No, I haven't been swallowed up by a pit of jungle quicksand (we don't really have "jungle" here in Benin-- the bush in my neck of the bush is mostly scrubby bushes, grasses and weedy thistle punctuated with the occasional towering tree.) (And even if we had jungle, would we have quicksand?)
No, I didn't go out fishing with Albert again only to have our junker of an outboard motor crap out leaving us vulnerable to the Nigerian pirates and arms smugglers who patrol the coastal waters.
No, I haven't misteriously withered after a vindictive villager, hidden away in his room, pronounced curse words calculating my demise.
The real reason I haven't been posting is far less interesting- my computer lost MS Word, so i have no word processing application to work with for the moment.
So life is life... (yeah, I'm a deep, insightful dude) and by that I mean that it doesn't feel much out of the ordinary for me to be here in Africa. The novelty has officially worn off. I have my routines, my coping mechanisms. There are people I won't pass without stopping and shooting the breeze. There are those whose phone calls I stubbornly refuse to answer because I know exactly how pointless the conversation will be. I think I'm a little less smiley than I was a few months ago, although I still stop and shake hands with small children on a daily basis. I've been going more frequently to the clubs in Cotonou-dance is my favorite therapy.
When I got here, I felt like life was the next two years. Now I find myself fretting over my post-Benin future, which is probably healthy for a dude pushing thirty with no clear career trajectory.
In typical fashion, at the very last minute the school year was lengthened by three weeks because of the teacher strikes that have disrupted the year (my school didn't strike). So instead of final exams this week, I can look forward to the hit-or-miss, unpredictable battle of wills called "class".
So I am anticipating a great summer with some travel (Ghana perhaps, northern Benin for sure), some peace corps activity (training the new-jacks for 3 weeks, and taking two girl students to a week-long camp for bad-ass girls), a whole lot of music-makin and booty shakin, and of course, the best--those unplanned adventures that come a knockin at your door every once in a while.
Once I get Word, I will unleash the stories like a flood, I promise. In the meantime, tell me of your adventures and earth-rattling epiphanies...
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Friday, March 7, 2008
Bloodsuckers and the Music Club
Friday, February 29, 2008
Happy leap year! Today is a day of recalibration… I just need to figure out if I’m running ahead or behind, fast or slow, hot or cold. In general I feel pretty good, but it’s always hard to diagnose yourself, like it’s hard to notice if you yourself have grown.
One time, I gained 25 pounds without noticing. I was enjoying the pastries and bread of Europe a little too much, perhaps. Only when I got home and my friend Rachel laughed at my big belly did I realize what had happened. So when here, in the space of two weeks, two different village lady friends of mine complimented me on filling out nicely (gaining weight here is a sign of good health), I started to get paranoid. An evil friend of mine seized on my paranoia and surreptitiously laid a foot on the med center scale as I was trying to calm my fears, and she had me convinced I had repeated my impressive 25 pound feat.
Luckily, her fits of hysterics eventually tipped me off and I am relieved to know that I am cruising at my arrival weight.
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````
I’ve got other news, growing stale, but not too stale to nibble on if you hunger for freakish slightly gross things. About 6 weeks ago, I got my very first blood sucking parasite! And my second, too! It started with a small bump near my heel, which I thought was some kind of wart. I ignored it. Then I noticed the tip of my pink toe was quite swollen, and pretty sensitive. I was studying it the day after I found it, when my friend saw it, laughed and told me I had a gigan. Fearing some exotic foot worm, I asked him what it was.
It turns out, there are these tiny, black, tick-like insects which mainly stick to pigs, but also enjoy human feet, especially soft baby and child feet. My friend was surprised at the size of my gigans because usually they itch like mad as they burrow under your skin and start to suck your blood. Any normal rational adult here quickly deals with it before it really gets in the door. Mine had been inside at least two weeks, feasting quite well.
Stoically, I sat with my foot on the table of my friend’s buvette as a small grinning crowd gathered and Yves went to work with a sharpened stick and a razor blade. Okay, I am lying. I was gripping the table till my knuckles were white as I softly whimpered and pleaded for him to wait and do it tomorrow, promising I would come back. (Sound familiar, dad?)
After fifteen minutes, Yves had harvested two impressive white pea-sized gigans, leaving blood-red holes in my feet. Many times in the next day or two, the image of peering into a hole in my toe and seeing a pearl imbedded there left me with a smile on my face.
Okay, I’m weird.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, I know, you didn’t sign up to read about weight gain (imagined or real), and certainly not about creepy blood suckers (you get enough of that in the Wall Street Journal…badoum, chink!) so I’ll tell you about my music club at school…
It’s in a formative stage, I’ve had 3 meetings with one group and 2 with another. We do solfege and theory and I’m teaching how to read and write music.
I composed a little singing exercise with two part harmony and it opened my eyes-this will be very hard. I want to sing three part harmony but everybody’s intonation is very loose (ie terrible) and they don't know how to listen to their voice (or others' voices)when they sing, so it just doesn’t work—not yet…
Traditional music here is basically percussion and unison voices, so they are not used to hearing much harmony. I don’t know if this contributes to the problem, or if any group of untrained, unexperienced singers is an intonational nightmare. Regardless, it will be an interesting challenge to mold them into a group.
I just need to show them what in tune sounds like before I can expect it of them.
At this point there are kids that can't replicate a pitch I sing. My work is cut out for me...Petit a petit le oiseau fait son nit…little by little the bird builds its nest…
I am scared that when I come home, having become used to using certain French, or even Fon expressions to express certain thoughts, I will be frustrated by English’s lack of a good equivalent—ca y est…petit a petit…bon travail…tu a fait un peut?
Anyway, eventually, I will post some recordings if possible…
Till next time…
Happy leap year! Today is a day of recalibration… I just need to figure out if I’m running ahead or behind, fast or slow, hot or cold. In general I feel pretty good, but it’s always hard to diagnose yourself, like it’s hard to notice if you yourself have grown.
One time, I gained 25 pounds without noticing. I was enjoying the pastries and bread of Europe a little too much, perhaps. Only when I got home and my friend Rachel laughed at my big belly did I realize what had happened. So when here, in the space of two weeks, two different village lady friends of mine complimented me on filling out nicely (gaining weight here is a sign of good health), I started to get paranoid. An evil friend of mine seized on my paranoia and surreptitiously laid a foot on the med center scale as I was trying to calm my fears, and she had me convinced I had repeated my impressive 25 pound feat.
Luckily, her fits of hysterics eventually tipped me off and I am relieved to know that I am cruising at my arrival weight.
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````
I’ve got other news, growing stale, but not too stale to nibble on if you hunger for freakish slightly gross things. About 6 weeks ago, I got my very first blood sucking parasite! And my second, too! It started with a small bump near my heel, which I thought was some kind of wart. I ignored it. Then I noticed the tip of my pink toe was quite swollen, and pretty sensitive. I was studying it the day after I found it, when my friend saw it, laughed and told me I had a gigan. Fearing some exotic foot worm, I asked him what it was.
It turns out, there are these tiny, black, tick-like insects which mainly stick to pigs, but also enjoy human feet, especially soft baby and child feet. My friend was surprised at the size of my gigans because usually they itch like mad as they burrow under your skin and start to suck your blood. Any normal rational adult here quickly deals with it before it really gets in the door. Mine had been inside at least two weeks, feasting quite well.
Stoically, I sat with my foot on the table of my friend’s buvette as a small grinning crowd gathered and Yves went to work with a sharpened stick and a razor blade. Okay, I am lying. I was gripping the table till my knuckles were white as I softly whimpered and pleaded for him to wait and do it tomorrow, promising I would come back. (Sound familiar, dad?)
After fifteen minutes, Yves had harvested two impressive white pea-sized gigans, leaving blood-red holes in my feet. Many times in the next day or two, the image of peering into a hole in my toe and seeing a pearl imbedded there left me with a smile on my face.
Okay, I’m weird.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, I know, you didn’t sign up to read about weight gain (imagined or real), and certainly not about creepy blood suckers (you get enough of that in the Wall Street Journal…badoum, chink!) so I’ll tell you about my music club at school…
It’s in a formative stage, I’ve had 3 meetings with one group and 2 with another. We do solfege and theory and I’m teaching how to read and write music.
I composed a little singing exercise with two part harmony and it opened my eyes-this will be very hard. I want to sing three part harmony but everybody’s intonation is very loose (ie terrible) and they don't know how to listen to their voice (or others' voices)when they sing, so it just doesn’t work—not yet…
Traditional music here is basically percussion and unison voices, so they are not used to hearing much harmony. I don’t know if this contributes to the problem, or if any group of untrained, unexperienced singers is an intonational nightmare. Regardless, it will be an interesting challenge to mold them into a group.
I just need to show them what in tune sounds like before I can expect it of them.
At this point there are kids that can't replicate a pitch I sing. My work is cut out for me...Petit a petit le oiseau fait son nit…little by little the bird builds its nest…
I am scared that when I come home, having become used to using certain French, or even Fon expressions to express certain thoughts, I will be frustrated by English’s lack of a good equivalent—ca y est…petit a petit…bon travail…tu a fait un peut?
Anyway, eventually, I will post some recordings if possible…
Till next time…
Saturday, March 1, 2008
A Day at Sea
This is the main road passing through my village. I promise many more and better photos soon. Maybe even videos!!! those bananas are delicious ...
This guy was in my house, and he had a few words for me...
This guy was in my house, and he had a few words for me...
Friday, February 15th
--Azan yi aton!
--Dokpo jeji! Literally, “It’s been three days”…“And one more!” (This is the Fon equivalent of “long time no see.”) I first take this chance to thank my dad for buying me the shiny new computer happily humming on my lap as I decadently prop myself up in bed this early Friday morning, with no immediate plans to go anywhere (a luxury even more rare here than it would have been back there in my “real life”).
The thanks don’t stop there, as my brother did the grunt work of buying it and sending it to the friend of a friend who graciously dragged it from Colorado to the bustling road-side market of my village where I fought past the dozen women insistently thrusting bags of oranges, small bags of bocou (boiled corn mixed with boiled peanuts), bags of pur water (“madame, pya wata, pya wata!”) into the open windows of the taxi, or displaying platters of papayas, bananas, pineapples or a delicacy (heehee) called agouti, or “bush-rat” .
I call the market “road-side” because the English language hasn’t had much need for a word to describe a market which is actually in the road. For the length of my long village, taxis and trucks pull over along one side of the road where they need not even open a door to buy the fruit or agouti my village is famous (at least regionally) for. Despite the fact that they have widened the road to accommodate this commerce which is the life-blood of the village, often the stopped cars leave only one lane to be shared by the two directions of traffic. At least this bottleneck forces the cars to roll doucement (gently)…
It’s hard to know where to begin when you are trying to blog the story of your life, and it has been six weeks of new experiences, shifting perspectives, happy discoveries, small triumphs and disappointments since you last had the chance to write. I’ll leave for later the happy stories of my newly formed music club and my other evolving musical adventures, the decadence of swimming at the American Ambassador’s personal swimming pool, the intrigued horror of participating in a chicken sacrifice, and the sorrow of learning of the death of my friend’s teen-age brother. Instead, I’ll tell you about my housemates.
They are generally quiet, and luckily we keep opposite hours. I am generally up and about from 5 or 5:30 in the morning to about 9 or 10 at night, and usually they only get up after I’m sleeping, although we cross paths occasionally during the day. My biggest complaint is that they don’t have the decency to shit in the designated shitting area, they do their business wherever, even while eating (now that’s just wrong), and it doesn’t even cross their minds to clean it up.
Another thing that pisses me off is when they eat my food without asking. Basically, they will eat anything I leave out—bananas, pineapples, bread— they even have the nerve to start a second or even third banana before they finish the first—utterly wasteful and inconsiderate. They’re almost as bad as my recent roommate in Brooklyn who smoked pot every day, made a pathetic attempt to clean every few months or so, and regularly passed out fully clothed on his bare mattress with lights and radio on. (Did I mention it was a railroad apartment and I had to pass through his degenerate world just to go brush my teeth or fix myself a nice cup of herbal tea in the roach-infested kitchen?)
When I do happen to see these messy co-inhabitors, I always make sure to remind them that their days are numbered—a friend of a friend has a kitten that she fears will be eaten by her neighbors if she doesn’t find him a new home, so I will soon have his welcome company here with me. If the mice are smart, they’ll quit while they’re ahead and move on. If they sit too long at the table of bounty they will quickly see the tables turn and who was once eating will soon be eaten.
Well, I have spent about two hours delicately crafting these two pages without really saying much of interest at all. What self-indulgent rambling as usual, now followed by the usual self-effacing and slightly embarrassingly self-conscious criticism. Anyone who is unfortunate enough to have followed my blog regularly should have by now noticed this pattern and stopped reading long ago… If you are unlucky enough to have stumbled across this blog, let me be the first to warn you—you are likely to waste some perfectly good time and leave with a bad taste in your mouth. Till next time! Edabo…
Saturday, February 23, 2008
The worst thing about a party is that it must end. This morning I woke up in Cotonou and did not want to go back to my village. I have spent the last week enjoying my freedom from the daily grind and spending time with friends.
The “party” vibe culminated last night at a brand new night club called Tantra where a number of us danced until the DJ went home at six a.m. He played an eclectic mix of American hip-hop, European club music, African dance music and Lebanese club music. The crowd was weller-to-do Beninese, Lebanese (there are a bunch who do business here), our modest American contingent and a few Frenchies. I had the pleasure of being fought over more than once by friendly (and strong!) Beninese girls who tried to snatch me away from each other on the dance floor.
The slightly pretentious scene at the club contrasted strongly with the place I had left the morning of the same day, a beach not far from Porto Novo. I have a friend in this small, beautiful ocean-side fishing village and I took the opportunity to spend a day and a night there.
The village is set just back from the beach itself, and is scattered with quite a lot of coconut palms, nicely spaced to create an airy tropical atmosphere. The homes are also nicely spaced, and each is surrounded by a thin wall of inter-woven palm leaves. The houses have walls of palm branches and roofs of—you guessed it—palm leaves. The result is quite beautiful, the unity among the homes and between the homes and the landscape.
Albert is in his late forties but seems younger. His lips are discolored in a splotchy pattern, a result, I would assume, of the boat fire which also badly burned his hand and left it scarred. Having spent years in Nigeria working on and eventually captaining a large fishing boat, his English is decent, about on par with his somewhat broken French. His native language is gungbe (pronounced goon-gbay), a sub-dialect of the fongbe language family. This is the language of the Oueme departement of South-east Benin (which includes the capital of Porto Novo).
I met Albert in December as I was walking along the beach with a few friends, enjoying the relative solitude of the place. We came across a group of twenty or so people heaving a canoe out of the water and up the beach. Always wanting a part in the action, I suggested that we help, and we nonchalantly lent our incredible strength to the task.
The people were pretty friendly, and Albert in particular talked to us for a few minutes. After we shot the shit for a while, he mentioned that next time we should come find him and he would cook us some fish. He thus planted a seed which I have patiently kept for three months until I found the conditions to let it flower this week.
Thursday, when I arrived, we went to a nearby buvette where he insisted on buying me three large beers. Then we walked a bit through the village, visiting a few friends. At one house, he grabbed a little fish, thin and about three inches long, off a fire where it was being smoked, and handed it to me. I carried this little fish for about thirty minutes without really considering what to do with it before he asked why I hadn’t eaten it. Ah, now I understand…you just take a whole little animal and nibble it, of course! I did my best to enjoy this gift. Probably they would just bite the whole damn thing and chew it, bones and all, I’m not sure.
Worn out from our grueling afternoon, we lay down on a straw mat that he had laid out in the shade of a –you guessed it—palm leaf roof. He called a young boy, and told him fetch us some coconuts. In other words, “go scale that 30 foot palm tree, risking life and limb”. The boy, with bare feet and hands, climbed in stages, resting every few feet. At the top, he hauled himself up onto the palm branches and with much effort, shoved a few green coconuts off with his foot. I don’t know whether he was fearing for his life, but I definitely was.
With his machete, Albert expertly chopped an opening in several of the coconuts and handed them to me. Green coconuts are quite juicy I learned, and the juice is mmmmm… sweet. The flesh is somewhat thin and very moist, tender and delicious. I had three or four.
For the evening’s entertainment, Albert took me with his twin sons of four years to his friend’s house, where a gas-powered generator ran a tv. Just what I was craving—some nice modern technology to relieve me of the oppressive boredom of a sky speckled with glittering stars, fringed by towering palm trees, swaying gently in the constant breeze to the relentless rhythm of waves beating the shore.
The feature was a rather low-budget affair, a series of vignettes taking place on the streets of nearby Porto Novo, in which a rambunctious midget wandered around getting into trouble and loud arguments (quite a common theme in Fon movies) with various people—a bread seller and a sugar-seller, among others. A mixture of boredom and distaste for unabashed midgexploitation drove me to retreat into my book, the sci-fi masterpiece Ender’s Game.
At my insistence on sleeping outside, Albert spread a large straw mat in his fenced-in front “yard” and I had restless sleep until he in turn insisted that we move inside onto the all-too-solid concrete floor to escape the feared early morning dew of the harmattan.
Having been told that we would not be fishing since recently the sea had not been giving many fish, I was pleasantly surprised the next morning when Albert told me that his friend was going out, and would be happy to have me tag along. Albert decided to come along, too, and his seniority put him at the helm.
The boats are made in Ghana, the bulk of the body carved from a single large tree. About 18 feet long, these canoes are quite stable and handsome, if somewhat sea-worn. A small triangle juts out to the side near the back, seating a large 25 horsepower outboard motor.
When I arrived at the boat, it was halfway down the beach, just close enough to the sea that the largest waves came up and licked its belly. Having stowed nets, a large container of drinking water (ratty old engines can fail, after all) and little else, we got ready for a day on the sea. I reluctantly entrusted my cell phone to Albert’s friend who was staying back, but only after checking and memorizing my pre-paid credit balance. (Recent events have given me trust issues-more later…)
About ten of us now took advantage of every large wave which washed up under the hulking boat to heave it a foot or two farther into the water. At a certain point, we seemed to wait for nothing at all in particular, until Albert gave a shout, we all pushed to boat to full buoyancy, and we leaped in. With the speed and precision of a well-practiced football team, one guy lowered the motor into the water, pull-started it, and gunned it. Albert stood on the rear bench and grabbed a ten-foot oar-shaped rudder, directing us into the on-coming waves.
He had timed the launch well, and the boat easily scaled and crested three or four waves before they became harmless swells. It was only after we passed out of that hairy situation that it occurred to me to ask if they often tip during the launch. He said it depends on the captain. The captain must study the sea, grok the waves which come in sets, and carefully time the launch so that it takes place between the sets of larger waves. Call me reckless, but my captain’s age and demeanor had given me full confidence in him.
I’d like to interrupt this narrative for a moment to say that just because you, the reader, are likely sitting in a nice chair in a climate-controlled home or office, enjoying a nice cup of fresh coffee and a blueberry scone, or an avocado roll with green tea, or a mozzarella and fresh basil sandwich on organic 16-grain bread, I’m not jealous, no! I’ve got a gigantic half-papaya in front of me, roughly the shape, if not the size, of the very boat on which our narrative takes place. Back to the story…
Call me short-sighted, but it wasn’t until we got out into the sea, with the coastal palm and pine trees slipping behind the morning fog that I thought to wonder how on earth we would navigate. How did they used to do it? Oh yeah, stars…well there aren’t too many of those during the day. Actually, there’s exactly one, and it’s called…………………………………………..that’s right—the sun.
Albert claims he uses his “experience” to know where he’s going. Okay, I can understand that waves generally head towards the land. I can accept that the wind in turn heads away from land. But that doesn’t explain how he headed out for about 20 min, at an angle to the shore, and without much difficulty found the little flag and buoy that mark the nets that the crew had cast the previous day.
Before hauling in this catch, we cast another net, about 200 meters long. While one guy gently rowed us along and Albert kept our course true, the other two let out the net. About four feet wide, it was lined with floaties (mostly pieces of old flip-flops) along one side, and sinkies (small bits of metal) along the other. The floaties aren’t strong enough to overpower the sinkies and keep the net at the surface, they are intended to keep the net upright along the sea-bed.
Pulling in yesterday’s net, one guy kept laying these crabs, still stuck in the net, on the top edge of the side of the boat, an improvised anvil, and bashing them with a stick until glittering bits of crab shell and flesh rained down in the water, manna for some little guys, I’m sure. Turns out these crabs, which numbered at least one of every two animals caught, are inedible.
Among the edible catch were other crabs—these were removed from the net with a bit more delicate touch—a couple handsome well-red snappers about two feet long, some medium sized flat silvery-white fish, and a lot of what I think may be flounder. Flat, they fly through the water by creating wave motions which run along the side of their bodies. They have long rattails and their mouths are found on the lower surface of their flat bodies, well-positioned to scavenge the ocean floor, I imagine. Not too attractive if you ask me.
As they worked, the crew passed the hours joking and telling stories which were obviously unintelligible to me. I passed the hours alternately gazing at the horizon, similar in every direction, and watching the men work much as I studied construction workers as a young boy.
Eager to get to Cotonou to see which other volunteers were in town and cook up some week-end festivities, I decided not to wait long enough to eat the fish which we had earned (I did bail a little! ). Instead, My buddy quickly steamed about seven crabs, which we ate with gari and sauce. Gari is a rough flour made of manioc. It is often mixed with cooked beans and can be eaten dry as a snack, or countless other ways. Today it was mixed with water to create a slightly sticky, subtly bitter, kind of rough dough. Taking a bit between the fingers, you roll a ball, dip it in the sauce (tomatoes, hot pepper, crab fat, and water) and enjoy. Enjoy I did. Albert spoiled me by deftly cracking open the crabs and tossing chunks of white flesh onto the plate of sauce.
My sojourn at the beach had come to an end, and in fact 24 hours seemed like enough. Hanging out with Beninese, even quite nice and pleasant people, is different from hanging with other friends. We are truly from different worlds, and there is a divide there which has not shown signs of dissolving in my seven months here.
He welcomed me to bring a friend or two next time, and I will surely take him up on his offer. Maybe having a third wheel along will make a stay of two or three days more appealing.
--Azan yi aton!
--Dokpo jeji! Literally, “It’s been three days”…“And one more!” (This is the Fon equivalent of “long time no see.”) I first take this chance to thank my dad for buying me the shiny new computer happily humming on my lap as I decadently prop myself up in bed this early Friday morning, with no immediate plans to go anywhere (a luxury even more rare here than it would have been back there in my “real life”).
The thanks don’t stop there, as my brother did the grunt work of buying it and sending it to the friend of a friend who graciously dragged it from Colorado to the bustling road-side market of my village where I fought past the dozen women insistently thrusting bags of oranges, small bags of bocou (boiled corn mixed with boiled peanuts), bags of pur water (“madame, pya wata, pya wata!”) into the open windows of the taxi, or displaying platters of papayas, bananas, pineapples or a delicacy (heehee) called agouti, or “bush-rat” .
I call the market “road-side” because the English language hasn’t had much need for a word to describe a market which is actually in the road. For the length of my long village, taxis and trucks pull over along one side of the road where they need not even open a door to buy the fruit or agouti my village is famous (at least regionally) for. Despite the fact that they have widened the road to accommodate this commerce which is the life-blood of the village, often the stopped cars leave only one lane to be shared by the two directions of traffic. At least this bottleneck forces the cars to roll doucement (gently)…
It’s hard to know where to begin when you are trying to blog the story of your life, and it has been six weeks of new experiences, shifting perspectives, happy discoveries, small triumphs and disappointments since you last had the chance to write. I’ll leave for later the happy stories of my newly formed music club and my other evolving musical adventures, the decadence of swimming at the American Ambassador’s personal swimming pool, the intrigued horror of participating in a chicken sacrifice, and the sorrow of learning of the death of my friend’s teen-age brother. Instead, I’ll tell you about my housemates.
They are generally quiet, and luckily we keep opposite hours. I am generally up and about from 5 or 5:30 in the morning to about 9 or 10 at night, and usually they only get up after I’m sleeping, although we cross paths occasionally during the day. My biggest complaint is that they don’t have the decency to shit in the designated shitting area, they do their business wherever, even while eating (now that’s just wrong), and it doesn’t even cross their minds to clean it up.
Another thing that pisses me off is when they eat my food without asking. Basically, they will eat anything I leave out—bananas, pineapples, bread— they even have the nerve to start a second or even third banana before they finish the first—utterly wasteful and inconsiderate. They’re almost as bad as my recent roommate in Brooklyn who smoked pot every day, made a pathetic attempt to clean every few months or so, and regularly passed out fully clothed on his bare mattress with lights and radio on. (Did I mention it was a railroad apartment and I had to pass through his degenerate world just to go brush my teeth or fix myself a nice cup of herbal tea in the roach-infested kitchen?)
When I do happen to see these messy co-inhabitors, I always make sure to remind them that their days are numbered—a friend of a friend has a kitten that she fears will be eaten by her neighbors if she doesn’t find him a new home, so I will soon have his welcome company here with me. If the mice are smart, they’ll quit while they’re ahead and move on. If they sit too long at the table of bounty they will quickly see the tables turn and who was once eating will soon be eaten.
Well, I have spent about two hours delicately crafting these two pages without really saying much of interest at all. What self-indulgent rambling as usual, now followed by the usual self-effacing and slightly embarrassingly self-conscious criticism. Anyone who is unfortunate enough to have followed my blog regularly should have by now noticed this pattern and stopped reading long ago… If you are unlucky enough to have stumbled across this blog, let me be the first to warn you—you are likely to waste some perfectly good time and leave with a bad taste in your mouth. Till next time! Edabo…
Saturday, February 23, 2008
The worst thing about a party is that it must end. This morning I woke up in Cotonou and did not want to go back to my village. I have spent the last week enjoying my freedom from the daily grind and spending time with friends.
The “party” vibe culminated last night at a brand new night club called Tantra where a number of us danced until the DJ went home at six a.m. He played an eclectic mix of American hip-hop, European club music, African dance music and Lebanese club music. The crowd was weller-to-do Beninese, Lebanese (there are a bunch who do business here), our modest American contingent and a few Frenchies. I had the pleasure of being fought over more than once by friendly (and strong!) Beninese girls who tried to snatch me away from each other on the dance floor.
The slightly pretentious scene at the club contrasted strongly with the place I had left the morning of the same day, a beach not far from Porto Novo. I have a friend in this small, beautiful ocean-side fishing village and I took the opportunity to spend a day and a night there.
The village is set just back from the beach itself, and is scattered with quite a lot of coconut palms, nicely spaced to create an airy tropical atmosphere. The homes are also nicely spaced, and each is surrounded by a thin wall of inter-woven palm leaves. The houses have walls of palm branches and roofs of—you guessed it—palm leaves. The result is quite beautiful, the unity among the homes and between the homes and the landscape.
Albert is in his late forties but seems younger. His lips are discolored in a splotchy pattern, a result, I would assume, of the boat fire which also badly burned his hand and left it scarred. Having spent years in Nigeria working on and eventually captaining a large fishing boat, his English is decent, about on par with his somewhat broken French. His native language is gungbe (pronounced goon-gbay), a sub-dialect of the fongbe language family. This is the language of the Oueme departement of South-east Benin (which includes the capital of Porto Novo).
I met Albert in December as I was walking along the beach with a few friends, enjoying the relative solitude of the place. We came across a group of twenty or so people heaving a canoe out of the water and up the beach. Always wanting a part in the action, I suggested that we help, and we nonchalantly lent our incredible strength to the task.
The people were pretty friendly, and Albert in particular talked to us for a few minutes. After we shot the shit for a while, he mentioned that next time we should come find him and he would cook us some fish. He thus planted a seed which I have patiently kept for three months until I found the conditions to let it flower this week.
Thursday, when I arrived, we went to a nearby buvette where he insisted on buying me three large beers. Then we walked a bit through the village, visiting a few friends. At one house, he grabbed a little fish, thin and about three inches long, off a fire where it was being smoked, and handed it to me. I carried this little fish for about thirty minutes without really considering what to do with it before he asked why I hadn’t eaten it. Ah, now I understand…you just take a whole little animal and nibble it, of course! I did my best to enjoy this gift. Probably they would just bite the whole damn thing and chew it, bones and all, I’m not sure.
Worn out from our grueling afternoon, we lay down on a straw mat that he had laid out in the shade of a –you guessed it—palm leaf roof. He called a young boy, and told him fetch us some coconuts. In other words, “go scale that 30 foot palm tree, risking life and limb”. The boy, with bare feet and hands, climbed in stages, resting every few feet. At the top, he hauled himself up onto the palm branches and with much effort, shoved a few green coconuts off with his foot. I don’t know whether he was fearing for his life, but I definitely was.
With his machete, Albert expertly chopped an opening in several of the coconuts and handed them to me. Green coconuts are quite juicy I learned, and the juice is mmmmm… sweet. The flesh is somewhat thin and very moist, tender and delicious. I had three or four.
For the evening’s entertainment, Albert took me with his twin sons of four years to his friend’s house, where a gas-powered generator ran a tv. Just what I was craving—some nice modern technology to relieve me of the oppressive boredom of a sky speckled with glittering stars, fringed by towering palm trees, swaying gently in the constant breeze to the relentless rhythm of waves beating the shore.
The feature was a rather low-budget affair, a series of vignettes taking place on the streets of nearby Porto Novo, in which a rambunctious midget wandered around getting into trouble and loud arguments (quite a common theme in Fon movies) with various people—a bread seller and a sugar-seller, among others. A mixture of boredom and distaste for unabashed midgexploitation drove me to retreat into my book, the sci-fi masterpiece Ender’s Game.
At my insistence on sleeping outside, Albert spread a large straw mat in his fenced-in front “yard” and I had restless sleep until he in turn insisted that we move inside onto the all-too-solid concrete floor to escape the feared early morning dew of the harmattan.
Having been told that we would not be fishing since recently the sea had not been giving many fish, I was pleasantly surprised the next morning when Albert told me that his friend was going out, and would be happy to have me tag along. Albert decided to come along, too, and his seniority put him at the helm.
The boats are made in Ghana, the bulk of the body carved from a single large tree. About 18 feet long, these canoes are quite stable and handsome, if somewhat sea-worn. A small triangle juts out to the side near the back, seating a large 25 horsepower outboard motor.
When I arrived at the boat, it was halfway down the beach, just close enough to the sea that the largest waves came up and licked its belly. Having stowed nets, a large container of drinking water (ratty old engines can fail, after all) and little else, we got ready for a day on the sea. I reluctantly entrusted my cell phone to Albert’s friend who was staying back, but only after checking and memorizing my pre-paid credit balance. (Recent events have given me trust issues-more later…)
About ten of us now took advantage of every large wave which washed up under the hulking boat to heave it a foot or two farther into the water. At a certain point, we seemed to wait for nothing at all in particular, until Albert gave a shout, we all pushed to boat to full buoyancy, and we leaped in. With the speed and precision of a well-practiced football team, one guy lowered the motor into the water, pull-started it, and gunned it. Albert stood on the rear bench and grabbed a ten-foot oar-shaped rudder, directing us into the on-coming waves.
He had timed the launch well, and the boat easily scaled and crested three or four waves before they became harmless swells. It was only after we passed out of that hairy situation that it occurred to me to ask if they often tip during the launch. He said it depends on the captain. The captain must study the sea, grok the waves which come in sets, and carefully time the launch so that it takes place between the sets of larger waves. Call me reckless, but my captain’s age and demeanor had given me full confidence in him.
I’d like to interrupt this narrative for a moment to say that just because you, the reader, are likely sitting in a nice chair in a climate-controlled home or office, enjoying a nice cup of fresh coffee and a blueberry scone, or an avocado roll with green tea, or a mozzarella and fresh basil sandwich on organic 16-grain bread, I’m not jealous, no! I’ve got a gigantic half-papaya in front of me, roughly the shape, if not the size, of the very boat on which our narrative takes place. Back to the story…
Call me short-sighted, but it wasn’t until we got out into the sea, with the coastal palm and pine trees slipping behind the morning fog that I thought to wonder how on earth we would navigate. How did they used to do it? Oh yeah, stars…well there aren’t too many of those during the day. Actually, there’s exactly one, and it’s called…………………………………………..that’s right—the sun.
Albert claims he uses his “experience” to know where he’s going. Okay, I can understand that waves generally head towards the land. I can accept that the wind in turn heads away from land. But that doesn’t explain how he headed out for about 20 min, at an angle to the shore, and without much difficulty found the little flag and buoy that mark the nets that the crew had cast the previous day.
Before hauling in this catch, we cast another net, about 200 meters long. While one guy gently rowed us along and Albert kept our course true, the other two let out the net. About four feet wide, it was lined with floaties (mostly pieces of old flip-flops) along one side, and sinkies (small bits of metal) along the other. The floaties aren’t strong enough to overpower the sinkies and keep the net at the surface, they are intended to keep the net upright along the sea-bed.
Pulling in yesterday’s net, one guy kept laying these crabs, still stuck in the net, on the top edge of the side of the boat, an improvised anvil, and bashing them with a stick until glittering bits of crab shell and flesh rained down in the water, manna for some little guys, I’m sure. Turns out these crabs, which numbered at least one of every two animals caught, are inedible.
Among the edible catch were other crabs—these were removed from the net with a bit more delicate touch—a couple handsome well-red snappers about two feet long, some medium sized flat silvery-white fish, and a lot of what I think may be flounder. Flat, they fly through the water by creating wave motions which run along the side of their bodies. They have long rattails and their mouths are found on the lower surface of their flat bodies, well-positioned to scavenge the ocean floor, I imagine. Not too attractive if you ask me.
As they worked, the crew passed the hours joking and telling stories which were obviously unintelligible to me. I passed the hours alternately gazing at the horizon, similar in every direction, and watching the men work much as I studied construction workers as a young boy.
Eager to get to Cotonou to see which other volunteers were in town and cook up some week-end festivities, I decided not to wait long enough to eat the fish which we had earned (I did bail a little! ). Instead, My buddy quickly steamed about seven crabs, which we ate with gari and sauce. Gari is a rough flour made of manioc. It is often mixed with cooked beans and can be eaten dry as a snack, or countless other ways. Today it was mixed with water to create a slightly sticky, subtly bitter, kind of rough dough. Taking a bit between the fingers, you roll a ball, dip it in the sauce (tomatoes, hot pepper, crab fat, and water) and enjoy. Enjoy I did. Albert spoiled me by deftly cracking open the crabs and tossing chunks of white flesh onto the plate of sauce.
My sojourn at the beach had come to an end, and in fact 24 hours seemed like enough. Hanging out with Beninese, even quite nice and pleasant people, is different from hanging with other friends. We are truly from different worlds, and there is a divide there which has not shown signs of dissolving in my seven months here.
He welcomed me to bring a friend or two next time, and I will surely take him up on his offer. Maybe having a third wheel along will make a stay of two or three days more appealing.
More soon...lots of love...
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
~~Disaster Strikes!!!~~Satan Claus~~Pilgrimage~~
December 26, 2007
No, I did not catch a dose of the bird flu that has claimed the lives of at least a few Beninese poultry. No, I did not succomb to malaria, intestinal parasites, yellow fever, hookworm or any other tropical disease. I'm fine, its my (formerly) trusty ibook laptop who is teetering on the brink of death. Every time I try to boot up, the apple screen comes up, and then it freezes with the little pinwheel spinning...after a few minutes, the screen will go blank and the computer will go to sleep :(
If you notice that I have given an overly-detailed description of the symptoms, maybe you have guessed already that I am hoping some mac-saavy friend or reader will be able to diagnose and cure the malady from la-bas.
**cultural note*
La-bas means "over there", but in Benin it frequently is used to mean "back home" or "where-ever-the-hell you come from". As in "Et les gents de la-bas?"--("How are your folks back home?")
Recently at a Christmas party for orphans I heard the most fitting use of the phrase. Santa asked some little kids where Santa comes from, and one responded with an indisputable opinion--"la-bas"
Well, my blog readers, I call on you to join me in prayer, for much as I hate to admit it, the health of my blog depends on the health of my laptop. Not being able to write posts when inspiration strikes, in the (relative) comfort of my home, may make the blog suffer in quantity and quality. I also may have lost 90% of my photos from Benin :( Let's cross our fingers.
Well, I had a most interesting Christmas. First there was a Christmas party for a group of orphans in a fellow volunteer's village. A month ago, my friend had been looking for a hotel in Cotonou, and was helped by a rather colorful guy. His name is Papa Boni, and he is an animateur (mascot) for the Benin Squirrels, the national soccer team. With little dreads, a goatee, clownishly colorful clothes, and a painted bicycle laden with fake flowers, hand-painted signs, bells, whistles and and assortment of other kitchy ornaments, Pa Boni reminds me of Central Park in NYC. It is rare to see such a colorful character outside of Manhattan. Well, my friend is a fellow lover of adventure and nutty people, so they struck a fast friendship. Pa Boni agreed to come out to the village and be Santa for the orphans, for no pay.
It was a noble gesture, and I will forgive the fact that he showed up about four hours late only because a)he is Beninese and that is acceptable here b)his every waking moment is a performance, and that means that he finds himself swept up in little side-plots and mini-dramas at every turn.
While we were waiting, the kids would take turns performing, and I was very impressed. For vocal numbers, a few older boys (8-13 yrs) played drums while one girl would take the mic and belt out some great traditional songs. At least one managed to improvise some praise for my friend who had brought a gift for the kids. They recited poems, told short stories and danced. I would have been floored if I weren't already used to the incredible talent, strength and all-around amazingness of many children here.
Anyway, the kids loved Satan--I mean Santa. (Check out the picture, it's not hard to confuse the two...)
The yovo with the fancy camera is my friend Kaitlyn who is one of three Americans who started an organization called Unseen Stories to create documentaries designed to raise awareness about problems in the world and help people see how they can help.
My friend had plans to go on a Christmas pilgrimage with the president of the NGO where he works (who is also a responsable (pastor) of his church). Every year, the Celestes, known for wearing no shoes and dressing in white robes, gather at the beach for a midnight mass and prayers. I figured it would be interesting, but I didn't realize I was in for one of the most surreal experiences of my life.
Churches came from all of Benin, and delegations arrived even from Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, France and other countries. Each Church set up their straw mats under an awning to protect against the strong sun. Vendors, Celestes and non-Celestes alike, set up stalls or wandered, hawking goods from large backpacks or baskets on their heads. Mostly they sold food and prayer neccesities like perfume, candles, fake flowers, etc., but there were tupperware, sandals, instruments, videos, and a little bit of everything.
It was very intense--I was there for over 24 hours and saw no other white people aside from my friend. Everyone was curious about the yovos who had arrived at their pilgrimage, and it was difficult to walk anywhere without someone stopping me or calling me over to talk. A number of times, my path would cross that of a child, and they would literally jump away, startled and spooked.
By chance, amid the crowd of easily over ten thousand, we ran into my friend's friend from village, along with his friend, who immediately told me that he loved white people, and insisted on holding my hand everywhere we went. I can hold hands--no problem--but this guy, Moise, was ridiculous. After I got fed up, I seized an opportunity to steal back my hand, and did my best to keep it busy scratching my head, holding my other hand behind my back, or hiding it in my pocket. He would grab my wrist, and try to pull my hand from where ever I had stashed it, and I would just look around, pretending not to notice. All this while, for about fifteen minutes while we were walking around with , there was a robed fou (crazy man) who was nearly hyperventilating and yelled at everybody in Fon to watch out for the devils (us). He was bumping into people and scared women left and right, walking ahead to warn the people that we were coming, and coming back to eye us nervously. Luckily, he once strayed too far and we managed to slip away. I later heard that the Gendarmes had taken him in and most likely beaten him.
Returning to camp, the pastor asked if we would like to meet the head of the entire church, whom I and my friend later started to call "the pope". Well, that should be interesting, we thought, but we didn't yet realize just what we were in for. We were lead through the crowd to a huge church, brightly lit with long flourescent lights. There were no walls, and people had gathered all around the outside to peer in from afar, as only the Grands and special invitees were allowed in.
Inside, there was a brass band--about twenty trumpets, one saxophone, and some drummers. We entered, leaving our sandals on the steps as we were ushered past the guards. The floor was sand, and along the sides of the central space, important members of the church were sitting in their robes, rank indicated by varying degrees of color and ornamentation added to the basic white robe. At the end of a long purple runner, in an upholstered throne, the focal point of several cameras, video cameras, and electric fans, sat the Reverend Pasteur. Sporting a regal purple robe with golden embroidery, nonchalant behind his large, tinted glasses, he was a man with presence.
Unshaven, with wrinkled pajama pants and hair slightly unkempt, the "American Delegation" was led up to kneel before "the pope". We were presented with ceremonial flair, and it was explained breifly by the pastor how we had arrived in Benin as volunteers, and noticing that there was a pilgrimage, we had decided to come and see how they celebrate Christmas. All this, mind you, was far from the private meeting that we had expected. Loudspeakers broadcast the proceedings within as will as outside the church. Movie cameras lurked, recording for national news coverage and for posterity.
Had we watched any delegation arrive before us, if we weren't walking into a trippy, alternate reality, we might have realized that we would be handed a microphone and asked to speak a few words, and accordingly, would have prepared a few cogent thoughts and well-chosen words of thanks. Instead, the microphone was handed over, and our minds frantically scrambled for the right words. My friend had the presence of mind to explain that we were here to work with the people of Benin for the good of Benin, and I took the opportunity to wish everyone a happy holidays with the fon "Mi kudo hwe!"
After our moment of glory, we were ushered over to a loveseat of honor, next to the Minister of the Interior, two big-shots representing the Gendarmes, and other Invitees of note. From there we watched as delegations from various countries danced up to the Pasteur, accompanied by the raucous brassband, and knelt down to share their gratitude and a few thoughts.
Afterwards, we were led into an inner sanctum with the Grands Invitees where we shared cold cans of soda in a somber silence.
Midnight mass started surprisingly at midnight, as a slow hymn wafted from the church to our distant camp. Simulcast by radio, the Church's sounds arrived from all directions and washed through the crowd as the congregations added their voices to the waves of sound sweeping across the expanse of people. The first hymn struck me as quite like an enormous group om, and sleepy people slowly stood from their mats, lifted their hands to the sky, and immersed themselves in prayer.
I joined in the repetitive prostrations and standing-up for some time before looking around, noting that about half of the pilgrims were still fast asleep, and deciding to join them.
The next day, after my Church as well as most others started to leave in the early morning, I packed my backpack and went off walking down the beach in search of a fisherman friend who lives in a simple house among tall palm trees on the beach. He goes out on the ocean in his large (very large),motorized Pierogue (canoe) and lays nets to catch fish. This is not his house, but it looks quite similar.
I walked for hours, stopping to swim with a bunch of naked playful men (sorry ladies, no pictures ;) ), and found many nice pieces of beach glass and beach-washed pottery shards which will decorate my home nicely. Eventually I found my friend who promised to take me out for a day of work whenever I choose to return. His young boys deftly climbed these 40-foot trees to find me some delicious fresh coconuts.
After a quick visit to my host family in Lokossa, I've come back to Cotonou to stock up on food and such, and it's back to village to fete-up the new year...So happy holidays, mi kudo hwe, and enjoy a few random pictures...
The famous mosque in Port Novo. Originally built as a Portuguese Church, it was eventuallty taken over by the muslims and seems to be a popular hang-out for the blind and disabled.
Not too hard to make friends with the kids that wander around their neighborhoods lookin for kicks.
Caught in the act--classic Beninese hand-holding.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
I am restored § School Life § Late night mischief § Sax and Gota
Saturday, November 17, 2007 - I am restored
*******Before you begin to read this, let me warn you—I have just read all of what follows, then magically traveled up to the beginning of the post and back in time to warn you against wasting your precious time—this post is just self-indulgent rambling, and if you are reading this to contribute to your understanding of Benin, Africa, or “developing” (i.e. poor) countries in general, you will be greatly disappointed. This post is a firm defense of the blogger’s right to blindly follow the whims of his flitting mind, going on and on without really saying much of anything at all. I didn’t write this post for you, I wrote it for me, and if you have a problem with that I shall have to ask you to step outside. Caveat emptor—consider yourself warned!!*******
It’s almost midnight and the rain has just begun, gently sizzling on my corrugated metal roof. As I write this sentence, the sound is increasing, becoming more of a deafening roar which evokes an irrational fear. I have just run around and closed the windows to prevent leaks, by which I mean I have pushed up on the series of horizontal wooden slats that cross the opening that we call “the window”, regardless of the fact that I have seen very few actual glass “windows” in this or any other village here. “Windows” here are square holes in walls. Sometimes they are crossed by wooden slats, sometimes metal, sometimes (in schools, for instance), they are basically a cluster of concrete blocks that have been formed with holes in them to let light and air enter. Almost nobody has screens, despite the fact that malaria, caused by mosquitoes, is much more deadly here than HIV/AIDS. I digress…
Almost every blog entry I write is sparked by some enthusiastic urge to share a thought or experience with somebody else. In this sense, I am finding blogging much more fulfilling than keeping a diary would be. Ever since my first diary entry of Dec 25th 1987, when my earnest third-grader self wrote something like:
“Today is Christmas day. My gramma got me this diary.
I also got a fishtank. My family is in the process of moving.”
I have repeatedly attempted to keep a diary, sometimes keeping up with it for a week, sometimes a month, but inevitably letting it slip into disuse. <<>> Anyway, the point is, having an audience (you! ;) ) not only motivates me to write, but I consider it very therapeutic. Thanks for listening!
So the impulse for this entry was the utter joy of the discovery that my ipod still works, and is not dead as I had feared… You see, it hasn’t worked for about two months now, and I only just had a chance to restore it (this is a super-cool process by which somehow my ipod, connected through my laptop’s wi-fi connection, talked to the server located probably in the states somewhere, and convinced it to restore it to its factory-original state. Kind of an electronic version of born-again’s re-baptism.) This has incredible ramifications. Now I can lie in bed and drift off to the sweet shahnai of Ustad Bismillah Khan, or wake up to the haunting eloquence of Charlie Parker speaking from on high on “Bird of Paradise”. Now I can gleefully accompany my cooking with the uplifting, delicious flavor of brazilian samba, make cleaning house a joy thanks to the passion of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, come home from a rough day at school and laugh at incomprehensible virtuosity of Art Tatem, or sit my ass down and close my eyes, letting the insistent, glittering, relentless grooves of West Africa’s Kora masters wash over me and restore me. I restore my ipod, it restores me—one hand washes the other.
G’night and thanks for indulging…
Thursday, December 6, 2007 — School Life
I have been teaching now for over two months, and I am settling into the job alright. As you may imagine, it’s not easy, but there are plenty of rewards for the work. I will try to describe my school for those of you who are curious…
I teach at the secondary school of my village, on a large plot of land just outside of town on the main road. There are five large buildings, each with four or five classrooms, arranged in a semi-circle around an open space. I would call it a yard, but that would imply its having grass, of which there is none. I believe it is in order to avoid having snakes that every Wednesday afternoon the students have no class and instead spend an hour turning the dirt with hoes to keep the grass at bay. Where American sensibilities lean toward grass and greenery, Beninese seem to prefer large expanses of dirt. In fact, for a new student to enroll, they must furnish a hoe and a broom (which is actually a few palm leaves tied together). I was chatting today with a teacher under the teachers’ tree (our version of a teachers’ lounge), and he said that if you let grass grow in the dirt around your house, people will say you are dirty. So dirt isn’t dirty…hmmm… (cue the mantra—our way isn’t better, it’s just different…not better, just different…)
The classrooms are large open rooms with holes for windows and corrugated metal roofs (no ceilings), and they are full of two-seater wooden desks which have no backs. (This detail becomes more significant when you realize that most classes last two hours and they will do four hours with only one fifteen-minute break). The school bell is a large piece of iron—maybe an engine part?—hanging from one of the large trees in the “yard”. There is a roofed patio where women sell breakfast. Nobody seems to eat at home, they wait for the 10am break and eat fried bread or fried mashed manioc or bouilli (sweetened boiled corn-flour). Teachers often eat pate and fish. There is a large soccer field for P.E.
Teachers arrive on their motos, park under the teacher tree, and systematically make their rounds, shaking the hand of every other teacher or administrator. Sometimes it is a classic European handshake, but more often it is punctuated with a satisfying, synchronized snap. This, however, leads to the inevitable question—“to snap or not to snap?” that you must ask yourself every time. With equals, it is rarely difficult to answer—snap. It gets tricky with administrators and students, with whom snaps are usually avoided, but are not out of the question. A snap between habitual non-snappers can be a mutual recognition, even if on an unconscious level, that a conversation has led to deeper intimacy, even if you do not always snap after that. Snapping with your own students would be entirely inappropriate, although it is acceptable with older students who have become friends outside of the context of school.
It becomes awkward, however, when one person goes for the snap, and is not met halfway. The unrequited snap is not necessarily a slap in the face, but it just makes you feel socially off-balance.
Another possibility is the old Beninese arm-shake. If you encounter somebody who is eating with their hand, you are not pardoned from shaking, you still go for the shake. He or she will then extend a limp dirty hand, which is an invitation to grab their forearm and proceed with the shake (sans-snap, of course). This is not hard to accept. What still feels a bit weird to me is the limp-handed forearm shake with the clean hand. If I try to shake hands with one of my students, or someone who wants to show deference, they will instead offer their arm, as if to say “I’m not worthy of touching your hand”. With students, I can accept it, but it always feels funny if it is a grown man who feels that as an un-educated farmer or mason he must humble himself to me. Sometimes I grab their hand anyway.
Today, I witnessed my first double-dirty-handshake. (I like the sound of that). One teacher with a chalk covered hand offered his forearm to another teacher who was eating. It was incredible, a handshake with no hands!
Friends can display their mutual warm feeling by various modifications. They may also choose to just prolong the handshake throughout a short conversation. This felt weird at first, but in certain cases, usually with old men, I enjoy it very much. When a man and a woman do it, it is flirting, and it is awkward to be a part of, or even just to watch.
An even more insistent kind of flirting is the dreaded “dirty finger”. I don’t know if it is ever used in the states, but I have a feeling it would be well-understood anywhere. The pursuer tickles the palm of his desired’s hand with his middle finger. It is a blatant proposition which is well-hidden enough to go unnoticed by onlookers—pretty slick, or pretty sleazy, it just depends on which side of the dirty finger you are on.
On the subject of prolonged hand-holding—this is common between friends. Walking through the school-grounds or the market, you will sometimes see boys or men absent-mindedly holding hands. This lack of homo-phobia may come from the widespread belief that homosexuality does not exist at all in Benin-it is a white-man’s disease like ADD or depression. What puzzles me, though, is how sensual the hand-holding often seems to be—this is more like stroking than any kind of manly iron-grip. I have participated a few times in this sort of thing, and open-minded as I try to be, I don’t know if I could ever really be comfortable with it.
Now, back to school—students do not move, teachers do. Each class (30-60 students) has one assigned classroom, unless they are a “flying” class who has to squeeze in here and there wherever classrooms are open. Each class elects a “responsable” who is like the class president and taskmaster. He keeps the attendance, keeps the class informed of news and is responsible for making sure the assigned students sweep the class and attend the Wednesday hoe-ing sessions. I like the system, because it does seem to encourage students to take more responsibility on themselves. On that note, the more serious students often help to control the class by telling others to behave or to be quiet. They make my job a lot easier.
Every Monday morning at quarter to eight we perform the ritual of the drapeau (flag). Students arrange themselves by class around the flagpole, and the school’s head responsable gives orders—stand at attention—at ease—stand at attention for the raising of the colors…and one lucky boy (always boys so far…hmmff) somberly and slowly raises the Beninese flag. Then one class is chosen to sing the national anthem. There is an earnest patriotism on display which is growing on me, but for one reason or another, the serious tone seems to always crumble into some kind of joking or another—refreshingly un-military-like. I am standing shoulder-to-shoulder with all the other teachers, and the early morning sun often makes me break out into a sweat. The Director will then give a few words, all but indecipherable to me, send the students off to class, make his way down the line of teachers with handshakes and greetings, and we start another week.
I suppose I have only touched the tip of the iceberg that is school, but in order to keep my readers wanting more, I’ll leave it at that for the moment. I’m off to Bohicon to do a bit of banking, shopping, and internetting. It should be a busy weekend with at least three music rehearsals, my first official Fon lesson (local language) with a fellow English teacher, at least a hundred mid-term exams to finish grading, and another mid-term to write (half the students of one of my classes were given the midterm for the wrong grade level!?!?, so I have to write a new test for them). So in case anyone was worrying, I seem to be keeping myself busy-it’s pretty much an NYC pace of life in a small African village (except for that sweet 3-hour midday repos J).
To everyone who secretly wished me a happy birthday yesterday, many thanks.
Thursday, December 13, 2007 - Late-night mischeif
It’s Thursday night, so it’s my weekend and I’m stoked. Work is work, man. But rather than watch Die Hard, which I was actually considering, mostly because I remember my brother saying something about how great all the Die Hard movies are, I will catch y’all up a bit on things chez moi.
Well it’s Oro season in my village! Sounds like an exotic fruit or something, right? Well the truth is a bit more bone-rattling than that. In a nutshell, it’s a secret society whose members roam around the village after midnight “protecting” the village. If you are a woman or an un-initiated man, it is inadvisable to leave your house after about 10pm. Luckily, I am never out past 10, so mom, don’t worry (yeah, right J). I’d like to share more details but I hesitate to blab to the world about something which I do not really understand yet.
I found out it’s Oro season because yesterday afternoon I saw a procession passing the market on the main road. A man had a goat draped over his shoulders, and he was walking with a bunch of guys in grass skirts, some of whom were playing drums. I was thinking about following them, which is what I usually do when I see a procession, but I first started talking to a friend of mine. He told me they were Oro and this one week they are allowed to go out. They are forbidden from operating the rest of the year.
My friend described a kind of Oro catechism—a bunch of questions that the initiates are taught—in the Yoruba language—which allow them to see if others are initiated or not. If you are out late, during their announced time to go out, it might not be pretty. I don’t really know the details of what they will do, and it depends on the region and a lot of other factors.
Sax and Gota
On a lighter note, I’ve played my saxophone a couple times with a group that plays traditional music called Gota. It’s really fun and they seem to love it—it may be the first time some of them have seen a saxophone. They often call it a guitar. There is a lead singer who sings verses, and then everybody sings choruses and people take turns dancing in the middle. We meet in a small enclosure nestled between a couple houses and some banana trees. It’s a cozy tropical open-air rehearsal studio.
There is a lead cowbell playing a repeated clave-like phrase, and another supporting part played on three cowbells. One guy plays a bass part on a huge gourd with a hole cut in it at the top. One hand slaps the body while another hits the hole with a flaccid piece of sole from an old sandal. Another guy plays two medium sized half-gourds which are floating face down in two buckets of water. He plays simple repetitive patterns with sticks wrapped with rubber. One guy sometimes plays a traditional three-note flute, which he will hand off to me if he is going to play the bass gourd. Melodies are unpredictable (to me at least) and interesting. The phrases start and stop in places that are not so obvious, and sound pentatonic, sometimes a bit asian.
Whoever is not playing something is clapping and singing. There is a grandma who always comes, and a guy whose legs are crippled, maybe from polio, and there are so many kids around that they are literally held at bay with a stick, and only a select few are let inside the enclosure. Mama is singing and clapping with a toddler standing in front of her nursing. Yes, Toto, we are not in Bushwick anymore…
They are not as polished as the other Gota group I have seen, but they have a lot of fun and they have been the most welcoming of the four music clubs I have seen here in my village. They have a recording scheduled, and they say they want me to play my saxophone. I’ll believe it when I see it, but I am excited at the prospect. In the meantime, I will start to bring my field recorder to sessions and record us myself …
many more pictures will be forthcoming!!!!!!
*******Before you begin to read this, let me warn you—I have just read all of what follows, then magically traveled up to the beginning of the post and back in time to warn you against wasting your precious time—this post is just self-indulgent rambling, and if you are reading this to contribute to your understanding of Benin, Africa, or “developing” (i.e. poor) countries in general, you will be greatly disappointed. This post is a firm defense of the blogger’s right to blindly follow the whims of his flitting mind, going on and on without really saying much of anything at all. I didn’t write this post for you, I wrote it for me, and if you have a problem with that I shall have to ask you to step outside. Caveat emptor—consider yourself warned!!*******
It’s almost midnight and the rain has just begun, gently sizzling on my corrugated metal roof. As I write this sentence, the sound is increasing, becoming more of a deafening roar which evokes an irrational fear. I have just run around and closed the windows to prevent leaks, by which I mean I have pushed up on the series of horizontal wooden slats that cross the opening that we call “the window”, regardless of the fact that I have seen very few actual glass “windows” in this or any other village here. “Windows” here are square holes in walls. Sometimes they are crossed by wooden slats, sometimes metal, sometimes (in schools, for instance), they are basically a cluster of concrete blocks that have been formed with holes in them to let light and air enter. Almost nobody has screens, despite the fact that malaria, caused by mosquitoes, is much more deadly here than HIV/AIDS. I digress…
Almost every blog entry I write is sparked by some enthusiastic urge to share a thought or experience with somebody else. In this sense, I am finding blogging much more fulfilling than keeping a diary would be. Ever since my first diary entry of Dec 25th 1987, when my earnest third-grader self wrote something like:
“Today is Christmas day. My gramma got me this diary.
I also got a fishtank. My family is in the process of moving.”
I have repeatedly attempted to keep a diary, sometimes keeping up with it for a week, sometimes a month, but inevitably letting it slip into disuse. <<>> Anyway, the point is, having an audience (you! ;) ) not only motivates me to write, but I consider it very therapeutic. Thanks for listening!
So the impulse for this entry was the utter joy of the discovery that my ipod still works, and is not dead as I had feared… You see, it hasn’t worked for about two months now, and I only just had a chance to restore it (this is a super-cool process by which somehow my ipod, connected through my laptop’s wi-fi connection, talked to the server located probably in the states somewhere, and convinced it to restore it to its factory-original state. Kind of an electronic version of born-again’s re-baptism.) This has incredible ramifications. Now I can lie in bed and drift off to the sweet shahnai of Ustad Bismillah Khan, or wake up to the haunting eloquence of Charlie Parker speaking from on high on “Bird of Paradise”. Now I can gleefully accompany my cooking with the uplifting, delicious flavor of brazilian samba, make cleaning house a joy thanks to the passion of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, come home from a rough day at school and laugh at incomprehensible virtuosity of Art Tatem, or sit my ass down and close my eyes, letting the insistent, glittering, relentless grooves of West Africa’s Kora masters wash over me and restore me. I restore my ipod, it restores me—one hand washes the other.
G’night and thanks for indulging…
Thursday, December 6, 2007 — School Life
I have been teaching now for over two months, and I am settling into the job alright. As you may imagine, it’s not easy, but there are plenty of rewards for the work. I will try to describe my school for those of you who are curious…
I teach at the secondary school of my village, on a large plot of land just outside of town on the main road. There are five large buildings, each with four or five classrooms, arranged in a semi-circle around an open space. I would call it a yard, but that would imply its having grass, of which there is none. I believe it is in order to avoid having snakes that every Wednesday afternoon the students have no class and instead spend an hour turning the dirt with hoes to keep the grass at bay. Where American sensibilities lean toward grass and greenery, Beninese seem to prefer large expanses of dirt. In fact, for a new student to enroll, they must furnish a hoe and a broom (which is actually a few palm leaves tied together). I was chatting today with a teacher under the teachers’ tree (our version of a teachers’ lounge), and he said that if you let grass grow in the dirt around your house, people will say you are dirty. So dirt isn’t dirty…hmmm… (cue the mantra—our way isn’t better, it’s just different…not better, just different…)
The classrooms are large open rooms with holes for windows and corrugated metal roofs (no ceilings), and they are full of two-seater wooden desks which have no backs. (This detail becomes more significant when you realize that most classes last two hours and they will do four hours with only one fifteen-minute break). The school bell is a large piece of iron—maybe an engine part?—hanging from one of the large trees in the “yard”. There is a roofed patio where women sell breakfast. Nobody seems to eat at home, they wait for the 10am break and eat fried bread or fried mashed manioc or bouilli (sweetened boiled corn-flour). Teachers often eat pate and fish. There is a large soccer field for P.E.
Teachers arrive on their motos, park under the teacher tree, and systematically make their rounds, shaking the hand of every other teacher or administrator. Sometimes it is a classic European handshake, but more often it is punctuated with a satisfying, synchronized snap. This, however, leads to the inevitable question—“to snap or not to snap?” that you must ask yourself every time. With equals, it is rarely difficult to answer—snap. It gets tricky with administrators and students, with whom snaps are usually avoided, but are not out of the question. A snap between habitual non-snappers can be a mutual recognition, even if on an unconscious level, that a conversation has led to deeper intimacy, even if you do not always snap after that. Snapping with your own students would be entirely inappropriate, although it is acceptable with older students who have become friends outside of the context of school.
It becomes awkward, however, when one person goes for the snap, and is not met halfway. The unrequited snap is not necessarily a slap in the face, but it just makes you feel socially off-balance.
Another possibility is the old Beninese arm-shake. If you encounter somebody who is eating with their hand, you are not pardoned from shaking, you still go for the shake. He or she will then extend a limp dirty hand, which is an invitation to grab their forearm and proceed with the shake (sans-snap, of course). This is not hard to accept. What still feels a bit weird to me is the limp-handed forearm shake with the clean hand. If I try to shake hands with one of my students, or someone who wants to show deference, they will instead offer their arm, as if to say “I’m not worthy of touching your hand”. With students, I can accept it, but it always feels funny if it is a grown man who feels that as an un-educated farmer or mason he must humble himself to me. Sometimes I grab their hand anyway.
Today, I witnessed my first double-dirty-handshake. (I like the sound of that). One teacher with a chalk covered hand offered his forearm to another teacher who was eating. It was incredible, a handshake with no hands!
Friends can display their mutual warm feeling by various modifications. They may also choose to just prolong the handshake throughout a short conversation. This felt weird at first, but in certain cases, usually with old men, I enjoy it very much. When a man and a woman do it, it is flirting, and it is awkward to be a part of, or even just to watch.
An even more insistent kind of flirting is the dreaded “dirty finger”. I don’t know if it is ever used in the states, but I have a feeling it would be well-understood anywhere. The pursuer tickles the palm of his desired’s hand with his middle finger. It is a blatant proposition which is well-hidden enough to go unnoticed by onlookers—pretty slick, or pretty sleazy, it just depends on which side of the dirty finger you are on.
On the subject of prolonged hand-holding—this is common between friends. Walking through the school-grounds or the market, you will sometimes see boys or men absent-mindedly holding hands. This lack of homo-phobia may come from the widespread belief that homosexuality does not exist at all in Benin-it is a white-man’s disease like ADD or depression. What puzzles me, though, is how sensual the hand-holding often seems to be—this is more like stroking than any kind of manly iron-grip. I have participated a few times in this sort of thing, and open-minded as I try to be, I don’t know if I could ever really be comfortable with it.
Now, back to school—students do not move, teachers do. Each class (30-60 students) has one assigned classroom, unless they are a “flying” class who has to squeeze in here and there wherever classrooms are open. Each class elects a “responsable” who is like the class president and taskmaster. He keeps the attendance, keeps the class informed of news and is responsible for making sure the assigned students sweep the class and attend the Wednesday hoe-ing sessions. I like the system, because it does seem to encourage students to take more responsibility on themselves. On that note, the more serious students often help to control the class by telling others to behave or to be quiet. They make my job a lot easier.
Every Monday morning at quarter to eight we perform the ritual of the drapeau (flag). Students arrange themselves by class around the flagpole, and the school’s head responsable gives orders—stand at attention—at ease—stand at attention for the raising of the colors…and one lucky boy (always boys so far…hmmff) somberly and slowly raises the Beninese flag. Then one class is chosen to sing the national anthem. There is an earnest patriotism on display which is growing on me, but for one reason or another, the serious tone seems to always crumble into some kind of joking or another—refreshingly un-military-like. I am standing shoulder-to-shoulder with all the other teachers, and the early morning sun often makes me break out into a sweat. The Director will then give a few words, all but indecipherable to me, send the students off to class, make his way down the line of teachers with handshakes and greetings, and we start another week.
I suppose I have only touched the tip of the iceberg that is school, but in order to keep my readers wanting more, I’ll leave it at that for the moment. I’m off to Bohicon to do a bit of banking, shopping, and internetting. It should be a busy weekend with at least three music rehearsals, my first official Fon lesson (local language) with a fellow English teacher, at least a hundred mid-term exams to finish grading, and another mid-term to write (half the students of one of my classes were given the midterm for the wrong grade level!?!?, so I have to write a new test for them). So in case anyone was worrying, I seem to be keeping myself busy-it’s pretty much an NYC pace of life in a small African village (except for that sweet 3-hour midday repos J).
To everyone who secretly wished me a happy birthday yesterday, many thanks.
Thursday, December 13, 2007 - Late-night mischeif
It’s Thursday night, so it’s my weekend and I’m stoked. Work is work, man. But rather than watch Die Hard, which I was actually considering, mostly because I remember my brother saying something about how great all the Die Hard movies are, I will catch y’all up a bit on things chez moi.
Well it’s Oro season in my village! Sounds like an exotic fruit or something, right? Well the truth is a bit more bone-rattling than that. In a nutshell, it’s a secret society whose members roam around the village after midnight “protecting” the village. If you are a woman or an un-initiated man, it is inadvisable to leave your house after about 10pm. Luckily, I am never out past 10, so mom, don’t worry (yeah, right J). I’d like to share more details but I hesitate to blab to the world about something which I do not really understand yet.
I found out it’s Oro season because yesterday afternoon I saw a procession passing the market on the main road. A man had a goat draped over his shoulders, and he was walking with a bunch of guys in grass skirts, some of whom were playing drums. I was thinking about following them, which is what I usually do when I see a procession, but I first started talking to a friend of mine. He told me they were Oro and this one week they are allowed to go out. They are forbidden from operating the rest of the year.
My friend described a kind of Oro catechism—a bunch of questions that the initiates are taught—in the Yoruba language—which allow them to see if others are initiated or not. If you are out late, during their announced time to go out, it might not be pretty. I don’t really know the details of what they will do, and it depends on the region and a lot of other factors.
Sax and Gota
On a lighter note, I’ve played my saxophone a couple times with a group that plays traditional music called Gota. It’s really fun and they seem to love it—it may be the first time some of them have seen a saxophone. They often call it a guitar. There is a lead singer who sings verses, and then everybody sings choruses and people take turns dancing in the middle. We meet in a small enclosure nestled between a couple houses and some banana trees. It’s a cozy tropical open-air rehearsal studio.
There is a lead cowbell playing a repeated clave-like phrase, and another supporting part played on three cowbells. One guy plays a bass part on a huge gourd with a hole cut in it at the top. One hand slaps the body while another hits the hole with a flaccid piece of sole from an old sandal. Another guy plays two medium sized half-gourds which are floating face down in two buckets of water. He plays simple repetitive patterns with sticks wrapped with rubber. One guy sometimes plays a traditional three-note flute, which he will hand off to me if he is going to play the bass gourd. Melodies are unpredictable (to me at least) and interesting. The phrases start and stop in places that are not so obvious, and sound pentatonic, sometimes a bit asian.
Whoever is not playing something is clapping and singing. There is a grandma who always comes, and a guy whose legs are crippled, maybe from polio, and there are so many kids around that they are literally held at bay with a stick, and only a select few are let inside the enclosure. Mama is singing and clapping with a toddler standing in front of her nursing. Yes, Toto, we are not in Bushwick anymore…
They are not as polished as the other Gota group I have seen, but they have a lot of fun and they have been the most welcoming of the four music clubs I have seen here in my village. They have a recording scheduled, and they say they want me to play my saxophone. I’ll believe it when I see it, but I am excited at the prospect. In the meantime, I will start to bring my field recorder to sessions and record us myself …
many more pictures will be forthcoming!!!!!!
Friday, December 7, 2007
Wow, even more pictures! :)
This is a funeral procession in my village. I followed, and was shown the hole in which the person would be buried IN THE SAME BEDROOM WHERE THEY LIVED. Wild partying, wild--they make Michigan frathouses look like nunneries.
Professional drummers at another funeral in ABOMEY.
Me looking fly in tissue with a friend at the Abomey funeral.
Beautiful sunsets happen too often to count, almost once a day. This is at a nearby village where I went to look at a Peul family's collection of cow dung; Parfait was interested in scoring some "shit" :)
Just some guys in the bush-- you will recognize Parfait and the two fishermen...Tech issues mean I can only post pix today, more blogs on the way...
News-- avian bird flu in benin? hmmmmmmmmmm love to all. Till next time...
Friday, November 16, 2007
Miss Benin Contest, and PHOTOS!!!!!!
Here are some photos...(finally!)
My host family in Lokossa-we are dressed up for a "party" at the mayor's office to thank the families and the city for welcoming us there. I gave a speech in French which was written by a Beninese PC staff member. giving eloquent speeches in foreign languages is fun :)
This is my friend Parfait. He is a beautiful guy, with a sweet wife, and he has truly welcomed my with open arms and made it his mission to make me happy. He spends all week happily growing cabbage, carrots, and lettuce, in a village 7km away, and takes one day a week to go to church and see his wife and baby girl. Always smiling :)
The house on the right is chez moi, my home. There are four apartments on the left. One family with 2 boys and a granny, a veteranarian of my age, a gendarme and his wife, and the owner and his wife. Next time Ill take som pix inside too...
The ubiquitous enthousiastic-kids-in-underwear. They will go around like this, even sometimes in the market. I think this was the first time they had seen a frisbee, but they got the hang of it immediately, and even invented new ways to throw it...they are awesome. The one on the left, Victor, is in my concession, and is impressively mature, respectful, and good-spirited (as are a large proportion of the kids here)
more photos to come...
Friday, November 9, 2007
This morning, I am enjoying the rare luxury of a greasy morning (la grasse matinee), as the French say. I woke up not because my alarm compelled me to rise even before the sun to complete the lesson plans I had been too exhausted to finish the night before, but because of the light and the sound of someone drawing water from the well not far from my window.
Having enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of peanut butter, nutella and bananas on French bread, and my daily cup of “coffee” (Nescafe seems to dominate almost all poor countries), I have now decided to ride my bike 8 or so Kilometers to visit my friend Parfait the gardener and his fields of cabbage, carrots, lettuce, and other luxury produce. Aside from his crops, one finds just onions, tomatoes, garlic, corn, manioc, okra, beans, a couple types of leafy greens, papayas, pineapples, oranges, bananas, and a few others.
Okay, I admit it, when you make a list, it seems like a lot of choices, but if you people in rich countries even tried to make a list of the produce you could easily get your hands on, you’d die before you listed half the choices.
Anyway, I’m interested in seeing his methods (he actually studied gardening in a technical school for a couple years), and getting my hands dirty for the first time since arriving in this country of farmers.
Last weekend was a rare PC-sanctioned trip to Cotonou where I represented my fellow newly sworn-in volunteers in a conference aimed at improving next year’s training of incoming volunteers. I would say I profited nicely—beyond adding my two cents to the conference itself, I crammed a whole lot of big-city fun into my few days there. I prepared a decadent American meal of eggplant burgers, French fries, cole slaw, and chocolate cake with a friend who lives there. I went swimming at the pool of an American Diplomat who makes his fabulously luxurious pool available to us once a week. I spent hours at the PC Bureau trying to catch up with my cyber-life (on that subject, from now on, just use the my first and last name @gmail dot com). I danced for hours to a live band with a friend and some French girls we met, a decent portion of a bottle of tequila in my stomach.
Maybe most excitingly, I attended (for an exhorbitant $10) the Miss Benin pageant, whose winner will go on to represent Benin at the Miss World or Milky Way or Universe or whatever it is. My two friends and I were about the only people there at the advertised starting time of 9pm. The show started right on time, about two hours later. Interestingly, the contest was conducted like a science experiment, where variables were carefully limited. Instead of expressing individual tastes and displaying differing manifestations of beauty (of which there was an abundance), the ladies paraded one after the other in identical outfits, with even the same hair-style. Hmmm…
Instead of the usual singing and dancing which you find at our Pageants, we were pleased to see the women display their traditional dances, even if their “traditional” outfits were generally more like comic-book versions of traditional African garb. Think mini-skirts made from whole animal skins, helmets with antelope horns, coconut-shell bras, etc. (Why, oh why do I always forget my camera at the worst times?!?!) Silly and degrading or not, the effect was generally alluring. (But then isn’t that usually the case with Beauty Contests?)
Tempted to stay and find out the winner, not to mention hearing the entertaining “interview” portion, we left at 3 a.m. overcome with exhaustion. The two women whose responses we heard left me with little hope of hearing something profound. Asked about Benin’s energy issues, the first contestant suggested that people not open their refrigerators so often. I’ll spread the word around the village for her, even if I don’t know anybody with a fridge. The second interviewee (who I later learned was the winner) was asked about global warming. Now my French is mediocre at best, but I could have sworn she said she would tell all her friends, family, and neighbors to “go plant a tree”.
Coming back from an exciting weekend in the big city is always a great feeling. Inevitably, upon stumbling out of a taxi packed with people like a circus act, I am welcomed home by many familiar faces even before regaining sensation in whichever limb fate had destined to go numb this time. (It’s incredible just how many different ways there are to be uncomfortable in a bush-taxi, I reckon the possibilities are near-infinite.)
I take a few breaths, and look around, smiling. I am set at ease by the sound of women, children, and men murmuring in the market, the flicker of orange flames from small lanterns made of used Nescafe tins. The inevitable questions are asked—have you been traveling? From where? What have you brought me from your trip? Interestingly, it is quite similar to what I feel when coming back to New York from a trip to the country. It is a feeling of security, of belonging, of being once again home.
My host family in Lokossa-we are dressed up for a "party" at the mayor's office to thank the families and the city for welcoming us there. I gave a speech in French which was written by a Beninese PC staff member. giving eloquent speeches in foreign languages is fun :)
This is my friend Parfait. He is a beautiful guy, with a sweet wife, and he has truly welcomed my with open arms and made it his mission to make me happy. He spends all week happily growing cabbage, carrots, and lettuce, in a village 7km away, and takes one day a week to go to church and see his wife and baby girl. Always smiling :)
The house on the right is chez moi, my home. There are four apartments on the left. One family with 2 boys and a granny, a veteranarian of my age, a gendarme and his wife, and the owner and his wife. Next time Ill take som pix inside too...
The ubiquitous enthousiastic-kids-in-underwear. They will go around like this, even sometimes in the market. I think this was the first time they had seen a frisbee, but they got the hang of it immediately, and even invented new ways to throw it...they are awesome. The one on the left, Victor, is in my concession, and is impressively mature, respectful, and good-spirited (as are a large proportion of the kids here)more photos to come...
Friday, November 9, 2007
This morning, I am enjoying the rare luxury of a greasy morning (la grasse matinee), as the French say. I woke up not because my alarm compelled me to rise even before the sun to complete the lesson plans I had been too exhausted to finish the night before, but because of the light and the sound of someone drawing water from the well not far from my window.
Having enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of peanut butter, nutella and bananas on French bread, and my daily cup of “coffee” (Nescafe seems to dominate almost all poor countries), I have now decided to ride my bike 8 or so Kilometers to visit my friend Parfait the gardener and his fields of cabbage, carrots, lettuce, and other luxury produce. Aside from his crops, one finds just onions, tomatoes, garlic, corn, manioc, okra, beans, a couple types of leafy greens, papayas, pineapples, oranges, bananas, and a few others.
Okay, I admit it, when you make a list, it seems like a lot of choices, but if you people in rich countries even tried to make a list of the produce you could easily get your hands on, you’d die before you listed half the choices.
Anyway, I’m interested in seeing his methods (he actually studied gardening in a technical school for a couple years), and getting my hands dirty for the first time since arriving in this country of farmers.
Last weekend was a rare PC-sanctioned trip to Cotonou where I represented my fellow newly sworn-in volunteers in a conference aimed at improving next year’s training of incoming volunteers. I would say I profited nicely—beyond adding my two cents to the conference itself, I crammed a whole lot of big-city fun into my few days there. I prepared a decadent American meal of eggplant burgers, French fries, cole slaw, and chocolate cake with a friend who lives there. I went swimming at the pool of an American Diplomat who makes his fabulously luxurious pool available to us once a week. I spent hours at the PC Bureau trying to catch up with my cyber-life (on that subject, from now on, just use the my first and last name @gmail dot com). I danced for hours to a live band with a friend and some French girls we met, a decent portion of a bottle of tequila in my stomach.
Maybe most excitingly, I attended (for an exhorbitant $10) the Miss Benin pageant, whose winner will go on to represent Benin at the Miss World or Milky Way or Universe or whatever it is. My two friends and I were about the only people there at the advertised starting time of 9pm. The show started right on time, about two hours later. Interestingly, the contest was conducted like a science experiment, where variables were carefully limited. Instead of expressing individual tastes and displaying differing manifestations of beauty (of which there was an abundance), the ladies paraded one after the other in identical outfits, with even the same hair-style. Hmmm…
Instead of the usual singing and dancing which you find at our Pageants, we were pleased to see the women display their traditional dances, even if their “traditional” outfits were generally more like comic-book versions of traditional African garb. Think mini-skirts made from whole animal skins, helmets with antelope horns, coconut-shell bras, etc. (Why, oh why do I always forget my camera at the worst times?!?!) Silly and degrading or not, the effect was generally alluring. (But then isn’t that usually the case with Beauty Contests?)
Tempted to stay and find out the winner, not to mention hearing the entertaining “interview” portion, we left at 3 a.m. overcome with exhaustion. The two women whose responses we heard left me with little hope of hearing something profound. Asked about Benin’s energy issues, the first contestant suggested that people not open their refrigerators so often. I’ll spread the word around the village for her, even if I don’t know anybody with a fridge. The second interviewee (who I later learned was the winner) was asked about global warming. Now my French is mediocre at best, but I could have sworn she said she would tell all her friends, family, and neighbors to “go plant a tree”.
Coming back from an exciting weekend in the big city is always a great feeling. Inevitably, upon stumbling out of a taxi packed with people like a circus act, I am welcomed home by many familiar faces even before regaining sensation in whichever limb fate had destined to go numb this time. (It’s incredible just how many different ways there are to be uncomfortable in a bush-taxi, I reckon the possibilities are near-infinite.)
I take a few breaths, and look around, smiling. I am set at ease by the sound of women, children, and men murmuring in the market, the flicker of orange flames from small lanterns made of used Nescafe tins. The inevitable questions are asked—have you been traveling? From where? What have you brought me from your trip? Interestingly, it is quite similar to what I feel when coming back to New York from a trip to the country. It is a feeling of security, of belonging, of being once again home.
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