We spoke with Dave tonight, and as he does not have electricity in Kemon, he asked that we post this for him. Dave arrived in his new post on Monday. He found that his predecessor Rachel had left him everything that he needs for his "apartment". He is very appreciative of Rachel and all she left for him there. She even left him a scavenger hunt to help explore his new environs! Quite clever, eh? His first text to us reported that he was napping with the cat on his lap. He also said that last night he had the best sleep that he has had since he arrived in Africa. Seems that living without electricity is relaxing for him. As we talked tonight he said that the local goats were leaping onto the wall around his porch. It is about three and one half feet tall. Didn't know that they were jumpers!
Dave has been out to have a local beverage with both the local director of education and the Parent-teacher President. He is going to meet with the Principal soon. It appears that in addition to teaching, Dave will be trying to establish a school library (more on that later).
He purchased a Beninese cell phone today. His neighbor said that he has a generator and can charge his phone for him, So, phone calls are in order for those so inclined! Same number as posted here.
We asked about his first day today in Kemon. It started with a thorough sweeping of the house with help from lots of the neighbors. He then played soccer with the local kids. He washed his laundry ( a 3 hour ordeal) and to his credit he refused help from the neighbors. He went into town to pick up a phone, and then watched people go by at the one intersection in town. And oh yes, neighborhood children came to visit and Dave learned a lesson, don't leave pens out in the open! Every one of his pens were gone after they left! Evidently they really do cherish American writing utensils! guess he should update his "wish list"!
So, it appears all is well in Kemon! and hopefully Dave will be able to put new "lyrical" posts up soon. MJ and D Cowell
As I’m writing this blog, I’m eating one of the last “oilomelettes” that I’ll ever eat in this country. This is the only way to describe the amount of oil that goes into preparing every Beninese food item, but I’m grateful that my homestay family was kind enough to provide me with this. Sadly, the baguette that I’m eating will also be one of the last – I only have small loaves of sweet bread available in Kemon. My homestay mom is convinced that today’s stomach problems (mild, mind you, but there are problems) are caused solely by the pimont (spicy pepper) that I ate last night, but I can think of a litany of other possible instigators. Anyway, my homestay family is presently singing the “Dave is sick in the stomach” song and my mom just described how my ass is on fire. I have 3 more nights here. I’ll miss this family.
Tomorrow is swear-in, which is the day in which we all officially become volunteers. We get paid our sizable move-in allowance, go to a “fancy” dinner, and party the night away. All of us are more than ready to get started (at certain points during the last two months, I felt as if I was no more than 12 years old), but I also recognize that I’ll miss my homestay family, my volunteer friends, and having most of my meals cooked for me. Moving to post brings a whole new set of problems: how to find food; how to prepare food; how to get by without electricity or running water; and how to communicate with those who can’t speak French (or English, for that matter). No one even knows exactly when school will start. What we do know is that school will probably start sometime in October.
I will be participating in the “Swearing Song” tomorrow, which will be performed immediately following our formal acceptance speeches. It’s called the “Swearing Song” instead of the “Swear-in Song” simply because of a poor Beninese translation. Many people actually do swear during the song due to the difficulties in singing the unnecessarily difficult French lyrics. I picked up a large Beninese drum called the Djembe yesterday and added another dimension to the song. I wasn’t exactly proficient, but I’ve already got someone searching for a drum maker to get one before I go to post. As for the song, it’s deliciously cheesy. I simply adore it.
As I prepare for my departure, I want to thank everyone for reading my blog. Subscribe to my page! If you have a google account, it’s easy to subscribe. Also, I encourage everyone to leave comments - I love reading about your lives and your reactions to my experiences here. My blogging will be really infrequent during the first three months at post because this is technically the “lock-down” period, during which we’re not supposed to leave our post at all. Keep writing emails during this time! I’m not neglecting you. I actually might try to get my mom to write some entries based on what I tell her when she calls. My thoughts are with all of you as October, my favorite month, approaches. This will certainly be a peculiar Fall.
When one thinks of Africa, there are a few things that typically come to mind. Perhaps you think of strange piercings, crazy languages, lawlessness and no access to water. In movies, whenever people travel to Africa, there’s always a lot of music with some sick drum beats and people dancing everywhere you turn.
This could not be further from reality.
There is ONE store that often blasts music near my CEG, and that music is usually direct from Bollywood. I always note while passing by that this is what Hollywood had led me to believe Africa would be like. And while it’s ignorant to assume that all of Africa is the same (and, to be fair, I don’t think any films have been filmed in Benin), I always feel a hint of regret that my days can’t be filled with drums and dancing. Furthermore, whatever music I hear now will decrease tenfold once I get to Kemon and lose all access to electricity.
But today, we finally held a cross-cultural session that included a local group and local dancers. They dropped beats and sang songs that were typical to mostly the southern regions of Benin. We all went out and made fools of ourselves (some of us more than others) and danced along with the masters of the craft. Some of us exhibited the white man’s lower-lip bite, while others actually showed that we could keep up with some of the more advanced Beninese moves. I think it’s safe to say that most of the dances resembled the movements one would expect to see from a chicken in the process of laying an uncomfortably large egg. Much fun was had by all, and I was even fortunate enough to receive a 25 FCFA piece from my future post-mate Sarah Ellison. I’m not entirely sure what the significance is, but if someone likes what they see they will stick a 25 FCFA piece to your sweaty forehead. I paid it forward, of course. A 25 FCFA piece is worth roughly a US nickel.
In Kemon, I will need to go to church every Sunday if I would like to participate in this type of rowdiness; church is an event that takes approximately 3 hours and involves nonstop singing. As for the other typical African images made famous by National Geographic, they are valid in various degrees. I don’t see interesting piercings around, but most people I see have scarification on their faces. From what I understand, this involves cutting oneself with a razorblade and placing various herbs in the scar so it will heal in a certain fashion. Second, even in the capital city the water shuts off all the time. And third, there is a considerable amount of lawlessness. I have seen, on several occasions, the Beninese take “law enforcement” into their own hands. Also, public urination is an epidemic. I will not disclose here whether I partake in this mild manifestation of lawlessness. While I don’t have any pics of the music session, there will be plenty of opportunities in the coming years. If I need to go to church in order to witness this, c’est la vie.
Yesterday was a day I’ll not soon forget, partially because I’m committing this tale to my blog and partially because it still hasn’t ended (more on that later).
It all started when I arrived at the high school where I teach for our morning class. It’s called a CEG in Benin and the rooms are concrete with open windows. We were visited by a Muslim and a Celestial Christian to teach us a bit about the major religions in Benin. It was interesting to hear from them, but the real fun started when we visited the Voodoo temple I pass everyday on the way to school. There we heard stories of deities who can teleport from Togo, of a spirit that lives in an old tree, and of the sacrificial history of a large wax pile we observed. It was an especially interesting experience for me, because I knew many of the children who lived in the temple; I stop and play soccer with them from time to time on my way home from school. All in all, we only began to scratch the surface of this fascinating facet of Benin’s history. Voodoo practice is limited in Kemon, but I have plenty of friends who live in the places where the large Voodoo fetes take place. You can bet I’ll attend.
We then departed for the stilt village of Ganvie, in which 30,000 people supposedly live. It was the first place I’ve encountered artisanal goods in Benin, so I suppose it’s one of the few tourist draws this country presently has. It was not unlike the movie Waterworld; the children are impeccable swimmers and they can aptly wade beside a boat to ask Yovos for money. The only major drawback is that the people also relieve themselves (in all meanings of the word) in this same water. You can’t walk between buildings, so our itinerary was entirely in the hands of two boat drivers. Thus, we were dropped off at three places which all had (gasp!) local artisanal goods to purchase. Can’t be upset, though, because it really was a cute place. It’s worth a trip if you’re ever in this neck of the woods. If the picture was able to upload, you can see a picture below.
I then headed to the highlight of my day, which was my homestay mother’s fashion competition in Cotonou. It was held at the Palais de Congres, which you also may be able to view below depending on the internet speed. This building is gigantic and totally out of place in Benin. In fact, it was the first building I’d encountered that had more than 3 stories. I was very impressed that my humble homestay mom had been issued an invitation to participate in this event. She told me to get there before 7, so I rode a zemidjan there by 6:30PM. Here’s the rest of the schedule.
8:00 - Scheduled start of the night’s festivities.
9:00 – They commence preparations to get powerpoint working
9:15 – The emcees start to introduce themselves. They stop and continue again 10 minutes later.
10:15 – The rest of my homestay family arrives to support their mother. They have not missed a thing. The participants have yet to be introduced.
10:30 – Participants introduced. There are some designers dressed in extremely bizarre outfits. I wonder if the Beninese really don’t believe that homosexuality exists, which is what we’ve been told.
Throughout the evening, various “singers” and dancers came forward to perform entire Beninese songs, which means that they lip-synced and did the typical Beninese dance – this consists of mild hip-thrusting and arm movements that resemble the chicken dance. Every single time someone busted a move Beninese style, the crowd stood up and cheered. One performer, a heavyset woman with limited mobility, lip-synced to three songs throughout the evening. They were still cheering the third time, which happened to be at 4:00 in the morning. I can think of no logical reason for this to happen, but nobody in the crowd had left by this time, and nobody seemed frustrated.
One of the emcees was a storyteller who told many longwinded jokes. On three (count them: one, two, three) separate occasions, he told a joke about yovos (white people) not understanding the local language. Every time he embarked on a joke like this, everyone laughed and the woman next to me would say, “He’s talking about you yovos not knowing Fon.” It was an awkward but amusing experience for all involved.
There were 32 separate designers participating and 16 models to wear their clothes. I got the impression that the speed of clothes-changing behind the curtains was a bit slower than American fashion shows, because every model had at least an hour to change their clothes before they needed to reappear. The same song is restarted every time that a new model walks out in a new designer’s clothes. They are encouraged to move at a turtle’s pace, so I witnessed several instances when a model spent over 4 minutes walking on the catwalk. What determines whether an outfit is award-worthy? As far as I can tell, you don’t stand a fighting chance of winning the popular vote unless you can tear off at least 4 parts of your outfit and, essentially, render it entirely impossible to wear in public in this conservative nation. The closest the auditorium came to a riot last night was when a man tore off the front of his boomba and had the Beninese flag drawn on the back.
I slept through much of this, as did a quarter of the crowd. If the person you knew was not being showcased in any given moment, it was completely acceptable for you to put your head back and start snoring. My homestay sister, in fact, probably watched 5 minutes of the ceremony because our domestique poked her to wake her up for her mother. Anyway, each designer only showed two outfits apiece, and it was 4:00AM before they were finally ready to announce the winners. The results? My mama won 3rd! She got a slammin’ African medal and a television. The first prize winner actually won a motorcycle, so this was no Podunk affair. This made the entire night worth it, because she’d been telling me all week that she wasn’t excited because she wasn’t going to win. I’ll be honest – public opinion was not working in her favor, but the judges liked what they saw. Congratulations, homestay mama!
We finally walked out the doors at about 5:00AM. My homestay sis informed me that we needed to walk awhile to try to find a taxi. What this meant was we needed to find zemidjans to take us to the local market, where we needed to wait until 6:30AM before we could depart. Needless to say, I was not informed of this timeline. I figured that I was in for a long night when (at 7:30PM) I told my homestay mom that I didn’t need to eat then because I could eat when we got home. She laughed at me and said we would not be eating tonight. She was correct. We arrived at our house at 7:30AM, an hour and a half after I usually wake up. Nobody seems tired today. Thus, the title of this blog: turn and face the strange. David Bowie is a visionary.
This is the phrase we hear every evening: have you done a little? If you've washed your clothes, gone to the bank, greeted your neighbors or made a meal, you have done a little. I always reply, "Un peu, un peu." Small, small. My family often uses this term to tell me to take it easy. When I start to wash a huge pile of clothes, my homestay father tells me, smugly, "Small, small. Save some for tomorrow." Needless to say, its not TOO difficult to get used to the Beninese way of life.
Happy Birthday Mags!
Small, small. Every day I improve my teaching during model school. Sometimes I do poorly, but I often do well, and I learn from every experience. The Beninese have a certain way (read: negative) about giving feedback, but you need to just brush it off and continue doing what you're doing. That's what model school is for. So I applaud my friend's successes, even if I didn't really engrain in my students' heads the different scenarios in which one uses "Can you" and "Could you" to request information. Because tomorrow, they'll be there to pat my back. My fellow trainees have been exceedingly good at keeping morale high. It's all we can do, because training is a rollercoaster of highs and lows. Luckily for me, the highs have far outlasted the lows.
Small, small. Do a little and be content. My French is anything but exceptional at the moment. I'm working at it and converse well, but I'm hardly fluent like the last volunteer who was at my post in Kemon. So every day I learn new phrases, I use them, I try new formations. I'm fortunate because I'll still be able to speak a lot of French at my post. There are some volunteers who will have to rely more on their local languages. My local language is a form of Yoruba called Nagot, and I'm hoping to learn it well, but it won't be a necessity right away.
Tonight I'm headed to a fashion show at the Palais de Congres for which my homestay mom is one of the designers. I'm really excited, because this is apparently a big deal. She's been working until the early hours of the morning over the past few weeks to prepare Modeles for this event. It's apparently a competition, and I got a really fancy boomba made for the occasion. Hopefully I'll post the pictures soon.
Some of you have asked about organizing book drives. Every little bit will help, especially since there's a brand new library that's yet to be outfitted! But I'm not sure what to do or how to do this at this time. After I'm at post for a bit, I'll be able to give more information. But I love the support, and I'll definitely be taking advantage of it as soon as I can. After two years, all I hope is to be able to look back on my time here and say, "Oui, j'ai fait un peu."
Above is a picture of my homestay siblings! and below is a picture taken at my post in Kemon, in the Collines. In the picture is the PCV, Rachel and her dog, Rex. Rachel has finished her job there and is returning to the States. Kemon is really beautiful!
And below is moi in my very own Boomba, given to me by my Beninese family!
and this is still the same old Dave! in the beautiful Collines in Kemon!
Some of you may recognize the title of this entry as the lyrics to “Old Man,” a song by Neil Young. I stayed at home with a fever yesterday and spent a little time listening to Mr. Young, for whom I now have a new appreciation. Some of you may know that my father spent some time singing in the Congo with the musical group “Up with People” in the 60s. This blog is dedicated to my father’s experiences in Africa (both past and future) and to his perpetual sense of curiosity, without which I probably would not have experienced half of the things I have by the age of 24. For those who don’t know this song by heart (read: those who aren’t in my nuclear family), 24 is the age of the character in “Old Man.” Coincidentally, this song was also the inspiration for my sister’s Senior Quote in her high school yearbook; for her sake, I will refrain from writing the exact quote. :) My family has been questioning me incessantly about whether or not I have yet received their multiple care packages. As luck would have it, I finally received two of them on the very day that I stayed home sick (and thus, needed them the most). So I treated myself to some chocolate and a semi-recent issue of The Economist. While my life is affected less than ever by the status of obscure developing nations, it still helps me maintain my sanity to keep up with some news. Thanks, guys! During the last couple weeks, I started teaching Model School at the CEG (High School) close to my house. We teach classes of more than 50 kids who come “prepared” with but a tiny blank notebook and writing utensils. Funny sidenote: many of the kids also bring protractors, which they use whenever you ask them to copy circles. As a result, it took some students more than 15 minutes (which I did not give them) to copy the few clocks I drew to teach them time. Digital time will have to suffice from now on. We have several different colors of chalk to use on the board, which is nice, but we don’t have much more than that. Last week I taught some 1 hr sessions, but this week I’ve moved to teaching 2 hr classes. My homestay sister, Ravis, is in my class. I adore her and her friends, but the class demeanor brings to mind the YouTube videos of the food fight at OHS last year. There are methods to mellow the atmosphere, though, and tomorrow I’m going to kick a few kids out of class. Don’t be horrified, it’s much better treatment than they might receive at the hands of another teacher. This paragraph has a surprise conclusion: teaching these kids is going to be fun. Challenging, frustrating, heart wrenching and fun. I’m planning on posting a couple pictures with this post, but it remains to be seen whether they will load in time. The internet is slow here, like the pace of life. A common question one asks at the end of the day is, “Did you do a little today?” The greetings as a whole are humorous exchanges. You are supposed to ask anyone you pass a whole slew of questions, such as: Hello, how are you?; And the morning?; And the house?; And the kids?; And work? As far as I know, nobody ever says that any of these things are less than “good.” This may seem pointless, but it’s necessary if you wish to integrate at all within your community. Most people are able to complete the whole exchange in about 5 seconds anyway, so it’s but a small nuisance. I’m counting my lucky stars thus far, though, because the nuisances have been surprisingly sparse.
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