Off to Post!

I leave for post today! I swore in on Friday at the Presidential Palace or the Congressional Palace or something. It was a huge event since it is the 40^th Anniversary of Peace Corps Benin. I had a great time and it was awesome getting to hang out with all of the other volunteers before we all depart for post. I think everyone ended up passing their language exam and was able to swear in, which is fantastic! 55 people swore in and we started with 64, so yeah I don’t know if that’s good or not. It seems like a high number of people left to me, but I have never done this before so what do I know. My family also came to the ceremony and I sang on stage too. It was also nice to see the language facilitators and take pictures with them before leaving.

I have been buying some necessities this past weekend for post with some friends and my sister. She has been so helpful with the price haggling at market. It is difficult to me because I don’t have any experience, but we ended up getting some great deals. It is also difficult because they always give me a higher price since I am a foreigner. I also carried about a 6 foot mat on a motorcycle all the way home, it was hilarious. People always stare at me, but they were really staring at me when I was carrying things on the moto like a Beninese person!

We had a going away/goodbye party on Saturday, which was fun. The rest of the night I hung out with my family. Sunday I packed and cleaned all morning, ran a few last minute errands, and then my family, a friend and I went to a ceremony. My mom got us matching tissue for the party, it was so sweet. She also got me another outfit, some adorable plates for my house, a really nice washing basin, and two buckets as well. It was so thoughtful of them to get my gifts before I left for village. They really enjoyed the gifts I gave them and the cake I made last weekend too. It is nice to know that they will be there for me if I need to get away, advice, or someone to talk to for the next two years. I can’t say how lucky I was to have them host me for my time in Porto Novo during training.

I am excited and anxious to leave today. I don’t have any furniture so unpacking will be really easy! I did get some movies from a friend and some books too to relieve any bouts of boredom, but I think my homologue wants me to work this week. The blogs will be less frequent so don’t get too worried about me! I will probably go to Cotonou about once a month because we aren’t supposed to leave our posts much for the first three months. Hope all is well back home!

Bon courage!

Passed the French test

Today I passed my French test, moved up two more levels, which means yes I can swear in! I am very relieved and more excited about the ceremony now. The tailor came the Tuesday night to measure two friends and I for the dresses. I picked out a pretty cool design from one of her magazines. Hopefully it will look that awesome when I get it on Monday night.

I went to post! It was wonderful. My house is tiny. Two rooms the front room will be the salon and the second my bedroom. I have a little area in the back for cooking and a flushing toilet and shower—which means a bucket shower for all of you who are not familiar with showers in Benin. That’s not fair-- so people do have running water showers, but most people use the shower or douche for a bucket shower. So I fill a bucket with water, rinse, wash, rinse. It’s a great way to cool off after a hot day and most people here take 2 or 3 a day. I am on the one to two a day routine right now. I also have a porch with an awesome bench where I enjoyed a few naps during my post visit. I have a latrine if I don’t feel like using the toilet and pouring water down it to flush. I enjoy the latrine, less work and cleaning for me. My house is adorable though and the walls are painted CAROLINA BLUE! A volunteer who just finished her service and went to UNC gave me a UNC poster, which will be the first thing I put up! I live in a concession with one other family. There are three younger children living there, 10, 11 and 15, I think we will become fast friends, and then the others are in other areas for school and work. The major issue is that most people speak Fon there so it will be difficult at first to communicate, but not a problem. Local language learning will be interesting.

The clinic is great it’s in a small village, I would say about a 30 minute bike ride. I have three homologues and they are all sage femmes. The clinic focuses on pre and post natal consultations, family planning and delivering babies. I held a four hour old baby first thing when I arrived. Everyone seemed nice and the aides were also very sweet and close to my age. My homologue is the wife of the king of the village so she is pretty stylish. She said I am one of her daughters now, which was comforting to hear. I am excited about the possibilities for work and the wonderful relationships I will develop. Overall I am very happy with my post. My post mate was on vacation in the US so did not get to spend time with her, but I did meet her for a few minutes right before she left

Saturday we are going on an excursion to Grand Popo, which is a beach and tourist spot. I am excited to get out, but I hope I do not get as sunburned as my last venture to the beach. The swear-in ceremony is next Friday and our host families are coming among other big wigs from PC-Washington. The president of Benin will also be in attendance, tentatively he is hosting a dinner for us that evening in Cotonou. It should be quite an event with lots of singing and dancing.

Stage is almost over...hope all is well stateside! Heard the running mates are being chosen, bet that's fun!

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!

Tech Visit

Two other stages and I went to Dassa for our technical visit. We stayed with a volunteer who was also one of our trainers for staging. It was really relaxing and nice to get out of the city. We went to a village and did baby weighings on Thursday, made some bouille (porridge) at the neighbor's house and went hiking among other things. Dassa is in the Zou/Collines department and is very beautiful with small mountains and lots of green. It was also about 10 degrees cooler at her place than it is in Porto Novo. Her house was really cozy and it was great to be able to cook for myself.

Now I am back in Porto Novo for a few weeks until my post visit in Zinvie. Tomorrow my mom's family is having another party and my friend Mani is going with...I am borrowing one of my mom's outfits for the event! Then back to the school grind, halfway through staging and all the volunteers said it is the worst part.

Au revoir!