Grand Popo and a day

Hello everyone!

Things are certainly picking up here. I think the rain has stopped until next spring, kids are back in school, and work is getting rolling!

Before talking about more work related stuff, I have a cultural anecdote to share with you all! A few weeks ago, Camille informed me that the new 'youth center' had opened. It's sort of a large cement event hall, sort of like an american legion, where meetings and social events are held. Camille told me that every market day for the past two weeks there had been a dance competiton at the youth center after the market closed up. We decided to go to the last one. 

It was very exciting to see how many people turned up. 3 or 4 teams of two guys competed, doing choreohraphy they each wrote together with some break dancing thrown in. The judges were professors that Camille and I knew, which was cool and funny. The dancing was very good. In between sets, and while the judges were deliberating they would play music and anyone could go up there. One of my teenage neighbors jumped up there and he was really good! A fun time was had by all. 

A lot of my time not spent at dance competitons has been taken up with the radio show Camille and I are writing. I write out some basic english lessons and we record them in advance together at the radio station. We recently got to listen to the first episode played on the air! We joked around about how we can now say we have sung (the abc's) on the radio. All in all we felt like it went really well, and we were surprised by how many people told us they listened to it. It's been good fun work. 

Last week I, and most other volunteers who started the same time I did, went to a training in Grand Popo. If the studious reader thinks the name Grand Popo sounds oddly familiar, it's because that's where I vacationed for Christmas last year. Needless to say, I and many others were excited to get to go back, and for work related reasons no less. As it happened, the training was really great. People were focused and motivated and the material was well organized. The venue was beautiful and all the tasty, healthy food was a big shot in the arm for me. It was wonderful to catch up with other volunteers and hear about their work. And the ocean was absolutely marvelous. You can't beat sitting in the sand looking at the waves and the stars after a long day of sessions. It was heavenly. 

So I got to tell you all about a whole week of activity in a broad sweeping paragraph, now I'd like to take the opportunity to tell you specifics of my day today, because i think it's noteworthy in it's goodness and typicalness:

I woke up early and set right out so that I would get to the radio station on time. I got to stop and eat beans for breakfast. This was exciting because i like the bean lady and her food, but it's usually gone by lunch time when I'm looking for beans. 

When I got to the radio station I realized we were going to have some major technical difficulties. My laptop charger doesn't seem to be working (I am working on replacing it now). Realizing that put me in a bad mood. Besides all the creature comforts, we needed my laptop to record the radio show. Camille and i decided to do as much as we could. We actually got the whole show recorded and saved but not exported before it shut down. 

We decided to get drinks and lunch at the buvette that has cold drinks and we actually got to eat with two professors while we were there. Then we went over to the secondary school and I did some lesson planning for Environment Club,  and announced it in all the classes. That made for some weird deja vu with last year, but my French is at least a little better now. 

Even though I knew I wouldn't have much time, I went home for a bit. When it was time to leave for Environment club I was so tired and didn't want to go. Still, I did, and on my way I bumped into the woman from my latrine commitee. (She's the one I wanted to be friends with, and she told my couterpart Baron that she couldn't understand anything I said. He said give it a week.) Well, we are friends now, and when she saw me she said 'You just don't get tired, do you?' That put a smile on my face for the whole rest of the walk to the secondary school!

When I got to the secondary school I still felt nervous and thought I would be just as happy to bump the first environment club meeting back a week. However, we did have the meeting, and it went really well. I am co-leading with a different teacher this year and he was not only charasmatic and engaging with the kids but also much more collaborative with me (though my improved confidence and french level probably encourages collaboration too). We picked a club president (a girl!) and two 'responsables' or secretaries. People were attentive and interested. This year we are diving in with a 6 week curriculum, so I hope that will stear us well. 

After that I came home and made some stir fry. I even shared some with the kids, though too many vegetables are always weird for them, at least if they are not made into a sauce. When they all said good night I was ready to crash!

Tomorrow will probably be a day in the house with laundry and planning. I can't even say how glad i am to be getting busier. 

I also can't even say how glad I am to be able to share all of this with you. Thanks for reading, thanks for sharig this journey with me. 

Much love,

Lauren

Grand Popo and a day

Hello everyone!

Things are certainly picking up here. I think the rain has stopped until next spring, kids are back in school, and work is getting rolling!

Before talking about more work related stuff, I have a cultural anecdote to share with you all! A few weeks ago, Camille informed me that the new 'youth center' had opened. It's sort of a large cement event hall, sort of like an american legion, where meetings and social events are held. Camille told me that every market day for the past two weeks there had been a dance competiton at the youth center after the market closed up. We decided to go to the last one. 

It was very exciting to see how many people turned up. 3 or 4 teams of two guys competed, doing choreohraphy they each wrote together with some break dancing thrown in. The judges were professors that Camille and I knew, which was cool and funny. The dancing was very good. In between sets, and while the judges were deliberating they would play music and anyone could go up there. One of my teenage neighbors jumped up there and he was really good! A fun time was had by all. 

A lot of my time not spent at dance competitons has been taken up with the radio show Camille and I are writing. I write out some basic english lessons and we record them in advance together at the radio station. We recently got to listen to the first episode played on the air! We joked around about how we can now say we have sung (the abc's) on the radio. All in all we felt like it went really well, and we were surprised by how many people told us they listened to it. It's been good fun work. 

Last week I, and most other volunteers who started the same time I did, went to a training in Grand Popo. If the studious reader thinks the name Grand Popo sounds oddly familiar, it's because that's where I vacationed for Christmas last year. Needless to say, I and many others were excited to get to go back, and for work related reasons no less. As it happened, the training was really great. People were focused and motivated and the material was well organized. The venue was beautiful and all the tasty, healthy food was a big shot in the arm for me. It was wonderful to catch up with other volunteers and hear about their work. And the ocean was absolutely marvelous. You can't beat sitting in the sand looking at the waves and the stars after a long day of sessions. It was heavenly. 

So I got to tell you all about a whole week of activity in a broad sweeping paragraph, now I'd like to take the opportunity to tell you specifics of my day today, because i think it's noteworthy in it's goodness and typicalness:

I woke up early and set right out so that I would get to the radio station on time. I got to stop and eat beans for breakfast. This was exciting because i like the bean lady and her food, but it's usually gone by lunch time when I'm looking for beans. 

When I got to the radio station I realized we were going to have some major technical difficulties. My laptop charger doesn't seem to be working (I am working on replacing it now). Realizing that put me in a bad mood. Besides all the creature comforts, we needed my laptop to record the radio show. Camille and i decided to do as much as we could. We actually got the whole show recorded and saved but not exported before it shut down. 

We decided to get drinks and lunch at the buvette that has cold drinks and we actually got to eat with two professors while we were there. Then we went over to the secondary school and I did some lesson planning for Environment Club,  and announced it in all the classes. That made for some weird deja vu with last year, but my French is at least a little better now. 

Even though I knew I wouldn't have much time, I went home for a bit. When it was time to leave for Environment club I was so tired and didn't want to go. Still, I did, and on my way I bumped into the woman from my latrine commitee. (She's the one I wanted to be friends with, and she told my couterpart Baron that she couldn't understand anything I said. He said give it a week.) Well, we are friends now, and when she saw me she said 'You just don't get tired, do you?' That put a smile on my face for the whole rest of the walk to the secondary school!

When I got to the secondary school I still felt nervous and thought I would be just as happy to bump the first environment club meeting back a week. However, we did have the meeting, and it went really well. I am co-leading with a different teacher this year and he was not only charasmatic and engaging with the kids but also much more collaborative with me (though my improved confidence and french level probably encourages collaboration too). We picked a club president (a girl!) and two 'responsables' or secretaries. People were attentive and interested. This year we are diving in with a 6 week curriculum, so I hope that will stear us well. 

After that I came home and made some stir fry. I even shared some with the kids, though too many vegetables are always weird for them, at least if they are not made into a sauce. When they all said good night I was ready to crash!

Tomorrow will probably be a day in the house with laundry and planning. I can't even say how glad i am to be getting busier. 

I also can't even say how glad I am to be able to share all of this with you. Thanks for reading, thanks for sharig this journey with me. 

Much love,

Lauren

A month's update

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Hey Everyone!

Wow, sorry for the long pause there. I hope you are all doing well. Here in Benin there have been some slow moments, but in general things are getting busier. Thank goodness.

In my last entry, I was looking forward to a big meeting about my latrine project. I’m happy to say that went really well. I was nervous that the project participants wouldn’t show up. It’s very difficult to organize meetings here. There isn’t a culture of punctuality, or the importance of being on time, and many people don’t really have calendars, or even the correct time in their phone. However, the latrine committee and I did a good job of publicizing the meeting. We announced it on the new Founougo Radio, and committee members delivered paper invitations to each beneficiary. We actually had 38 out of 40 beneficiaries present, and another 9 people who were hoping to take the spaces of absent beneficiaries! That will be an interesting conversation.

Anyway, the meeting was to inform beneficiaries about the important logistics of the project and also to have a short training about good hygiene practices (namely hand washing) that need to go with latrine use. We had one of the beneficiaries translate. In the first portion, the stone mason and I explained logistics together and answered some questions. It was satisfying to present the stone mason to the beneficiaries, even though a lot of them probably already knew him.

I lead the second section about hygiene and hand washing based on some Peace Corps materials. It would have been even better if a Beninese health worker could have lead or co-lead that, but I just didn’t get the networking together in time. I /did/ get to make some illustrated posters which were well received. I felt like pictures would really help since everything was being translated into Bariba, so there was a middle step between me and at least half the audience. They seemed to really follow it and stick with me. The whole process was very successful and very satisfying and I hope that I can do more sessions like that!

About a week after the latrine meeting I undertook an epic voyage to the south of Benin for my mid-service medical exam. I got to meet some of the new volunteers, which was great. They all seem very capable and optimistic. It’s exciting to have new people around! I also got to visit a few ‘old’ friends, which was great. It’s cool to see what other volunteers are doing at their post, and of course it’s always nice to catch up!

I also got to visit my host family for the first time in a long while. I can’t believe it, but it had been nine months since the last time I’d seen them,. All the kids have grown some and are just about to start the next year of school. The craziest part was how much better I could understand them. Even when the kids would speak French to each other, I could follow what they were saying! At one point my host Papa observed me watching TV and he said, “you can follow everything they are saying.” “well, yeah, pretty much.” I said. “You speak French now!” Thanks Papa. That visit went by too fast, it was great to see them all.

Mid service medical itself went pretty well. I was nervous that they would want to keep me there for a long time, but everything was fine. However, we did find that I had intestinal amoebas. I’m not exactly happy to know that I had contracted amoebas, but it is not at all uncommon among volunteers in Benin. It does also explain occasional digestive woes that I had just been writing off. All in all I’m glad to know, and glad to be taking my medicine!

The trip north was pretty tiring, even though it was nice to get to travel. I want to randomly list a few travel highlights: One day I got a ride from a guy named Smeal (like Ishmael) who was driving a car completely packed with green peppers across the country. Me, Smael, and the peppers all road together for 8 hours one day. Another day I was trying to get a good price for a taxi-moto (zemidjan) at a tough time of day, and a man came over to help me out. I had been ripped off a few times earlier due to not knowing the price and this time I was being stubborn. The man who was helping me, (whose name was Raoul, I found out) pressed half the money I needed into my hand and said, ‘Add that to your cost’ I was surprised and grateful and told him I’d pray for him. Another time I wound up in a taxi that was so packed that by the time we arrived at our destination I felt angry, even though I wasn’t angry at any one person. I just needed to get out of the car. It didn’t help that there was the normal politics of unclear expectations. People said we wouldn’t stop in Parakou and then we stopped there for an hour or more and switched cars. Bah! Anyway, the whole trip was mercifully incident free. No major break-downs, and some interesting people along the way.

I had a few days to recover from my travels before the launch of an Alibori volunteer Malaria tour. Five volunteers participated and it was generally supposed to be a bike tour, where volunteers ride their bikes from one village to the next. Camille and I both decided to zem it and take motos for various reasons. Her bike is being repaired and loaning one would be complicated at least. I was still feeling pretty beat, and I guess I didn’t love the idea of biking without Camille!

The tour was great though, in total I think we visited more than 350 households. We asked them if they had mosquito nets and if they used them. We got to help make quick repairs to some and even helped hang up some nets that hadn’t ever been installed! We also did tours around the yard to check for mosquito breeding sights and teach people how to minimize them.

It was so nice to have some scheduled work that really seemed to have a direct impact. It gave us more information and encouraged and informed the people we visited without having to give out any ‘gifts’. The last night we all wound up at my house and we made chili and brownies to celebrate the end of the tour. I have to say I was sad to see it end and sad to see people bike off to their posts.

So what’s next? Latrine construction should start soon, and I’m working on the logistics of buying cement for that. School will also be starting up and everyone is gearing up. I have a couple project ideas in the works for year two, but I think I’ll spare you guys the details until they get underway.

Thanks so much for reading. Sorry again for the space between entries there! I am thinking of you all back east and missing you very much. I hope to get in touch again soon.

With love,

Lauren