weren’t really very many slaves that left from there- I mean the harbor isn’t really great for big ships and all that. Whereas in Benin, we have nothing like that left over from the slave-trading days but hundreds of thousands of slaves were sent from Ouhida and Cotonou and Porto-Novo all of which were slave trading posts owned and operated by different European Nations. Goes to show what marketing can do. The other day mostly we just wandered around Dakar and ate yummy things like ‘N’ice Cream’ and at the French Cultural Centre and it was amazing.

After Dakar we headed up to Saint Louis, the old colonial capital of Senegal and got a really great little bungalow on the beach. Unfortunately, it rained the two days we were there, but, undeterred we camped out in the shop of a silversmith. We sat there all day watched while he made us really pretty silver bracelets. He also bought us lunch, even though it was Ramadan, but he said he was “working” because being a silversmith is hard labor and the Koran says you can eat if you are working (this was his explanation).

After Saint Louis we went to Poppeungine (sp?) which is a resort town on the beach (and also a pilgrimage site because the Virgin Mary appeared there once in the 80s- Michael Jackson came). One of the Senegal volunteers lives there as an EcoTourism volunteer and he helped us rent a house with Camille’s friend Jessica and her two sisters that were visiting from the States. Unfortunately, by this time Camille was not feeling well and she didn’t really want to leave the house, so I ditched her (sorry :P ) and headed with the other girls on a long hike over the river and through the woods and into a monsoonal downpour. This little hike was amazing, unfortunately I am dumb and ended up ruining my camera in the downpour so I have no pictures L But trust me, it was amazing, even the rain that lead to us being stranded in an unfinished hotel hanging out with two of the workers was super cool. We ended up at a kind of Reggae bar/restaurant place where they gave us amazing (and hot! We were soaked!) food and then headed into the mangroves and ended a very good day with a ride on a donkey cart.

By the time we were ready to leave Camille knew something was really wrong with her so we went back to Dakar and stayed in the Med Hut there for 5 days. Camille was really apologetic about it, but I was absolutely fine with holing up for a few days to watch movies and read books in air-con comfort. That’s the life!

From there we headed to Tamba, Camille’s regional house and then to her village. It was really interesting to see another West African culture that is similar but not exactly the same as in Benin. And also to see how different volunteers live. For example, Camille lives in a hut, and I live in a house. Now, I could live in either, but why does Peace Corps vary so much from country to country? It was also just the beginning of Ramadan when I got there and while we were in Dakar and in beach towns it didn’t matter too much because those are fairly Westernized parts of Senegal, but Camille’s village is not like that. It was fun (for a day) to hid the fact that we were eating and then to break the fast with (really good) “village bread”- with just a touch of cinnamon and honey. Camille is really doing well with her Peace Corps service, as hard as I know it can be.

Mostly Senegal was super awesome because of Camille, it was so good to see someone from home. I feel like I have changed so much in the last year, and I know Camille has too, but it was good to be reminded that I am not a completely different person than I was when I left a year ago.

Here is a very long post

August 9, 2010

Hard thing to deal with of the day…

What do you do when a girl is crying in the dark on your porch? Ask questions? Console? What if you don’t speak a common language? Sit there awkwardly? Give her back a gentle, hopefully commiserative and consoling, rub? Get her a peppermint stick?

The girl in question is Yvette, or “Yovo” as everyone else calls her, because her skin is a little lighter than most people. She is an “apprentice” to my neighbour, who sells alcohol. So apparently she is learning the business, but mostly, she is a slave. Not that this is at all unusual or illegal here, I just know how much work she does and how little anyone pays her any kindness at all. I attempt to be sympathetic, but when I don’t speak Gun and she doesn’t speak French how much can I do? Mostly I sneak her food, usually something tasty with some protein in it.

August 3, 2010

Hopefully the pictures upload with this…

So a lot has happened since my last post. Let’s start at the beginning.

The Peace Corps did eventually figure out what was wrong with me. It was my gall bladder. At the time I wondered what exactly my gall bladder was and why it made me think I was dying. Why did it make me up-chuck my very tasty (and expensive) lasagne all over the med unit? Well, it turns out that I had a very sizable stone hanging out in there. It took three days in what is (apparently) the best hospital in Benin to confirm what my friend Antonio diagnosed in about ten minutes. A note about Beninese hospitals: DON’T GO THERE! They don’t know how to put in an IV and as a result a month later I still have a bruise on my hand (that’s right- they put an IV in the back of my hand). You know how when you throw up a bunch you are supposed to get IV fluids? Well, they did that- but in Benin IV fluid comes in glass bottles. I thought that only happened in movies about the thirties, forties and fifties. The pain medication that they gave me (which didn’t work very well) also came in a glass bottle- but it was a powder that you had to add saline to and then shake up. I will say this, I did have round-the-clock observation, but with a few African twists. For example: one of the nurses that stayed overnight with me had some scrub pants. On the back pocket of these scrub pants it said “I danced my pants of at Alexandria’s Bat Mizpha”, oh Africa. I was also in the ‘Presidential’ Suite of the ER- it had a flat screen TV (that wasn’t plugged in) and an electric bed (also not plugged in). The Beninese doctors wanted to do surgery right there and then, but the Peace Corps doesn’t allow that (thank God!), so it was a question of where and when I would get medivaced (medically evacuated). I got sent to South Africa.

South Africa in the lead-up to the World Cup is a crazy thing. It’s also cold as hell (it’s winter in the southern hemisphere). My second thought (after damn its cold) was ‘Wow, this looks just like Southern California’. Not just the landscape, but also the highways and the houses and the shopping malls and, well, the first-worldliness of it. The Peace Corps puts medivacs in The Rose Guest House, which is pretty much the nicest place I’ve ever stayed in, even if there is a little too much chintz for my taste. One of the best things about being on medivac was that I got to meet and live with other PCVs from all over Africa. When I was there everyone was there for fairly urgent (read: surgical) things because the Peace Corps was holding back everyone else, if they could, because of the World Cup. It is so interesting to talk to everyone and compare and contrast the differences between region and country. For example it seems that West Africans are a lot more friendly and open than East Africans and that West Africa is a lot less developed than East Africa. Of course these are some gross generalizations, but from talking with the other girls that seems about right. It was also a happy accident that we all got along great (with one exception- and she wasn’t there long) and could break up into different groups whichever way and it was all good. This was also great when we did what little sightseeing that we could.

The most expensive (totally worth it!) thing that we did was go to Ukeltula (sp?) lion park. Since we were there a couple of weeks before the World Cup actually started, the 6 of us got our own (really adorable) tour guide and we got to get REALLY CLOSE to lions. We got to feed babies and pet adolescents and just generally see things that you could never see in the wild. There were tigers too. It was amazing. See the pictures they say everything. The other wild life thing that I got to do was go on a hike with Dr.Cedric (one of the Peace Crops docs). He took us all to a wildlife park, which reminded me of a big state park at home, and we hiked around and saw Zebras, Impala and Giraffes, which was really, really cool, again because we could get really close to the animals because we were on foot instead of in a car or even on a bike. The last thing that I got to see was the Apartide Museum, which was both sobering and really well done. We were there for about 5 hours and I probably could have spent another 5 there. I have known about apartide and what it was in an academic sense since I was in high school but to be there and really see what it meant to people in South Africa at that time and also just the absolute absurdity of all of it was really amazing. For example that everyone had an assigned race. Ok, not surprising but what is surprising is that there were over 60 racial classifications and a person could protest to a judge and have your race changed. I mean if that doesn’t tell you that race is a totally objective classification I don’t know what does. The section of the museum that I did scoff at was the part about “coloured” children’s education under apartide. 60 to 80 kids in a class, hardly trained and underpaid teachers, administrators who steal from the school funds, kids walking 30 miles to school, not enough desks/supplies/books/teachers/classrooms. I’m sure if you are a reader of my blog you can see why I scoffed. It pretty much sounds like the rest of Africa right now. The reason it is unacceptable in South Africa is that just a few mile away from these typically African schools there are American or European quality public schools where only the white kids were allowed to go. South Africa was an interesting place because even though aparthide is over now there is still that paradox of you can go from a place that looks like the US to a place that looks like Benin in about ten minutes. I mean I know that there are slums and projects and whatever at home, I’ve seen them, but I’ve never seen a true shanty town until I came to Benin and to think that there exists a country where all of that exists is really weird.

About the surgery: WARNING; NOT FOR THE WEAK STOMACHED Do you know what a gall bladder does? Yeah, I didn’t either. Here’s how my awesome doctor in South Africa explained it to me. So your liver makes bile (yeah- I didn’t know that either) to help you digest food. It squirts bile on food as it goes to your stomach. So, when your liver makes to much bile, it puts the extra in your gall bladder, so that when you eat something that is hard to digest (like something really greasy) both your gall bladder and you liver squirt bile all over it, the more bile the easier it is to go down. OK, so now that you know what it does I’m going to tell you what happened to mine. So the bile that was chillin’ in my gall bladder decided to crystallize. Now, everybody has some crystals in their gall bladder, but what happened to me was that the crystal got really, really big., mine was the size of a golf ball. I got to keep it. It’s pretty cool. I like to show it off. So when they took out the stone they also took out the whole gall bladder, because if you make a stone once then you will probably make another one, so…

South African hospitals (at least the private one that I was in) are awesome. I woke up from surgery and there was a tiny little woman with a tea trolley saying “Would you like some tea dear? And a biscuit?” (Me: “Yes, please!”) Of course she asked first in Afrikaans, which, when you are on morphine and also coming off anaesthetic can sound an awful lot like English with a funny accent. Pretoria, which is the capital of South Africa (not Johannesburg or Cape Town!), is in an Afrikaans part of South Africa, so the first language that everyone speaks to you is Afrikaans. I think that the Peace Corps should have a big rubber stamp to put on the forehead of every volunteer going into the hospital “I AM AMERICAN”, that way they know that you only speak English. Anyway, after my terrible 3 day stay in the hospital in Benin it was awesome to have a 2 day stay in the hospital in South Africa, with real beds that were comfortable and nurses in these crazy uniforms that make them look like flight attendants from the 80s and food that was actually good (and I got to pick what I wanted!). I’ve never stayed overnight in the hospital in America before but I suspect that it is similar.

I was very happy that even though I had a gastro-intestinal surgery that I could still pretty much eat whatever I wanted, because the food in South Africa was awesome. Not only did the guest house we stayed at have free (made to order) breakfast, but you can pretty much get any food that you can get in America in South Africa (with the exception of Mexican food). We ate well, everyday. I also went to 4 movies “Date Night”, which was hilarious, “Iron Man 2“, which I thought was better than the first one, “Sex and the City 2”, which had a negligible plot but I can forgive that because it was pretty, and “Killers”, which was far better than I expected it to be. I was really excited about the movies, because I love the movies. I love to watch movies in the theatre and have that connection, if only for a moment, of sharing laughter or sadness with total strangers. There is something wonderfully humanistic about it. Unfortunately, there is nary a movie theatre in Benin. I hear that there is one in Lagos, but I’m not allowed to go there so the closest movie theatre to me in in Ghana, on the other side of Togo. We also spent A LOT of time at the mall, like 13 year old girls. I didn’t buy much except a sweater, slippers that I could wear all the time, and a new hard drive because my other one was full, and groceries to bring back. One of my favourite things that I got was a full mani/pedi and a leg/bikini wax, I actually got down to the real colour of the skin on my feet! I’m not as tan as I think I am, it’s just that the dirt takes a while to come off (or in this case some paraffin wax).

For the third time in my life, I have “accidentally” found myself in a country that was having the World Cup, and once again, I did not go to any games. It was fun to be there for all the excitement though, even if I HATE those fucking vuvuzellas. (Those big horn things that they blow) I’m sure that I would be ok with them in a soccer stadium, but I was really no happy with people blowing them in enclosed spaced like shopping malls.

So, after 3 depressing weeks in Cotonou and 3 amazing weeks in South Africa I returned home, to Benin and to my village. I got back the week after my students had taken all their exams, so I had just enough time to calculate all of their grades before I took girls to Camp GLOW.

Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World), as I think most of you know, is a camp for girls to encourage them to be leaders in their communities and also to stay in school, and all that good stuff. Girls here fight for so much. They are not as encouraged in their studies as boys, and when I say not encouraged, I mean that the moment they get home from school they are working taking care of their younger siblings, cooking, cleaning, carrying water, everything you can think of. By the time they have the opportunity to get to their homework they often cant do it because there is no electricity and their parents wont let them us the expensive kerosene lanterns. They get hit on and put down by boys at school and even their professors and are often sexually active as soon as they hit puberty, sometimes sooner. So, Camp GLOW is much more than a summer camp. Yes, it’s the chance that for the girls to be kids and have fun for a week, but they also are given the ideas and incentive that there is something outside their village, something to aspire to. We brought in professional women to talk to the girls both about staying in school and about how to succeed. There were sessions about sexual health, contraception, gender roles in society, fiscal planning, malaria, health issues, and computers but also sports, arts and crafts, a trip to a museum and just the time to play and laugh and be with other girls. I have to say that I also had a really good time, playing games and singing songs that I learned at camp and also watching the girls become more and more active as the week went on.

After a week back at post, doing nothing, as I am on summer break, I went to Cotonou to meet the new incoming soon-to-be volunteers. Granted, they were a little shell-shocked and apparently some of them see “pain in [our] eyes” but mostly they seem like a good bunch and I cant wait to get to know them more during their training. I am not actually a trainer, but as the 2-month training is taking place in Porto-Novo and I live not even an hour outside Porto-Novo I can safely say that I will be there a few times while they are there. Also, when they get their post assignments (the 6th of August) I will be really excited to get to know my new post-mate. I know that my current post-mate is being replaced and I also believe that I am getting at least one more from TEFL and maybe another from another sector as well.

As I am on vacation, I took a little (12 hour) trip to Kandi. Kandi is way up north in Benin, about 4 hours from Niger. There was an English Camp that one of the volunteers there organized and I thought it was a good opportunity for me to get up north without taking vacation time. Kandi was really nice. At this time of year it is cool and it is always dry (unlike my village is which is always wet and humid) and the workstation there was really cozy, like a family home. It was nice to relax and hang out with other volunteers. We watched movies and cooked and read a bunch of books. They tell me that Nattitangu is even better, so I have to get there sometime. Camp was really great too, because there were not too many kids in our classes and the kids that were there wanted to be there and were generally the best students from the different CEGs in Kandi. It was a day camp, so in the morning we did English class and then in the afternoon health and environment volunteers would do sessions in the afternoon and then arts and crafts and games.

That about brings you all up to date on my life in Benin. Other than yesterday I got some shelves delivered, one big one with lots of little shelves for all my odds and ends in the kitchen and then one just one shelf in my shower area. Woo Hoo. No, really, I’m really excited about the ones in the kitchen especially because there really wasn’t a place for storage for anything where I could really see it. So I would forget that I had all these amazing things that got sent to me (thank you very much everyone who sends things to me!) so I wouldn’t use them. So getting shelves was like getting packages over again.

Many Things and Some Future Plans

Medical Update
Although there is nothing wrong with my tooth anymore, there is something very mysterious going on with my back. It keeps waking me up in middle of the night. This is why I have the internet and the time to write on a Monday morning, when I should by all rights be in class. I do hate missing class! Especially in the very, very short second semester. The semesters are not even at all. The first is October through February and the second is March through June. The reasoning is that because many teachers don't actually start teaching until mid or late November that the first one needs to be longer. This makes the second semester really stressful because there ends up being 2 exams that are only a month apart, because of the short semester and the week and a half Easter break. That means that it's really hard to teach the kids enough to put on a final exam in a month, especially when I am laid up in the med unit way too much.

School and Such
School is going really great. I have most of my kids' names down and I have gotten to know most of their families, those of them that live in my village anyway. One of my summer "maybes" is to go to some of the smaller villages around my larger village and meet the families of those students who board in town, but live in the "bush" or in many cases, the "valley", meaning the river valley that boarders the village. I am really looking forward to moving ahead with my students as they go to 4eme (8th grade) and I have been looking ahead to what is in that curricula. First, my mom is sending me a baby name book so that at the beginning of the year I can have them all pick out "American" names like I remember doing in French class. I am also very excited to continue corresponding with a French teacher and her students at home. I just got the letters that my students wrote and they were a riot to read. There is also a section about heath, and one about technology, both of which I want to do special projects about. I was thinking that because I am so close to Porto-Novo maybe I could take them (or some of them anyway) in to town just for a little bit of technology training. Just to show them. Many of them have never seen, much less touched a computer and I think that being computer literate is really important for students in an ever technology-saturated world. I know that I can't teach them to be really good at computers in one day, but I could give them some exposure to computers that they lack at the moment. I can also use the technology unit to get them to listen to the BBC World Service, which comes in very clearly in my village and listen to some honest to God British English for awhile. I also want to really hit on the health unit and I think I will have some of my friendly neighborhood health volunteers come to talk with them about things. This will also be good to get them hearing different American voices than mine (although they do still have problems with my accent from time to time).

General Notes...
I can't believe that the school year is almost over! It does not seem like I am winding down to the end of my first year. I will have Camp GLOW just after school finishes and then I have 3 months of, well, nothing. I don't know what I am going to do with myself! I will probably spend a lot of time traveling to other people's sights, as well as getting a visit to Camille in Senegal in sometime. I also what to work on a mural for the ugly wall that they just put up in front of my school. I should study for the GREs, which I think I will take during my February school break, and of course there are the new volunteers coming in!
All of us here are very, very excited about the new "stage" when we have internet, all of us are constantly stalking the internet trying to find out who is coming. And although it seems like most of them haven't gotten their invitations to Benin yet, we are sure that the flood will start soon and we can't wait to answer the endless questions about Benin (where is that anyway...?) and packing and what the first few months will be like here. Even though I am not working at stage, because I live near Porto-Novo I am really looking forward to getting to know the new stagiers before they get dispersed all over the country.

Easter Break
So because of my tooth issues I decided to spend my break in my village. I figured that out of the 3 weeks leading up to the break, I had been home for the grand total of 5 days- and I really just wanted to rest, hang out with my friends, and not spend any money. It is very easy to not spend money in village, because other than basic produce, there is not much to buy. It was also great to get to catch up on cleaning my house. You would not believe how dirty a house gets when you dont have windows, just wooden slats and screens. When I got back from GAD, there was so much dust on the floor that I left footprints. And that was only not sweeping for a week! I can't imagine what it will be like when I go to Senegal over the summer break or when I go to Europe for Christmas! It was really nice to be home, grade my exams, and not really do much else for a while. I did get a trip in to Porto-Novo and my friend Laura came to visit, so it was really enjoyable.


Parakou GAD Weekend

The GAD dinner is very amazing. It's basically an excuse for all the volunteers to get together, have more fun than should really be allowed, and spend way to much money for a good cause. I did the 10 hour trip to Parakou by my usual moto/taxi route to Cotonou plus an 8 hour bus ride from Cotonou up north. There were a bunch of us who took the same bus so it was as fun as an 8 hour bus ride can be, especially since there was air conditioning. We ended up staying with a PVC who lives in Parakou and has a huge house, there were probably about 20 of us staying there- others stayed at hotels, the Parakou workstation and with other volunteers who live in Parakou.

For me, one of the most fun things was getting ready with everyone. It very strongly reminded me of college, especially when I lived in the dorms, but later even at the Tower apartment, and we were getting ready to go out. Girls running all over the place, giving opinions, doing hair and makeup and borrowing everything that everyone else has. Then taking pictures of it all. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera with me, and it has been acting weird for awhile, so I dont have many pictures, but all of my friends do and I will try to get some from them.

The name "GAD Dinner" is a bit of a misnomer, as during the weekend there are actually 2 main events, and both include dinner. Friday night is the Date Auction and Talent Show. The talent show had a very small showing this year, which is planning on being remedied next year, but those who did perform were really great, there was one dance act and one singing act and we all thought they were great. The date auction, which is best kept toward the end of the evening when people are less attached to their living allowances, was very very interesting indeed. Basically, people auction themselves off and all the proceeds go to GAD. For example I bought 2 "dates"- one for an hour and a half of massage and one with a friend for a bike tour of Park W with a volunteer who lives right by it. I'm really looking forward to both, even if I did spend twice as much as I meant too... oops.

Saturday was the only real day that we had in Parakou and mostly it was great just to hang out with everyone, especially those who I dont get to see very often. And also, to eat. We made French toast that morning, and then in the afternoon we went to a place called Sunfoods and got cheeseburgers, milkshakes and fries. Umm. After all of that (and a nap) it was time to get ready for the GAD Dinner part of GAD weekend. This affair starts off as a very sedate (as sedate as PCVs get anyway) silent auction and dinner. I didn't have much money at this point, so even though I was in a little bit of a bidding war with another PCV over some little bronze giraffes, what I did end up winning were 2 woven bracelets and a huge number of seeds to plant. The seeds I am really excited to start with once I can afford to buy some planters for my porch. The dinner was very good, I had vegetarian lasagna, so good in fact that I felt the sting in the roof of my mouth for days after I tried to eat it too fast. Then, there was music and dancing, and the most important factor, a swimming pool. My memories get a little hazy here... I do remember being thrown in, some rather entertaining chicken fights and dancing until the wee smalls. Eventually though, I did get some sleep and then I did make it to the 6am bus back down to Cotonou. It was definitely some of the best times I have had thus far in Benin, and I can't wait to do it again next year!

To make up for my last post...

Be sure to check out my new pictures on facebook!

In Cotonou on my way to GAD weekend! More about that later!

March 19, 2010
Lizard Wars
At about 2 am last night I woke up to this incredible noise coming from my ceiling. I’m pretty sure that there were two lizards having a turf war up there. I have seen this between lizards before. Mind you these are not the little house geckos that run up and down my walls, these are big, ugly lizards with orange, yellow or red heads and tails- if they have tails, many of them don’t (I assume battle wounds). The scratching, pounding noises made their own images to me in the dark. What happens is that both lizards do push-ups at each other, and then one of them lunges and either misses or grabs a hold of the neck of the other lizard and sakes, hard. This leads to a scuffle, until the unlucky lizard escapes and the process starts over again. Last night, this went on for about 2 hours, loud enough that even blasting my iPod I couldn’t block it out (not to mention with my iPod that loud I can’t sleep!). So it was a fun night.

The Rains Have Come!
In other news, the dry season is over! It has rained (REALLY RAINED, HARD) three times in the last week. The whole village and everything around has changed. My area is green year-round, but with the rain that green has gotten more lush and has added about 30 shades. The heavy rains have also increased my concern for the amount of erosion that is going on in my village. Because it is on a hill, slopping down to the river, every time it rains extreme amounts of water make all the “streets” into muddy rivers. Last week while I was walking to school after a rainstorm in the afternoon, I took a false step and ended up in a sink hole halfway to my knee. I had to fish for my sandal in the mud. Luckily, I found it! When I got to class my students told me “Madame, your foot is dirty!” I had tried to get most of the mud off at the pump at the school, but without something to scrub with, the tiny grains of dirt wouldn’t come out of my skin! Back to what I was actually talking about- erosion. The cure for erosion here is that after it rains, women go down to the river and put dirt in a huge basin (what they use to wash cloths and dishes and small children), then they carry the dirt back to where it had been before. I suppose this is better than doing nothing, but there has to be something more! So while I was stuck in Cotonou this week I talked to the APCD (department head- I forget what it stands for) for EA (Environmental Action) so that they can check out the situation here to get an EA volunteer when I leave. I thought about trying to get one for next year, but the more I think about it the more I want a PCV to end up with my awesome (and fully furnished) house. Also, I kind of like having my village to myself, even if during the first few months here I was dying for want of a post-mate.

Ironically, it just started raining again. Listening to the rain outside is so soothing, the sound, the smell, the cool, the wet, are all extremely comforting to me. The smell especially. You would think that Seattle rain and Benin rain would have a different smell, but they don’t. It still has that tinny smell that makes my teeth tingle and reminds me of eating caned tomatoes. I love to sit on my porch with a mug of tea and watch the rain, and to take a shower in it. The rain comes fast enough off the roof that it makes a real shower, even if it is freezing cold. And often now it also comes with thunder and lightening. When there is a storm at school it amazes me that my students here are also scared of thunder and lightening, just like kids at home. The reason this surprises me is that children here often seem so much like miniature adults. They work more than most of the adults around, as well as going to school. And because of how much they work it can be easy to forget that they really are children, until they show fear at a storm, or break into a joyous dance and song. That’s one of the reasons I love singing in class, it brings out the children that sometimes can disappear behind very adult eyes and faces.

To Future Benin Volunteers…
So I can’t help but remembering that at this time last year I was just learning that I was coming to Benin. Not only because its that time of year, but also because we have filled out our applications to work at the 2010 Stage (Training). I also very well remember the anxiety that went into planning, packing and saying good-by, especially the packing. Somewhere near the beginning of this blog there is an exhaustive packing list. I’m not going to say that you shouldn’t worry about packing (I was told that and it was really frustrating), instead I am going to tell you the things that I packed that I use the most that are not immediately obvious.
1. My iPod speakers. I got Sonic Impact iF3, which are a little pricy but totally worth it. Basically you want some with 3 basic requirements: 1.Battery power, I mean that they charge on AC/DC- that way when the power goes out your alarm clock still works, 2. Radio-I listen to the BBC all the time, I’m listening to it right now, I do wish I could get VOA though, 3. Decent sound quality- you don’t want to not be able to hear what your playing over, its also really fun to put on Western music and then dance African style with your neighbours.
2. Computer- this was a big discussion on our facebook page, but really, you want it. A lot of people have cheap netbooks (including me) and have no problems with them. I am at post, writing my blog, right now. This means I can type a blog in advance and save myself a ton of money in internet time. I can also calculate grades a lot faster. Not to mention I can download movies, music, and books as well as get them from everyone else. You also need an external hard-drive of a decent size. And virus protection, because internet cafes are VERY viral.
3. Lesson Plan Book- obviously just for TEFL volunteers, you can also get it sent!
4. Sony Reader- I can get new books! Its also really great for when the electricity goes out, because it has a built-in light, and for long trips, because I read really quickly. Its preferable to the Kindle because as long as you register it at home you have no problem downloading, whereas I have heard that Kindle has issues.
5. A Real Pillow- the ones here really suck and I’m pretty sure I never would have slept during stage if I hadn’t had it. Get a Space Bag, it won’t take up that much space.
6. A Real Towel- I just brought a swim towel with me and after a month and a half of using just that I almost cried when I got one in the mail. I should have just brought one. Besides, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” advises it, so you can’t go wrong.
I think that’s about it. Cloths, keep it light, tank tops are really fine, just don’t show your bra straps (really- that’s what the Beninese will judge you for), at least that’s how it is in the south, where you will be training. By the end of stage you will have a better idea, and you will have had cloths made here anyway. Long shorts are fine too- but girls should keep is below the knee. Leather flip-flops (Rainbows) are fine too, that‘s all I wear. Just remember when your packing that you can get sent pretty much anything (except electronics) and you can also get stuff sent (or send it to yourself before you leave). This is especially true for any household items, as your host family will take care of you for the first 2 months.
HOT TIP: I got away with overweight luggage by telling the airline that I had a government-bought ticket getting to Philadelphia and it wasn’t a problem after that. Apparently they are not supposed to charge you over if you work for the federal government (in most cases the military) but mostly I think it has to do with how sympathetic the desk agent is.
We look forward to meeting you, really! If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment. And someone please start a facebook group!

The World is Going Crazy, except Benin
Recently, West Africa has been in the news a bunch, at least on the BBC. Nigeria is having all sorts of problems (were not allowed to go there), Niger just had a coup, and Togo is having trouble during their elections (we’re not allowed to go there temporarily too). And those are just the countries that share boarders with Benin! There are other things going on in Guinea, the Gambia, and probably others that I haven/t heard about. You’d think with all of that that Benin would be a little crazy too, but not here. Benin just marches along, to its own drummer you might say. As far as I have seen, Christians and Muslims get along well, because everyone is a traditional animalist anyway. The military is too busy trying to control the totally porous Nigerian boarder to stage a coup. And people are generally just happy to put pate on the nat (the Beninese version of bread on the table) to care too much what happens in Cotonou and Porto-Novo.

The Problem With My Tooth
I have a problem. Since I got here I have discovered that I love bone marrow, mostly of chickens, but goat is good too. So last Saturday I was in Cotonou, having dinner at a place popularly called (by PCVs) “Fish and Chips”, when I bit on a chicken bone in an attempt to get at the marrow. I popped a filling. Now I need a root canal, says the Beninese dentist who has the nicest office I’ve ever been in. The problem with that (other than it really hurts) is that to get a root canal I have to go to South Africa. Now, I know what your thinking‘,” oh… poor Glenna, she has to have a free vacation of South Africa, boo hoo.” The thing is that I don’t want to miss school. Especially this close to the end of the year I really need to be around, because if I spend even 3 days in South Africa that’s 5 days I’d miss of school (one day for travel both ways) , and that’s basically a whole unit that I would miss. However, if this had to happen eventually it could not have happened at a better time. If I can get it taken care of in the next two weeks, I’m golden, but I have to get approval from D.C. first, so hopefully that will go well. Wish me luck!