TWO WEEKS IN FOUNOUGO

Wow.  The last two weeks have been such a process, and such an adventure. A challenge and a gift.

When I came back to Porto Novo, I was surprised by how much more confident I felt. Each thing that greeted me, each time I needed to greet someone, each spider, each jemidjan negotiation, I felt notably more prepared and proficient. I have learned and taken on a lot in the last two weeks, there has been a confidence boost that has gone with that.

The Journey:

Saturday night I packed my bags for two weeks in the unknown. My host mama made my favorite Beninese dish, fish and chips, and presented me with plantains, shortbread cookies, and gum for the trip. I was really touched by the thoughtful gifts and gestures.

Sunday morning I got up early and my host papa drove me to where I met up with the other volunteers heading north and our homologues. We spent most of the day on the bus. For my part, I was pretty content to shut down and listen to my music, with few needs and few expectations. I was surprised to notice that the homologues did a few things that at the time, I found a little rude and annoying. By the end of my stay in Founougo I understood where they were coming from. Perhaps 2 ½ or 3 hours into our 8 hour voyage, the Beninese people on the bus (our homologues and supervisors) insisted that the driver stop for a break. To my horror, when they came back on the bus many of them had big cement bags (like potato sacks) of oranges. I can understand wanting to bring back a gift for people at home, but wasn’t it a little late for souvenir shopping? Anyway, we didn’t have that much space to begin with. To make matters worse, no more than an hour later they were insisting we stop for food because they were hungry. Fortunately, the place we stopped did have really tastey avocado sandwiches and sliced pineapples. We were trucking through, but the whole thing was very un-American.

I will spare you the suspense and let you know now what I gradually found out over the next few days. Fruit, especially fresh fruit, is a very very limited commodity in the north right now. At my villages market, even after a serious tour, the best one could find was limes and coconuts. I wished that I had bought a cement bag full of oranges!

Also, the place that we stopped, Bohicon, is the best rest stop along the major highway of Benin. One of the current volunteers later joked that it’s practically a requirement that buses stop there. Throughout my travels I had to agree that for options, freshness, and price, Bohicon really was the best place around.

I don’t get blind sided by cultural differences /too/ often, but the ones mentioned above did catch me off guard. It was a good learning experience. I think sometimes the areas we feel like we should be professionals in, (road-tripping for example) are the areas where we are in most danger of failing to observe cultural differences. Anyway, that was a lesson acknowledged.

Sunday night our traveling group spent the night in Parakou; a (relatively) snazzy city, a bit more than halfway north, on Benin’s main highway. A current volunteer, Anna, who was traveling with us pointed us to ‘Chez Antionette’s’ for dinner. The restaurant is owned by an Italian woman, and is one of the few places where you can get straight up pasta with meat sauce or if you are lucky lasagna. It was a very enjoyable evening eating some semi-familiar food and chatting with current volunteers and other trainees.

Monday I traveled all day in a van with 5 other trainees and their north-bound homologues. The van only had to stop because it was over heating once, which was a surprise to me. Almost all the cars here are impressively used. While it cooled down we got lunch which features rice and spicy sauce with an amazingly cold coke.

Camille and I took an incredibly old camion, or truck, from Banikoara to our post of Founougo. Camille’s supervisor went off ahead of us on his motorcycle, and my homologue, honest to goodness, rode on top of the truck with a live goat. The goat was tied up, so it mostly just chilled. It was deposited with a family along our journey, so I am happy to say I don’t know what became of it.

The camion rattled along down the dirt road and Camille and I took in our first sights of the Founougo countryside. We both had smiles on our faces and butterflies in our stomachs. The drive was beautiful. There a sprawling cotton and corn fields peppered with large old trees as well as small herds of cattle and their retainers, and nomadic women with bright colored jewelry (the Fuhlani, or Peuhl, I later found out).

When our camion miraculously eased to a stop at the edge of Founougo we were greeted by Summer, the volunteer I am replacing. It was so encouraging, and so overwhelming to meet her. In black rubber boots, a dusty skirt, a sweater and a baseball hat, she smiled and shook each of our hands, flying through a whirlwind of greeting in English, French, and Bariba, making sure to say hello to everyone, including a zemidjan driver who came past.

After we were dropped off at our respective homestays, I unpacked a bit and ate a dinner of pate (sorghum flour and water boiled to a mashed potato like consistency), with sauce and beef. I started eating my meal in the dark, and as I ate the family actually turned on the generator that they have. I noticed that I found my dinner to be more delicious when I was eating it in the dark. Make of that what you will.

The days that followed were a mixture of meeting important people in the community, going to market, visiting with Summer, Camille, or my host family, and plenty of rest time, or repose-ay.

On Wednesday I went to the market (which comes to Founougo every 4 days) with my host family’s mother and oldest sister. There were 8-9 kids at the house most of the time, but apparently only 5 of them were the biological children of the husband and wife that were hosting me. I never quite got that straight… Anyway, we bought, among other things, a red plastic inflatable horse for the youngest boy, Savi. When he first started to play with it, he just sat it up on the floor and rolled around it, watching it and making galloping noises. It was adorable.

That night the three elementary school age girls sang and danced together While the mama and two older sisters finished preparing dinner. They stood in a triangle and would alternate who was in front. The girl in front would pause to think for a few seconds and then start into the first line of a song, but the second line the other two had joined in, singing and dancing in sync.

Friday was Megan’s birthday and I got to talk with her and Mom and Aunt Julie for a few minutes. It was hard being away from them, but I was so glad that we got to talk. They seemed to be having an amazing time and really cherishing all of it.

The cherishing part was especially appreciated on my end, because Friday I was really feeling the reality that there just is not much fruit up north. Just like I haven’t very often been blindsided by cultural difference, I haven’t had many moments where I think, “wow, I will never take that for granted again.” However, I did have one of those moments about the fruit. There is just no one who is braving the slow and precarious roads of Benin, to bring fruit up to Founougo. I hope that I never again take for granted the distances my food has traveled in order for me to always expect that whatever time of day or year, a piece of fruit is just a five minute drive to the grocery store away.

That being said, I hear that food availability is much more seasonal in northern Benin. When it’s mango season, they are practically giving away mangoes, and when the season is over, it’s really over.

On Saturday we had a major downpour in that afternoon (they weren’t kidding about it being the rainy season)! I sat in my room and knitted. The rain on the roof was so loud that I could sing as loud as I wanted in English, and no one would hear me. I really enjoyed that break. Singing alone in the car is a stress reliever I have been surprised to miss.

On Saturday we had another market day and I bought a kilo of peanuts to make peanut butter with the family. It was a good, time intensive, culture and food sharing activity. I was surprised that even though peanuts are fairly common in the north, peanut butter was a new concept for my host family. We toasted the peanuts and then mashed them with a large wooden mortar and two large wooden pestles, taking turns rhythmically pounding the peanut butter. I couldn’t help thinking, ‘this is just like Plymouth plantation!’ Watching the women cook outside over small wood fire stoves has been a real blast-from-the-past experience.

Monday Camille and I helped Summer with a map mural she is painting. I got a pretty unpleasant sunburn. By that point I had already noticed that the sun sometimes shines brighter in the north than it does in the south, where it is often over cast. I did put sunscreen on that morning, but I just wasn’t careful enough and the African sun really schooled me. I certainly will be using my big sun hat a lot when I move to post! For the time being aloe and a little ibuprofen did the trick.

Tuesday night I finally saw the mouse that had managed to snack on my above mentioned plantains. It wasn’t a major event. I reminded myself I once lived in Hawaii for two months with the wild pigs (slight exaggerations are acceptable when woken up in the middle of the night). All the same, I can’t say I had a great night sleep that night. After that I made doubly sure any food was in a sealed pot that my host family gave me. After telling myself that no matter how unsettling the mouse might be, it really has no interest in me individually, I started putting in earplugs and I slept pretty soundly.

Wednesday I worked on my technical reports for the Peace Corps, detailing the important things that I had observed about the community, like water sources and the health center. In the afternoon I descended into some serious boredom. There is always some time for ‘repose’ or rest in the afternoon, since it’s the hottest part of the day. By Wednesday of week two, I was feeling a little aimless. Fortunately in the evening I got to go out with my homologue to observe some of his work collecting money for the waste management company, Bethesda. That was also a great opportunity to practice greeting people.

Thursday I went to market with my homologue and shadowed him while he collected dues from all the vendors. It was an amazing way to get a second to see every single stall (often twice, since people often don’t have change). It was a hot sunny day, and collecting the money (and of course greeting the vendors) took about three hours. However, during the course of it, bmy homologue was generous enough to buy me not one but to ‘Judor’, orange soda with real orange juice in it. I downed them pretty fast.

Friday morning I met up with Camille and our respective host fathers/primary school directors drove us (and our luggage) on their motorcycles to Banikoara. That was a 45 minute trip. It was beautiful, but with the rainy season the roads are kind of bad. In Banikoara we were reunited with the other volunteers in Alibori, our state (or Arondissment) Katrina, Josh, and Suzanne. Together we took a taxi to the Peace Corps base at Kandi.

At Kandi we met up with three volunteers who took us out for an extravagant Beninese lunch: yam pilet (a specialty of the north; white yams mashed into a very fine mashed-potato consistency) with your choice of meat and a beer. I had to go for the antelope. (Sorry antelopes!) After lunch we went to market and the volunteers introduced us to a few vendors who are good friends to have. In the evening they made chili and brownies for us. It was heavenly.

Saturday was probably the most trying day. The 5 of us from Alibori met up with 3 other Kandi trainees (Alex, Alyssa, and Kendall) and the 8 of us took a station wagon taxi that we hoped would take us all the way across the country to Porto Novo. We left at 7:45 and around 3 or 4 we got to Bohicon, the great rest stop I mentioned from our initial voyage north. After Bohicon we realized that our driver was taking the highway that seemed more direct, but actually is in terrible condition and would force us to drive through Cotonou, Benin’s biggest city, before getting to Porto Novo. In all reality, if we had gone with this plan we probably would have arrived in Porto Novo around 8 or so, when we would have found moto-taxis to take us to our homes by 8:30 or 9. For a seasoned volunteer I am guessing this wouldn’t be a problem, but none of us were excited about taking zems (with all our luggage) after dark. We called one of the Peace Corps administrator/facilitators, and she agreed that we could stay in Cotonou. It had been a long day, and we were pretty happy to rest. Some current volunteers showed us a great restaurant for dinner. I got a calzone and a glass of red wine. It was heavenly. Chatting with other volunteers, trainees, and a few volunteers who are closing service was so great. Good bonding and good advice, and of course good stories.

In the morning Suzanne got the gold star for finding a taxi for us to go to Porto Novo. In Porto Novo my host papa picked me up and took me back to the old homestead. I was excited to be back, and so tired. Through out the whole trip I really had a ‘it’s not over until it’s over’ mentality. Flat tires and break downs are a significant reality. Frankly I am surprised we didn’t get a flat on the road between Bohicon and Cotonou. Those potholes are trying to take people out. Arriving back at the house I was able to breathe a sigh of relief, and also realize how tired I was. Just the same, I took some time to organize my stuff a bit and then go out to a local restaurant to meet up with other trainees. So much glamour and fine dining at the end here, right? It’s ok, I paid for it eating pate-sorghum every night of my visit! The other trainees seemed to have really good visits and it was exciting to exchange stories.

Today (Monday) was the first day of technical training. It looks like I will have pretty much all of my classes from here out with the other Environmental Action Volunteers. Today we got the long –coveted tour of Songhai. It is great to see how every system benefits another on the property. Water is used and re-used, plant waste is fed to the livestock, maggots from livestock are fed to the fish… the cycle goes on and on complexly. I hope we get to learn some of the finer details! Either way we got some great reading material, and the classes that are scheduled seem very applicable.

Well, I think that about covers it for now! Thanks so much for reading about my trip to Founougo. Even with so much, I feel like I’m just skimming the surface. I am so glad to get to share the process with you. Hope all is well with you and yours.

With love,

Lauren