Happy July 4th

I can't believe I'm writing this: Eric and I have less than a month left of our service in Benin! And I know that's going to go by very fast. In fact, we have even less than a month left in Klouekanme, since the last week here we have to spend in Cotonou doing paperwork and medical exams. It's only recently that our departure has begun to feel really tangible to me. It's strange to think that in a matter of months we'll be settled (more or less) into a completely new stage in our life, having left this one behind. Put another way, that someday we will actually be looking back on this experience instead of living it. Because those first Peace Corps experiences- orientation in Philadelphia, arriving in Benin, meeting volunteers about to end their service and thinking to ourselves how far off that was for us- are still so vivid. And so many of our experiences here seem so recent. You come to realize that two years is really not that long in the course of life!
So now we really are winding down our projects. All I have remaining now is Amour et Vie (HIV/AIDS etc. project), and finishing my Girls' Library grant project. On Amour et Vie: yesterday I got to be on TV, on the main network station, talking about the project! We were interviewed about our involvement and I and two other volunteers got to speak. Eric and I watched the program at the neighbor's house. It was pretty cool, although I realized that my French accent is REALLY American and I was embarrassed. Not so embarrassing I can't laugh about it though.
Just last week I was in Porto Novo for the “Girls Leading our World” summer camp, which I did last year. This time I brought seven girls- logistically difficult since I had to arrange hard-to-find 9-seater taxis and chaperone those girls in Porto Novo and Cotonou. But it was worth it. The lessons this year were much like last year's- sexual harassment in schools, women's and childrens' rights, gender roles in Beninese society, HIV/AIDS and sexual health/puberty and reproduction, plus visits to the National Assembly (Beninese parliament with 9 female deputies out of 83!) and other outings. I wasn't there for many of the sessions last year and it was eye opening to watch the lessons pertaining to women's roles in society and difficulties they face. It was heartbreaking to hear so many girls and also the presenters (almost all women!) talk about the experiences they had or friends' had with sexual harassment in schools, forced marriages, parents refusing to send girls to school, and myriad other problems girls face in Benin. And yet it was encouraging how resoundingly the girls responded when asked questions like “will you accept sexual harassment from teachers and male students?” “Will you succumb to pressure to have sex and get pregnant before finishing high school?” “Will you pursue a career and achieve great success in life?” There were times when I could almost see the wheels turning in their heads, like when I said that Eric did his own laundry, helped with cooking and dishes, would help take care of our kids when we had them, at first they seemed unsure if they thought this was alright but quickly realized that this represented the male-female equality they said they stood for. I really wish I could see ten years into the future to see where these girls were at; if they stayed true to their desires to be successful, powerful women, or if they succumbed to the endless difficulties girls face here. I am so glad to have had the opportunity to expose girls to these ideas though and I think the camp will have an important effect on those girls' communities.

So things are really winding down for us. I'm having a party to celebrate the girls' library grant project, for which I've purchased almost all of the books. I'm also going to have a small party for my Amour et Vie team. And Eric is still working on his Aja grammar, teaching computer lessons at the mayor's office, and seeing his teacher friends. I'm not really sure we're going to say goodbye to our friends- it's strange to think about the fact that when we say bye to some of our friends, it might be forever. It does make us sad. It's hard to feel like this now, but I think once the shock/happiness of being back home in the US wears off a bit, we will start missing friends and things about our lives in Benin. Maybe “missing” is the wrong word- call it fond remembrance with a little nostalgia.

But speaking of home/America: yesterday I went to a 4th of July party at the ambassador's house, which I had no idea was going on and justh happened to be down here. It was populated almost entirely by people from the Mercy Ships NGO who comes on a boat to do certain medical procedures for free to those who can't normally afford it. There was so much American food- baked beans, sweet corn, bbq things, potato salad... you could immediately spot a PC volunteer in the crowd because we were literally overloading our Red white and blue themed plates and stuffing our faces, then running to the table to get more before it ran out (actually there was no danger of that). This is what we've become!

I'll end with some of the photos we've been taking recently. There's not much time to take pictures. I think we will need to rig up a device to take pictures discreetly in the market because I don't have the guts to go around Klouekanme with a camera visible in my hand!

A canteloupe growing in my garden

One of my heavier laundry days (all done by hand, of course!)

Sorting books at the girls library (more photos of that later)

Girls at Camp GLOW doing morning calisthenics

Homemade macaroons, entirely from scratch!

2 months to go (minus 1 day)

As of today, Eric and I have exactly two months minus a day until our official Close-of-service date, August 3rd. It's at once exhilarating and also daunting to know that we'll be home probably before we know it. Exhilarating because of everything we have planned for our future- first, our trip overland to Senegal, then our first plane flight in over a year (we'll probably go crazy over the food and movies), arriving in America, eating everything we want and probably gaining ten pounds. And then driving out to Portland and living there, a place I love and am excited to experience when I'm old enough to partake in everything it has to offer! But for reasons I think I've brought up before, going back home is also going to be difficult. Already it's been hard going slowly through our papers and things to see what we want to bring home, give away, burn. It's always hard ending a major part of your life. And whereas a lot of people would say they are going back to the “real world”, I don't see why our life in Benin hasn't qualified as part of that real world- it's different and anomalous in the trajectory of the rest of our life, but certainly very “real”.

Thankfully I've had a lot of work this past month, although for some reason May seemed to pass very slowly by. My main project was painting a world map on the wall of the high schools in Houedogli in Klouekanme. I engaged students to help me and each map took about five days to finish. Over the course of the week I realized what an important project this is. So few schools have maps or globes (let alone students having access to them) and almost no students can afford the books where they would find maps. I was amazed at how many students (and teachers!) passed by and said “oh it's a map of Africa” or even more weird to me, “oh it's a map of Benin”. I know, there are plenty of people in America who can't point out their own country on a map, but I didn't grow up with those people and thus this experience was eye-opening. People were totally surprised to see how small Benin is compared to other countries (especially compared to America), to see that America and France do not make up “yovotome” (yovo land) but are rather two distinct countries separated by a body of water... Basically I've been taking for granted how much access we have in the west, even in passing, to constant stimuli that serve to educate us- even an advertisement in a magazine might use a world map to sell something, familiarizing us unconsciously with that map of the world! None of that goes on here.

I'm also continuing to work on my HIV/AIDS/Malaria/Diarrhea illness project in Houedogli with my Amour et Vie team. The other day we did two meetings in really rural areas. I was unprepared for the 5 or so miles we would walk in total, but it was interesting to walk deep into the bush so to speak. Whenever I get really rural I am reminded of how poor Benin really is, and that Klouekanme is not representative of how most people live. In one of the villages there was a water pump where a basin of water cost 10 francs (2 cents) and my team told me the majority of people can't afford to pay that much. Also, when we were selling aquatabs (water purification tablets) for 125 francs for 10 (25 cents) only two families bought them, even though this could be the difference between life and death for them or their children since it is now the season for nasty bugs like typhoid fever and the like. And there were a lot of really malnourished children in those two villages, to an extent I rarely (thankfully) see. That's always hard to see.

Eric and I had a really interesting religious experience last Sunday. One of the girls I took last year to Porto Novo for Camp GLOW (the girls' empowerment camp) invited us to her first communion in a village outside of Klouekanme. Eric and I, like true Americans, showed up at 8 AM sharp when we thought it was going to start. It began at around 10:30 and ended up going until 2, so we were there for 6 hours... Anyway, I've never been to a Catholic service and although I can't say this service held my attention for the 4 hours, it was not what I expected- lots of singing (very influenced by Beninese music, with cowbells and drums and actually very beautiful), dancing, more like an Evangelical service you see on TV in America. But there was also all the ritual and crossing oneself and prayer, and all that, especially surrounding the first communion of the kids. The most amazing part of the whole service though, was that not one person, man woman or child, called us “yovo” or “blanc” once, nor did anyone really give us any special attention expect for a few handshakes and a really nice, brief notice from the priest who thanked his “brother and sister for coming to participate in our service and staying for the whole mass”. It was one of the few times we have felt like normal human beings in our town (instead of novelty attractions), and it felt great. Why can't it carry over to life outside the church?

In other news, Eric's school is finished! Meaning, he never has to teach again. He's really happy about that, of course. His colleagues are throwing him a party before we leave (I'm invited too of course but I think it's more for him) and we will cook something for them, maybe chili. We thought we'd cook so the teachers don't have to spend a lot of money on us.

We've been working on a list to organize our thoughts in the last few months of service here. Actually it's three lists.

Things I will miss in Benin (in random order):

1) Friends we have made during our service (Beninese and PC friends)
2) Really good tropical fruit
3) making lots of people happy with my very presence, upon arriving at a meeting with a women's or youth group
4) The feeling of joy when I teach my name to someone and they use it instead of calling me yovo 5) really beautiful dawn and dusk, and being able to see lots of stars (not much light pollution here)
6) seeing farm animals (goats, chickens, sheep, pigs) around all the time- they provide great amusement

Things I will not miss:
1) “Yovo” song and constant taunting
2) solicitations for money from everyone from the child just learning to talk to the feeble old man who can't walk anymore
3) Torrential rains and scary rainstorms; unpredictability of weather and constant feeling of exposure to the elements
4) sleeping under a mosquito net every night
5) Crazy taxi and moto drivers and tightly packed taxis (I can just see it now, hailing a taxi all for MYSELF)

Things I will not take for granted again at home (at least for a time)
1) Access to a wide variety of vegetables besides onions, okra, and really bad tomatoes
2) Household appliances- dishwasher and washing machine especially!
3) Running water and constant electricity
4) Not having to cook every night and being able to eat out for fun
5) Being able to exercise, either outdoors or in a gym, without fear of being taunted
6) Being anonymous and not easily recognizable as an outsider
7) women’s rights!!
8) amazingly good civic infrastructure, especially for such a huge country- roads, streetlighting, parks, water and electricity
9) Having enough stimuli that I will hopefully never be bored [Note: I'm guessing some people here might think that the “simple life” we lead here is somehow appealing for the lack of modern distractions like TV and internet etc. but I can tell you that when you almost never have access to those things, and when you can't really go for a nice walk or do activities that otherwise figure into people's view of that “simple life”, you realize that is a romanticized fiction for us!] I think Eric put it well- here we have all the time in the world, and little to do with it. In America, we have endless things to do but so little time! I'd rather the time be the issue than the things to do, having lived in both worlds.

And a selection from Eric on what he'll be thankful for at home (he seconds most of what I said):
· Being able to play with dogs and not get bitten
· Not having everything be dusty all the time
· Not being hot all the time
· Not having weird people come over to greet me and then try to take my phone no.

This is a working list, of course. Those of you who have visited may be more able to relate to it, I don't know. It's a good exercise for us, though!

The photos this week:

The 1st world map I did, in Houedogli

2nd world map, done in Klouekanme- I think this one's better

Sunset at our house

At a baby weighing I did with a health volunteer- this baby was so pretty!

And this baby made me laugh a lot with it's facial expression

so close to the end

Eric and I are sitting in the PC bureau in Cotonou after 4 days of hanging out in Ouidah for a close-of-service conference. 4 days of talking about 'life after Peace Corps'. It felt really strange to realize just how close we are to finishing here. Our official close-of-service date is August 3. So we'll be out of here, going through Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal before making our way to the states in late August. I have really mixed feelings about leaving... I am really ready to be done with my service, I can't lie about that. Yet I know that when I get home there will be a part of me that misses what I've left behind. But yes the desire to leave definitely trumps any sadness I will feel about leaving.
In part I'm ready to be leaving because a lot of things have happened in the past few weeks that have been really trying on us. For one thing, we've now had two snakes in our backyard, one in the shower! I made the neighbors kill it because it was really scary looking (see picture below). And the very same minute that I was showing Eric the snake I had just found in the shower, a rock whizzed about an inch from my head, presumably thrown by someone trying to hit a mango down from the tree. So two scary things in the same 5 minutes. My patience is just running out for these kind of things...
I'm working on a list of: things we will miss from Benin, things I will not miss, and what we will never take for granted again in the US. I will get back to you on that... it might be interesting.
But for now, enjoy some pictures I've taken since the last entry!

Here's the snake that was in the shower (I know it's small, but it was really frightening because most snakes here are really poisonous)


This is one of my favorite pictures ever- the two babies of our concession, making mischief with the palm nuts


The other snake we found (also small but scary)



Me with one of the babies of the concession

We are fast approaching the 'last three months at post' phase of our service here. We are definitely leaving sometime in August. We hope that we'll have time to do our desired overland trip to Senegal before flying back to America. Knowing that we don't have a lot of time left has given me very mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am more than excited to get back home and to the physical and emotional comforts there. On the other hand though, I've started feeling stressed about the projects that I have going on and wanting to get everything done. I know I've complained about having too little work before so you might think that is a strange thing to say. It's not that I suddenly have loads of work, but rather that all the little projects I've wanted to do that don't require much time but that still require planning now must be done before I leave. For example, I want to paint a world map on a wall at Eric's school and at the high school in Houedogli. This requires suffering through school bureaucracy before even putting pencil to wall, so I better get on that!
And then there's my Amour et Vie (HIV/AIDS plus malaria and diarrhea prevention) project, which is going really well. My team is becoming more autonomous so that I'm not nervous to leave them to do the work on their own in August. I really hope that my team continues after I'm gone, because the work we are doing is really vital. This was highlighted for me when the other day we did a mosquito net demonstration. At the beginning of the demonstration we mentioned that we were going to be selling discounted mosquito nets so that the women would be able to put in practice what we were teaching them. The women then said that actually they already all have nets! But they said they didn't know how to use them, didn't know even how many people could fit under one to sleep which told me that they hadn't even experimented with using it. In sum, somebody has sold them the net and the women knew it was good to buy one, but nobody ever taught them how to use it! I'm guessing the same is true for the oral rehydration salts and water purification tablets that we teach women to use. These are available in the pharmacy, and have directions in French. How many rural village women who would be buying these products can read? Or even have a one-liter bottle that they can use to measure out the exact quantity demanded for the rehydration salts? Not many. People here learn well by observation, and thus what we are doing in the villages, demonstrating how to use a product using tools that are available there (a certain sized bowl instead of a plastic water bottle), is crucial to improving rural community health.
The other big work-related news is that my grant project for the girls' library was funded! The execution of the project should not take long- it involves a day of buying books, and a few weeks for a carpenter to build bookshelves. I'm really excited to get started on this and for the girls to have new schoolbooks before their exams and before the end of the year. Thank you so much to everyone who donated to the project. I will post pictures as the improvements progress.
As for Eric, he has only about three weeks of school left, then exams (unless the school year is extended for some reason). I know he's ready to be done. He's still working on the grammar of Aja and summer will afford him a lot more time to work on that. And he's had enough school bureaucracy and having to be a toady to school administrators.
Work-related stress aside, it's also hard nearing the end of service because many of our friends will be leaving before us. Normally the date at which volunteers can official begin to leave is August 21. However, many people have applied for early close of service (which has to be approved by PC Washington) and many have already had their requested approved. For me personally it's difficult to have things end in stages. So when our friends begin to leave I know I'm going to have a hard time. But the reward at the end is sweet, to be sure!

I'll end with some more cultural observations, some silly, some serious.

• Lately I've been getting a lot of excuses for things that amount to “Africans are like that.” For example, the other day I had a meeting for my environmental club and a group of kids showed up about 30 minutes late. Keep in mind they are used to having to be on time for school, so I was surprised that they were so late. When I called them on it, their response was that “it's because we are African.” This excuse is distasteful to me for two reasons. First, how can anyone generalize about an entire continent of people like that? Second, people seem to think that timeliness is a really good thing- many have expressed admiration that I'm always on time- yet they seem to hold themselves to a lower standard, as if they can't change something they themselves view as a bad habit because they are “African”. That seems rather offensive to me and I know that if anyone else said this about them, it would be viewed, rightly, as racist/ethnocentrist.

• On a different note, many people here are fascinated by my hair. They always ask me what products I use to make it so straight and smooth, and whether I relax it. They are always dismayed at my answer, that I was just born with this hair. The girl peer educator for my Amour et Vie team told me my hair looked really good wet because it was so shiny!

• People's way of complimenting someone is often very different here than what we are used to and often seems offensive to us. For example, I've mentioned that telling me I'm fat or have gained weight is a way of giving a compliment. Another way of complimenting someone is by asking them for money or telling them that they are rich. So when people ask us for money and we perhaps mention to a Beninese friend how annoying we find this, the friend often says that the person was complimenting us by recognizing that we are wealthy and are therefore important people. Likewise, when people say things like “oh you Americans are so rich” or “you have les bonnes choses la-bas” (you have 'the good stuff over there) they are trying to make us feel good and important. Finally, related to the first topic, sometimes people say things like “oh we Africans are bad, you white people are good”. This occurred when I was in a village buying a piece of bamboo to make my garden fence. I had been waiting for the bamboo to be delivered for a few weeks and was getting really frustrated. Finally my neighbor took me to a village to get it ourselves and during the process he kept saying that “oh we Africans are bad, we don't do anything on time... you whites aren't like that”. As if that made me feel good to be told such a generalization! How does one respond to a “compliment” like that?

Just some observations about Benin for you.... Hope they were interesting

Here are some more photos we've taken recently.

Here we are playing Boggle at English club:

We have this game using letter tiles called Bananagrams, which the kids like to use to make what they think are English words. Here is their rendition of "thank you", which I thought was cute:

I think "vell wele"here means "very well", and Shina refers to me, of course!

At a meeting with my Amour et Vie team:

In our usual taxi going back to Klouekanme:

I don't have too much to write today but just wanted to check in and say hello. I can't say I've been doing too much lately. My Amour et Vie (HIV/AIDS plus malaria and diarrhea prevention) project took a small hiatus for March and we have just started up again doing malaria talks and mosquito net demonstrations. It's amazing to me how few people use mosquito nets here. Not only can they greatly help reduce malaria infection, since nighttime is when the most infections occur, but they can prevent other mosquito-borne diseases and help keep neighbors safe because the nets are impregnated with a mosquito-killing pesticide. And they are not terribly expensive, at least compared with other investments intended for long-term use like a motorcycle or a cell phone. In my experience there is not a lot of focus on preventative health measures here- mosquito nets, malaria prophylaxis, proper nutrition to stave off or reduce the severity of disease, water purification, hand washing, and the like. Convincing people to take these measures is difficult and it's frustrating because from my point of view I see that if only people did embrace these measures, there would be enormous improvements to community health and reduction in infant mortality. I hope that my Amour et Vie project will make some positive difference, however small.
The rainy season is beginning here. So far we have had a few days of rain punctuating the otherwise scorching-hot month of March (although my heart goes out to northerners who are living in much hotter conditions than we are down south!). My garden is in shambles and has been ravaged by chickens. I have ordered a very tall piece of bamboo to be brought by cart from a town about 7 kilometers away so that I can replace my teak fence posts that have been eaten from the inside out by termites. You would think that teak, a hardwood, would stand up well to the elements, insect and otherwise, but no, so I'm trying bamboo.
And along with the rainy season comes mango season! Besides the problems with the mango tree in the yard (refer back to last April's blog entry), I am excited. It's actually nice to eat seasonally here because when things come in season they are a real treat and break from the monotony of onions-tomatoes-okra available every day of the year. It's also custard apple and chermoya season, which I bet most of you haven't heard of but they are delicious (and rare even here). And we bought a pile of miracle berries for 2 cents the other day- I don't know what their scientific name is but read in National Geographic that they sometimes sell for $2 a berry in the US! Maybe Benin can earn some money exporting these berries, which when you eat them make everything taste a thousand times sweeter.
By the end of this weekend I will have had my first environmental club meeting of my PC service. Believe me, I have tried to get it going earlier, but have been thwarted by bureaucracy, slow-to-respond teachers who were supposed to help me, and other obstacles. If all goes well, I hope to have a week long environmental summer camp at the end of the school year. At this point I am trying to be optimistic that this will happen.

I was thinking that I might add onto each entry a few cultural factoids, things that I might not otherwise have reason to mention in an entry. I figure they will interest you, since even after almost two years we are still struggling to understand much of the local culture!

1) Names- in Benin most people have a Christian/Muslim name used at school and a local-language name. Often the traditional names are given according to the day of the week you are born. So for example Koffi (like Koffi Annan) is for boys born on Friday and Assiba is for girls born on Sunday, like me. (By the way, “Sheena” here is spelled “China” which I find humorous as people often write this on bus tickets, and some unidentified neighbor child wrote China on our screen door in marker!)
2) A lot of people have very funny ideas of what America is like, despite never having been there or even reading much about it. Many think that institutionalized slavery still exists in America, or that Americans as a people hate Africans and black people. When Eric's parents met one of Eric's classes, one of their questions was whether “Obama is the negro slave of the white man” (his own words). I don't really know why this image persists. Keep in mind that most people here don't realize that “American's” and other western countries are not 100% white.
3) Some people think that giving eggs and meat to children turns them into thieves, so they don't give any animal protein to their children. No doubt this contributes greatly to malnutrition.
4) Despite the fact that gas prices have gone down a lot, I cannot argue the price of a moto taxi any lower than it has been for the past year when prices were quite high. Interesting, since the moto drivers' excuses for raising the prices to their current levels were that gas prices went up! 5) This Beninese style of economics is mysterious to me.
Women can bare their chests but normally can't show anything above the knee, nor their lower backs and navel/midriff area if they can help it. Very different from what we consider to be indecent dressing in the west!

Just some random thoughts on life in Benin there for you. I'll end the entry with a few photos. We haven't been taking as many lately but we'll try to take many more before our service ends. Enjoy!
Here's what the girls' library looks like currently. The two guys in the matching outfits are part of my Amour et Vie team and the other guy is my main work partner in Benin





Here I built a pole with a hook attached for the kids to pull mangoes from the tree, instead of throwing rocks that end up hitting our house

Me eating the first mango of the season

Little girl at one of my lessons. I enjoyed the white doll with African-style hair being carried around like a real baby

Here we are burning a paper machee globe that I made and painted, and that subsequently had a chunk eaten from it by a very hungry and desperate mouse

Eric preparing to cut our fresh heart of palm with the machete

It's been a while since I last wrote and I've been debating whether to write today or not. A very tragic event has happened in the lives of Benin Peace Corps volunteers in that we lost a fellow volunteer last week when she was murdered. This isn't something I feel totally comfortable with writing about except to say that Eric and I are safe and that if there is any threat to our safety Peace Corps will take it very seriously. I won't say it hasn't been really hard for us. Being back at post after being in Cotonou so much for memorial services and other things has been difficult. Besides just mourning the loss of a friend, the constant reminders that we are foreigners here- the cultural misunderstandings, the 'yovo' calling all the time- suddenly feel even more hurtful and acute because it's hard not to see our efforts at cultural integration as being fruitless. I know this isn't true and I think this feeling will pass, but it will take some time.
In happier news... Eric and I have found out that we will be living in Portland next year. This has affected our Peace Corps life in that we now have a place to be at the end of our service and can really see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have a lot of projects I want to do before we finish here- expanding the girls' library (and thanks to all who have donated to the grant!), environmental club and hopefully environmental summer camp, and continuing with my HIV/AIDS project which is going really well. I think I've mentioned that in addition to AIDS we also focus on malaria and diahrrea prevention. We just got mosquito nets, water purification tablets, and oral rehydration salts to start selling to women's groups with whom we do lessons. I'm excited to do this and I think we can really make a difference in the public health of the community, especially children. Meanwhile, Eric is still teaching and will hopefully be done in early May.
I will end there. Hopefully next time I will have some more pictures to post. Eric and I bought a real, fresh heart of palm at the Cotonou fruit/veg market the other day and cut it up with a machete, of which there are some nice photos. That's one of the nice things about here- there's a lot of exotic edibles that we can't get at home, at least affordably. And the best part? The palm cost $2 for a large amount, which I think is a steal. Anyway, I'll write again soon!

Quick note

Hi again. Guess where I am writing from? The new Peace Corps bureau! It's in a much nicer area of town than the old one and is really fancy. There is a room with volunteers to stay in that has AC!! But it's farther away from everything else I like to do when I come to Cotonou... it will take some getting used to.
Anyway, I just wanted to post a link to photos that Eric's parents took when they visited us a few weeks ago. It's fun for us to see Benin through others' eyes and will be for you too, I think.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=morley99&target=ALBUM&id=5304355870365024433&authkey=Ay1PcOR9wrQ&feat=email

Hopefully that link will work. Have fun looking at the photos!