Before I left for my first in-service training I accompanied the Japanese volunteer in my town to a primary school to give nutrition and hygiene lessons. It was a nice ten-minute bike ride away on a dirt road. With the first lesson on nutrition I got to see how she presents the information and compare it to what we health volunteers were taught in our training. It was actually pretty similar and I was able to help out quite a bit. The students enjoyed the activities and seemed to understand the importance of including all of the food groups into one’s meals. With the second class I watched her give a presentation on hygiene. The kids looked at pictures and answered questions and then drew their own pictures depicting what they learned about hand washing and keeping one’s living space clean.
One the way back to town, I must have gotten a flat tire somewhere along the way but I didn’t notice it until the next day. I had to wait to get it fixed until I returned from my trip, and I wasn’t looking forward to fixing it by myself. A few days after I came back from the training I told my work partner about my bike. He mentioned that there is a man near the market who repairs bikes. This was great news! I should have thought of this earlier because there are quite a few people who ride bikes here. So that afternoon I started pulling my bike up the street when a man called to me from across the street. The bike repair man was there just across the street from my concession! He immediately started working on the flat tire and appeared to perform all of the steps we were taught during training. I paid him 300 CFA and was on my way! It was wonderful to have him so close by and now I don’t have to fend for myself when I get a flat!
In-Service Training:
My first week- long training in Parakou went well. It’s the second largest city in Benin but yet doesn’t have a city feel. It’s spread out with a lot of dirt roads and it’s not very noisy compared to Cotonou. On the other hand, the main market was big and very crowded. The main differences between northern and southern Benin are the weather (dry and hot in the north, hot and humid in the south), the Muslim population is much larger in the north, and the people are more laid back and easy going in the north. This is most obvious when you are talking with a zemidjan driver (taxi moto) and bargaining over the price. They are polite and don’t give you a hard time like they do in the south.
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| Market in Parakou |
It was a lot drier up north than in the south and much cooler at night due to harmattan. We have harmattan in the south too but it’s not as extreme as in the north. At night it can get very cold. Volunteers up north report wearing sweatshirts, sock and pants to bed! Harmattan means cool winds that blow from the Sahara desert bringing sand with them. It lasts from about December to January. The rain stopped at the end of October meaning everything is dry and dusty. It’s important to cover everything and clean more often because of all of the dust. Miraculously, things still grow without rain. There are banana, papaya, mango, and orange trees still producing. However, most other crops are either nonexistent or grown in gardens, making most foods more expensive and less plentiful.
The actual training was helpful but also boring. After being on my own for three months and making my own schedule, it was hard to sit in a conference room all day with little free time for six days. Our work partners came to the training too, which meant that everything was in French. Some helpful things I learned were potential project ideas and how to record my activities for the Peace Corps. I also got to hear from the other health volunteers about what their posts are like. It was also great to hang out with people I hadn’t seen for three months or less. Parakou is also one of the four Peace Corps workstations in the country. It was nice to have it close by to have as a place to relax, use the internet, and other amenities. By the end of the training we were all ready to get back to post and get started on projects!
Holidays:
For Christmas and New Year’s I stayed at my post in Aplahoue. On Christmas Eve I went to the volunteer’s house that is about a ten-minute zem ride away along with another volunteer. We made spaghetti and salad and then watched a movie. The next day we had planned to go to the volunteer’s church but there had been some kind of festival that all of the churches were invited to so there was no one there. We started heading to my post to see if the festival was still going on with no luck. Across the street there was a Pentecostal church with its service still going strong so we headed inside to join them. They helped us find seats and then I recognized a man who works at the health center. He told us that he would invite us to the front to introduce ourselves and sing a song. “He wants us to do what?”, I thought to myself. We decided to sing “This Little Light of Mine”, but after we got up to the front and introduced ourselves, they told us it had to be in French. So we repeated of a couple of lines from a simple song with the words, “mon Dieu est bon” (my God is good). Then we proceeded to dance in a circle as the congregation was singing before dancing ourselves back to ours seat. Aren’t you glad that’s not how we greet our guests at church in the US?
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| My Supervisor's sons in their Christmas outfits |
After church we made our way to my supervisor’s house for Christmas lunch. His wife made our favorite dish of pounded yams with peanut sauce and fish. We hung out for a little while and then their kids showed off their new outfits. Besides attending church on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, Christmas in Benin is a holiday for children (unfortunate I know). Besides making a special meal as for all holidays, children might get a toy and/or a new outfit. My supervisor has three sons, and each of them received a full suit outfit. They looked so handsome all dressed up from head to toe!
For New Year’s Eve I went to mass at the local Catholic church with the Japanese volunteer and a mutual friend at 10PM. It went until midnight at which point the choir led the congregation in singing and dancing to welcome the new year. Afterwards we shared soft drinks and hung out for a little while at a local buvette. After sleeping for a few hours, we all made lunch together, which consisted of pâte rouge (cornmeal mush made with a tomato sauce), fried local cheese, and fried rabbit. Rabbit is a delicacy here and I’ve never had it- so I decided to try it. And? It tasted like chicken but a little meatier. Pretty much any time they serve meat here it’s fried, with the exception of shish kabobs. This goes for fish and cheese too. Afterwards we headed over to my supervisor’s house again but this time for salad. I had bought the salad ingredients the day before (lettuce, carrots, and cucumbers). Then his wife added hard-boiled eggs and a garlicky vinaigrette. Other times, they make salad with cooked spaghetti, and boiled potatoes and carrots, which is odd but tasty. It’s custom to eat salad with baguettes and is one of my favorite meals here (especially if there is avocado too!).
That night, I invited a few friends from town over and help me make a chocolate cake. They enjoyed helping and while it was baking I taught them how to play UNO. It was nice to have people over for a little while and share some American culture. The Japanese volunteer also shared some of here culture with mochi rice squares traditionally eaten on New Year’s Day for good luck.
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Food:
December was full of learning about traditional Beninese food and to finish it off I went to a part of town not too far from my house to watch the making of a local snack. They are fried peanut butter rounds, but the process of making them is a lot more involved than it sounds. In this part of the country they are made into circles before frying, but in other parts they’re just sticks. They start by grilling the peanuts in a dry pot. Then they take them to be ground into peanut butter. In a large basin they start working the peanut butter with their hands by adding water and mixing. Eventually the batter turns darker and becomes a large mass that separates from the oil. Then the oil is pressed out over a large wooden slab. The dough is formed by adding a little corn flour and then it can be rolled out and shaped into rounds. After they are left alone for a while they are fried in the same peanut oil. I helped them roll them out for a little while. The whole process takes all day and the women take turns with the work. After we rolled out a portion of the dough they served me a lunch of pâte with a sauce made from palm nuts and small dried fish.
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| Making "klui klui" or fried peanut butter snacks |
Like I mentioned before, this time of year is very dry, making fresh produce less available. This is when gardens start producing a lot of food. I am lucky enough to have three gardens in my town and all within walking distance. They’re not very big but they usually have something available such as cabbage, lettuce, leafy greens, carrots, and bell peppers. One time when I visited I got red bell peppers which are pretty much nonexistent here! If you find them in the market they are always green, so I was very excited to find them. I am still enjoying working my way through our Peace Corps Benin cookbook, but I also eat with my supervisor’s family quite a bit. Sometimes they let me help them prepare the meal and other times I hang out with the kids.
Gasoline Situation:
In the beginning of January, there was a bit of a gas crisis here. All of the gas in Benin comes from Nigeria. They suspended a subsidy on gas for Benin so the price sky-rocketed overnight. The highest it got in Aplahoue was 1,200 CFA per liter when it used to be 325CFA. I went to Cotonou one weekend and ended up paying one and a half times more than usual for the taxi. All of the zems were pricey too, on top of the normal higher prices in the city. Everyone had to get gas at the gas stations which are very rare and only found in towns and cities. Most of the time people get their gas on the side of the road that is stored in glass bottles and plastic jerry cans. The lines, as one can imagine were very long, stalling travel. Afterwards, the price started to come down slowly but it still hasn’t reached where it used to be. During the first couple of weeks I limited my travel as much as possible.
Projects:
I’ve done two health presentations with a local orphanage so far. There are about 12 boys and girls living there with one woman in charge. The social promotion center makes referrals to it and is responsible for providing certain services. The kids are sweet and have participated well. The first time I talked about the three food groups and most recently hygiene. Afterwards I taught them out to play fruit salad, a kind of musical chairs game that they enjoyed. I gave the same presentations to the younger girls who live at the Catholic boarding house. They also played a relay game with hand-washing. They were excited to participate and loved the games, even the older girls.
I started a girls club at the secondary school in January. There are 21 girls representing each of the seven grades. They were chosen based on their grades, making them good role models for their peers. The goal is to lead discussions on topics that are important in their lives right now, and then they can share the information with other girls. So far no one is rude or disrespectful. Instead, they are quiet and keep all eyes and ears on me. With my French level and lack of experience leading a girls group this is more intimidating than it sounds! Luckily, as we’ve gotten to know each other they are starting to speak up and the older girls are good at explaining the lessons and games to the younger ones. We’ve talked about stereotypes for boys and girls, study skills, and role models. In the next few weeks I’m also hoping to have some debates and start playing some sports together.
In addition to the girls club, I’ve started practicing for a local spelling bee in English with a group of students. In recent years, volunteers have organized an English Spelling Bee for students in their first, second, or third year of English. Each volunteer that participates brings one girl and one boy winner from their local spelling bee to a national competition. At my post, every Friday afternoon, we practice using a list of possible words. I also have a local English teacher helping me. It’s got to be difficult spelling with the correct pronunciation, but they are trying and hanging in there so far! We have a few more weeks before we hold the local bee. Afterwards I will continue to practice with the winners until the national bee.
I have been spending a lot of time working with the health center. During the months of December and January I accompanied the nurse’s aide to surrounding villages to give vaccinations to infants under one year old. I also helped with the vaccinations on Mondays held at the health center. We’ve also started to weigh babies during this time. It is an easy way to track an infant’s health and catch any drop in weight before it becomes a grave situation like malnutrition. It is recommended to continue the weightings up until the child is five years old. This seldom happens because vaccinations stop once children have reached twelve months. Anyways, it’s an improvement from what they were doing before which was just giving vaccinations. Now I want to extend this practice when they do vaccinations in the villages and to include older children too.
The health center has some new staff members including a new doctor and head nurse. So far they really seem like hard workers and want to make improvements to the center. They are happy to have me working there too and told me they wanted me to expand where I work there. So, for the month of February I’m helping at the maternity area, specifically where they do prenatal consultations. I watched the first few times to get a feel for what they do. Later I started helping them fill out the patient forms and giving short health presentations to the women. I’ve given health messages on malaria prevention, exclusive breast feeding, and nutrition during pregnancy. They usually have about eight women each day, with more women coming on Mondays and less on Fridays. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done in the maternal health field, which is why it is a main focus for health Peace Corps volunteers. Many women don’t come for a consultation until the third trimester of the pregnancy. Even if they do come for consultations, some women still have the birth at home which can be dangerous. Women who come for their first consultation get a mosquito net, and everyone takes two doses of malaria-prevention medicine during their pregnancy. They are also prescribed iron and folic acid supplements.
Funeral:
I went to a funeral for my neighbor’s uncle in January. It was a large funeral because he was old when he passed away. The festivities went on for weeks! I attended on the day of the actual funeral when they had the burial. He passed away in October and they kept the body at the morgue at the hospital until January! During this time, they were announcing the funeral, giving family members living all over Benin and in surrounding countries enough notice to come. They also constructed a small house where the coffin was to be placed in the floor. This is traditional I’ve been told and is a way to have the dead close to you. Families spend a lot of money on funerals, and every member is required to participate. On the day of the funeral they brought the body to the burial site and kept it in an air-conditioned display case for everyone to visit. The casket was open and the body was dressed in all white, with only white netting over it. My neighbor took me into the room to stand next to the body and have my picture taken. I tried to not look too disgusted and got out of there as soon as I could! They also had dancers and deejays providing entertainment with lots of food and drinks.
For this occasion, I dressed in the same fabric pattern as the friends and family. As with any party or celebration, everyone buys the same pattern and wears it on the day of the celebration. It is a sign of solidarity and people continue wearing it long after the festivities are over. Everyone was impressed and excited to see me wearing the same tissu (fabric)! The next day the women all prepared pounded yams with sauce and meat for all of the guests. They cooked all day long, with a constant flow of people showing up. I helped where I could and played with the kids.
The last time I was in Cotonou, my netbook was waiting for me in my mailbox! I had it sent to the states via a volunteer that was going home for Christmas to be repaired and everything went smoothly. It is so nice to have it back. On the other hand, I think it was a blessing in disguise that I didn’t have it during my first few months at post. It gave me more time to get to know my community and to read.
At the start of this adventure in Benin I couldn’t see myself getting attached to the people, food, or places. But, I’ve already started to see that change. I’m very used to the food by now, and obviously I’ve met some pretty nice people. I’m used to where I live and how to get around. There are even quite a few things I would think about bringing home to share with friends and family.
Gaani and a trip up north:
I got to take my first vacation in Benin in February thanks to my supervisor. We went up north to Kouandé where he was the director of the social promotion center for eight years. As to be expected, he knew a lot of people there both in town and in surrounding towns and villages. We stayed with some of his good friends who were amazing hosts. The food was great, they let us borrow their moto to visit some surrounding villages, and they helped me find some items that you can only find in the north such as shea butter and honey. When I mentioned I wanted to get some peanut butter too, which is more plentiful up north, they bought some from the women that make fried peanut butter snacks. They gave me a huge jar and refused to let me pay for it! One day I complemented the wife on her outfit. On the day before we left she presented an outfit just like it to me as a gift! They also gave me a bag of large onions and a day planner. These people were so generous and welcoming I am still shocked and humbled by it. They made me feel like I was part of the family and they had just met me. I also had fun getting to know their kids and the wife’s sister who is my age. When we arrived my supervisor gave them a large bag of oranges, many loaves and different varieties of bread, avocadoes, powdered milk, and canned rice pudding. Gift giving is important to say the least.
The journey up north takes about a day but it isn’t too painful. From my house, I take a short zem ride to the taxi park in the town where I do most of my shopping (2 miles away). Then I wait for a taxi that’s going to the closest town where the buses depart from. This can take an hour or longer to wait for the taxi to fill up, so if you’re in a rush you can take the hour-long ride by zem directly to the bus park The buses leave somewhere between 10 and 11AM for a number of cities in the north. They range in luxury from the new buses with air-conditioning and a TV to those that are older and need more upkeep. Buses are a nice way to travel because you are guaranteed your own seat, unlike taxis where they put at least one extra person in each row. They are also safer because they can’t go as fast as cars. Additionally, you know your bags are safe because they are inside the bus, not strapped to the top or back of a taxi. Whenever the bus stops, there are always women waiting to sell you whatever local goods they have prepared or some cold water. Many times you don’t even have to get out of your seat because sellers board the bus or hand items through the windows.
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| One of the Princes at Gaani festival |
The town we stayed in was a good size with all of the necessities. It was the capital of the Bariba kingdom in its day and there is still a palace where the king, queen, and princes stay. Every year there is a festival called Gaani which includes the Bariba princes riding and racing their horses and wearing elaborate costumes. The same festival takes place in a few different towns in the north. We went and watched for a couple of hours in between visiting my supervisor’s friends around town. That night was the annual Miss Gaani pageant. I suppose it was similar to pageants in the US. There were seven girls competing by performing a traditional dance, modeling, and answering questions. The winner got a brand new moto.
The next day we visited an environment volunteer in a village about 10km away. He showed us his post and the gardening projects he has in the works. Then his work partner shared with us some home-made millet beer and wasa wasa- a couscous-like dish made from dried yam flour. That evening we took the moto to a town about an hour down a dirt road. There is a volunteer there who teaches English at the secondary school. We talked to her for a little while about her activities, including her team of students that give health presentations to other students. It’s a project called Amour et Vie (Love and Life) and is something I hoping to start later this year. Despite the difficult travel conditions (dust, bumpy road, nightfall on our way back, and the aches from riding a moto for so long), it was very scenic with lots of open land, small villages, trees, and cows grazing. The vegetation consists of more scrub brush and tall grasses. In addition, there are also many stone deposits, hills and small mountains that we don’t have in the north. This adds to the beauty of the region and some people make a living selling the stones or turning it into gravel. The geography reminds me of places in the western United States, which of course I think is picture-perfect.
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| This one decided to wave at me! |
The rest of our stay in Kouandé was spent visiting friends and seeing more of the town. For the last day of the trip we went to Natitingou, the most prominent town in the region. It’s a nice quiet town with all of the amenities and none of the hustle and bustle of Cotonou. I got to do some shopping and visit the Peace Corps workstation where I used the computer, checked out the library and sent off some paperwork to Cotonou (where the main Peace Corps office is). They get a lot of tourists in this town because it’s not far from one of the two national parks in Benin where people can take safaris. During my trip I got to enjoy my fair share of igname pile (pounded yam) with all different types of sauces. People eat this more than they eat pate in the south and it is a lot less expensive. People also eat a lot more meat than they do fish because it is more available. It wasn’t a problem to find substitutions for me such as eggs, cheese, tofu, and some fish. Overall, it was a worth-while trip and I got to experience the generous northern hospitality.
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| Some huts in the north |
