Pushing a String Up a Hill

Saturday, 5 January 2013

So I just wanted to discuss something that I’ve been thinking about for a while. And that is the topic of cell phones. I think they are simultaneously the worst and the best things ever invented. It’s the world at your fingertips, but then the world expects you to always be there.

My sister and I were discussing today a piece mentions how introverts (us) don’t really like phones. But here there are cultural things to deal with as well as personal issues.

Like here—and in a lot of African places—I’ve found that the majority people don’t really understand the concept of “vibrate.” Even one of our trainers mentioned this when we were at Parakou. There were two days of just Americans, then our homologues arrived. So our trainer said, “For the past two days, I have not heard one cell phone ring. Let’s keep it that way. Turn your phones to silent.”

In an American setting, it’s wholly improper for a phone to ring in a business setting, although many individuals are wont to text message under the table. But here, phones will ring, and people will answer them in front of everybody. It kind of goes like this:

“So today we’re discussing a breakthrough technology that will change the lives of everyone in this room…”

*ring**ring* “Hello!? Yes, I’m in Cotonou. I’m in the middle of a meeting. How are you? How is your family? How is your mom, your dad, your siblings, your wife, your children? Oh, yes I’m good. Our mouths laugh well here (literal translation of something I heard). What? Oh, she said not to forget to bring some bread back from the south? Ok, yeah no problem. See you soon.”

(I know this is a generational thing too. At parent’s welcome sessions at my colleges, my mom complained that phones were ringing ALL AROUND, but this never happened in the student sessions. The older African teachers I have in the States are far, far worse offenders than African students.)

There are a few tangible reasons for this. Firstly, “voicemail” doesn’t exist here, so you can’t just briefly describe what you want, and the person can get back to you with info. People may be illiterate, therefore they can’t text. If they do text they are—I KID YOU NOT—worse spellers/abbreviators than American teenagers. Also, the calls only charge for the person making the call, not receiving, so that person doesn’t want to have to call back and waste their own credit.

So all in all, it’s considered really, really rude to not answer your phone immediately. People get really upset. When I finally do return the call, they say answer the phone with, “I called and called and called…” to which I want to reply, “shh, you’re saving money this way!” Or one work-partner asked if I was mad at him. I wanted to respond, “No, you just ramble on about the unimportant, which is hard enough to follow in English, in person, let alone in French and over a phone. I was in a taxi the first time you called, and I hate speaking in front of everyone so they can all hear. I was on my way to hang out with Americans and really didn’t want to be bothered with things back in Kérou. The second time you called, I was in the middle of a PC session, and still later didn’t feel like dealing. BESIDES, what could you do? I’ll be back in a week, and we’ll just figure out stuff from there.” But instead, I just constantly find myself explaining, that it’s just not an American thing to always, always answer the phone, so be patient. BESIDES, I add (for the people in Kérou), YOU JUST GOT ELECTRICITY 5 YEARS AGO. Which means (most people) didn’t have cell phones before that. So remember that time, where you had to wait until you saw someone, or you had to walk all the way to their house. (Cause it’s not like house phones existed). Stuff like that? You really need to chill out.

But if I’m completely honest with myself and everyone else, it’s not just a cultural thing. It’s me too. Even in the States, I leave my phone around my house, and don’t see someone is calling me. There are times where I do see that someone is calling me—even my best friend—and I don’t answer. I’m just not in the mood. I’m in the middle of something. I don’t feel like talking to anyone at the moment, or I’m involved in an activity with someone else. I really, really like the point that this woman makes about introverts, though:

Sign you may be an Introvert:

You haven’t answered a ringing telephone in years:

I rarely answer my telephone, often forget to check voicemail, and can take a shockingly long time to return phone calls.

So sue me.

The telephone is intrusive, especially for introverts, whose brains don’t switch gears all that quickly. When we’re deep in thought, a ringing telephone is like a shrieking alarm clock in the morning.

And we often give bad phone—awkward, with pauses. We struggle without visual cues, and our tendency to ponder before we talk doesn’t play well on the telephone. Being stuck on a too-long call makes me want to chew off my own leg to escape.

Sometimes, if I’m feeling devil-may-care, I’ll pick up calls from far-flung friends who want to catch-up, But I more often let them go to voicemail and then make a date (via email) for us to talk. My friends understand.

Dislike of the phone is often presented as a moral failing. But honestly, it’s not the people on the phone we dislike, it’s the instrument of delivery.

So yeah. Seriously, though, people here need to stop complaining so much about me not answering phones. I’ll get back to you. Eventually. Chill out. Even in the States, anyone who knows me knows I just don’t pick up the phone right away. If you can’t deal, sorry, that’s just who I am. Also, remember it’s not that long ago where all people had were house phones? And you had to call, and if they weren’t actually at home then you left a voicemail and waited for them to get back to you? Yeah, those were the days…

Wednesday, 9 January 2013

Today I made some more improvements to my house. I finally bought my double mattress. Then I moved my single mattress out to my main room, where I will use it as a couch-thing. I also bought some foam pillows, then had covers made for them, so they can be cushions for this couch-thing. Ironically, I just asked the lady that I bought the foam pads from where I could get the cushions made, and then she took me to the shop of one of the members of “Ben Club”. So we chatted for a while, and I knew he wouldn’t rip me off, plus he did a pretty good job. Actually, his work seems to be upholstering. While I was there, I saw someone in his shop actually stretching leather over the seat of a moto to make it look new (although the headlight was still all smashed on this particular moto). It was really cool to watch, though, I’d never actually seen this done up-close, or really even thought about.

My front room with: my second hammock placement, mat, fan, chair, my bed/sofa
my house is coming along!

 The most interesting part of my day, though, was that I cut Maria’s hair. Having no training in hair-cutting ever, but oh well. I actually have been cutting my own bangs for the last three years, plus a few months ago I gave myself a trim, since my split ends were getting out of control.

The hardest part was that she actually wanted to go back to having bangs. These are the part of the hair that have to look the best; they frame the face of a person, and they are something that person has to look at every time they look in the mirror. So really it was a joint effort of Maria and I, until we got the bangs to at least acceptable. Then the hair part was easy, just a straight cut a little above the ends.

As many events in my life, this process had an enraptured audience of many Beninese children. They were just staring at her, and after the first snip, there was a collective gasp. Then I told Maria that she should start making sounds, like it was hurting her, which she promptly did. Then all the kids got really, really worried and ran up really close, staring at her hair. Maria and I were just laughing.

One weird part though was that one girl actually picked up a long clump of Maria’s hair, and was just holding it. “Haha, she wants to make a weave with it!” joked Maria. Then later, when the children left, we realized that that particular clump of hair was actually missing. Then we started joking about how the girl had actually taken it to use in some crazy voodoo ritual. As luck would have it, we met up with Thomas later, who informed us that tomorrow is actually (no lie) a national holiday in Benin for voodoo. I just laughed a lot at the coincidence, and Maria told me that I was a jerk. Touché.

Friday, 18 January 2013

So. To my utter dismay I have now returned to Cotonou. I really tried to resist it for a while…which probably led to slightly unhealthy decisions, but whatever. I’m here now. I was never in serious danger. (So please stop worrying family). But the short story is that I got a spider bite (despite sleeping under a mosquito net every night) and it got infected (despite me putting generous amounts of antibiotic ointment on it and bandaids, etc.) So in conclusion, this country really is out to get me. Or something. Idk. Or the universe really, really wanted me to be able to watch THE HOBBIT, and thanks to Cotonou’s fast internet, I finally have. So the silver lining…

Anyway, I’d prefer to talk about other things. Maria didn’t get voodoo-ed, you will all be happy to know. And at least this time, I had a few days to prepare for my departure. I kept thinking, okay, if this doesn’t get better by this day, I will definitely call the doctor. So I kept telling the different people I was working with that I might be leaving, so they need to get their act together and help me accomplish some things before I am sucked into the black hole that is the Cotonou Medical Unit.

Sometimes I feel like my work here is like pushing a string up a hill. I remember before I had someone complain to me that their work felt like that, and my response was, “Well then just grab that string and pull it up that dang hill!!!”

Here, though, we’re not supposed to drag people where we want them. We are here to be facilitators. One of the best quotes from a development book was that we are not here to to BE heroes, but to MAKE heroes. I have to remind myself of this every day. I don’t want to force people to do things. Especially because I will leave in 2 years, so anything they didn’t want to do in the first place will just peter out. But furthermore, I haven’t lived here all my life, so I don’t necessarily know what is best for this community. I just need to help people achieve what their community needs.

But in practice I’ve been failing at this. It’s hard to sit back and wait for things to happen. Especially because no one seems to be able to take initiative. For example, I think I mentioned ages ago that all of my artisans kept requesting a place for them to meet, other than this silly, uncomfortable geezeebo where their current meetings take place. So I had a though, “Oh, they could just meet at the ‘Maison des Jeunes’ and problem solved.” So I asked the mayor, who okayed it, for a slight fee for electricity. Then each artisan group literally applauded me and told me they were super happy that I’d done this for them.

So all that was left was just a meeting of the heads of each artisan group to figure out how to pay for things. Then a meeting with the guy who has the key to the Maison des Jeunes. Easy-peasy, right?

Almost two months later, and nothing. Finally I bring it up at another meeting, and people are like, “Well, but all our meetings are during the day, so why do we have to pay for electricity???”

Okay. FAIR POINT. I totally agree the amount was too high, I even mentioned this when first presenting the idea, but then everyone was totally in love with it regardless of the high price. SO WHY DID NO ONE MENTION TO ME THEIR MISGIVINGS? So I mention that we can talk to the mayor about a lower, fairer rate. Plus they shouldn’t think just about the electricity, but the money goes to the guy’s salary that opens the Maisons des Jeunes, plus general upkeep. When I mention this, everyone was like, “OOOOOOOhhhhhh…I never though of it like that before…”

So finally I drag one artisan (Edouard, the solder, who is awesome and has helped me so much) to the Key-guy’s place. He says he’s totally been waiting for the artisans to come buy and would just love so much to open it for them, obviously. He just needs a list of the artisan meeting-schedule. Oh, and obviously he loves me. Which he tells me in English. Sigh.

Then I hound the artisans until they finally call a meeting with the presidents of every club (there’s about 8). Only two show up, plus the president of the collective of artisans. I ask why no one else is there, and they say, “Oh, they think the amount is too high, so they’re not coming.” I want to yell, “WELL THAT’S THE WHOLE F-ING REASON WE’RE HAVING THIS MEETING, TO DISCUSS WHERE TO GO FROM HERE!!!!” But instead, I just discuss with the three whole people there the steps we can take. Suddenly they say, “Yeah, we should totally go to the mayor’s house right now and discuss a lower fee!” Which we do, since the mayor’s office is conveniently located right across the street. So the artisans and the mayor discuss in Bariba what to do. Which I kind of follow, thanks to interspersed French words.

I think it was really good that I forced to the artisans to go, rather than going myself to discuss the fee. Because now they feel like they know more about the process, they were involved, and hopefully will finally get things rolling with this.

I say hopefully, because right after this meeting I hopped on a zemi to Natitangou to start my trip to medical treatment.

Well, I say right after. That’s not entirely true. In truth, there was a whole debacle leading to me actually finding a taxi.

So for starters, obviously motos are kind of scary for me, considering my last long-distance experience. Luckily, however, Maria found a Zem driver who is really safe and who often takes her to Nati. Who is also in love with her…but that’s a whole other story. So anyway, I call him, and ask him to pick me up at the center of town 11AM Sunday.

“Who is this?” he asks.

“This is Shannon, a friend of Maria!” I reply

“MIRIAM!!!!!!!” he says.

“Yes, a FRIEND of Maria.”

So at around 10:30, I call him, saying I have finished early, and please come pick me up. I wait and wait…

While I am waiting, Maria texts me, complaining about her neighbors that don’t giver her any privacy. They constantly just knock on her door to say hi, even at ridiculous hours of the morning. She sometimes feels like she has no peace. She has tried to institute a policy that if her windows are closed, they are not to knock, but to no avail. Now on this Sunday, her day of relaxing, there is someone pounding at her door. I encourage her not to answer it, because people need to understand that they can’t just bother her all the time.

Meanwhile I’m still waiting for my zemi driver. I have been harassed by a few others, to whom I explain I am already waiting for a driver. They tell me that this person hasn’t shown up yet, and I should just take them. One guy in particular is very pushy, and comes up to me multiple times. Another driver comes up to me later, and this same guy just zooms over like, “No, no, I talked to her first. If she’s taking any of us, its ME!” I tell him that even if I were to take another driver, it certainly wouldn’t be him, because he’s annoying. I think he was kind of angry at that, but oh well.

I call Maria’s zem driver again, he says that he is at my house—which I can’t figure out, because he’s never been there, but I just say, “No, no I’m in the center of town, right by the traffic circle!” Then the line goes dead, and nothing. Finally after over an hour and a half, I decide, “screw it, I really need to get to Nati, I’ll just have to take another Zem.” So I walk up to a friendly-looking driver, who agrees to take me. So we start off, and he has another zem driver follow us. He goes to Maria’s house, and says to me, “Do you know Maria? She needs to go to Nati today too!” and is about to send the other zem to collect her.

Suddenly it all clicks. The pounding at Maria’s door wasn’t her neighbors; it was the zem driver, thinking it was her calling him. He’d been looking for her, not realizing he was supposed to be looking for the OTHER white girl (he’d been sitting in the moto-taxi-area for some time before I asked him. By chance, I happened to choose him, of all the zem drivers in Kérou. Although it was tough explaining all this, because his French isn’t perfect. Luckily, however, one of Maria’s neighbors walked out, and I had her translate, that NO, it wasn’t Maria who called him this morning, but ME, Maria’s FRIEND. Her FRIEND. I swear, I had repeated that multiple times. So finally—I think—we worked all the confusion out. But hey, just another day of culture/language confusion.

Anyway, the long story short is that after waiting and waiting, I finally was on my way. I had a shorter (this driver knows a short-cut), more pleasant zem ride than the last…though not like that’s saying much. I never had to grab on to the back for fear of flying off, so it was awesome. I do have a bruise on my tailbone from bouncing around so much, but whatever. Then I spent 10 hours in a bus on Sunday, finally arrived in Cotonou, where the doctor first made me wash my feet (my feet are always dirty, living in village and walking in sandals through the sand), then poured hydrogen peroxide on my wound and scrubbed it out. Yes, it hurt a lot. And she’s been doing that every day (but with Betadine rather than Hydrogen Peroxide), so basically that’s just my punishment for being stubborn and staying away from the doctors for too long, I guess.

Well that’s all. Cotonou is the same. I love it, but I have no actual work to do here. Sigh.

So this little furball will be my cat when I get back to Kérou.
She's so adorable

Outside the Box and Other Challenges

So this goes back to an earlier post about the lack of water...
This used to be a creek. Where people did things like wash their motos. And poop.

Wednesday, 19 December 2012

The beauty of Peace Corps really is in the whole philosophy of “live as your neighbors live”. In reality, this is far from true; I am quite certain I make a lot more money than my neighbors. Nevertheless, my salary still brings me closer to living as the members of my community, and this brings a lot of learning opportunities.

For example, my clay stove/grill that I was so excited about actually got a little crack in the bottom part. It’s still totally useable, but it lasting less than a month is far less than the years and years that were promised to me. I also noticed that the bottom got wet—even though I had been trying to avoid that, because I was told that wasn’t good for it—and so the clay became all clayey again, and some of it just came off. It was through this that I realized that quite obviously these clay stoves are not put into any sort of kiln, because, duh, there are no kilns in Kérou.

I just so happened to be invited to a formation Tuesday where a woman was showing some others how to make the stoves. It was really great to see the whole process in action. Of course, it’s basically just pottery, without the spinning wheel. The woman kind of has this table that spins (by hand), but it was very unstable and so ended up working on the ground most of the time, and walking around the stove.

Going to this also gave me a good chance to talk to my new homologue. I asked her about the problem of stoves quickly cracking, etc. I had already discussed it some with Hubert, Pierre, and Anna, but of course none of them are experts. Salimatou said that the real problem was finding good-quality clay. There is some in a village called Kongorou, and another in Fétékou, which are both 10km away (in different directions). This doesn’t seem like so far, until you realize that the project doesn’t have any mode of transport for the clay. So 10km becomes quite the journey. Thus, sometimes the stoves are made of lesser-quality clay, and apparently it’s hard to tell whether the clay is good or not until you actually start making it into the clay. (OH, also, to make the clay, you have to pound it in containers which usually make the “yam pilé” I’ve talked about. It’s kind of like the containers you might see at replicas of old Native American villages, where women pounded corn into powder).

Furthermore, there are not big ovens in Kérou. In fact the closest oven for these stoves is in Djougou, about 4-5 hours away. Not even Natitangou has one. Apparently there is a group of people that make clay cooking-pots in Kongourou, but they bake these by essentially putting them in a pile, and make a huge fire around them. Salimatou says that the problem with that is, that if there is even a little bit of wind, something could fall, break a stove or stoves, and then the clay and hard work is lost.

So in conclusion to this story, it’s amazing how beneficial living really in, IN the community is. Sure, it sucks to have to carry water to my house. But on the other hand, you will notice in my last post I said that I kind of thought this project with the stoves had everything under control, and I wasn’t exactly sure if I could even help. But now, because I am using this stove, I got to see the pitfalls, and look into where I might be able to help them improve this project. It’s pretty cool.

Another thing that is interesting is the various perceptions that people have of time/work. For example, everyone in the U.S. knows that “Time is money”. (Another volunteer had a Beninese person respond to that line with, “NO! Time is LIFE!” Deep.) So here, time is is not really seen in monetary value. If you recall, the taxi driver that sat at the bus station for hours waiting for my burn-cream only asked for the amount he would have charged, if he would have driven me there and back. The time sitting around was nothing for him. Whenever I have work done my carpenters, masons, electricians, and so on, their cost is always, “well the material cost XX, and we’ll tack on another 500 francs (one dollar) or so for our work.”

So when it comes to these stoves, I thought they were absurdly cheap, and must be subsidized. But, no. The clay, for example, just comes from women who happen to have dug it out of the earth. They didn’t actually pay for it. So this HUGE pile costs only $14. Then if you want someone to pound/mix it for you, that’s a whole other $1 for work that takes over an hour. This all makes a lot of stoves—probably way more than 20—which are then sold for $2 each. My new homologue made the comment that, “Women in village (“en village” means basically the really small, small barely-towns, and “en ville” is literally, “in the city,” which can even mean Kérou) have it so lucky, because they can just dig all of the clay themselves, pound it all themselves, construct it all themselves, and then everything is pure profit.

No one sits down and calculates, “well, if the women took the time that they were digging and pounding, and dedicated that only to making the stoves, would they be making more or less money in total, if they had to pay for the materials but made more stoves?” (Also, no one asks if the women would be a little happier if they happened to make a little less money, but got maybe a few extra minutes in the day to relax…) It’s also hard, because the measurements aren’t exact, because I was trying to ask, “How much was the clay?”

The response: “$14 for the pile.”

“Okay, so how many stoves can you make with that clay?”

“Well in a basin (those big silver—or in this case blue—bowls) you can get 3-4 stoves, depending on the size.”

“Okay, so how many basins are in the pile?”

(*weird look*) “I don’t know; we just bought a pile of clay. That’s all”

So it’s always just a guess.

This is a bunch of the supplies used for making the stoves.
There is the pile of clay (already having used a lot), the boards to sit the stoves on while making them, the wodden barrels in which the clay is pounded by hand to make it workable, and so on.

The beginnings of a stove

A stove further along; also after the lady had abandoned the wobbly turn-table, so she just walked around in a circle

Also, today Yves, my “Program Manager” from Peace Corps came and visited my house. I had only just gotten my screen windows and doors installed, plus my clothes rack (FINALLY! The beginnings of furniture!) Luckily I had some chairs that Landry and his friend had brought for me when I originally arrived and didn’t have money. So Yves could sit there. But when he asked why I didn’t have much furniture, I could respond, “Oh, you know, being stuck in Cotonou…” I wonder how much longer I can use that excuse for not completing work. Not for very long, I’m guessing. But while I can, I fully plan on milking it for all it’s worth. Plus, honestly, I did order furniture soon after I got back from Cotonou, but it takes time to build. And some of the paperwork we had to complete about our community; I really didn’t have time to ask about everything because I wasn’t here. So it’s a real reason, but sometimes I still feel like a slacker.

My room with my new clothes rack

Hangers I made from plain wire

Also, I think I need to always remember to be less easily frustrated here. With Peace Corps, and with my community counterparts (*cough* Hubert *cough*). For example, I could complain your ear off about training, and my frustrations with admin in general…but then Yves comes and we have one-on-one interactions, and I much more inclined to appreciate him. He made some comments about training showing that he was observant and in-tune with us. Many volunteers say that Peace Corps is not a place where you get much—or any—direction ever, and honestly, the training is quite mundane, and I wish it could be so much better. But I need to remember that my program coordinators and other admins are great resources, and in fact, if I ask them specifically for information or ideas, they are ready to help.

Also, Hubert is at time frustrating, but also has helped me a lot. For example, I should be far, far more grateful for the electricity thing. It is actually quite incredible that I got such a rapid response and got my electricity restored. Even though the way I was informed that I had to pay for it was shitty, I still don’t mind paying. I shouldn’t be complaining at all, really.

Plus some days Hubert is just in a different mood, and seems ready to work with me, to accomplish great things, and so on. I’m just never sure if he will follow up the next day. And that’s the frustrating part. I leave feeling so inspired, then nothing happens.

Oh, also, I told Yves about how Hubert is having me work at Sahel. And Yves is really shocked, and just starts repeating, “Oh, that does not work. That does NOT work. That doesn’t work. Oh, Hubert! He has these ideas!” And he agreed with me that, absolutely, I did not leave the US and come all this way to Africa to be a sales clerk. So he told Hubert that it was actually forbidden by Peace Corps for volunteers to handle money in such a setting. (Volunteers handle money that comes for their grants, but those are often from USAID, and through Peace Corps, so they have to show how everything is spent, and are held accountable by their own country). In this situation, what happens if some money goes missing? The Peace Corps obviously doesn’t want it’s volunteers to be accused of being thieves and its reputation smeared (especially since it’s unlikely the volunteer would steal the whole $20 they might be dealing with), and furthermore, the host organization would have no real action to take if they truly believed the volunteer was stealing (it’s not like they can “fire” the person…) So it’s just bad news bears all around. And while I think this is a valid point, obviously Yves just knows that my job is not to sit and sell seeds all day. But the money thing is a more tangible reason.

Hubert, however, seems to trust Peace Corps volunteers more than Beninese people, and launched into a story about how people from the mayor’s office sent people to give or collect money from illiterates, and in the process these illiterate people were screwed over because they were given or received money, then the person wrote down a different amount on the receipt, and pocketed the difference. Then, later there were tons of problems. Okay, I get that it’s a problem, but that still doesn’t make it my job to sit in an office and sell seeds. But Hubert—after all this—still asked me if today was my day to come and work at Sahel. So I don’t think he got it. But from now on, I’m just not going to come in, and if he questions, my response will be, “But Yves said it was forbidden!”

Thursday, 20 December 2012

So today’s mystery is this: Am I this stupid, or is this country out to get me?

Electronics are always a toss-up in this place. Constant outages, crummy powercords, crummy products and very old, second-hand products all come together to make life here challenging.

So lately, I’ve had two problems, both kitchen-related. One was my fridge, which as you may recall, I had a problem with it working right when I returned from my time in Cotonou. For the past three weeks, however, it’s been working flawlessly.

Then there is my blender. I bought this one from the Natitangou Peace Corps workstation, because they had an extra blender and were selling this one for cheap. It’s been a beautiful thing, but on multiple occasions I have considered trying to return it. Firstly, it leaks, which is annoying. But more important, I have always had a problem with its strength. For example, I tried to make peanut butter, and it could barely grind the nuts past being quartered. When I make smoothies, especially when I put frozen bananas in there, it sounds like it’s dying. So power is just not its thing.

In response to this, I also bought a manual food-processor in Parakou. I thought it was a really, really cool idea. Plus I could use it if the power is out. And it will have as much power as I can give it, so I have more control. In the end, however, I spent over 30 minutes grinding grilled peanuts into not-quite-buttery-smooth-peanut-butter before I accepted that I will have to wait two years (or for care packages) before I have Skippy-level-smooth-peanut-butter. And I wondered if I really could continue this at all. I can’t take this much time out just to make some stupid condiment.

So this all comes together when yesterday I accidentally unplugged my fridge, which is plugged into this huge “regulator” (surge protector). There are two plugs, and the fridge is plugged into the bottom one. It’s plug is such, however, that instead of coming straight out from the plug it goes up, so every time I plug or unplug something from the other plug, the fridge cord might get moved, etc. So I think, “Oh I should just move the fridge cord to the top one, and solve this problem.” I do this, and the fridge immediately stops working. I even try to re-plug it into the bottom: nothing. So, with the patience I have graciously learned, I sigh, and think maybe it doesn’t like the movement or whatever, or being unplugged and repluged, so I’ll just let it sit around, plugged in, until it wants to work again. I come back a few hours later: nothing. So I unplug it, say that I’ll let it sit around for a while and see if that helps. Because the big-copper-cylinder-thing in the back is really, really hot, so I want this to cool down and the fridge to regulate the problems in its life. I also conclude that I must make a smoothie, to use up the fruit that might go bad if my fridge doesn’t start working again. Plus I just really wanted a smoothie.

So this time I plug my blender into the plug recently vacated by the fridge. And the blender is SO MUCH STRONGER. I unplug it and put it in the top plug, where it sounds like it’s dying. I wonder what the heck is going on, then I take the time to read the labels by these two plugs, and lo and behold, the top one reads, “Output AC110V” and the bottom one reads, “Output AC220V”.

(*facepalm*)

110V is what we use in the States; 220V is used pretty much everywhere else. Luckily, most modern laptops, etc, come with built-in convertors, and small things don’t need them, but for things like hairdryers and straighteners, I would have to bring a convertor with me (but obviously, I have no use for those here).

The point, is however, that I’ve possibly been slowly destroying my fridge when I try to plug it in to the 110V plug. AND, of course the blender works much, much better when plugged into the right current. I was able to get almost-creamy peanut butter in almost no time at all.

Which brings us back to the original question: Am I this stupid, or is this country out to get me?

Because thinking about it, WHY WHY WHY is there an appliance sold here which has an output of 110V? Sure this is great, because now I know I can plug my computer in without my plug/convertor quickly expiring (please last two years, please, please!). But WHO, in all of Kérou has something that needs 110V? And also, for all these people who obviously do not need AND CANNOT USE that plug, who is going to be aware of this? No one is taught that in this magical place called the US, we insist on doing things our own way, like refusing to use the metric system and insisting on 110V rather than 220V. WHY? I’m not sure that even God knows. So I’m sure there are plenty of people that are plugging in appliances to this stupid plug and having them not work well or at all. And they will never know why. So am I stupid for not considering that something I bought here would have a plug for appliances that are only used thousands of miles away? Just add that to my list of questions about life.

Successful Peanut Butter!

Okay, moving on. This morning I DIDN’T go to Sahel, which felt wonderful. Instead I went again to the ongoing stove-making-trainings that are happening. Salimatou and I discussed more some of the problems there. Mostly she pointed out that the organization which promotes these, kind of just sets things up, then leaves everyone to go forward, with out much support. Luckily, Kérou has a very motivated woman (her), but still there are problems, for example, of people who want to start with this project, finding the start-up costs to start making and selling these items. So there is something that’s very Business-oriented I could work on!

Afterwards I walked over to Edoward’s shop, then we went to see the director of one of the schools in the center of Kérou to see if we could use a classroom there for the literacy classes I am organizing. The good thing about this school is that there is electricity, but unfortunately only for one classroom. He did give us permission, and I will just have to see how this will work. But I am so very excited that this is moving forward! It really is a great feeling to have successes, no matter how small they are.

I also have found that I think walking around Kérou is much better than riding my bike. I get to take the time to see things I might have missed, to greet people—even if I don’t know them, and so on. Although it does lead to more awkward interactions. Such as I walked past the Imam and tried to greet him with “Salam wa Aleikom” which is an Arabic greeting, and he responded “Anna kpuna?” which threw me off, because that obviously is not the Arabic response, and I was so flustered that I just didn’t respond to his question, and awkwardly kept walking. Epic fail. And even though walking obviously takes longer, I also now have more time, because I’m not spending 20 hours a week sitting at a desk doing nothing.

I also went to Constant’s school briefly, where there is a project underway to make a school garden. The point is to encourage kids to eat healthier (or at all, some of these kids might be poor), what with all these vegetables they will be growing. Plus I think they will sell some for the money to pay the women who will come and prepare the vegetables for them. So it’s a good, sustainable thing, plus teaching a little bit of money management. Today they were just building the fence, but it was fun to come by and see the work. It was ironic, though, because some of the teachers were arguing over a topic I touched on in my last post. The (OBVIOUSLY) male teacher was saying that—clearly—boys just worked harder than girls. Because, you know, percentages don’t lie (I think he was referring to the percentages of boys vs. girls that pass, and so on). A female teacher was arguing with him, and pointed to a section of the fence that was constructed by girls. This section was completed way ahead of every other section, and very, very neatly done. So she asked him, what about that? Clearly in this case the girls were working harder than anyone else. The male teacher just replied, well, percentages don’t lie.

Sunday, 23 December 2012

“What’s that sound?” you wonder. It’s like…laughter. Loud, raucous, deep laughter. But where is it coming from? And why, why are people laughing like this?

Well I shall tell you. First, this particular laughter is coming both from beyond the grave and from a log cabin in Maryland. Specifically, from my parents, both brought to tears of hilarity. And why? Well, that is because I have almost literally become an accountant.

Most of you might know that I spent most of my childhood practically throwing a tantrum when my parents suggested that I take over their business later on in life. “I WILL NOT live in a small town,” I insisted. “I WILL NOT do accounting!”

And life responds: “Ha! Challenge accepted.”

So I try to do the most un-small-town-thing and hippie-non-business-thing I can imagine, and that is joining the Peace Corps. And where am I sent? To a small town. (Although, honestly, I should have seen that coming…)

Then, I get here, and somehow end up surrounded by the haphazard books of record-keeping for the one Savings and Loans (artisan) Association that I am working with (aka Ben Club), and my task is to enter every number into my little handy-dandy computer, balance their accounts (or lack thereof), figure out how much people owe, how much profit has been made (from interest and fines), and what people would be paid out if they just split it all, or what the organization could do from here if they decided to keep going on with this money. It is essentially something my parents might do, going into a business that has been keeping abysmal records, and trying to get them up and running with a more organized accounting system. I mean, I want to get them to a point where they can record everything on paper. Even if I could get them a computer, it would just be so risky, what with computers expiring after a few years, then the fact that people who have never grown up with computers don’t understand the concept of virus, and safe computer use. Plus it’s not like there’s anyone in Kérou to repair things if the computer does go kaput. So to easily calculate the last few years, I’m using my computer (plus I’m not sure if I remember how to do math on paper, without Excel’s magical sums and calculations), but from there we will work on a better system. If they want to.

As of now, however, the records are everywhere, and sometimes nowhere. For example, each person has a personal book where weekly savings are recorded, plus loans they take out. Then one person has a notebook where he keeps attendance, and makes little “x”s when people pay the fine for being absent. Then when people arrive late, there is a jar where they have to put in a fine, but I’m not sure if they weekly amount is recorded. Then there is the book which shows the amounts deposited in the bank, but these are all very round numbers, and thus clearly not the full amount of money for the club. Additionally, the money is only deposited once a month, so it’s entirely possible that some money was saved, then borrowed without it ever hitting the bank account. So yeah, a lot of work there for me. I hope this is even possible to do.

In other news, I have almost completely worked out the literacy classes for the artisans. I was originally disappointed by the fact that there was only one classroom with electricity available to me at the center-school. Then Constant mentions that in the center-school-area, there are actually two directors, so I should go talk to the second one (heretofore, I was unaware that this position/person existed). So I did, and he is very eager to help, and immediately gives me permission to use his classroom with electricity. But the real question is: Why, when I mentioned to the first director that it would be great if we could have 4 classrooms with electricity, and he replies, oh, I only have one classroom that actually has electricity, does he not continue that sentence with, “but if you go to the director of the “B” school, right next door, you could ask him about using another classroom…” Come on, people. OUTSIDE THE BOX.

Wednesday, 26 December 2012

When will I ever learn? This country has—over and over and over again—tried to instill this attitude of “expect the worst”, but still I don’t listen. I always plan a little too optimistically. For example, today, I traveled to Natitangou, where I need to do some banking, plus pick up packages that have finally arrived from home. I look at the money that I’m packing, and I don’t really want to take it, because first of all, all that I have left are the precious 1,000-franc bills. (Finding change is always a challenge, so it becomes an obsession of hoarding every low-value bill and coin you come in contact with for as long as possible.) “Plus,” I think to myself, “I’ll just be able to go to the bank and get money out, easy-peasy!” The taxi even arrives at 3PM, giving me plenty of time to run all the errands I would love to run. I start with the bank. There is a long line, and I see another volunteer, who promptly explains to me that some-sort-of-connection-thingy is down, and actually she has been sitting there for 2 hours, waiting to get her money.

“Well…” I think. I have no intention of sitting in a bank. I want to go take a shower. I am covered in dust. I want to sit in a comfortable chair. And so on. But curiosity also gets the best of me, and I walk across the street (convenient!) to the Post Office, and ask for my packages. The post man brings out 4, and they are sitting there on the other side of the window. So…close…I…can…almost…touch…America… But wait, they cost over $2 each to pick up. I have only $2 in my wallet. So I lie to the postman, and tell him that I thought they were the small packages that you don’t have to pay for, sorry for making him work. Then I explain that the bank is freaking broken, and well, he can see in my wallet there is only one, sad, lonely 1,000-franc bill. I am defeated. So I go to the Peace Corps workstation, and eat the rice that is thankfully provided for us, because lord knows I can’t afford the food in this town. Except for the 500-franc pastry I will eat tomorrow morning before going to the-bank-that-better-freaking-be-working.

Thursday, 27 December 2012

I went back to the bank today. When I arrived there was the usual line—and nothing seemed to be happening at the windows. But I heard a rumor that the “connection” had worked earlier in the day, and a few people had been able to withdraw money, but then the connection went back out. So I prepared myself to be in for the long haul. This happened again…connection in then out. The line moved a little bit. But the real problem is that people here will go out of line, so they can sit down, but as soon as the line starts moving again, they will run back up and butt in front to their—supposedly—original spot. I don’t mind letting people—especially mothers—get back in line in front of me. But one time it so happened that I was standing next to a person who was actually in front of me. Then a guy got in line and stood behind her. Then when she moved up to her rightful spot in front of me, he tried to inform me that he was in line behind her, so he should get in front of me as well. I told him in French absolutely not, then called him a bunch of names and talked badly about him in English to the other volunteer that was waiting with me. I love francophone countries. It’s such a stress-relief to be able to say bad things about people right to their face, but they have no idea what we’re saying. Actually, the other volunteer and I did a lot of this while waiting. We complained about how customer service doesn’t exist anywhere like the US. How people can be lazy and unable to think outside the box (although to be fair, this happens even in the US). I gave the example of how one night when I was working at Outback, our connection went down—actually nation-wide—but did we just refuse to serve people? OF COURSE NOT. We whipped out old-school paper credit-card-copy-receipt-thingys for people that wanted to pay with credit cards. We took the time to personally call and verify amounts on giftcards. We got on our knees and profusely thanked anyone who saw our hardship and whipped out some cash instead. At the end of the night, when the connection was back up, one of the visiting regional-managers-of-sorts had the arduous task of taking every paper credit card receipt and entering them into the computer so we could close all the accounts. It’s not that hard. I mean, why can’t this bank just let people who want money just write checks? Your name, your account number is all there. The bank has records somewhere of everyone’s ID number. It’s not like anyone would be able to rip off Ecobank in the long run. If they tried, they’d eventually be hit with a bunch of overdraft fees. Or if necessary, call a bank that does have a proper connection and have them verify amounts. Something. But god forbid should someone have to do something different than they’ve always done and/or do extra work. Like I said, I don’t think this is a problem that would only happen in Benin. But it’s just frustrating.

Anyway, after a few hours (YES I SAID HOURS), we finally made it up to the front of the line. I managed to get my money and even demanded small bills and coins. I got all of that. The second volunteer gives her check, and the guy starts processing it. Then halfway into the process, he just stops, and instead starts doing paperwork. He says absolutely nothing to the other volunteer. After about a minute, she is like, “Umm…so what’s going on, where’s my money?” He responds, “Oh, the connection went out again.” We’re both sitting there like, “Well, then WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY THAT???” She just asks him for her cash, but he says it’s absolutely impossible. Then this volunteer just explains that she actually waited for FIVE hours yesterday, and please, please would he just give her the money! So suddenly he just whips out the cash—which he could do, having already begun the process of processing her check—hands it over, and would presumably finish the process when the connection came back.

Triumphantly, we left the bank and headed to the Post Office. Which was closed for its lunch break. I just can’t win, can I?

So I did some grocery shopping, and headed back to the workstation, did some things there, then went back. After this ridiculously long, handwritten FOR EVERY PACKAGE process (because of course scanners and barcodes don’t exist here) I finally, finally got my Christmas packages. I rushed home and opened them all, so excited just to get a taste of home—literally and figuratively. There was only one casualty, and that was where a rat or mice of sorts had chewed through the box, through a Christmas stocking, through a plastic bag, and chewed into the packets of Kraft mac-n-cheese powder I had begged for. Then of course, he didn’t eat it, because no one should actually like cheese-powder. So I looked at the box, where everything was basically covered in orange dust. I spent a really, really long time contemplating if it would be safe to just sweep everything up and still use it. I mean, it’s not like the rat touched everything—and I have to cook the cheese anyway, right? And I eat things here that have been laid out in the sun and are occasionally nibbled on by goats, and so on… Besides, we have decent medical care, and OH MY GOSH I JUST WANT MACARONI AND CHEESE. But then, luckily, I kept going through my items and my mom had actually sent more cheese packets in another package, so I was saved from having to make a potentially health-hazardous decision.

So Merry Christmas to me, even though it was a little trying. Thank you to my Mom and Grandmothers for sending their love (and presents). Also thank you to Aunt Regena, Uncle Richard and Aunt Pat, and Mrs. Burris for their heart-felt Christmas cards! Plus Mrs. Shanahan and Pastor & Mrs. Turley for their cards from earlier (I thought I had mentioned them already, but searching my blog I can’t find it).

Saturday, 5 January 2013

Happy New Year to everyone. Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I can’t even say that I’ve really been busy. I was in Nati for a while, then came back to Kérou. Did a lot of new-year-partying, which means a lot of eating and drinking. It was fun.

I also made Mac ‘n’ Cheese, plus chili, and calzones, so I almost felt like I was back in America. Except that I had to cook my calzone in a dutch-oven. The only bad part about cooking for myself, though, is the ridiculous amount of time I have to spend cleaning dishes. I also brought all my clothes to Nati to wash them, so I could actually have running water, instead of worrying about how much water this would mean I had to carry from the pump. Then I asked a lady that comes and cleans the sheets/towels for volunteers at the workstation, about dirt that was just refusing to come out on one of my dresses. All she did was lecture me about how Americans don’t wash clothes well, we just swish them around (I mean that’s kind of what our laundry machines do), whereas Beninese really scrub every inch of fabric. I swear, when I get back to the States, I will refuse to live in any apartment that doesn’t have a dishwasher and a washer/dryer in it, I DON’T CARE HOW LONG THIS MEANS I MUST LIVE IN MY MOM’S BASEMENT BEFORE I CAN AFFORD IT (sorry Mom)

And I shall leave you with this: A picture of a really awesome cloud formation that I dubbed "King Triton," as just outside this frame, it actually looked like he was carrying that pitchfork-thing that King did in The Little Mermaid.

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