Thursday, May 31, 2012

Yesterday marked the first time this rainy season that it rained in the daytime. Prior to this, skies would cloud over, unbeknownst to us down below, lightning would fire up, and the winds would start howling, making you wonder if you were magically transported back to Kansas in time for a spring tornado. I enjoy these nighttime deluges because they do not inconvenience me in the least, except when I realize I need to go to the bathroom. Normally these storms would wrap up nicely by 2 or 3 am, allowing at least a little bit of peaceful dormir-ing.


Now, though, the rains start on up whenever they feel like it, which poses a problem with regards to actually getting things done. As in, anything that requires leaving the house.


The concession after a rainfall.



I may have alluded to this earlier, but Kandi - my post of 20,000 people - has exactly two paved roads, one of which is the highway. So you may imagine what terre rouge (dirt roads) turns into after a heavy downpour. A giant, caramel-colored mess. Sometimes there's just no way to avoid the puddles; plodding right through them is the only option. But then there's the fear of contracting schistosomiasis from standing water. Gah! I'm learning which spots on the path to my health center and to the social services center gather the most water. I almost feel like I'm an urban planner doing research. Really, I just wish they'd pave the damn roads.

Which reminds me....things I can change vs. things I should just accept already. This week telling the difference has been a bit of a struggle. Here are some examples:

  • Igor, the three year-old who lives in my concession, cannot be silenced. He will continue to scream and act like a needy brat no matter how often I swear at him under my breath (and out of earshot). Upside: he is not my child.
  • The rains will continue making walking paths non-existent. Plus side: rain = crops = happy Beninese people.   Also, it is no longer 115 degrees. Dieu merci. Seriously.
  • There are never not going to be 75+ women and screaming kids each day at vaccinations. There's no slow season for births in Benin, apparently. Plus side: filling out health cards and weighing all those kids is giving me public health experience - and most of the time, despite the stress of working with my nemesis nurse, it's fun.
Despite everything, though, I really am happy here. There are days, of course, like yesterday, when I decided being alone for the afternoon was the best option (before saying something I regretted); most of the time, though, it's good. I learn something new every day, and this is certainly the most mentally challenging experience of my life; there's not much more I could ask for from a job - save for maybe air conditioning.

A toute a l'heure!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Some things I've learned along the way

Amazingly, we're almost 11 months into our service (not counting the 6 months of practice I got in Niger).  I thought I'd share some lessons learned thus far. 
  • Living without running water isn’t that much of an imposition.
  • The limits of non-refrigeration. Reheating only goes so far.
  • How to drink water or bisap out of a plastic bag with minimal spillage
  • That only you can prevent diarrhea, which mostly means eating food only you have touched
  • The meaning of the phrase “shit show,” as related to Peace Corps parties (or, let's be honest) anything organized by the staff
  • How to put a Beninese man in his place and that responding to “Viens ici!” never ends well
  • How to dodge motos at the marche
  • How to ride a motorcycle (always with a helmet!), particularly over terre rouge (dirt roads)
  • How to make a toddler cry just by being white; this happens more than you might think, my friends
  • In theory, how to change a bike tire
  • All about the music of Akon, unfortunately
  • How pile 11 people plus a few babies into a Subaru-sized station wagon, or 20+ into a minivan
  • That the roofs of those cars can hold a whole lot of stuff, like motorcycles and cows
  • How to urinate on the side of the road
  • How to dehydrate yourself to avoid going on the side of the road
  • The crazier the print on the fabric, the better
  • Pajamas can absolutely be worn as work attire
  • Never travel in anything but pants
  • Take the estimated travel time and double it; really, just plan to go a day early
  • (Reminder): Having a bad day? Your life could a lot, lot worse
  • Pretty much anything can be transported via motorcycle: a couch, a half-butchered steer, three or four car tires (worn by the driver), or up to five children
  • Never, ever take diet soda for granted
  • Do not believe the neighbor’s kids when they tell you a large flock of birds broke your porch light
  • There is actually a season for chicken eggs, and for puppies.
  • Mango tree blossoms smell a lot like lilacs
  • The worst place for mosquito bites is the arch of the foot
  • Holidays with friends can be just as good as with family
  • Nigeria exports some pretty decent snack food
  • Breathing camion/semi-truck exhaust makes you run a lot, lot slower.
  • The world can be made good again after a good night’s sleep or a letter from home.
  • There’s always time for an egg sandwich when waiting for a car to leave the taxi station.
  • Always expect the unexpected. This is Africa. 
  • When in doubt, take a deep breath. Soyez calme!
  • If a boy comes by and offers to carry your 25-liter bidon of water, just forget your pride and let him.
  • Why pay for Possotome (bottled water) when you can have water in a sachet for a fraction of the cost?
  • Shea butter fixes everything
  • "Every victory has the same value," a direct quote from our amazing training manager, Gisele.  Sometimes just leaving your house to buy tomato paste constitutes an accomplishment.
  • The ethical and economic implications of foreign aid are much, much more complicated than I ever imagined.
  • It's okay to read guilty-pleasure novels or only books with happy endings. Life is stressful enough.
  • I am not very good at hand-washing my clothes.

 

Thursday, May 17, 2012

mid-May musings

Hiya friends.

A request was made (ahem!) to update the blog more often. I always worry I'll repeat myself somewhere between the letters and the blog, but I promise to make more of an effort. Peace Corps counts blog entries as Goal 3 "work." Maybe here we can focus on Beninese culture or specific examples of the struggles of an American trying to make this home for a couple of years. Here we go/on y va. The biggest news in my life lately is that I made it through the hot season, and relatively unscathed, if I do say so. The massive sweating, the heat rash, the lack of sleep and subsequent grumpiness- they're done until October's mini-hot season rolls around. I actually patted myself on the back for making it through. I spent a LOT of money on cold bags of water, ice, and bissap (a hibiscus drink). Each afternoon I faced the following internal dilemma: should I take another bucket bath to cool off? If I do, that means going to the well to get more water and thus sweating even more. Changing clothes means doing more laundry and more water pulling. Is/was it worth it? No. A sweating machine, that's what I was. My co-workers at the CPS ever so helpfully enjoyed commenting on that. My sarcastic, "oh, really? I hadn't noticed," was totally lost on them. Sarcasm is not an effective means of communication here! (Incidentally, I promised a fellow PCV the other day to try to be more obvious in my use of sarcasm. Apparently I've improved my deadpan delivery to the point of confusion.) Because non-extreme weather just doesn't exist in any form in West Africa, now that it rains, it REALLY rains. The other night I put out a 20-liter plastic bucket to catch rainwater, and by the next morning it was more than halfway full. Other springtime changes: the ginormous frogs have made their triumphant and cacophonous return to Kandi. I find their fist-sized bodies mostly in the tragic form of roadkill (or motokill---ha ha ha). The mint bushes that are all over my neighborhood are quickly growing back (the brush had all been burned several weeks ago); I'm waiting for the mintiness to waft back through my windows. It's like a giant spray bottle of Febreze. And now because I'm too lazy to come up with clever and logical connections between each of the following "things you probably didn't know about Benin," I will present them to you via bullet points.

--Every night on the state-run TV channel, they run the "necrologie," which is similar to the obituaries in our newspapers. The person's picture is accompanied by their name and age. What's remarkable about this is that it seems to completely captivate the Beninese. The world stops when the necrologie comes on.

--Traveling this great land is toujours at least mildly stressful. Lately I've been taking the bus to go to Parakou to bank, and certainly it is the only option worth even entertaining for longer trips south. I've never taken the Greyhound or whatever that super cheap one is that goes from Chicago to other destinations for like a $1, but I think now I'd consider it. If I can do it here, I certainly can manage roughing (significantly more comfortably, probably) in America. Let me tell you about bus protocols here in Benin: there's usually some form of entertainment, usually in the form of a Nigerian soap opera or movie. I saw one recently featuring a child actor who was GARY COLEMAN INCARNATE, except it was not Gary Coleman. He had the creepiest facial expressions I've ever seen on a child, and I just couldn't not watch it. It was amazingly captivating. Secondly, at the stops, the bus is swarmed with vendors selling everything from avocado sandwiches (delicious) to pineapples, phone credit, meat kabobs, drinks, and literally everything you might imagine wanting to indulge in on a bus ride. The thing is, if the vendors (mostly women, or "mamans") don't beat you to the bus, you will be mobbed trying to get off of it. I have literally shoved people out of the way. It's brutal, like Target on Black Friday. Then there's the anxiety of , oh God, where's the bathroom? Is there a bathroom, or are we, like, freestyling it? (99% of the time, it's the latter.) I experienced this in Niger a couple of times before I learned to never, ever drink anything the day of the bus ride. Go to the bathroom before you leave and do not expect to go again until you arrive at your destination 12 hours later. Then just drink five or six Nalgenes before you go to bed, and you're okay. Despite all of these things, bus travel is so infinitely better than traveling via a trusty and rusty Peugeot 505.

--Umbilical hernias. Is this something normal people (like people who are parents, I guess?) know about? If not, let me share with you something I see daily: babies and children with cones for belly buttons. This was not something that was ever addressed in our training, probably because it's not life-threatening, so I didn't really understand until one day Kimie and I had had enough of the wondering and consulted WebMD. Apparently the hernias are more common in certain ethnicities, like Africans. Often the hernias/cones just go away by themselves, but I definitely have seen ten or twelve-year olds who still sport them. The other day a mom at vaccinations was trying to push her baby's back in, and the baby would not have it. As medical things often are, it was both disgusting and fascinating.

--This is not really Benin or Africa-related at all, but you know who's awesome (previously unbeknownst to me)? Julia Child. I'm reading her "My Life in France" and am just enchanted with her story. She meets and marries the love of her life a bit later than most; she moves to and struggles for a while in a city that eventually becomes her true home; she finds her calling and runs with it; and she seems to do all of this with great humor and a true sense of self. With so much news on Facebook of my friends getting engaged, married, having their second or third kid, finding the house with the picket fence, etc., I really appreciated reading about someone who lived - and was immensely happy with - a slightly less conventional lifestyle.

--One thing I really admire about the Beninese is their commitment to reusing and recycling. Plastic bottles, tins cans, etc. are like GOLD. In most village markets, you can find at least one person selling old water bottles (especially the giant 1.5L ones), old motor oil containers, and giant bidons that once held vegetable oil. Sometimes you'll find something as simple as old tin cans for sale. Liquor bottles find new jobs as holders of sugared peanuts (which is nice because it requires some effort to get the peanuts out of the old whisky bottles which is like built-in portion control).

 That's all for now!