Happenings in March 2012

March 17^th, 2012

Some interesting opposites in culture:

Hissing or whistling is a perfectly acceptable way to get someone’s attention, mostly by zem drivers trying to recruit passengers.

Finding change is a constant problem. Unlike in the States where you will do anything possible to get rid of it, here there is always a shortage. Most things that people buy here cost less than 1,000 F CFA. Anything less than 1,000 is in coins.  Therefore, if you try to pay for something that costs maybe 200, it will be difficult to give anything bigger than a 1,000 bill. It’s not uncommon to have a seller walk around to find someone to make change for you before you can make a purchase. Sometimes zem drivers will try to get you to pay more by saying “il n’y a pas la monnaie” (there is no change).  But, instead of giving in I say if they can’t go and find change I’m not paying them! It really takes some planning to make sure you don’t get yourself in a situation where all you have are large bills. There almost as worthless as not having any money! At the bank, we have to plead for the tellers to give us smaller bills too. Certain boutiques as well as places that sell phone credit are usually good places to break large bills. 

For women, the major hairstyles are weaves, braids, or a very short, shaven head. The weaves are called “mesh”. They are fake hair that you pick out at shops before going to a local hair dresser.  The “mesh” is braided into the woman’s existing hair. This process can take hours- easily a whole afternoon!  Some hairstyles look somewhat natural and others completely unnatural.  Some have brown, bronze, or purple pieces in them too. They can last anywhere from one week to three months depending on how well they keep it and if they like it. One funny thing about having mesh is they can’t scratch their head or it will mess it up. Instead you see women tapping their heads with the palm of their hands, which I find quite funny.

Young girls, students, and many adults keep their heads shaven.  It’s the most easy, inexpensive, and easiest to keep clean style. It is recommended for girls in school because they save a lot of time and money by not going to the hairdresser. 

My favorite look for women here is in braids. They braid it in all different ways into their head, so that only a small piece sticks out at the ends.  It can stay for about a week like this.  It’s simple, neat, inexpensive, and beautiful!

Sports Competition:

The Japanese volunteer in my town put on a sports competition at one of the local primary schools a couple of weeks ago. Each grade was divided into three teams, and each grade competed in a different activity. The two youngest grades did a dance competition, seeing who had the best dance moves to piece of local music.  Another grade did a baton relay race, and the last threw balls into a basket that was balanced on an adult’s head.  The kids had a lot of fun and I enjoyed helping and watching.  A group of Japanese volunteers from the area came too.  They were all very nice and fun to hang out with. We talked about Benin, the US, and Japan.  Some spoke a little English, but we mostly communicated in French.

Voodoo Celebration: 

I also got to watch a local voodoo ceremony that week.  I heard they have it every two years, but I’m not sure exactly what they were celebrating. All of the voodoo initiates of the neighborhood sang and dance to the drumming and wore special outfits and jewelry. I didn’t get to stay long because it started to rain, but it was interesting!

Live Birth:

At the health center, it was a typical Monday. I finished helping with the vaccinations and baby weighing and was heading over to “saluer” (say hi) to the women working at the maternity ward.  I said I could stay for a little while to help with the prenatal consultation paperwork. After the first woman, the nurse said she needed to go and check on a woman in labor. I had been hearing her from the room next door since my arrival but not realized what was happening. I asked if I could go with her and she agreed.  I suppose the nurse figured out the woman was coming along because she told her to move into the birthing room. This meant the poor woman had to get up and walk to the table in the next room by herself! She wasn’t fully dilated so all the nurse could do was keep the woman clean and get her tools ready. Just a few minutes later, she was ready to deliver. We saw the crown of the head make its appearance and then the woman and the nurse worked together to push/pull the baby out.  The baby didn’t make any sounds at first and was blue in some parts.  The nurse cut the cord and brought the baby over to a table with lights to start cleaning it off. Eventually, it started crying and the placenta came out. That was it! Quick and easy J I just stood back and watched it all, although the nurse wanted me to reach my hand in and feel the baby before it came out.  I politely refused!

International Women’s Day 2012:

For this holiday, people celebrate in a variety of ways all throughout Benin.  For many international days such as this, the celebration looks the same in my town. In the center of town, they put up tents, chairs, and a banner explaining the event.  Many important people from the town, county, and department are invited.  For this event, groups of women from each part of the department were invited too.  A few women’s groups danced and sang. Later some important people like the mayor and a representative from Cotonou spoke.  All of this took all morning and went until after 1PM. Also, celebrations like this never start on time. It’s not uncommon to start two hours late!

To continue the celebration, I visited a village not too far away.  A man who works with the Peace Corps for part of the year invited all of the volunteers from the region for his event. It was a discussion about women’s development, reducing poverty, and achieving their goals.  He invited women’s groups from the surrounding villages to share what projects they are working on. Some were using sustainable farming techniques, others made cassava/manioc flour, and another produced loofahs that are sold to Europe. They also wanted to hear from us and our thoughts on women’s development.  We explained the importance of girls’ education, having positive role models, and what kind of attitude and behavior is helpful to reach one’s goals.  They were so happy that we came to talk with them and they showed it by singing and dancing. Of course, they invited us to join them! Afterwards, we saw a library in town where girls can rent and share textbooks for the school year. Then they fed us a huge lunch of rice, beans, and boiled eggs.  

That day was the birthday of one of the volunteers.  After the event was over, some of us headed to a volunteer’s house to celebrate. We took zems (taxi motos) to the town next to where I live.  Then we went to the taxi park to wait for a taxi to the town where another volunteer lives. There were five of us, which meant theoretically we could fill up a small taxi and go without waiting for other passengers. However, supposedly the next taxi in line to go was an eight-person taxi. Whatever the problem, all of the drivers started yelling and couldn’t decide who was going to take us. We couldn’t figure out what the problem was (they were speaking Adja) or what we should do.  After a couple minutes we were told to get in a car, but then others told us not too! We eventually got in, but with much effort and many of the men still didn’t want us leaving in that taxi. To add to this adventure, when we were five minutes away from our destination we got a flat tire. The driver borrowed a moto to go into town and left us by the side of the road for over an hour. When he came back, he had a tire in hand.  In less than two minutes he had the new tire on and we were ready to go!

That evening we shared the birthday cake and sang “happy birthday” to the volunteer.  Then we went out to find a cold drink and something to eat for dinner. 

Girls Club:

I invited a nurse from the health center to come and talk to my girls.  She did a wonderful job, which of course made me very happy!  She talked about STDs and HIV.  Many of the girls had already learned a lot about the topic at school, but there are some younger girls who I’m hoping learned from the older ones. They asked a lot of questions and when I posed review questions at the end they responded well. The nurse and I worked well together too. To say thank you, I made her a chocolate cake. 

During the presentation, my supervisor from the Peace Corps called me to say he was fifteen minutes away from my post. I told him I was at the secondary school.  He came a few minutes later to give me invitations for me and my work partners for the next training in April.  He said hello to the nurse and the girls and left. It was late notice but at least he got to see me working!

Other things going on:

I just submitted my first Volunteer Reporting Form. It’s an electronic program to track all of my activities as a health volunteer. We complete two every year.  It was exciting to see everything I’ve done so far in one document.

The Peace Corps doctor visited me last week. It was his first and only visit to my post during my service. He made sure my living conditions were adequate, and asked me some questions about my health. Then we visited the zone hospital that is about a two-minute drive from my house. We met with one of the three doctors to explain that if there was an emergency I would go there.

In the past few weeks there have been many applications available for various positions and projects. I have applied to be a trainer for the incoming group of volunteers, to be on a food security task force, to be a representative of the peer support network, and to have a student-lead health team in my community. I am excited to see which ones I get to participate in and to have some more responsibilities!

Cotonou:
 
I spent this weekend in Cotonou. We had a meeting for the summer camps were are having in the summer to divide up the duties.  I also made some errands, went out to eat, and enjoyed seeing my fellow volunteers.  For St. Patrick’s Day, some of us wore green, and a group went out to celebrate at one of the restaurants. 

I was so excited to spend the weekend in Cotonou this past time. I hadn’t been there since January and I felt like I needed to get away for a few days. The balance between being at post and being away can be difficult.  Having a continuous presence makes it easier to integrate and get acquainted with one’s community. The locals get used to having a volunteer available to help work on projects, while the volunteer gets into a work rhythm and gets a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the community.  On the other hand, volunteers need to leave every once in a while for a number of reasons. Since most volunteers live at a distance from other volunteers, making visits to other posts or workstations allows us to see our fellow American comrades. In my experience, this contact is needed at least once a month.  Although we do use our cell phones to call and text, many times it doesn’t suffice.  Other reasons for leaving post include visiting the doctor’s at the Peace Corps office in Cotonou, going to the bank, participating in all types of trainings and meetings, vacations, projects (such as summer camps), and other work reasons.  I’ve found that I have more reasons for leaving post lately other than just for a weekend away.  Like I mentioned before, there are a lot more opportunities for positions, roles, and projects available to use first year volunteers now.  My training group will soon be the leaders for the new group of volunteers coming in June as well.

While in Cotonou, I visited the local artisans market. It’s in walking distance from where we volunteers stay and very touristy-looking.  It is surrounded by a colorfully painted fence and inside are all sorts of huts and buildings filled with anything a tourist could desire. They are items that can be found in many cities all over Benin, and probably West Africa.  You can buy wooden statues,, jewelry, drums, masks, paintings, and purses to name a few. Every stand or store has similar items and each merchant calls out for you to come and take a look at his wares. They even try to use their limited English vocabulary to draw you in. “Don’t worry, I give you good price”, and “It is very nice, you will like it” are some of their tactics.  It got overwhelming pretty fast with so many people begging for your attention and so many items to look at. On top of that, I had no idea how much things were supposed to cost. I knew they were giving us ridiculous prices since we were at a tourist stop and we are foreigners.  I decided to get some advice from other volunteers before draining my meager Peace Corps salary.  Afterwards, one of them told me to ask yourself how much you think it’s worth and not focus as much on its “real” price. Another said to divide the given price by at least three! Next time, I’ll be ready to put my bargain face on! 

I also took advantage of being in Cotonou by going to a tailor that works in an ex-patriot/international neighborhood. He is used to making clothes with European style.  He even has a booklet of magazine cutouts with design ideas.  I brought him some “basin tissu” that I found in my market.  It’s a shiny, fancier tissu (fabric) that people wear on special occasions. I picked out a simple dress pattern with some embroidery on the waist. I’m going to wear it for the annual Gender and Development fundraiser that volunteers organize in May. Surprisingly he didn’t try to rip me off too much and we set the date for my return, less than a week later.

After the weekend, I spent two days at post before heading back to Cotonou. I scheduled to see the doctor on Wednesday because I had to go to a training anyways from Thursday to Sunday.  After the appointment I spent the rest of the day and the next morning working with my training assistant on my current health project. It involves training women leaders in a local village to work with mothers with children under five and pregnant women.  Each leader will share a health message and stay updated on the health of the children each month. With the training assistant, we put together the materials the leaders will use and a survey that I will use to get baseline information about each household. Any time I give a presentation here, I try to use images, or boîte à image instead of materials with words.  We can’t assume that the people will be able to read or understand French. The images allow the message to be given in any language and reinforce the message.  I was so grateful for the assistant’s help. I knew she had a lot of other work to do but she took the time to work with me. 

After I finished getting all of my project materials together, I headed out to lunch with a few other volunteers. We went to an Indian restaurant in the expat neighborhood that is familiar with volunteers.  The food is delicious and reminds me of home (although the chutney doesn’t quite compare to Nikki’s Indian!) I split chaana masala and cheese naan.  Then we walked down the block to the tailor’s.  He had finished my dress and after a couple of small alterations we were on our way.  One other volunteer and I were headed to the capital, Porto Novo for a local language IST (In-service Training).  We found one of the dozens of vans that shuttles people back and forth between Cotonou and Porto Novo and we off.  In less than an hour we were back to where we had our training in Benin last year.  It was our “home sweet home” of sorts for eleven weeks, and now we were coming back- all grown up! 

We stayed at a place called Songhaï, where we occasionally had training last year.  They have a hotel, internet café, conference rooms, and restaurants, in addition to raising all types of crops and animals. We got to stay in the nice rooms with ceiling fans and air-conditioning (that worked some of the time). It was nice to be back to someplace that was familiar. We also realized how nice of a place it is, which we couldn’t have known until after being in the country for a few months.

Starting on Friday, we had local language training with our tutors.  The tutors had been there since Monday, learning teaching techniques and methods. For many of them, they have never been formally taught their first languages, which make teaching it to English-speakers very difficult. They have to in affect learn their own language in terms of structure and grammar before they can teach it to others.  Unfortunately, my tutor didn’t come until Friday. He was given a short summary of the training for a couple hours before he started practicing with me.  There were nine volunteers participating. It was a perfect size for this sort of training, especially since it was Peace Corps Benin’s first time doing it.  I found the training very helpful.  The facilitators helped me and my tutor a lot and taught us new teaching/learning methods.  They want the tutors to use as little French as possible, by using the local language with gestures and drawings to get across the meaning. At the end of the training we each made goals for our tutoring sessions for the next three and six months.

We were served breakfast (omelets, coffee, bread, and jam), snacks (juice, soymilk, croissants, and cookies), and lunch (rice, couscous, fish, French fries, fruit, and salad) during the training. It was a real treat to get spoiled with such good food!  For dinner, we were on our own, but found places to eat in the city. 

On Sunday, everyone left to return to their posts. I made a detour by visiting a volunteer outside of the city.  I had to take a zem to another part of the city, where I found another zem to take me to her house.  I got to see her house (which is possibly the biggest one of all of the volunteers) and two other volunteers that were visiting.  I stayed for a couple hours before grabbing lunch and hailing a taxi to Cotonou.  At the taxi park in Cotonou I quickly found a taxi going to Azove (my closest town) and waited for about thirty minutes for it to fill up. It was a nice ride back- not too crammed and it was cool and overcast. I made it home before dark and just before it started raining. 

The balance between being at and away from post that I mentioned before got a bit off balance due to the two weekends away in a row.  Being away for more than a couple days makes it more difficult to come back and get it the swing of things again.  I couldn’t do much about being gone that long because both were legitimate, work-related reasons.  It really helped having things to look forward to at post such as my girls club, spelling bee, and health project in a local village. It also helps knowing that I have plans to leave again in the near future. Next weekend is our regional taco night, and after that I have two more trainings to attend in Porto Novo.  

We’ve been experiencing “chaleur” or hot season in the south for about three weeks now.  This means it’s very humid and the sun’s already penetrating heat feels even hotter. I am constantly sweating. I  take between two and three showers a day. The first is before my afternoon nap at the hottest part of the day, the second one may be in the evening, and I take another right before bed. I have been successful at limiting the use of my fan surprisingly.  I save it for the really hot nights and afternoons and rely on shade, breezes, and showers to cool me off.  I get tired more easily and I’m drinking a lot more water.  Even though it has rained a few times, the long rainy season isn’t here yet. When the rains come, the hot season will end.  In the north, chaleur is a hot, dry, heat. However, due to climate abnormalities, I’ve heard from other volunteers that it hasn’t come yet. 

A nation-wide strike at all of the public schools lasted from the end of January until Monday, March 26^th.  It was confusing, even for the local to understand why.  It had something to do with salaries, of course. Every school has permanent, salaried teachers, and “vacateurs” or for-hire teachers. For the most part, the for-hire teachers kept on teaching.  Depending on a student’s schedule, they might have kept going to class a few times a week, but this only applied for students in secondary school. At the primary school, everyone stayed at home.  The strike manifested itself differently at each school, and wasn’t well-organized.  Every week there were different projections of the end or the next step in discussions. Finally, it officially ended and now everyone is back at school.  This all means that the school year will be extended in addition to having extra classes on weekends and breaks to catch up. For students taking the BAC exam (needed in order to go to university) the date will not change because the same test is given to students in many West-African countries.  We will see how it all plays out and what other consequences show up!

On Palm Sunday I went to my local Catholic church with a student from the secondary school.  Everyone brought a palm branch (the main part, without leaves) and my friend brought one for me too.  The mass was almost completely in Adja, and lasted for three hours. I was very ready to go home and take a nap at the end, but my plans were never realized.  When I arrived at my house, my supervisor called me. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but eventually he handed the phone over to someone else. All of a sudden I heard the voice of a female American on the phone.  “Hi! I was a volunteer in Aplahoue twenty-years ago and I’m here visiting. We’re going to come and pick you up and eat lunch.” Of course I said yes! So, in less than two minutes I was picked up in a car (only on very rare occasions do I ride in a car that is not an old taxi) and we drove up the street to meet everyone for lunch.  I got to meet the returned volunteer and all of the friends that she has kept in touch with over the years.  Her friends were very excited to see her and I could tell that they had been very close.  I have a lot of work to do fill her shoes! We ate pâte rouge together and talked about how the Peace Corps and volunteer life in Benin has changed. She used to work at the social promotion center when it was in a smaller building.  It was such a treat listening to all of her stories and advice (and to be able to speak English with an American!). We made a few visits to other people’s houses around town and then we parted ways. It was a great surprise meeting a volunteer that lived in my shoes twenty years ago.  It was just the thing I needed to keep me going and to give some perspective to my stay here.    

Cultural Tidbits: 

In some local languages (including Adja), yesterday and tomorrow is the same word.  Also, most greetings, like I mentioned during training, are obvious questions.  Are you there? Are you in the middle of doing something? Did you arrive? Did you come back? Any obvious question is fair game!

A common thing I see here in Benin is children living with other family members. For whatever reason, if the biological parents cannot take care of one or more of their children, they are sent to stay with more well off family members. Sometimes their parents separate and the mother doesn’t want to take care of the father’s children anymore. Other times, living with another family member means the children will have better opportunities. If they move to a town, there will be a school close by with better teachers, more items available, and better prospects for jobs. My supervisor is an example of this. He has four children living with him in addition to his three sons. They all go to school and are expected to help with chores around the house.