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!