With Visions of Frosties in Our heads

Frosties, you say? Pourquoi pas? One of my fellow trainees was talking today about how we should all email certain companies, such as Wendys, and explain our plight. What would this accomplish? He`s hoping that we would be fortunate enough to get them to send a Frosty machine. We dont necessarily have any place to put it, and supplies would be difficult to obtain in a place that doesnt even have a McDonalds, but it would be the gesture that counts. So anyone out there who wants to help in our "cause," thank you. Now here's what's been going on chez moi for the last three or so weeks.

I've tried to write on this thing several times, but the power never seems to want to stay on long enough for me to submit. So here it is, three weeks of drastic change all boiled down into a few paragraphs. A lot's happened since last I updated. My host family gave me a Boomba, which is the local form of African garb. Think of zumas pants circa 1983 and a long pajama shirt made with stiffer fabric and a lot of pockets. Then throw on any random pattern you can think of. Seriously, think of any pattern. People walk around all day wearing full body garments with horses, the president of Benin, President Obama, dolphins, Michigan, sports teams, or any other thing imaginable plastered all over their persons. So, in essence, I'm encouraged to wear garb akin to pajamas while teaching classes of 60 Beninese students (between the ages of 12 and 25). A terrible fate? Not at all. People have manages to get all sorts of western garb tailored here. And while the fabric is different from that normally found in the states, my biased perception believes that many of the volunteers could actually pull it off. Girls, mind you. Probably not so much the men.

I've thoroughly enjoyed the food here, but anyone who knows me won't be too surprised by that. I eat pate, a Beninese staple not unlike nothing, and delicious fish every night. Sometimes I come home and see tonight's avian dinner flopping around on the floor (sorry, Dad), but it's always enjoyable. My host family always squeezes me fresh pineapple or orange juice. I don't know - what have I to complain about? Come visit, if you feel up to it! I've visited my post now, and it is gorgeous...

My post, where I will be spending my next two years, is in the village ok Kemon, which is in the eastern Collines, which is a hilly region in the middle of Benin. Literally, collines translates into "hills" in English. Thus, and this is actually quite rare for volunteers, my village lies at the base of a cute colline. the collines should not be thought of as hills so much as giant mounds of earth jutting randomly from the ground in otherwise flat and lush terrain. It is so green - the verdant hills of scotland come to mind. The village has only 3000 people, but I can apparently get everything I need. Electricity? No way. Running water? Uh-uh. Cell phone service? Usually. but I was lucky enough to spend three nights in my future home with the volunteer who served before me (for three years!) Rachel is incredible. She actually assumed the role of an administrator in her high school, she built and contracted a brand new library, and she speaks better African French than any other foreigner I've encountered. What will I do, following on her heels? Whatever I can. I'll smile a lot, maintain her legacy and teach to the best of my ability. Rachel has breakfast (fried cake or a porridge-like dish) pretty much delivered to her door every morning, and she makes the most delicious meals. chickens and goats sometimes wander into her home, too. The place has two beds, a large living room/workspace, an outdoor latrine, and a walled off back area where she washes clothes by hand and takes buclket baths with rain water. coincedentally, for most of the year it is also possible to get all of your drinking water from the rain water that collects. and at night you walk around by candlelight. Romantic? Meh, but its what I was hoping for. I'll be there in less than a month, if all goes as planned.

We'll be teaching Model School for the next several weeks at a local high school. Right now I'm teaching 4eme, which is the third year of English for most students. Our class right now has about 40 students, and I'm teaching about an hour a day to start. Have all the lessons went well? Not at all. But at least I can see how this could be fun. Gotta start somewhere! Plus, it was great to see how respected Rachel was in her community. People really respect teachers, and everyone was very sad to hear that she will be leaving. Very sad. But its encouraging to me. They speak Nagot there, which is a branch of Yoruba, which is apparently spoken in some parts of Boston, which is cool by me.

So I just playes soccer with the boys down the street and my fellow volunteer Jamie. I love my street, and a good portion of the people have started to call me M. David instead of Yovo, which means "white" in Fon, the local language. It's very enchanting, this place. Call if you can! Or write letters, or emails, or text me! and if you want to send little packages, I will be forever greatful. And whoever sends me a moonpie will be my all-time hero.

Thank you for following. Hopefully I will be able to update sooner next time. I miss you all. Let me know what's going on in ya lives!

Long May You Run

I wrote this email last night in my room at my host family’s house in Porto Novo, the capital of Benin. I’m able to upload it now because we’re in Cotonou for a meeting and we’re able to access the internet in their swanky new headquarters. Life is going well, to say the least. You can now call me on my cell using the number on the rightà. I was able to talk with my parents last night, and it was really nice just to hear their voices. (It’s free for me if you call, and calls are REALLY cheap if you use programs like Skype.com) Our conversation had a couple guest appearances from my host sisters. Estia, the youngest, turns 3 today; bonne anniversaire, Estia! Ravis, the middle child, turns 11 on August 9^th. I don’t know when my brother’s birthday is , but his name is Io and he’s 18. They’ve been more than generous with their meals (yes, I’m actually gaining weight) and they’ve taken me to family members’ houses all over the Southeast. Each visit typically starts with an enthusiastic hello and how are you, but the keen ears of the Beninois quickly realize that my fluency ends there. I’ve found that I can speak more French at different points in the day. Thus, sometimes people leave content that the American volunteers are able to converse, but other people must wonder what we’re doing here. All in all, it’s trying, but a lot of fun. As long as I can smile and make a joke, people tend to warm up to me.

I’ll outline my day for you, which may well be a typical Sunday during training. I sleep under a mosquito net but don’t have any blankets, so at certain points during the night I will get up and either open or close the windows to keep from sweating or shivering, respectively. There’s a busy street outside my window, so I can hear various people yelling and motos (motorcycles or vespas) streaming past. At about 5:30 AM, I can hear my host mother taking her bucket bath. But even with all of these interruptions to my sleeping habits, I still get a great night’s rest because I am exhausted! Speaking French and spending the day in the sun can really take a lot out of a person. I get up and take a shower using water from a bucket and a strange loofah, and I try to knock the sleep out of my head so I’ll be able to converse with my family in a foreign language. Breakfast usually consists of (good) baguettes and mayonnaise, eggs, hot chocolate or coffee, and fruit. So far, so good.

I parle avec my family for awhile, we laugh at things on the television, I attempt to help clean or cook, and I play and dance with Estia because she never, ever slows down. Beninese babies may be unbreakable, because I’ve seen different ones on different occasions tossed around like toys and they never stop laughing. It’s great to have the positive energy, though, and it’s always good to have her to play with when I can tell my French will be lacking. At 10:30, I told my family that I was leaving for school because my fellow volunteers were meeting up to do something. After answering many questions (even though they had known about this beforehand), I finally am able to leave the house at about 10:50, which means that my planned 20 minute head start had disappeared. Along the way, various people stop to chat, so I end up barely getting to school by 11. We embarked on a biking journey to tour the city and see where the other volunteers live, but it’s difficult to travel in a group of 15 white people (yovos) in a busy city with no traffic laws. After we reached our first destination, one of my fellow English teachers’ wheels bent, and he had to try to devise a way to fix it in order to leave. We all sat there for about an hour while we waited for someone to bring him a helmet to take a moto home. Nobody cared, though, because we were all just content to be able to speak English for awhile. Plus, we have already witnessed a slew of instances in which planned events just don’t seem to happen until certain people decide they should. Makes sense to me.

We were eventually able to continue our tour, and a bunch of us stopped by a Buvette in order to enjoy a cold Coke (and other local beverages). It didn’t take long for us to decide that this should be a Sunday tradition, so hopefully even more people will partake next week. At about 3, I return to my apartment, where I decide that it’s time for Round 2 (in 4 days) of personal clothes washing. Washing clothes by hand is surprisingly difficult, and it’s safe to say that it can typically take me upwards of 10 minutes to wash one pair of pants. Hopefully I will be able to devise a better plan soon. I then helped Ravis clean the dishes, the house, peel potatoes and prepare dinner (remember, she’s only 10). Dinner is a local dish called Pâte Rouge, which is a kind of cornmealy deal with tomatoes, pepper and meat. It’s quite delicious. I then embarked on an unannounced visit with Io to his grandmother’s house. There we went through what I can already refer to as “the motions,” and I exchanged awkward introductions with countless family members and took a tour of the complex. Again, I played with the littlest kid as a sort of conversation filler. Judging from the accounts of my fellow volunteers, we are all going on awkward unannounced visits to family members’ houses. C’est la vie in Benin.