pictures and captions

this preying mantis was IN my bathroom. staring down at me.














preying mantis on the wall in the "hall" between my room and the bathroom. you better believe i screamed a little when i had to walk past it. look at it's eyes. it weirds me out to think that these guys are so big and watch me and whatnot. and i believe they know how to change color.
















this is the picture of me with a big pineapple that i bought right before Angelina and I got caught in the big rainstorm. i guess this picture should go with the post shown down below a few entries...but i am too lazy and don't have time to figure it out.







a one legged grasshopper(?) got into my kitchen and decided to hang out on my dish drying rack.







This guy was found chillin' in the tub of laundry i had soaking in the bathroom. he was actually kinda cute. but that's not my hand holding him. no siree. that would be christopher. and FANOU told me that most bugs in Africa are not harmless. in fact, i should pretty much just worry about the mosquitoes.






this is a handful of the volunteers in my region. here we have a hippee, me/Dorothy of Wizard of OZ, i have no idea, a Beninese farmer, and a bicyclist.








halloween bonfire. we lit up the candy wrappers and the boxes they were sent in. i haven't seen a bonfire in ages!















the snails here are HUGE! this one wasn't even THAT big.













but still pretty darn big. i think my hand was a good 6 inches or so away. i didn't want to go too close.












me pretending to paddle along in the lake. i almost fell on my face getting off the boat. i slipped and stubbed my toe and i was worried it was going to get infected. but no blood, no worries!















a canoe carved out of one piece of wood. i tried to capture some of the lake too...oh well, still looks kinda cool though, no?












a view of the lake.










the beach of Possotome.









fisherman on the lake. it's not deep at all. i could probably walk out there.









me in front of the natural spring thing. the water that comes out is nice and warm! this is also the city where they bottle spring water.














me and some goats in Possotome.












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Dakar trip...i mean medevac
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found this at the supermarche and thought it was creepy. Polly Pockets that you have to assemble yourself. also, as i pulled out my camera to take this, is when i realized that i have a broken camera screen. so it's back to the old fashioned way and using the view finder...but the following pictures are nice, no?






eatin some n'ice cream ice cream. OMG, soooooooooooo good. bubble gum and vanilla.









this is the presidential palace.










these stairs reminded me of the time i was in Cuzco and we had to hike up the un-godly amount of stairs to watch the festival thingy. but these weren't bad...i was just tired of walking. oh, and i guess there are goats everywhere here too.









we came across this writing on the wall on our walk along the coast of Dakar. It was on the road under the presidential palace...it was a gorgeous walk...







a boatful of yovos. oops. i feel bad for writing that. but not really because tourists are annoying and i feel that they were indeed yovos. any-yovo, i haven't seen this many white people together in one place in a REALLY long time...






this was our boat, the SS Beer!











a really pretty "street" we walked down as we wandered around the island.









this is me in front of the history museum. i think it used to be fort or a castle or something...i dunno caue we didn't go in. but i thought it was cool that it had a draw bridge and a moat! ****this one is for Cole and Cade, who love castles (they still do, right??)****







Baobab tree lined hike up to the top of Gore Island

















this is a mural on a wall. somehow, all the colors all over the island were bold and beautiful...










this is Gore Island. took a trip out there today..

“It’s amazing what you’ll find face-to-face…”

I think I am starting to warm up to my 5eme kids. I feel like they are pretty smart. Either that, or I am not paying close enough attention and I just keep calling on the smart kids. I am giving them a quiz on Thursday over the stuff we have been reviewing, and I guess then we will see if they understand what I am teaching.

I have started making a class dictionary with all three classes. And I love it. As we are doing exercises the kids will come across a word they don’t know, I will either act out the word, draw it, pretty much anything to get them to understand the word, then I ask for the French word and write that on the board too. I tried to explain it to them earlier, but until we really got a start on the dictionary did they finally get it. And it was really cute, today there were a couple kids who came up to me and asked me for the word in English. This one boy brought a flashlight up to me.

Oh, and as a warm-up/review I had the 6eme kids sing the ABCs. It was sooooooooo cute. I think I almost started crying, they made me so happy/proud. After singing it a couple of times, I had them do it on their own, and the feeling was, well, indescribable. And they were so happy that they got it on their own! The looks on their faces. It is so precious.

I have these two girls who sit in the front of the room and they are sooooo smart. Actually their whole group is really bright. But every time we do a new lessom, this girl, Lucia gets so happy. I ish I could’ve captured the look on her face when she found out we were doing, the alphabet, numbers, and to be. So cute.

As much as I hate lesson planning and stressing out in class because sometimes they don’t listen…this job is SO worth it. I love it here.

Yesterday's observations

It’s hot all damn day.

I sweat more than I thought I would.

Lariam makes my hair fall out…aka I shed more than I would like to.
I forget what it feels like to be cold, and driving.

Bugs still freak me out. I was going to wash my hands and there was a big green bug on my soap, so I used my face wash instead.

I had a delicious pineapple for dinner, it was the size of my head, and cost less than 25 cents (200CFA).

I miss classical music…dad, could you send me a greatest hits/well known artists CD?

What does Dave Ramsey think about the financial crisis?

Caught in the rain

Angelina and I got caught in a rainstorm just before we headed back to my place. We waited out the rain as we sat next to a group of guys sitting, waiting around for who knows what. And I was a little apprehensive about it at first because all men are pigs. But it was starting to rain really hard, so I took them up on their offer to have a seat. And we sat there and waited for the rain. we also had a nice conversation. The guys guessed we were with the Peace Corps and we told them which states we were from, one actually knew where they were. And then we talked a little about languages cause Angelina and I are here to teach English. And they noticed how my French is not as good as Angelina’s, but understandable all the same, and that perhaps one day…eventually I will understand everything.

And then we talked a little about racism. I told the guys how I was enjoying Benin, because they asked. But I said that I do not like being called YOVO because it is impolite and I do not walk around the city back home calling people out based on their looks. I don’t go around saying things like “hey gimpy, how’s it going? Yo, fake-n-bake, good afternoon! Blind-man! What’s up!” NO. I don’t do that because it is impolite. And I think Angelina and I got the message across, well, as much as we could. And then it was interesting that one of them pointed out that we still kinda segregate people in that we have African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans…etc., etc. And I thought this was a wonderful argument, point, whatever you want to call it. And I really had nothing to say in response. And all Angelina had to say about it, was that she did not agree with it either. I have to say, that I was very impressed and as much as I hate being called YOVO, I don’t know what to do about all the labels that we give people in America. I just don’t know…

Oh and then as expected, as we were leaving, they started harping on us about being “Madame ou bien Mademoiselle?” and “tu as un petit ami la bas? Il est tres loin, n’est pas?” OH BENIN.

random things.

i kinda miss the sound of airplanes zooming by. and microwaves.

i am going to be Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz for Halloween.

cold drinks don't stay cold for long.

tropical fruit in the tropics are delicious and cheap!

homosexuality is illegal, but people of the same sex can hold hands walking down the street and it's not weird.

...there are more things, but i can't recall them at the moment and i am going over to my neighbors to help her out with some English.

Things I don’t remember…

I was going to write out a list of random observations…that I have noticed, but as usual I have misplaced my notebook with all the things I have written down…so I’m gonna try to remember them as they pop into my head, and I guess that makes it random as well, n’est pas?

I never really thought about typing, I’m really not that good at it, but it’s even worse now because I toggle bqck and forth between my qwerty keyboard and the keyboard at the cyber, which is the French kind. It gets really annoying, and I literally have to look at the keyboard to see which letters I am typing in so that I do not spell things all weird.

I bought a papaya today the size of my head, for the equivalent of less than 25 cents!! Mmmm, it was sooo good.

So, before todqy, I really couldn’t stand my 5eme class, but then I had my homologue come in and speak with the kids. And she basically told them to be grateful that I am here teaching their class because the 4eme class does not even have an English teacher. So if she hears that they continue to talk and misbehave during my class, they’ll remove me from their class as punishment and put me in the 4eme class. Then one of the vice principals came in to talk to them 5 minutes later and reprimanded them some more…and boy, what a difference the two of them made. It was like night and day. They were SOOOO quiet and obedient and paid attention and did their work, it was a completely different class. YAY! I hope that it stays like that.

Last week when we had the teacher training, I felt like that new kid at school. Not that I was ever a new kid…but I walked into the class and sat down. Of course everyone as late like always…but as the people trickled in, I noticed that all the other table groups were filling up, yet no one was sitting at my group. It was a little sad, lol.

I inherited a bunch of DVDs from the previous volunteers, and I decided to start watching a little series called Weeds. I guess it’s a Showtime series…it’s great. I only had seasons two and three so I watched those in about 2 and a half days. Then when I was in Cotonou, the Nigeria movie guy flagged me over and I was tempted to buy 12 mille’s worth of DVDs…but I cut that down to only 6 mille. I figured that those DVDs won’t really be going anywhere, and if they do, all I have to do is request some more. But this guy is great! On these movies discs, I guess they’re not technically DVDs, but VCDs…either way, they work for me. Anywhoo, they have like 10 to 15 movies on each disc! And they put them together according to genre…kinda. It’s hard to describe, I guess, but bottom line I can get a lot of movies for my moolah. I think the only problem will be…in the near future, is that I will have no idea what movies have come out, which ones I HAVE to see and which ones I really shouldn’t…

The other day, when I was exiting the taxi (from Cotonou) I totally fell on my face. I had a ton of stuff in my hands and the car was pulled over on the side of the street halfway on the road, half on the dirt…quite uneven…so anyways I fell on my face as I came out. and it was mortifying! I didn’t hurt myself, and luckily it was dark out so I hope no one saw me fall. But seeing as how I am white, and pretty much glow in the dark here, I would not be surprised if all eyes were on me as I came out of the taxi and onto the pavement.

Oh, and I got to teach my 6eme kids the alphabet yesterday and today. My 6m2 kids are so cute! I sang the song first so they could repeat it after me the next time, and when I was done they applauded my singing! It was soooo cute!

Oh yeah, and yesterday, one of the facilitators (RCH dude) from stage picked me up from school and took me to the orphanage here in town. We didn’t stay long, just long enough to meet the people who work there, Marie-Claude, Louie, Michel, and some other dude. And of course the kids! I got a tour of the place and it’s so cute…and the RCH guy asked the kids if an of them knew where I lived…and surprisingly, well, maybe not so much, but a couple of them did. I guess maybe word spreads fast about where the white person lives in one’s village. Anyways, the orphanage is really close to my house and they said i am welcome anytime. So I just may find myself there a whole lot! There is this little baby girl who is 10 months old, and she is already walking! And apparently there is a kid or two from the orphanage who are in my class. They were in class yesterday afternoon when I visited, so I didn’t get a chance to see their face(s). As I was sitting there, I really felt like crying. There are about 45 kids living at the orphanage who do not have parents! That may be one of the saddest things ever. It was really just heart wrenching to look into the faces of these kids and difficult to imagine all the emotions that they have had to endure. I really wanna get involved with the orphans and be somewhat of a mentor to them, help cook dinner, bring some cookies over, play games, etc with them.

Everyday is really a challenge in some way, shape, or form but I really feel like God has put me here for a reason. I don’t know if I will ever find a single reason as to why that is, but I learn a little everyday, and perhaps one day I will be able to sum it all up. Until then, all I can do is take each day as it comes and try to look at the bigger picture!

PS
I cannot believe it has already been nearly 4 months! That means I only have 23 more months! And another week has flown by…time flies when you’re having fun!

it's been a while

last week there were no classes held because all, well, i think all teachers had to go to formation all week long. they are in the process of implementing teaching a new system of learning/teaching, and basically it was like the training i received in Porto-Novo. it was good, but i was bored out of my mind half the time.

i went into Cotonou on monday to fill out my ballot. and i was able to get a few things done while in the big city. i shopped around and spent a good chunk of money on food at the yovo stores. my favorites being chili powder, oreos, pringles, peanut butter, and a bar of cadbury fruit and nut chocolate bar--which i am saving for a very dark, rainy day!

then catherine and i got hungry so we went to this place called festival du glace. it was amazing! i had a hamburger, fries, orange fanta--with ice cubes, good ketchup, and bubblegum ice cream with a little cookie for dessert! mmmmmmm. it was good. unfortunately i felt a little sick after stuffing my face; but it was worth it and i was better by the end of the day. and then the taxi ride home was interesting.

whoops...gotta run, but not literally cause it's way to effing hot...to class. i got one class this afternoon, and we will be learning the alphabet and numbers!