A la plage

This past Sunday I went to the beach in Cotonou with some friends. It was a blast! The sun was a little more powerful than I thought it would be, hence I am sun-burned. What a surprise!? I did put sunscreen on my face. We rented this straw covered structure I don’t know the name for it and brought a picnic. We had quite a nice lunch and lots of sodas, beer and wine. It was nice to be out of school for an entire day. We didn’t really swim, but we got our feet wet. The PC doctors don’t want us to swim because of the obvious reasons, and the water seemed to have quite a strong current. I lost one of my flip-flops for a few minutes, then my friend found it down the beach. After we walked off the beach to meet the taxi there was an ice cream and pastry shop—like real ice cream. It was amazing!

Last week we did some interesting things. We went to a school and did a presentation on nutrition, it was difficult with the age group, but it went well overall. We played hangman! I was petrified to speak French; there were over 70 kids in the classroom, haha! For cross-cultural class different groups visited different religious structures. For example: Muslim, Animists, Christian Celeste…I went to the Fetishers! It was really fun. I went to a few ceremonies on Saturday—again anniversaries for the dead. I also visited a friend’s house for a little dance party with her family and friends and when we were leaving we saw the Zembedo (sp?). I am pretty sure it is technically a religion. It is a very old practice where men put on haystacks and patrol the streets at night. Now it is only Saturday nights it starts between 10 and midnight. It’s similar to neighborhood watch or police. As soon as we pulled out we saw them. It is extremely bad for women to see them…myself and two other staggieres ducked under a sheet in the backseat and everything was okay. I was pretty scared. My host mom told me there is more to come because Zinvie is full of voodoo practices.

Last week we did another educational session for a village, this time about family planning. It went really well and after that we did a cooking demonstration with enriched bouille—which is similar to porridge. It is oftentimes eaten for breakfast in Benin. It’s amazing to watch what goes into making every meal when you do not have the convenience of the things in the US, like a really sharp knife!

Tomorrow I am leaving for my post visit with my homologue—from Wednesday to Sunday. I met her yesterday…she is seven months pregnant with her first daughter. She is a sage femme at the health center I will be working with in Yevie. She told me I have 2 homologues, herself and another sage femme. They rotate work weeks and she already told me she assumes I want the weekends off. I think that sounds like a good idea. So yes, tomorrow night I will actually be sleeping in my house! I am so excited!!! I will take lots of pictures. She did tell me my house is all set with the electricity too which is a plus. My post mate is in the US right now on vacation, but she will be back when I arrive the first or second week in September. Only a little over 2 weeks until swear in, time is flying!

Hope all is well!

A la prochain!