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.