And Don't Forget to Give Me Back My Black T-Shirt

Actually, I ended up with someone else’s black tee in my bag this week. I believe it belongs to one of our female volunteers. So if you’ve lost a black tee from Old Navy, it’s presently resting at Rohan’s in Parakou.

Simply put, this has been a great week. All of the PSL 22 TEFLers swarmed into Parakou for our PSW (I’m still iffy on the acronym, but it may mean Personal Strategy Workshop.) We stayed in an awesome complex called Centre Guy Riobe, ate copious amounts of delicious food, and were able to catch up and develop some new techniques to try out before the Christmas break. It was reassuring to discover that all of us are going through the same types of problems, successes, and frustrations. It isn’t easy, but there’s always a silver lining. A child’s face reveals the dawn of comprehension or, even better, a desire to learn. A fellow teacher sees me using magazine clippings and songs in class and decides that he, too, wants to cater to the students’ more creative faculties. A woman in the market hears me talking about the possibility of starting a “Savings & Loans Club” and, without my prodding, spreads the word to the rest of the vendors and bolsters support for one of my intended secondary projects. In many ways, life here is easier and more familiar than one would expect.

Take, for example, my cats. I have three. One was left for me by Rachel, and this cat has been instrumental in teaching the other two (named Yawkey and Landsdowne, after the streets surrounding Fenway Park) how to kill the random animals that live in my house. Spiders, crickets, large lizards and mice all fit into this category. I had some problems potty-training them, but I discovered that I need to refill the sand in the litter box every day in order to assure compliance. They’re picky eaters and don’t like to cuddle with me, but I hope all of this will change over the next couple of months.

Then there’s the food. I love yam pillet, which is just boiled yam pounded repeatedly until the starch is an unrecognizable gelatinous disk. You eat it with meat (usually the innards of some local animal) and peanut sauce. Sound good? It is, believe you me. I ate yams of various sorts 5 times within a 2-day period last week. The result was not pretty, but I haven’t learned my lesson; I’m anticipating the yams upon my return to Kemon ce soir. I also eat a lot of rice, beans, tomatoes, and onions, all mixed with various spices either left by Rachel or sent from home (hence my new appeal for various American spices).

It’s hard to believe I’ve already been at my post for over two months. I get along really well with my fellow volunteers, and I’m grateful that most of them ended up being much more down-to-earth than I’d anticipated. I’ll be off to Mali on the 22nd, but I hope to update my blog once more before then. I’m planning on really engulfing myself in my lesson planning over the next three weeks, so hopefully I’ll be able to report some improvements. My friend Ali Cumber is flying down from Dubai (I think) to meet up with us for a few days around New Years. Hope everyone’s Thanksgiving was to their liking. We made a Turducken with turkey, duck, and pentard, and had an enormous spread that rendered all of us relatively useless for the rest of the evening. I killed the duck, which is the first time I’ve ever “killed with the intent to eat.” Don’t hold it against me. Best wishes to you all! -Dave