Hello Everyone!
I hope that you are all recovering from a successful 4th
of July. I know there were some good times had, with the Mawe/Carney Luau, and
a race in Dedham! We made a pretty strong showing here in Northern Benin. Josh
and Bij did an excellent job seasoning and roasting a pig, and we complimented
that with potato salad, deviled eggs, lentil burgers, chili, baked chips, apple
pie and key lime pie. It is fun to try to make American food here, and some
ingredients were a challenge. I would say we all rose to the occasion, had a
good party, and everyone ate well.
After the Fourth of July, Camille and I continued our
travels over to Natitangou, on the North West Side of Benin for the second
Gender and Development fundraising date that I won back in March. (Another
volunteer, Will organized the ‘date’ and we won it in an auction and the money
goes to the gender ad development program). Natitangou is the last major area
of Benin that I hadn’t visited yet. I have to say, it’s really beautiful.
Calmer and less crowded than the south, but less dry than the North East, and
(thanks to the National Park) not phased by foreigners. The falls themselves
were wonderful. We got to swim and the water was the perfect refreshing cool
temperature, and you could float on your back gazing at circle of tropical
trees, high rocks, and cascading falls around you. It was wonderful. Thanks to
the tourist population there was also an African arts gift shop, and I took
advantage of that. In village I usually feel shy about buying souvenirs, but
out of my element I felt free to do a little shopping. I bought some jewelry,
and a medium sized carved elephant that I had seen before we climbed up to the
falls for our swim. I was sad to leave Natitangou, and I hope I et to visit
there again!
After the Falls Camille continued on, but I spent another
night in Kandi so that I could buy materials for the latrine project. The
funding has indeed arrived, and we are in the process of stocking up materials
before construction begins. It was exciting to buy such large quantities of
sheet metal, PVC piping, iron rebar, and gravel. I definitely have never
carried so much money on me in Benin. Baron, my work counterpart, met me in
Kandi and helped negotiate prices (read as: negotiated the prices). We got a
free ride back to Founougo with our big dump truck full of gravel with other
materials tied on top. All the stuff was then dumped at my house. I wanted to
be able to keep an eye on it in the months to come. The PVC pipes and Sheet
metal have required some re-arranging in my house. Fortunately the gravel and
rebar are staying outside. It’s so exciting to have tangible construction
materials in hand. It’s like a real project, haha.
Those are the updates for the moment. I’ve been traveling a
lot, so I am hoping to spend some time at post for a while now. We will see how
it all pans out.
As always, thanks for reading,
With love,
Lauren
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Benin? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Benin in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez