Es Novembre

Hello Everyone!

Time is marching on here in Benin as we head towards thanksgiving. I hope everything is going well for all of you back home.

I’ve been getting to enjoy some time at post after a good amount of traveling around the country for training sessions, mid service medical, and camps. It’s good to be feeling settled in post, and to be getting down to work on my projects! Latrine construction is moving along very nicely. I am happy to report that there is not much to report there.

I have also been investing some time in an Environment Club at the secondary school. I feel like I learned from the trials of last year, and this year is going really well! One week we did tree identification and learned the scientific names and origins of common trees. Another week we learned about fuel efficient mud stoves (hopefully we will be building two tomorrow)! This week we studied soil types. I brought bags of sand, silt, and clay to class and we practiced different methods of testing the soil. After getting the basics down we were able to scout around the court yard for a good place for our garden next semester. That was educational for me too!

I got the clay sample from the ditches by the flooded road that I cross to get into town. This lead to a moment where I realized people were staring at me, and I almost wanted to say, “What? Haven’t you ever seen a white person digging up clay for an environment club before??” I guess they probably hadn’t…

The kids in my housing compound are back at school, but they still want to cook and cake when they can. I’m a little burnt out on it, but every once in a while I have to indulge them. The last two times we made a chocolate cake that was really great and required no eggs! We were all happy campers.

Besides the latrine construction project and the environment club, the third thing that is taking up my time is the English Radio Show that I do with Camille. It’s been a lot of fun, but power fluctuations at the radio station have been giving me grief. I haven’t been able to charge my laptop (and therefore record the show) a few times now. Fortunately I am currently charging the laptop in Banikoara, the closest town. I am looking at different plans for the future, but for now it is a little stressful. Still, tomorrow or the next day, Camille and I should be able to finish I Thanksgiving episode!

That’s the news from Benin for this week. Again, I hope you are all doing well, and as always, thanks for sharing in this adventure with me!

With love,

Lauren

Halloween and work

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all doing well state side and enjoying the colder weather. It's getting a little cooler here, especially in the mornings, now that we are inthe dry season. I'm sure it's not that cold compared to the US, but it's noticable for us here!

I hope you all had a nice Halloween. I traveled to Parakou and gotto celebrate with a bunch of other volunteers. As always, it was nice to see lots of people that i don't see very often, and I even got to meet some more of the new volunteers who were sworn in this past September. I thought the party itself was a little bit more relaxed then last year, which was fine by me. When I honestly think back to last year and how I was still adjusting to life in village, at Halloween I was so excited to be around other Americans and internet and running water and electricity and familiar music, that I just wanted to stay up all night! This year I guess those things don't seem so exceptional. It's funny to realize both how normal life here has become for me, but also how many tricks I have discovered to keep a charged laptop and internet connection. I've got my priorities. 

A lot of people did dress up for the party, and it's always cool to see what people come up with 'where there is no iParty'! One guy got a local school uniform. A group dressed up together as the flinstones family. One Environment volunteer even got hit tailor to sew him a complete Captain Planet costume (he even had green hair spray). I thought my friend Sarah was going to dress up as Han Solo, so in collaboration I made a Luke Skywalker costume. Sadly, Sarah did not make it, so I was just that girl that dressed up as a Jedi, but I guess I'm ok with that. 

In more work related news, I am very happy to say that construction for the latrine project is underway! It feels like for so long it had to be all talk and no action, so it's great to finally breaking ground. It seems like I'm not the only one that feels that way either, the stone mason who is overseeing the project has been staying busy. Together we marked out the digging sites for all 40 latrines, spread across some 15 kilometers of town, in 3 days! Now a bunch of people have finished digging their pits, and 1/4 of the packets of cement have reached their final destination. Thank goodness! Haha. 

In my last post I mentioned Starting the environment club. I am happy to say that that is continuing nicely. We have had two sessions after the initial meeting. We did a tree identification tour, and explained the enefits of mud stoves. The group has been about 15 students these last two weeks, which suits me just fine. The kids do seem to be interested. I am so glad that I helped with Environment Camp in August, it gave me a lot of ideas!

The radio show that Camille and I are working on is also going really well. We are just finishing our 5th episode in which, after some grammar exercizes, we tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood. We read it line by line in English and French. I love getting to share a little American culture in with the grammar and vocabulary. With a story like this one, we hope that we also get to hit lot of different levels of English comprehension. 

That's the biggest part of what's been keeping me busy these days. This week, after a long break, the kids and I made a chocolate cake, which came out great. Last night Camille and I had a sleep over at my place where we tried again to make pizza (moderate success). 

I am getting more and more excited for Christmas and my brief visit to the States, and for my family visiting here afterwards! There are lots of things to looks forward to and I can't wait to tell you about them!

Thanks for reading,

With love,

Lauren