December 7

**Written December 7th**

Hello Everyone,

So, a lot has happened hasn’t it? I think I have to start right out by saying how grateful I am that my Dad is on the road to recovery after a surprise surgery on Thanksgiving Day. Of course it was very hard to be away from home during that time. I am so thankful to my Mom, Meg, and Kev for being so present, keeping me informed, and really supporting Dad. It’s been a hard time, but coming out of it there is a lot to be grateful for. And soon I will be visiting home for Christmas! I don’t think that I could be any more excited.

To catch you up on things here in Benin: volunteers got together a week before Thanksgiving in Kandi, for a feast. There were a lot of us, and it seemed like everyone got to contribute for a dish or two. I helped out with the two pumpkin pies, a chocolate cake and a little with the apple pie. Josh fried a turkey and grilled another one. Bij made a stuffing from scratch that was so good, I think I will miss it even when back in America. Amber brought green beans from her garden. All in all, it was an excellent meal and excellent company. We were determined to all eat together, so we had to connect up about 5 tables and when we all sat down there was barely enough silverware for everyone. I actually grabbed chopsticks and only later realized I was eating American Thanksgiving dinner in Benin West Africa with Asian utensils. The triple threat. It was an excellent time.

After Thanksgiving feast, Heidi was able to travel back to post with me and see my house! She and I shared a language class back in Training. It was so good to get the extra time with her, and to have a guest visit Founougo. We are not exactly on the way to anywhere, so it really meant a lot.

After that my Program Manager, Salomon visited. It was great to see him and to talk about projects. Talking with him is always encouraging.

The radio show charges on. The radio station is getting a little busier, which is good for them, but we had a few snafus in a row where the show wasn’t played, or wasn’t played at the right time. Camille and I started putting our foot down a little bit, saying that wasn’t ok. They were apologetic, and now I think we are back on course. Camille and I have really enjoyed recording some Christmas episodes. We taught the song and told the story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and talked about Christmas traditions in America. It’s been fun.

The Environment Club is also doing well. After re-scheduling an absurd number of times, we did successfully make some model mudstoves, and I am really trying to help at least one student learn how to teach others to build them. We also learned about Moringa, a tree with a lot of nutritional and soil enriching properties. Last week we learned about natural insecticides that you can make here. Next week will be the last session of the semester, so we are hoping to do a Jeopardy review game.

Latrines are being built 10 out of 40 have their bases completely cemented, which is the biggest part of the work. Unfortunately, it’s surprisingly difficult to get cement, so further work is more or less paused for the moment.

That’s all the news from here. I hope you are all having a very merry December. As always, thanks for reading.

Love,

Lauren

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

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

Environment Club!

**written August 21st**

Hello Everyone!

I hope you are doing well and staying cool. I hear it’s been a hot summer in New England!

The week before last I did not update the blog, partly thanks to a nasty cold that I think I caught on the rainy trip home from getting my cat Jack neutered. That cold really knocked me back. I just wanted to lay around, blow my nose and read. Fortunately, I was able to do a lot of that and I even succeeded in making a really delicious French onion soup. I also picked up my copy of the seventh Harry Potter book in French – something I bought on the lay over in Brussels on my way to Benin! It’s slow going but I’m happy and a little surprised to say, I can really follow it. It’s turned out to be the perfect sick-day read. I feel like I’m learning a little bit while resting.

Despite the formidable cold, I was pretty determined to get my selected students and me to Parakou for Environment Camp. We teamed up with Josh and his students to rent a taxi all together and were among the first ones there. The camp went really well. It was exciting to see some of the organizational strategies that other volunteers have picked up, like putting the kids in teams and giving points for good behavior. It was also wonderful to see volunteers who live in other parts of the country and I wouldn’t otherwise see. Most importantly it was great to see how invested and excited the kids were to learn and participate. I would say that all the lessons went very smoothly and the kids left excited to put what they learned into action in their communities. Early in the week two volunteers gave a presentation about recycling and reusing materials. The kids were then sent out to collect trash that could be reused or repurposed. They tinkered with their materials all week and on the final day of camp each team did a skit that incorporated what they made. My team, the orange team, did a skit about the importance of hand washing that included a recycled drum and maracas and a paper cat costume. The skits were really funny!

Now I am back in post, trying to get organized. There were lots of ideas that came out of that week in Parakou, including but not limited to the possibility of doing an Environment Camp in Kandi. I have started to ask around about that to see if there is a good venue. Nothings sure yet, but it’s an exciting idea. Sooner than not, we are also going to be doing an information day for the latrine project, and I’m VERY eager to get rolling with that. I look forward to keeping you all informed.

Thanks for reading!

With love,

Lauren