At least now I have an excuse as to why I have not updated
my blog. No computer, no writing. Maria, the godsend that she is, has lent me
her iPad. For the most part, I find it pretty unhelpful, because it mostly
revolves around needing internet. I guess it does help when I’m at a
workstation, that I can browse the internet on something besides my phone. And
of course, I didn’t discover that it has Pages (the Apple version of WORD), for
a while. Which would have been helpful. Since my discovery, I have been using
it to continue my writing endeavors, so that’s nice. Although the ultimate
would have been having Numbers (Excel), but alas, that was never meant to be. I
don’t have a charger for an iPad charger, only for an iPod. Apparently this
means a huge difference in charging-speeds. So it takes hours and hours for the
iPad to charge. Oh, and I can’t use it while its charging, because its
temperamental. Life is hard.
Nevertheless, I suppose I have managed to get a lot
accomplished in the last month. I was supposed to be organizing the workbook
for the girls camp that Maria, Raili, Ron (volunteer in Gnemasson, 1.5 hours
south), Will (volunteer in Oussa-Pehanco, 2 hours south), and Ally (volunteer 2
hours south and .5 hours east), and I are putting together. The workbook, of
course, gets a lot harder with my lack of computer. I have to depend on Raili
and Maria and there generous donations of computer time.
Maria got a job offer at USAID (GO MARIA!!!), so she
returned to Kérou after organizing the completion of tshirts and organizing the
purchase of mosquito nets. I offer to swap her my help in packing for use of
her computer, which of course she accepts. So we spend a few days packing all
of her stuff. I have this habit of waking up absurdly early nowadays, so I’d
work in the morning until she woke up, and then we’d start on packing. After a
bit, Maria would convince me that what we really
needed to be doing was watching The Mindy Project (a hilarious series, I’d
highly recommend). We might get back to packing after ten or so episodes. And
so our days went.
One day, before a meeting with my artisans, I happened to
stop to get an omlet-sandwich. As I’m minding my own business, a guy walks up
to me, and insists on greeting me. I thought it might be someone I vaguely
know, so I said hi and went back to my meal. He sits down beside me, and not
without me even looking at him, he says to me, “It’s Matthew”.
My whole body freezes. It’s him. The guy who has been harassing me. Not looking back at him, I
think back to our interaction a few seconds ago. He’s so ugly. I mean, getting
uglier by the second as I think about how much stress he has caused me over the
past year. I ignore him, and don’t respond. I finish my sandwich and tea. As
I’m trying to pay, he says, “Where are you going today?” He doesn’t even make
sure to have my attention. He just says it in the direction of my body. As if
I’m not a thing to be engaged before talking to. I say nothing. I get up and
ride away on my bike. I go in the opposite direction, then loop around on a
back-road to Maria’s house. When I arrive, he’s sent me a message saying that
he was sorry he was so shy at breakfast, but if I’m ready to “start” with him,
he’s totally ready too. I don’t get it. I really don’t. Like I don’t know how
to be any clearer that I am in no way interested. Although, honestly, meeting
him allowed me to see how sad and pathetic he is. He’s a guy lacking
confidence, or any real ability to relate to women. He’s a bumbling excuse for
a human being. My hate is in no way lessened, but my fear is. [He left Kerou
officially a few days later, and since that day, he has called me a few times
and once sent me a text after my failure to answer, asking what was wrong. Umm.
What’s wrong is that you’re still calling me. Although, I don’t understand why
you’re insinuating that anything is different, because this is exactly how I’ve
treated you from Day 1.]
Anyway, back at Maria’s house, I finished up trimming the
workbook, and Raili finally made it back to town. We had to come up with songs
to incorporate. “Allouette” was an obvious choice. And there’s a Beninese song
that talks about working hard in school to the tune of “Frere Jacques”.
Furthermore, I translated a song from Mar-Lu-Ridge (I’m Alive, Awake, Alert,
Enthusiastic, to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it”) into French. My
favorite part was, however, translating a song from girl scout camp. It was a
song that my sisters and I loved, a call and response that basically is about a
girl seeing a cute boy sipping cider through a straw, wanting to learn this
talent, ultimately sipping cider “lip to lip” and thus ending up with 49 kids.
So Raili and I translated this into French, with a story about a cute boy
eating sheep meat, a love story that involves skipping school and ultimately
finding out the boy is cheating (in Beninese culture, we were unsure if having
an absurd amount of kids would exactly be a thing looked down upon. Obviously
49 is an excessive number, but not AS excessive as it is in the States. And
besides, people find cheating-plots hilarious
here, so it fits). The moral of our story was to leave the boys and do school
work. We were super-proud of this song.
So finally the book is ready to be printed. I leave Friday
the 13th to head to Parakou. Here is the Business Club competition
that I’ve been preparing my students for. I have two students, presenting two
different plans. I’m kind of worried about it, because I’m not sure that
they’re entirely prepared. However, they manage to pull off decent
presentations (and I use my grandmother’s old trick of pulling on my ear when
they started speaking too fast). The kids had a really good time, meeting other
students from around the country, and got really excited about their ideas and
business in general. On the way back I even talked to them about continuing a
business club next year without me.
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| Me with my two students |
While in Parakou, I print out the workbook, and then give it
to a photo-copy store to organize into all 38 copies. I explain to the woman
very thoroughly how I’d like everything to turn out. She seems to be really
competant, and when I come back a few hours later, she has everything copied
and bound into the books. Everything seems to be falling into place.
I journey back with my kids Sunday, and then spend the rest
of the week doing all the last-minute prep for our camp. Maria has already
left, but another volunteer, Nora, has agreed to help out our camp.
Our camp starts in true Beninese fashion. There is a taxi
that is supposed to be coming from Pehanco (two hours south of us) to pick up
all of the girls and volunteers in Kerou. This was organized through Beninese
friend in Pehanco, but upon the chauffer realizing that he was talking to white
girls (via the phone) he decides he’s up for some tricks. Raili calls him right
as he’s supposed to be in route to Kerou, actually almost there. He says,
“Actually the price isn’t good. So I’m not coming. Unless, of course, you
double the fee.”
Raili calls me, and we debate it. We are enraged by this
maneuver, especially that he didn’t even have the decency to call us to make
sure we would be arriving on time. But, the price we had agreed to was actually
less than we had budgeted. Our budget was the price of each individual to
travel in a normal taxi, and renting out a whole taxi as one group is obviously
less expensive. So ultimately we pay what we would have paid as a per-person
deal, even though it irks us the way we were tricked out of the money. Oh well.
We arrive, and things are chaos due to miscommunication
between the director of the school where we’re hosting the camp, and the
teachers/students. After a while we finally figure things out, and the camp
gets started.
It’s thirty girls (5 girls from 6 different schools). We
also have various “Model women”, meaning women from the community who are good
role models. Our original intention was to have women from various sectors.
However, both of my artisan/business owner women fell through, as did the two
women’s health physicians. So it ended up being all teachers. They were really
invaluable. A lot of times with basic things, such as translating our
“Americanized” French into “Beninese” French, or just clarifying ideas. They
offered valuable insight as we talked about things from budgets to sexual
health.
I was launched back into Mar-Lu-Ridge mode. We even did a
few skits that were from MLR. I’m not sure if they exactly translated
culturally. The girls laughed late. Or in places I wouldn’t think one should
laugh. Or we’d get the punchline, and it would be funny, but the girls wouldn’t
seem to realize that it was the punchline, as in they’d be, HAHA, that line was
funny, instead of HAHAHA, that skit was hilarious. Oh well, they still laughed,
at least a little bit.
We had lessons in various subject areas, such as study
skills, critical thinking, environment, hygiene, business plans and budgeting
(by yours truly), and sexual health, as well as other activities to break up
the classroom monotony. I introduced more camp games; they loved “Fox and
Squirrel” or as we called it “Lion and Antelope”, which is a modified “tag”. We
did some team-building activities. These took a while to explain, and so much
longer for the girls to understand. I guess there are just some things that I
take for granted, especially having spent so many years at camp, and in
church/school events with similar principles. Explaining them to someone who lives
in a culture that has never been introduced to games for the sake of
team-building, including high and low ropes courses, it was a hard bridge to
cross. In the end it worked out, however, at least mostly. It might also help
if I had the French vocabulary built around these activities, but I guess I
should have prepared more?
The last night, we had planned a dance party for the girls.
The location is a bar that happens to double as a brothel. (Yes, if we were in
the States, our asses would have been sued/put in jail). But it was the most
practical place. Because honestly, every single “Maison des Jeunes / Youth
House” that is staple of every village,
and paid for by the mayor’s office, is so underutilized that they all get
converted into bars anyway, and thus not so helpful for actual youth activities
(which really don’t exist). There aren’t really any other locations where we
could have held this party.
Additionally, we made arrangements with the bar owner in
advance. He happens to love Ally and her friends (thanks to her birthday celebration). So weeks ago, the owner agreed
that he would reserve the space for us from 8 until 10, and no one else
(especially creeper men, who have no business looking at middle-school girls)
would be allowed in. And we would purchase 36 soft drinks (one for each of the
girls and Model Women, so he was supposed to have those ready for us.
We arrive, and everything is terrible. There are men sitting
around, watching the world cup. Because sports are more important than anything,
we’re told that the bar obviously can’t kick these men out!!! It’s the WORLD
CUP. Which the bar owner apparently forgot about in agreeing to our proposal.
Then we are told that actually they had a rush earlier, so there are no cold
soft drinks. Ally and I are talking with a woman, who I believe is the owner’s
wife. I exasperatedly mention that maybe we should get drinks from another
nearby bar and bring them here. This, of course, is outrageous to her, as we
would be using the dance space and electricity, etc, but not paying for
anything. “But you don’t have anything TO buy,” I point out. She suggests
giving the girls warm sodas, because for goodness sakes, they’re children, and
they’re lucky to be getting sodas anyway. I refuse this notion. We end up
parting ways, without resolving much. I go inside to talk to Raili (the girls
are currently dancing on the floor, but still with the male world-cup-watchers
present and no soft drinks). She is sitting at a table, looking both angry and
upset. There are two guys that have taken over the table next to us, which we
were told was for us. I approach them, and they—in the douchiest, high-horse
way—inform me that they have rented this table. Yes. They paid for it. With
money. THEY HAVE MONEY. WHICH THEY USED TO PAY FOR THIS TABLE. MONEY. DID YOU HEAR THAT? They have money. I try to explain that
we were promised this table, but THEY HAVE MONEY. I turn away, frustrated. The boss’s wife comes up
to Ally and I again, trying to work things out, and I point out the men sitting
at the table we were promised. She immediately goes up to them, and shoes them
away, to another, smaller table in the back of the bar. Barely containing my glee,
I run up to Raili and yell over the music, “VICTORY NUMBER ONE!”
After that, everything got better. I don’t know if the game
ended, or the bar kicked the men out, but all the world-cup watchers left. The table-stealing men soon followed suite. The owner’s wife found cans (as
opposed to glass bottles) that were cold. They were more expensive, but at this
point we didn’t really care. All the girls were thrilled. The owner’s wife then
took up the post at the entrance of the club, keeping out ALL other people,
especially men/boys. We had a fabulous time. We taught the girls the “Wobble”
line dance, but otherwise mostly danced to West African music. Ten PM came way
too soon, although I was definitely sweating so much that my hair was soaked.
We marched the girls back to the school, where we were sleeping, and had them
go to bed.
Overall, this was a really amazing experience for me.
Obviously, I worked at a summer camp for three summers during college. I always
loved it. It also always terrified me. Having to get up in front of children
and sing songs, or act out silly skits. Lead them in activities. Terrifying.
But somehow, it always was such a positive time for me, and as far as I know,
good for the kids as well. I was once accused of “not being there for the
kids”, and hey maybe I wasn’t as dedicated as the other so-called perfect
counselors, but I did put in my best effort. I constantly fought the effort to
hide in the background (I sometimes succumbed), and for the most part I did put
aside my fears and dance merrily, dress crazily, smile and encourage the kids.
This time, however, I wasn’t on the Mountain. I always felt
an energy at MLR that would take me weeks to lose when returning home. Maybe it
was the atmosphere, the way everyone from the camp director to the newest
counselor worked to exude this energy. Maybe it was all the joys of former
campers and counselors that lingered on the mountain. But I was always so
inspired, so moved, so let out of my shell when I was there. I was really wary
in planning this camp. As in, “oh god, I’ll have to act out these skits, this
time without an audience of American children, who were guaranteed to ‘get’ it.”
I didn’t have other counselors thoroughly trained alongside me, who knew the
songs and skits perfectly as well. Plus, I’d always had a director, a
tried-and-true schedule that we used every year, program directors, and so on.
Here, it was all on me and Raili. We made it work, and despite my paranoia, it
turned out great. The girls seemed to love it, despite our flaw of not
scheduling them 5 shower-times a day, which they seemed to require. I even
found myself imagining towards the end, that I might create a summer camp in
West Africa. Maybe in some beautiful location, bus girls (and boys) in from all
over the country, and have a fabulous experience for all of them. Camp was such
a staple of my summers growing up, and made such a huge, wonderful impact on
me. I’d love for that to be part of the culture here, as well. I’ve even come
up with plans to make the camp almost entirely sustainable. Basically after
“earthship” models. These are made using old tires and mud as walls (which keep
the temperature at a really steady level, eliminating the need for A/C and
Heat). Plus they collect rain water, which is used in different levels, i.e.
obviously drinking water is the fresh water. Then say cleaning (dishes and
shower water). The water used in those is then transferred to your toilet,
until finally that water is used, and disposed of into the earth. Energy-wise,
of course, we’d have solar power. We’d use Smart Boards (basically
powerpoint-like projections that you can write on like they’re a chalkboard)
for lessons. But wouldn’t that be cool? A sustainable camp (maybe still using
food from local farmers, as a way to support local business, and then maybe
some paper to print things out that we wanted to girls to keep) for children in
West Africa. Okay, there’s one of my many endeavors I want to undertake. How to
complete this all in one lifetime…
For a some more narrative on the camp, and pictures, here is
Raili’s blog:
Camp ends the completion of all of my official, specific
projects. I have nothing detailed that needs to be completed before the end of
Peace Corps (except for my school study).
However, the Tuesday after (June 24) marked the one-year
anniversary of my Village Savings and Loans group that I started. We had a
celebration the following Friday (despite my protests, because I didn’t want
them to spend their money on a party, that’s not the point. But they ended up
taking up a collection for the party amongst themselves, so whatever). The
exciting part was distributing the money. Although they originally said they
didn’t want to distribute individual savings, they did this year. This is due
to a bunch of people not starting right away, or not keeping up with the
savings program later, so there were a lot of gapes in the savings amounts. Now
that the group is well-established, however, this will hopefully mean that the
savings efforts will be stronger next year. So they are all starting at zero,
but everyone is really excited to build the savings back up. I also showed them
how to calculate the “profits” and distributed those according to their
“savings” which also function as “shares” of the organization. I’m really proud
of this group, and what we’ve been able to accomplish. I really hope they are
able to keep going strong after I leave. As of now, some of the more dedicated
members have started one other small “tontines” group, which is kind of like
savings and loans, but it functions like a collection is taken every week, and
distributed to one member on a rolling basis. I also met with a friend of
Dennis. This is a guy that works with improved cookstoves in our region, and he
and Dennis are talking of starting a Savings and Loans group exclusively for
improved-cookstove producers, so that they have capital to buy supplies in
larger quantities. I’m sending him all of the documents I’ve developed, plus
improving my computer-version, so he can just do the accounting on his
computer. Without my computer, this has proved a little difficult, but I made sure he
knew that it might be delayed, and have been working at the workstation to
fine-tune all of this. I really don’t know what the final outcome will be, but
I really hope it does help some people.
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| The Savings and Loans Group at our celebration |
Meanwhile, working with Ben Club, the other Savings and
Loans group, has been a regular pain. I struggled to get all of their accounts
in order. Finally, right before I left for the business plan competition, I
managed to have everything perfect. I come back three weeks later, and am going
over the books with them. “So what you’re telling me,” I say, looking at the
numbers, “is that you had 809,325 francs, and you gave away 820,000 francs in
loans, and yet still had some left over??” Yes, that is exactly what they were
saying. I repeated this a few times, until they understood that actually, this
math was a problem.
Finally, the following week, we figured out that there was a
reimbursement that hadn’t been recorded. And therein lies all of the problems
of Ben Club. People just do things. They don’t write them down. Or if they do
write them down, it’s on a scrap piece of paper that becomes part of a stack.
This stack, however, doesn’t do math, nor does it automatically incorporate
itself into the group finance statements. So I once again lectured them, trying
to drill into their heads that they can do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with money,
unless it is written down in the group books. If they don’t know how to write
it down there, then they can’t do it. Finally, with the mystery solved, I go
through some more of the steps with the guy that they’ve put in charge of the
accounting books. “Hey, do you think you could give me a lesson on all this
accounting?” he asks.
At this point I almost explode. I want to shout, “WHAT HAVE
I BEEN DOING FOR THE PAST YEAR??? I’ve been teaching you this for OVER A YEAR!” But, instead of
saying that, I smile and set up a time where we can work together on this,
making sure, he really, deeply understands all this.
Other than that, I finally don’t have much work. Which means
I’ve been cleaning my house (that simply means transferring the mess from room
to room in rotating manner). I finally
got rid of all the kittens, and pray daily that Luna is either already
preggars, or now doesn’t get pregnant at all. I can’t bring her on the flight
if she’s pregnant, so that’s an issue.
I’m now down in Cotonou, where I will see off Ally (she is
actually a third-year in Benin, and is finally leaving now), celebrate July 4,
have my COS medical appointment (just to make sure there aren’t any issues that
need to be addressed before leaving the country), work on computer-things, and
hang out with other volunteers. Only two more months until I am home! Crazy!
