Dimanche! Sunday!
I has been one week since I left home and it feels like a
month! So much has happened, and I’ve had so much to process. Legal paperwork
and finding dinner in Philadelphia, making 60 new friends (go ahead and quiz me
on the names, I got ‘em!), coming to new country, packing unpacking, repacking,
and of course, meeting my new host family.
I know that every week won’t feel like a month, but it does
make me think just a tiny bit about how long I’m going to be here for. In
general, I have been trusting the peace corps to look at the big picture and I
have just been focusing on the day at hand. That works pretty well. As far as I
can see, the peace corps has a really good plan for immersing the volunteer in
their culture and work. And the cross-cultural training (for me, and my host
family) seems pretty excellent. All the same, it’s easy to take for granted
what a crazy 2 years this is going to be.
And all that on top of the fact that today was a kind of big
day. I was with the host family (and no other volunteers) for the whole day. I
thought it was going to be a pretty slow day. The Mama told me that she was not
going to the market, and probably not church because (as I understood it) the
kids needed to go somewhere at 9 am. This morning I realized that we were /all/
going to a party for the first communion of my host papa’s nephew, Richard. It
was quite an experience.
Getting to the house took a while on the bumpy suburban dirt
roads. When we did reach the house where the party would take place I elected
to go with a few others in the car to the church. The Church was a large
cross-shaped structure made out of concrete, with no windows. I’ve seen a few
buildings like this and wondered if funding was cut. In this case though, the
lack of windows probably is good for ventilation and helps the people who are
in over-flow seating, which is where we were.
After asking someone nearby, we found out that communion had
already happened. That was ok, because it was really fun to watch the kids
play, and look at all of the beautiful outfits. People were also fairly
interested to see me. Adults were actually more polite than I expected, I
didn’t get any surprised or confused looks from them. The kids however, were
very curious. The older ones would sort of walk past casually, and sometimes
wave. At separate times least two little ones, probably around three, slowly
walked up and touched me on the arm or hand. I smiled and would mimic them a
little bit (touching their opposite arm for example). When it was all too much
to take in they would wander off again. I noticed that when I was in the car
people felt more free to stare then when I was at the church, and in a big
group at the church people felt more free to stare than when I was at the
party. An interesting social tidbit.
The party itself was pretty great. And considering the
plethora of cultural assumption associated with communion party (and it’s more
than the expectations eating breakfast, if you read Saturday’s post) I think it
went very well! In general the music was loud and I sort of stayed where I was
invited to sit and kids and adults and sports on TV came and went. I ate
shortly after returning from the church. I had chopped up potatoes, carrots,
peas, and hot dog bits in a tasty cream sauce. After that, huge amounts of rice
were offered, but I declined. I did have a successful conversation the Mama
hosting about the recipe for the dish mentioned, and it all seemed good. The
first day or two I had tried hard to eat everything that was offered, but let
me tell you, it is a lot of rice, and pasta and bread. Oy! When we drove home
my eating choices were mentioned to the papa. He told me what I had was just
the appetizer! Woops! So, I know you get to say ‘no’ every once in a while, but
I feel like I used up a bigger ‘no’ then I thought I did there.
Since it’s been a week, and we are one the topic of food,
I’ll give a quick note one general wellness (for my mom at the very least).
Things are good. In general, I have liked all the food I’ve tried, the portions
of carbs are just getting daunting. I will probably be able to talk with my
facilitator-person about that tomorrow. It has been a little overcast (and I’ve
generally been in doors) so the sun hasn’t been a problem. In general the
temperature is either comfortable, or a little warm, but not bad at all. The
humidity isn’t bad either. It took me about a week to get used to it in Hawaii,
and it seems to be the same here. No other bumps, bruises or maladies to
report.
It will be null and void by the time you are reading this,
but let the record show that I do feel bad that communication hasn’t been as
abundant as I hoped (yet). I feel bad that there is so much to tell and I know
I must not be answering all of the questions you really want to know about.
When I was sitting at the party, I was struck by the thought that there is just
no way my family could picture exactly what I was doing, and how totally cool
and ok everything is. Then again, they are smart people. I bet they have a
functional idea.
Well, if you are bored of me stop reading, but if not, since
I have brought it up, I will try to describe the set up for the party. We
parked out front on the dirt road where there were some patches of grass and
telephone poles. I don’t think that there was a little goat grazing nearby, but
it’s typical enough in residential reas that you can picture one if you want
to. The house is surrounded by a beige cement wall, maybe 8 or 10 feet tall. It
has red metal double doors for a car and a single red metal door for people.
When you walk through the door you are in the courtyard. There is reddish sandy
dirt on the ground (like out on the road). To the left there is a shaded area,
almost like a gazebo with plastic chairs. To the right there are more tables
and chairs set up. In front of you is the house. Between the house and the
gazebo-like area there is an area with a a tin or plastic roof where maybe 5 women,
at least one with a baby one here back are sitting, talking and cooking. If you
continue to the house, it was a small patio and then a door into the living
room area. Both the door and the living room have grey tile on the floor. Many
children take off their shoes, but most adults just wipe most of the sand off
on a matt. The walls of the living room are a bright teal. In front of you is a
doorway covered my a sheet, on the left there are some couches in a circle, on
the right, more couches in a U shape with a TV and sound system against the far
wall. In this case, both are looking a little worse for the wear. There is a
window on the far right wall and propped up above the window there are framed
pictures of the mother, father, and also Jesus. There are similar pictures in
the living room of my host family. When I first glanced at the most prominent
picture, I thought it must be a deceased family member, but then I realized
that it was the host papa in slightly younger days.
That brings me to one other funny thing. I didn’t bring my
camera to this event. But one of the mothers/aunts brought hers! So the first
cross cultural pictures I took in Benin were ones solicited by the family
hosting the party! And yes, people were still disinclined to smile.
Well I sincerely hope that this has been edifying, and maybe
even entertaining. I do think of you guys back home all the time, and I want to share this stuff
with you as best I can!
With love,
Lauren
P. S. Mom, I hope you got to take the first paperclip off
the chain!
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