Adventures and Learning

Sunday, 9 December 2012

I must share a story from yesterday. It will most certainly give you a chance to laugh.

So I have to explain the way my house is set up. My main room and hallway (that leads past my [bed]rooms and to the back private outdoor area) have wooden ceilings; however my two rooms do not. This means that if I close the two doors to the small rooms, a creature can go up into the attic area, and go back and forth between my storage-room and bedroom, but cannot get into my main room. It also, then, cannot leave my house, because the only doors to the outside are located in my main room and at the end of my hallway.

So after washing my dishes and showering last night I came back into my house to discover that a bat had flown in. Bats are really terrifying creatures, just because they swoop about unpredictably. This one happened to have made its way into my small-rooms section, and was flying back and forth over the hallway, above the ceiling. I didn’t know what to do, but obviously I wanted it out. So I decided to open up my back door, hoping it would just fly out on it’s own accord. All this achieved, however, was to invite a second bat to swoop in.

So I am my main room, and the second bat is flying all around above me. I flatten myself on the floor, not knowing what to do but trying to avoid it at all costs. And I reason that since it is flying, the safest place for me is the ground. It decides to fly around in an x-pattern, and to me it appears that it swoops down towards me getting closer every time. Each time it comes near, I offer up a little scream, and a string of profanities, so my neighbors must think I am absolutely crazy.

Finally the second bat decides to fly out of my house. I crawl over to the back door, because don’t forget the first bat is still there. And I don’t want that to fly out and run into me, or whatever. I close the back door. Then I decide to close the doors to my small rooms, thinking, “You know what, I never wanted to sleep in my bed anyway. Or change my clothes. Or whatever else, it’s cool.” But then I realize that’s not true. So I call my carpenter, who had actually been hanging out with me earlier this day. I partially blame him for this problem, because if he had actually finished my screen doors, the bats couldn’t get in. So I don’t feel bad bothering him. So he comes over, and I shove him into my extra room and shut the door behind him. I hear a lot of various noises, and I think something productive must be happening. Finally, he opens the door and says, “Shannon, I just can’t find it anywhere. I don’t think there’s one here.”

I insist that there is, and in fact had seen it when I shoved him in the room the first time. But maybe it had gone over more to the other room, because of the open ceiling. So he goes over there, and with a lot of noise, doesn’t find it. I come in and look at my rooms, which have been completely torn apart. My suitcases, my bed, my trunk, and so on have been moved. I look up at the inside of the roof, and the bat is just chilling tranquilly in the rafters. I point directly at it, and say, “There it is!!!”

At this point we realize that he thought I was talking about a mouse, which in French is “souris”. Where was what I really was talking about, obviously, was the bat, which in French is “chauve-souris,” or literally “bald-mouse.” He had been looking all around on the floor for a mouse while the bat had been flitting overhead.

However, now that I’ve pointed this out to him, I run back out of the room, and leave him to deal with the bat. I hear an unholy amount of clamoring, and then realize that this man is definitely crawling around in the rafters of my house. I’m also not sure how he got up there, because my walls are about 10 feet high or so, just straight cement. Also, I am worried that he is just going to fall through the ceiling, like my dad—or at least my dad’s leg—did once at our house. After a lot more noise, he finally emerges triumphantly with this bat that he had trapped and killed using only the bottom part of a broom and his bare hands. He also pointed out that I had worried unnecessarily about my ceiling, since he is, in fact, a carpenter, and therefore knows very well where he could step, etc. He is my new hero!

And speaking of despicable creatures, I had a guy who came into my work yesterday, and after 5 minutes of talking at me, told me loved me, then got mad at me when I told him I didn’t want to “confide” with him, whatever that was supposed to mean. It got really weird, until I had Anna call me as an excuse to stop talking to him. But the good news is that he actually came back when Hubert was there (I had told Hubert that he scared me), and Hubert told the guy that there were hidden cameras in the office, as well as throughout Kérou. So he told the guy he better watch out! The guy seemed scared by this, and luckily no longer lives in Kérou; he was just there for a few days. But I am glad Hubert was there to scare him off. And he suggested if I ever had a situation like that again, just to tell the guy I was calling Hubert, and start to do it. He promised me that the person would just flee quickly.

Sunday, 19 December 2012

The last week I spent in Parakou, which is the third-largest city in Benin. It is the town I went through the very first time I was headed to Kérou. It is basically in the middle of the country (north to south) but towards the east side.

Getting there is always—well like traveling in this country, hellish. From Kérou, it is entirely dirt roads, except for the last hour, when we finally hit pavement. The driver Anna (she was one of the trainers for the week, but for her sector, which is Environment) and I took was the same one that I had coming from Parakou the very first time. At least this time, however, the van was full to a somewhat reasonable amount. As in only 4 people per bench, instead of 5.

The guy drove extremely slow, averaging about 20 km/hr (that’s about 12 mph) the whole time we were on the dirt road. I get it, the road is terrible. But he could have gone a little faster. Basically we a really, really long time to get to Parakou. And we hadn’t left until 11:30, so it was night when we arrived.

We went straight to this restaurant, owned by an Italian woman. She makes this incredible lasagna, which tasted like the most amazing thing ever, after such a long day of traveling. I mean, it’s pretty fabulous regardless.

The week was actually filled with pretty good food. We got omelets and bread and butter every morning for breakfast, as well as delicious pastry morning and afternoon snacks, plus a good lunch every day. Dinner was on our own, and I got lasagna once more that week, then mostly cheap street-food meals.

Training was mostly dull and actually frustrating. There are obviously necessary things we need to learn. But the way it is presented is in an un-engaging way. We have to do stupid, useless activities. Then when we try to get a good discussion going about the topic, asking questions related to our specific post and potential projects, and giving and asking for advice, we are stopped and told that’s not on the schedule. For example, the last day we spent four hours in the morning completing a hypothetical “Project Design and Management” proposal. Just with us and our homologue. (Like, what does Peace Corps think we’ve been doing the last 3 months? We’ve all been discussing potential projects with our homologues). Really, this would be a great time to have people get together with other volunteers wanting similar-esque projects, and do this together, discussing real—not hypothetical—problems and barriers we might encounter. To top it all off, after lunch we came back and spent two hours basically re-writing exactly what we had worked on in the morning, just putting it on one, congruent paper. Sigh.

Also, this was even harder for me, because Hubert—who is supposed to be my homologue—tells me a day before I left, that he had to actually go to Cotonou to greet the mayor, who is returning from Senegal. So he can’t go. And instead is sending this woman who I have met once before. She is actually pretty cool and really nice. She is involved with a project that makes stoves like the one I bought, which more efficiently use charcoal and/or wood, meaning that women have to spend less time searching for wood, plus it saves trees and cuts down on pollution. It’s great, but it’s already an established project, and going well, so there’s not much I can really do. Plus the whole week was awkward, because I don’t really know her, she doesn’t know me, and both of us are kind of shy.

During training, it was nice, though, to get into specific aspects, like Peace Corps has a “Gender And Development” focus, where we can get grants for projects that specifically target gender in communities, like encouraging girls to stay in school, developing women’s businesses, or starting clubs where boys and girls can talk about gender relations and relationships, etc.

Anna also came and presented on “Food Security”, another huge Peace Corps focus. Although, her presentation got mixed up, because she received an email that said she was supposed to come to our hotel at 10:30, but then on our schedule was listed at 8. So Yves (my Program Director) was presenting for a while, and I thought that maybe he was supposed to, and she was only supposed to be there for the second half. But then he was like, “Well, there’s supposed to be a volunteer from Kérou here, but I don’t know where she is!” NO. ONE. had thought to call her text her when she didn’t show up on time. After that comment, I texted her, and she told me that she was scheduled for 10:30. I showed this text to my Associate Program Director, who just said, no she is mistaken. Then there was just this whole debacle where she ended up just having to come back at the end of the day. Oh, Peace Corps. Your efficiencies amaze me.

We also went to two organizations involved with Shea Butter. Shea is a product only found in a region in West and Central Africa that is south of the Sahara, and extends only a little bit into the Congo. People here actually use Shea Butter a lot for cooking. It’s kind of a base for sauces, like we might use lard or something. (Which Anna has a funny story where she bought a bar of Shea butter in her town, then proceeded to start rubbing it on her skin, right in front of the women. They were absolutely horrified. Imagine if someone in the States just bought some regular butter, then started lathering up. Yeah, weird. Well, the story gave us a good laugh.) Anyway, I bought some Shea butter to use on my burn, so that has been nice. Also, my “homologue” (whose name is Salimatou), bought the scented Shea butter, and mentioned wanting to see if we could encourage women to start doing that. One of the organizations even offers training, so we could see about women raising money to go to Parakou, getting the training, then coming back and passing it on. So there’s another potential thing for me to work on.

We also went to visit an organization that works with Moringa. Moringa is an awesome plant that grows fast and easily, and has absolutely amazing nutritional value. Some people are skeptical of its actual value, while others promote that it can save your life. Moringa is really good in encouraging people who don’t get many vitamins to consume more. But as with anything, one should be cautious to herald it as a miracle plant. I think that Moringa is good but, obviously isn’t a fix-all solution. People still need to eat balanced meals, be taught the value of nutrition, and feeding their kids a variety of food as well.

I got to talk to other volunteers about the frustrations and successes they are having at their sites. I feel a little jealous, since most of them have had the time to actually build good relationships and so on, but I feel like I’ve missed out. But I know that I will just need some time to catch up.

One of the biggest complaints is volunteers constantly being asked for money. By their host organizations and even by their neighbors or other community members. One even suspects that the only reason his organization wanted a volunteer in the first place was that they kind of viewed him as a cash cow to bring in more money. He is frustrated by the fact that the organization is completely unsustainable, and largely relies on donor aid. They build ridiculous buildings and buy motos, and don’t really care about accounting and budgeting, because they know if they run out of money they can just write another grant, and Boom! They have thousands of more dollars.

This is always hard. We need Development to happen in these countries, but Aid, with the best intentions, is often detrimental. Each organization provides maybe a few salaries in the community, but might be unhelpful beyond that. People don’t learn to be sustainable, and certainly don’t learn to develop themselves or their country, and are thus trapped in this cycle of dependency. For some people managing NGOs in Benin, it’s great, because they can sit around in huge buildings built by the French, ride on motos bought by the Belgians, and use computers given to them by the Americans. But for everyone else, it’s not so good. There are organizations out there actually doing good and making differences in people’s lives. But also many of them aren’t. And international aid organizations often can’t or won’t send someone to actually work with an organization for an extended period of time and see if they’re really putting the money to good use. For example, this same volunteer was saying that a donor organization to his organization wanted to see some accounting, which of course they have none. So the donor sent an accountant to do this, his organization gave them some information, and it was done. They got money. But they never actually learned the importance of doing accounting, because now they know they don’t have to, and someone else will just come in and do it for them. This volunteer constantly tries to promote the importance of budgeting. His group asks him to write a grant so they can get motorcycles. He says know. Then they just ask another organization for motos, and Bam! They have motos. Le. Sigh.

We also talked about the gender aspects we have encountered in our communities. On one of our trips, a volunteer and I looked out the window, and counted the number of women who were engaged in some sort of work, and the number of men. We found that almost 100% of the women were working. They might be cooking. Or selling items in a market or along the side of the road. Childcare. Carrying wood or water on their heads (often with a baby on their back at the same time). But so many men were just strolling around, not obviously engaged in any sort of task.

People often don’t see this. For example, the director of the high school in my town believes that girls don’t perform as well in school as boys because they are stupid and lazy. The reality is that when they go home, they are required to cook and clean for their family, and also take care of younger siblings. Then they have very little time left over for homework and studying. Boys have a lot more free time. In a lot of studies, women and girls are far, far more time-constrained then males, especially when you include child-care.

Also, this has ironically led to a belief in my town that there are far more women in the world than men. Like people around here believe that the ratio is 70% women, 30% males. This, they claim, is the reason that men MUST be polygamous. I have tried to explain that this is impossible, because the chances of being born a boy or girl is, say 50%. Then, once kids are born, boys are a lot more likely to receive good health care, and less likely to die. Also, in Africa there is a high rate of maternal morality, which means women are more likely to die as well. So this belief is completely unreasonable, but I think it stems from the fact that women are more visible, since they have to go out and collect wood, take care of their children, etc, etc. Men can go to their office or field, then just come home and lounge.

I also don’t understand this belief, also, because I went out to a bar one night, and it was ONLY men. Like young men showing off for each other, each trying to be the next Michael Jackson. I asked my friend why there were no other women, and he said, “Oh, they can’t come until midnight or later, because first they have to cook dinner, then clean up afterwards.” I really had an inclination to go up to every single man there and slap them, tell them to freaking go home and help the aforementioned women cook and clean, THEN they could all come out together, instead of suffering through this awful sausage fest. Like really, who are you showing off for? Why are you trying so hard to impress other guys with your dance moves? Are you trying to sleep with them? I mean if you are, that’s cool, but if not GET OVER YOURSELF. The problem is, however, that women do eventually have to accept these men, maybe even marry them. Sigh.

So those were some of the issues we discussed, and we talked about all the goings-on at our respective sites, the things we were able to do, and not. We all had to present on our sites formally, and I made some joke powerpoint slides where I presented on Cotonou and the medical ward, since I was actually there for almost as long as I was at my site.

The trip back was terrible, but luckily there were three other volunteers with me. It was Maria, Anna, and Will, who is a volunteer in Pehanco, a town two or so hours south of us. We arrived at the station around early, to make sure we had a car. It was a little Peugot, that is so common as a taxi here and Senegal, and probably every other former French colony in Africa. In Senegal, they are called “sept-places” because they fit 7 passengers. And THAT’S ALL DRIVERS TAKE. But here, no, our driver waited (repeat: WAITED) until he had “filled” it with 12 adults, and 2 kids. This meant that we did not leave until late in the day. Then the driver drove off, from the station, without us, because apparently the taxi stations don’t actually let them shove this many poor souls into one car. But all that happened was that it drove down the block, then loaded up everyone there. I complained that there was nothing we could do about this. People allowed this to happen all the time. We could refuse to take this taxi, but he would just wait until there were more people to take our spots. We could wait until the next day—staying in Parakou and having to pay for it out of our own pockets—but it would still be the exact same problem. At first the driver said that Maria, Anna, and I would all sit in the front seat. The front seat is seen as a privilege, so I guess he wanted the white people to feel special or something. But honestly, it’s uncomfortable, because of the gear-shift and dashboard, plus exceedingly more dangerous. But when we asked this, he said, “No, I am going to put 4 people in the back seat, and you are too fat for that.” We just started laughing. Being “fat” here is a compliment, but still. Besides, according to our math, that doesn’t even make sense: trying to put us 3 “fat” people in 1.5 seats (I say 1.5 because of the gear-shift), rather than putting us with one more person to make it 4 people in 3 seats. Whatever. In the end however, he shoved 4 miserable people and a baby in the back seat, then put us four white people and old, bony Muslim man in the middle row. Then the driver drove up front with three more passengers and a young girl. Trying to fit five people in the middle row was quite a challenge. I was on one end and laid practically sideways. Part of the problem was that Anna, Maria, and I all have hips, so no matter how much “fat” we lose, our bones are not going anywhere, and thus we never really could fit in this car in the normal world. Anna kind of sat forward a little bit, then Maria beside her. The bony man sat a little forward, and Maria swore she would have a very large bruise from where is bones crushed into her thigh with every bounce. Will sat on the other side of the bony man. The door on Will’s side didn’t actually close (probably from having closed on too-full cars for the sad part of it’s life), so they tied it close with a rope. We were off.

This guy drove a little faster, but how fast can you really drive on roads that occasionally have holes that look like moon craters? (I could actually be convinced they were made by meteors). At one point our car started smoking. Like right beside the driver, something was about to catch on fire. He couldn’t quite figure it out, so his solutions kept being to open his door (which seemed to be the source of the smoke) WHILE HE WAS DRIVING and look to see what was happening. We stopped a few times, and he grabbed the wires (which are all exposed, of course), and sometimes wrapped them with plastic from black plastic bags (this is clearly the same as wrapping them with black wire-tape) or even BIT THEM WITH HIS TEETH. After a while of this, he finally discovered the sources of the smoke, which was just some door-foam whatever that was pressing up against an exposed wire. So he ripped off the foam, problem solved, and we continued on.

 I was so, so glad that Maria and Anna were with me. We spent most of the time just joking and laughing about our ridiculous situation. We all vowed never, ever to go to Parakou again, because it was the worst trip ever. “Our social life in Peace Corps is over, OVER!” said Anna. (Because traveling to meet up with anyone is terrible, terrible, terrible.)

We finally made it to Pehanco, where we had to wait to unload some things. Then, after waiting there for 30 minutes, our driver goes, “Okay, now I’m going to get something to eat!” ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? We just want to get home, please for the love of all that is good. But he complains that he is so, so hungry, and there won’t be anything to eat in Kérou once we finally arrive and I am just thinking, “Well maybe if you had left at a decent hour, this wouldn’t be a problem now would it?” But, of course, there’s nothing we could do, except wander around and look for a few things we could buy, such as water or our own dinner. He takes forever, then finally sets off. It was really nice, though, because Maria, Anna, and I had the middle row all to ourselves. There was one person up front with the driver. What bliss. Then we stopped to load up a bunch of outdoor stoves, and another guy gets in. Then we get a few more minutes down the road and just stop and turn off the car. “Um, chef, what is going on?” asks Anna. No response, and he just talks in Bariba with the other passengers. “Chef, chef, why did we stop? What’s happening?” asks Anna again. The driver finally responds, annoyed, saying that he got a call that another person wanted to come, so a Zem driver is bringing him. I responded, in English “Not in this freaking row, he’s not coming!” [the back row was taken up with stoves] (that is one of my favorite things about francophone countries is that you can talk so badly and rudely about anyone and anything in English, and almost no one will understand you. And actually, no one at all will understand if you talk in really fast English.)

This whole time we’d been complaining, and Anna had said that she absolutely refused to pay him the full amount of 6,000 francs, or $12. He shoved far too many people in that car, and was already making plenty of money. It was uncomfortable, and she wouldn’t stand for it. She planned on only paying him 5,000 francs, or $10, mostly just to make a point. At this point, we were laughing, and she said, “Haha, if we really get this row all to ourselves, and the driver sits with four people up front, I will pay him the full 6,000.” We didn’t think this would actually happen, but we hoped. When they were about to get in, someone said, “Quick, pretend you’re asleep!” And it actually worked. We actually got the row all to ourselves, and four people sat up front. It was amazing. We were so happy for this tiny luxury. So we ended up paying the full amount, despite the trying times we had earlier in the day.

We finally, finally made it to Kérou. It was so late. Oh well. I was so thankful for my bed and slept in so late. Then today I just kind of lounged around and cleaned a bit. Although not too much, because I hope my carpenter will come and put in the screen doors soon, which will mean a lot of nails into the wall, and cement falling, etc. But mostly I was too tired to do much. The work will start up tomorrow!

Monday, 17 December 2012

I will never, ever, ever be able to eat another mango in the US. At all. Ever. Ever. Ever. I remember the ones from the supermarket being hard, almost tasteless, ugh. But here, oh my, they are amazing things. I bought one today, and when I came home to cut it up, I had to have a plate under me to catch all the juice that dripped down. It was warm from sitting in the sun, and one of the sweetest, juiciest things that has ever entered my mouth. Amazing. And it is one of the things that makes me grateful to be in Kérou. According to Anna, mangoes will be available for a longer period of time than in other places. It’s not officially “mango season” yet; they’re expensive. And by expensive I mean a decent-sized mango costs 40 cents. Apparently, during the full-blown season, I will be tripping over these things, and so many will go bad before they get a chance to be consumed. And they will cost 5 cents or so each. I’m not entirely sure how life could be better than this. Minus the terrible voyage to get here, and minus the lack of running water, oh, and the creatures that want to live in my house, things are great, wonderful, fabulous, amazing.

I’m also in a good mood from my most recent visit to some of my groupements. Today Anna and I visited two that are close to here; Gouginnou (pronounced GWEE-en-ou) and Kérou-Wirou (CARE-ou WEER-ou). We are trying to teach them a basic system of reading/writing and accounting. Most of these women can only speak Bariba; I don’t think any of them can read or write at all. But we want to make our projects sustainable. They collect membership fees every week, and this is recorded, and the amount the group has grows. But the problem is that once I leave, for example, then there is no one who can write down how much has been collected every week. The women won’t know how much they have in their group account, so they don’t know what they can do with it, or if someone is stealing the money.

So the first thing we have done is to give them all numbers. They don’t know how to write their own names, but they can know, “Oh I’m number 7.” Then we are teaching them to write numbers, but not with western numbers, but little boxes that are basically an improvement on tallies. To make a box, it is four to a side, then I diagonal line to make five. Each box equals five, so it’s easy to count. Although, being from a largely illiterate society, it’s impossible to imagine how hard this concept actually is.

I would originally think it’s pretty easy. Bariba counting is a base-five system, kind-of. But the words for numbers go kind of like this: “one, two, three, four, five, five and one, five and two, five and three, five and four, ten, ten and one…ten and five and one” and so on. Also, to count money, it’s a whole other calculation, because to say “Five francs”, you say “one piece”. Then to say “fifty francs”, you say “ten pieces”, and for “one hundred francs”, it’s “twenty pieces”. (I think this is a French thing, because it was the same concept in Senegal, with the Wolof language) The problem is, however, that I don’t think a lot of people realize what they’re doing. They don’t realize that they’re adding or multiplying, because they’ve never had a math class that teaches them how to add or multiply. (And as a sidenote, even those who have had math classes typically can’t add or multiply in their head, because the leftover of the asinine-French-school-system has left nothing but rote memorization, so no one is taught how to add any random set of numbers, let alone, “think outside the box”, which makes teaching entrepreneurship here quite the challenge… But I digress.)

But the thing is that a lot of these women have never even held a pen in their lives, let alone draw straight lines. The results varied between good attempts to horrendous. One woman couldn’t figure out the concept of drawing perpendicular lines, and ended up drawing something that kind of resembled a shaky “m”.

Despite these challenges, however, teaching these women is really an awesome experience. They are really, really excited to learn. They are ready to try, and are so flattered when they finally succeed. Also, the awesome thing is, that having Pierre is really a godsend. I don’t know how Anna worked here before having him come into her life. She told me she would basically bike to a village, and sit around until the women of the group there essentially commandeered a young student, who translated for her. Every day. But Pierre is wonderful. He has really embraced the lessons we are trying to teach. He is so patient with the women. Plus he understands where they might have difficulties. For example, we wouldn’t imagine that it would be difficult to recognize a “number” made of boxes, but the women actually had a hard time with this. So he has them review by pointing out various numbers, have to draw new ones, and so on.

The next step is to teach them a sort of “accounting for illiterates” which involves drawing circles of different colors to represent various coins, then squares of different colors to represent different bills. We’re going to go over the basics with the women, so they can at least read the accounting notebook, but have a more in-depth session with the secretary, so she can actually do a simple balance sheet for the group funds. That is the plan, anyway. I’m sure to keep you updated.

Other than that, I also did some things around the house, like a little cleaning, etc. I finally was able to buy a large bucket with a lid (basically the size of a large trashcan) to store water. This means I can take one day, get a lot of water, and not have to worry about it for some time. Awesome. I made fresh-squeezed orange juice with a juicer I bought in Parakou. I am really happy about that. I also will probably be making Mango juice, which sounds fabulous as well.

Fresh Orange Juice!!!

Me with my new hammock placement
I can sit indoors as well!

My back kitchen area.
I have my charcoal stove, plus the grill I just bought (It can flip over items all at once).
I decided to just hang things everywhere rather than buying shelves.

This evening, a few girls came over to my house. I mentioned that I really enjoy my neighbors kids, who are really cute, and also wonderful at entertaining themselves. The older girl who was at my house, tonight, though, was one that originally that kind of annoyed me, because she would just sit at my door and stare at me. I now realize, though, that she was mostly really shy. She was here the other day when I gave Fafa, my neighbor’s middle child—and the only one whose name I know, as people are constantly yelling it—a sheet of paper and some markers, and she was just drawing random lines. The older girl, though, was like, “Oh, can I bring my school books here and study?” My response was, “OF COURSE YOU CAN!” I am the only one with electricity in my neighborhood, so I feel really awesome when I realize that this is allowing girls who might not have otherwise been able to study to do so. Last night, she just wrote a lot of letters, and I was able to help her by pointing out when she wrote “P” backwards. Tonight she was writing letters in cursive, and sets of conjoined letters, such as “ba be bi bon but, ca ce ci co cu,…, ma me mil mon mur”, etc.  Then she wrote me a whole letter that said essentially (I didn’t understand all of it, because I don’t think she was writing perfect French, and as an Anglophone, it’s harder to guess what she meant), “Dear neighbor, you are wonderful, and I just wanted to write you a letter. I wanted to tell you about my [summer] vacation. I spent time with my friends and (something)…” and so on. It was really sweet. I wish there was something more I could do, like actually help them with homework. But it’s sometimes hard communicating, because these girls don’t speak perfect French, or I’m possibly hitting some cultural barrier, I don’t know. For example, I tried to help the older-neighbor-girl (Fafa’s sister), who doesn’t come into my house, but occasionally sits outside my door to study in the light from my lamp out there. She was even studying English, but didn’t want me to help her study. I’m also not sure if I can, I’m not exactly familiar with how to tutor, but oh well. I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

As a final note, I would like to point out that this is the season of “Harmattan”. This means that it is actually getting cold. (I’m not going to lie, occasionally I have to put on more than short-sleeves, and I actually sleep under a sheet. Although I am constantly under-dressed compared to the Beninese who are going around in Ski jackets and hats, etc. We’ll see how I am next year, after having adjusted to this Sahelian climate; Anna now has bought actual fleece sheets because she feels cold! And she is from New England!) Also, everything is excessively dusty, because it’s been really windy. All my clothes get dirty really quickly. I really should be sweeping out my house on a daily—if not hourly—basis. But I don’t, obviously. I’m savoring this, though, for what I know is the impending hot season. It’s not terrible, though. And it’s absolutely wonderful to know that “cold” means only a sheet at night, and it’s still hot during the day. Yes.

The sunset, and 'Harmattan' dust blowing everywhere