Hey everyone!

Commencing week 3 in Benin! Today we had classes for all Trainees at Songhai. There was a lot of down time in which we were able to hang out. No one was complaining! Infact one trainee, Ryan, brought a travel chess set and was joking/not joking about starting a Peace Corps tournament.

I’ll keep the recap short for today because I did want to go into greater detail about a few key areas in life:

Motorbikes or Zemidans:

I have been riding the motor bike taxis pretty regularly for class. As far as I know (which really isn’t that far) they are the same as the motorcycles we have in the US. Fortunately the peace corps did give us some training with some real Zemi-taxi drivers. We observed the blue numbered shirts that all Zemi-taxi drivers wear, and practiced getting on the bikes successfully and even took a spin around the block. You aren’t really supposed to touch the driver of the Zemi. This seems unfortunate, but kind of does make sense, you could really interfere with their driving ability, and it would be a pretty rough job being hugged by the strangers you are driving around all day. Hanging on and balancing kind of seems like an art, but really it isn’t difficult at all, you just crave a security blanket/something to hang on to initially. We were all issued motorcycle helmets, and failure to wear it could get you separated from the Peace Corps. It might sound a little intimidating, but again, people don’t go that fast. Really it’s pretty fun.

French Class:

I have class from 8 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday (amazingly, they keep it really dynamic) and a half day 8 am to 12:30 pm on Saturday. We have Sundays off. I usually go to bed between 11 and 12. I am getting good sleep, which is more than many volunteers can say. Apparently in this culture it isn’t necessary to be quiet for people who are sleeping. I’m lucky I’m a sound sleeper. I also haven’t been as nervous of a sleeper as I was in Hawaii. I think a wooden door with a lock on it does a lot for a person’s REM cycles. There was one early morning when I was woken up by a dog barking and I though to myself, “It sounds like that dog is in my bathroom. Oh well, if it is, I’ll deal with it in the morning.” Of course the dog was not in my bathroom in the morning, and it was nice to be able to dismiss that concern.

Translating between French and English hasn’t gotten too exhausting, when I recognize words in french I don’t take the time to literally translate everything, I just kind of move forward. Still, I do usually rest in my room for about an hour after class, and I am getting good sleep so that helps. It works out great for me that the thing I need to be working hard at is chatting with my family and friends.

Child care:

The approach to child care is very different here. To preface, I have thought a lot about a video I watched in a Child Development class in College that showed a day in preschool in Japan, Hawaii, and (I think) Brazil. Approaches were very different but all three schools of thought seem to be producing fully functional adults.

I have heard it said that here there is no line of separation between a mother and her child. A good visual of this is how babies are usually piggy backed onto their mothers backs with a sheet of fabric. Even as older children mother’s don’t really have privacy from their kids. In that sense, child rearing is very intimate.

At the same time, as kids get a little older they are really expected to amuse themselves and parents don’t really attend to them closely or fuss over them. From a US perspective it could seem like it would make it easy to miss important life lessons for the kids, or to be caught by unawares if something happened to them. However, as I have observed it, kids don’t fuss and cry very much here, and they don’t act out for attention, or face being hurt or sad. They amuse each other. They are also expected to help out around the house with simple things like sweeping the floor and washing or carrying dishes. Again, when I first heard this I was sort of surprised and thought it was a little mean. However kids really are never asked to do tasks that are too strenuous or complicated for them, and it’s good that they are learning skills and taking ownership of things that need to be done at the house.

All that being said, the kids in my family do spend a good amount of time sittin’ on the couch, watching soap operas. The soap operas are not very inappropriate (I usually feel awkward for them if there is an onscreen kiss in the episode). I think the kids like the soaps because there is a lot of reaction time whenever anything dramatic happens and everything is a really big deal (not unlike in cartoons). There is at least one channel with kids cartoons, but the reception isn’t very good. I don’t mind because for some reason the cartoons are harder for me to follow, and the soap are pretty kosher.

They don’t have very many toys, but they do read a bit. It would be nice to think of some good games and crafts for them. I’ve been showing my oldest host sister, Onelia, how to knit, but it is tricky and of course only one person can work at it at a time. I might try to show her how to make friendship bracelets with extra yarn.