i guess Rosie likes to sleep on this chair. she's such a weird/funny dog.



passed out on her pillow



Primaël; aka Mayo. probably my favorite person right now. loves to wear my sunglasses...or my headband



Mayo on his trike. you should see him wearing my bike helmet. he's such a pagailleur!



see that little white speck? that's a kid playing in the field just outside the orphanage.



a couple of boabab trees. i can't get enough of them. wish they could grow back home!



same trees as above. i love the natural contrasts of colour in this country. i love the red dirt and the shades of green. so pretty.



the setting sun



a view of the town from around my neck of the woods.

fete d'independence

the one doing a salute is Dr. President Mr. Yayi Boni. sweet car...i want one



the group at Cape Coast Castle. Obama was there just days/more like a week before us!


they built a fancy new fountain at the park. and cleared away all the brush and made it look all pretty for the fete.




on the other side of the park



a view of the street.

all in all, i guess i am a little sad that the Independence Day came and went so fast. it was a bon moment.

newbies

they arrived last night: pale, clean, and baby-faced! they were sooooo cute. it's kinda hard to describe. but it was an amazing feeling to be that volunteer who's been here one year. to be the volunteer with answers to all (well, most) of their questions.

and then there is GHANA! what can i say. Accra is like America. we literally couldn't see the difference between Accra and some tropicalish-nice-warm-weather city in the states...except that there were more black people. Ghanaians (spelling?) are so nice and helpful and i feel like they didn't try to rip us off as much as they do in Cotonou. and bottom-line it was nice to be able to speak English. although to the flip-side, English was no longer our "secret language"...which comes in handy here in Benin.

i of course forgot to bring my camera along with me, but everyone else brought theirs. so, supposedly, i will be getting a disk or some thing with pictures from everyone's camera. so sorry. y'all will have to wait for pics!

13 more months! and i feel like it's gonna FLY by. it already has.

camp glow

Obladi, oblada…life goes on

Today is my one year anniversary for arriving in country. And it has been quite a year!

I have relearned my French, pick up a little Fon (afonganjia = you got up well?), read 34.5 books, watched countless movies, taught 150 students English, participated in a girls’ empowerment camp, learned how to crochet, had 3 dogs, went on safari, lost a friend to violence, gained 100 friends, stayed healthy, learned how to do laundry by hand, survived the hot season in Africa…and I am sure there is a lot more, but that’s about all I can think of at the moment.

As I was filling up my water containers I was thinking about how truly amazing sliced bread is! I mean you can find bread in just about any part of the world, but in how many places is it already sliced? And how many places in the world do you have 101 varieties of bread to choose from: white, whole wheat, 3-grain, raisin, buttermilk, honey-wheat, rye, sourdough, pita, baguettes…it’s great!

I am listening to the most played songs playlist on my itunes…and it totally reminds me of the times right before I left. It’s funny how songs can invoke memories like that. I remember sitting on the computer, I was on facebook and blogger looking at a volunteer’s pictures and reading her blog totally freaking out about Africa and what I had to pack and just trying to get a general idea of Benin and I remember it was a pretty hot day…I am sure it was like 85 degrees or so. And my dad says to me something along the lines of it’s this hot in Benin at night. And on a side note, when I got to Philly with the other west coasters, we went out for dinner and I grabbed my fleece thinking that it would get a little chilly as the evening wore on. But I was wrong about that. It pretty much stayed warm that evening. Is that like a Seattle thing or a west coast thing where it gets kinda cold at night?

So yeah, 4th of July. I am heading down to Cotonou early, well I’m hoping early enough to arrive at the bureau, take a hot shower and then head off to the ambassador’s house for a potluck(/BBQ?). But I don’t really think that any volunteer is planning to bring a plate…I mean how can we? If I were to make something at post, there is no way that thing is gonna survive its way to Cotonou. And I guess I am a little sad that I will be missing out on fireworks 2 years in a row, and it’ll be 3 years in a row by the time I am back.

And I guess, speaking of summer. To me summer entails long nights. Warm days. Camping. BBQs. Picnics. Bonfires. Trips to lakes/bodies of water. So I guess where I am going with this, is that to anyone in charge of dessert for a potluck or BBQ or something…I have a recipe for “key lime” pie that is super easy and pretty darn good:

Any kind of pie crust you like (graham or regular…I like the graham one best)
3 eggs
1 can sweetened condensed milk
½ lime juice

Make the crust and bake it till it’s light golden in color. Mix the other stuff all together. Pour it over the crust. Bake for 10 minutes. And that’s it. I don’t have a temperature for you cause I don’t exactly have an oven. I have a makeshift “peace corps dutch oven.” But I can tell you that I don’t have the temperature on high.

And lastly here are my pictures from Camp GLOW.

(these will come up later today/tonight when i get back from swimming and pot luck)

Every time that I have to do my laundry (which has been semi-often because my petit was busy studying for a big exam…but that’s done now and she can resume working off the money she owes me) I think about how I now think that hand washing stuff might actually get things cleaner than a machine. Sure, the clothes take a beating with all the rubbing against itself and the ringing out of the water, but I swear it gets things cleaner.

And now for my observations of World Environment Day

Last Friday my directrice told me to come to school next Friday for some World Environment something-or-other day. Then the next day I get a knock on my door (more like an obnoxious yet scary buzz of the doorbell) and it’s one of my kids to tell me that her mom and sister took off to CEG3 for the World Environment Day…aren’t I going? And so I quickly got ready and zemmed on over to school. And indeed it was World Environment Day. and I think I was the only person from my school not wearing the meme (same) shirt as everyone else. Boy, I felt so non-matchy…that and is it not enough that I stand out amongst the Beninese enough already??? I missed part of the opening ceremony while waiting for a shirt to match. And once I sat down, I kinda zoned out because I could see nothing and hear nothing (because of the generator going). And so I just sat there and observed things. I watched little leafy things drop from the sky. So I looked up and it was nesting stuff the birds dropped as the built their nests. And they were also quite loud. And then all of a sudden I hear a quiet yet distinct “plop” and it makes me jump probably cause I soon realize that it is a little itty bitty baby bird. And it’s still pink with barely any of that fluffy feathers they get when they are slightly older. The poor thing fell literally inches from another teacher’s foot and I wanted to interrupt his conversation to let him know a little bird fell but then I thought he might squish it with his foot to put it out of it’s misery. But instead I said nothing and watched the little guy die. It didn’t take much more than 2 minutes. And then, I nervously kept watch of it because I was afraid someone would walk by and just step on it and then that would be really gross. I think I held my breath everytime someone walked by. Then maybe five or so minutes later a chicken walked by…and I guess they have good eyes for food or good smelling, or something because that chicken just came on right over and pecked the baby bird one, two, three times before swallowing hole. CANNIBAL! At least I no longer had to worry about someone stepping on it.

I don’t remember much else of the ceremony. I guess they gave away some prizes to some students who wrote some good essays. Three of my kids were among those who got prizes. And then it was time for the kids to plants trees! The top 10 students from every grade (well, at least the younger 5 grades) each got to plant a tree (provided I think by the UNDP or according to our shirts the UDNP) and they got a wood plaque thing to label their tree with their name. And by plaque, I mean a flat block of wood that they would write in marker on and attach it to the basket thingy that surrounds the little sapling so that the goats don’t eat it up.

I walked over to where the kids were planting with some of the other women teachers. And I kept an eye out for my kids. I spotted a couple. Awwww, they are so cute. I just love how they come up to me, do a weird little curtsey/bow thing and say “bon jour or bon soir madame.” They’re too cute.

Then it was food time. But I wasn’t pushy enough so that by the time that I made my way in, there was hardly any food left—well, yeah, there was nothing. And there were hardly any drinks left. I told one of my favorite colleagues “it’s a good thing I ate at home, otherwise I would be hungry and mad.” And we both had a laugh at that. Maybe you had to be there. But I think any other PCV from Benin can tell you…or maybe not, but it’s really crazy to be in the same room as the Beninese when free food and drinks are available! HAHAHAHa. But some part of me kinda likes to watch the mayhem. I dunno why.

I stuck around for the discussion on environment stuff…but I paid more attention to the students than the actual talk. But I do remember my student Sylvain (who is VERY bright btw) say some smart-ass thing that made everyone laugh. And I laughed too. But not because I understood, but because I know how he likes to make jokes and how he laughs at his own jokes and that makes me laugh.

There was an older student who was wearing a fancy shirt. And it looked like he was making a big fuss to his friend because he spilled something on it. The stain was visible from where I was sitting. And I sorta stared at him and laughed to myself because it’s funny to me how he kept looking at the stain and wishing it away the same way a girl back home would do. His friends saw that I was staring and said something in Fon and I looked away as I laughed.

Also in the middle of the discussion there was a gust of wind. And it blew up through the tent thing the kids were sitting under and I guess the wind caused the puddle of water there to splash on the kids. And I laugh again because they all scattered like ants. And the kid next to me said “what, they don’t shower?” Hahaha, people here have such a great sense of humor. They’re able to turn any humorous moment in life into a clever joke. I love it.

And that’s about it. I walked home after that with one of my kids to accompany me. At first I refused cause I don’t like my kids to come visit my house. But he said he as visiting a friend who lives in my neighborhood…so to see if he was lying I said I wanted to go too. And he said okay. But then I told him that I was just testing to see if he was lying. But he said he doesn’t lie. And I said that that’s not true, everyone lies. And he said, yes, that’s true.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

(and FYI, the group pictures of the kids in the previous post were from this tree planting day.)

i'm too lazy to just plain write something...so here's some pics to entertain you

the following 2 pictures were taken at the world environment day. the top 10 kids from each class got a t-shirt and got to plant a little tree that they can watch grow. i guess you could say the majority of my fave students are among the top 10...but not always the case!
mostly my 5eme kids
my 6eme kids

a timetable for each class...kinda interesting, in my opinionborder
to the right of the timetable...the teachers are divided up by course: English, French, History-Geography, etc...and within each cluster, each teacher is given a code: letter & number, or symbol. I am A4...can you find me? PS they made a mistake and never changed it...the other teachers are listed by last name. first name initial...perhaps my last name is too complicated!
the miracle berry! it changes your taste buds! for real! anything sour, like lemons, or bitter like beer will taste sweet after eating the miracle berry! i guess you can find them online for 2 dollars a pop...au Bénin--free, if you have a student who has them growing in her yard!!
this is my life-saver at night. it keeps me sane, i mean cool and it is a beautiful white noise that drones out crying babies, loud music, chickens, goats, etc.
kitchen--stove
kitchen--sink. i don't have much counter space...so i get real creative sometimes! lol
my bed and my protection from all sorts of creepy crawlies. i started using it after spending the weekend in Cotonou where i didn't have one, and there was a cockroach (cacaraka in Fon) who kept nibbling on my hand every night {shudder}!!!
this is the other part of my room...where all my ugly clothes are. i wish it was possible to wear cool, comfortable, culturally appropriate clothing that wouldn't get ruined by sweat or deodorant...but i think that is virtually impossible.
this is my other life saver. it stays in the living room. i am quite fortunate to have 2 fans in my house...there are volunteers who don't even have 1! i can't imagine...

these last few are of my living room. i just rearranged my living room and also hung up my art by thread. i must admit i almost won a Darwin award in the process. at first i thought it was a good idea to use a chair as a ladder. turns out...it's not!! i now have an ugly bruise on my shin (surprisingly, the 1st bruise i've gotten in country) and i scraped my hand on the wall as my arms went flailing around as i tried to regain my balance.