23rd Birthday and Voodoo!

I celebrated my 23rd birthday with some other volunteers in Cotonou the Friday before, we went out dancing until the wee hours of the morning. We all had a really fantastic time. Then I had 3 birthday dinners, one with my postmate, another with the family in my concession, and the last with my French professor and his family. I had a great time, of course I missed many of you too, but having so many good friends here helps! I had another birthday dinner this week, I guess you could call that Beninese time. Another example of Beninese time is when you invite women to come to a formation for 9AM and they all arrive at 11:30…yeah that’s normal here. I was freaking out the first time thinking that no one was going to come, haha!

Work is going well! I am doing around 2 formations every week as well as going out into the smaller villages and working. I am working with other volunteers in Benin on a country wide spelling bee with the students in the US equivalent of 6^th and 7^th grade. The boy and girl winners in my village will be going to the national competition in Parakou in April. They are really excited and working hard. I got my GAD (gender and development) grant for the computer class I am going to start teaching at the school for girls in Premier and Terminal (senior high school, freshman college). I will start teaching the first week in March and I am super excited, but nervous since it’s all in French. They are definitely going to have to be patient with me. I also put in a grant to do an HIV/AIDS mural and education session in Yêvié at my ONG towards the end of March. I should hear back in a few weeks. I am still working on the plans for the health camp in August as well, but that is going to take quite a long time.

I have been to some voodoo ceremonies over the past few weeks, not to mention that the “oro” has been coming out at night. They make this really eerie, scratchy record sound at night and you aren’t allowed to leave the house when they are out. Unfortunately this poses a problem when you have to go the bathroom in the middle of the night, but I won’t fill in the details of what I had to do, you can imagine I’m sure. I was pretty scarred the other night, not to mention I was having really bad hallucinations because of my malaria prophylactics. Hallucinations are a side effect of the medication, as well as many other things, but I don’t want to switch to the daily medication. Plus, having hallucinations is a pretty surreal experience that I have never had before, especially not in a small village in the middle of Africa.

I went to visit a friend, in Oudeme, she is an environmental volunteer. She lives on a lake, like literally check out the picture, that's the view from her porch! It was so beautiful in her villageand there was a constant breeze, which would be good for me considering that everywhere I go in my village they ask me if I have just finished doing "the sport" since I am constantly sweating, haha. Her second level porch is larger than my entire house. Her village was voodoo crazy, but the people were fantastic. I mean really I thought I was in a heavy voodoo area, but I think we are pretty even. We had a great time making a traditional Beninese dinner together and hanging out with some of her friends. We also met up with about 7 other volunteers in Dogbo one night and made homemade lasagna and chocolate cake. It was absolutely delicious, we devoured 2 chocolate cakes in about 15 minutes. It's always great to spend time with other volunteers, although my French professor hates it when I get home and can't speak French, haha! I get back into the groove after 30 minutes or so. After my two week IST in December, I was miserable, I had been with an American everyday for almost an entire month. I think it's going to be worse when I take my vacation in May, we will see, it's right around the corner!

I hope everyone is doing well. Have a Happy Valentine’s Day!!! And talk to you soon.