gone to look for America

So I'm leaving in five days for my trip to America. I'll be visiting 5 different med schools, giving Peace Corps talks, eating American foods, and going on dates. I am unbelievably excited about this trip! Before I go I have to get my house keys copied for my new post mates, find 6 weeks worth of food for Zaari, pack, and clean my house.

The last few weeks here have gone by incredibly fast. I lead the science classroom at an art and science camp, helped talk about and put in contraception devices, talked about HIV/AIDS and helped with testing, did end of the month reports, went to the swear-in of the new volunteers, made untold numbers of cakes and pies and cookies, discovered that I'm not as gluten sensitive as I thought, got my wedding venues booked, changed my wedding colors, changed my wedding colors again, planned my new tattoo, red like four thousand books, watched Avatar a hundred times, fretted over med school application stuff, found out my stepmom is pregnant with a baby girl, said good-bye to sooo many volunteer friends ETing and COSing, lost 20 pounds, became vegan and gave it up, tried again, gave up smoking, wrote four chapters, learned more Dendi, and planned my first date night out in Kansas for the 30th. It's been a whirlwind.

Anyway, I'm so ready to go home for a while and just take a break from Benin. I also have a lot of work to do while I'm home but I have no doubt that I'll thoroughly enjoy myself as well. I'm really worried this time about reverse culture shock, but I think I'll be happy enough after a couple days. Pizza? Movies? Air-conditioned gyms? Yeah, I think I'll do just fine.

Gluten Free, Camp Success, and the 4th of July: ONE YEAR IN (with photos)

Yeah, that title is ridiculous...but very descriptive of this entry!

First thing's first. I am decidedly gluten sensitive. I have experimented quite a bit with eliminating gluten products from my diet and found that all the symptoms I'd always thought were singularly lactose intolerance are linked with gluten intolerance as well. It's mild, but causes me a lot of discomfort. In the last month or two I've reduced and almost eliminated all gluten from my diet; those moments when I slip have been very noticeable. All in all, this is not that difficult to do here and basically just means I no longer eat bread, pasta or couscous. I still get plenty of yams, rice, potatoes, beans, and oats. People with Celiac Disease or high sensitivity to gluten should probably avoid oats, but I've never had trouble with them. Basically I'm going gluten free, or as close to it as I can. I just feel better all around. To celebrate, I made amazing, easy gluten-free peanut butter cookies in my dutch oven:

AHH, they were amazing and I couldn't even tell they were made without flour. One awesome thing about going gluten free here is the easy abundance of soy products. I can get tofu and awesome soy flour that basically can serve as a wheat flour substitute. These cookies have egg in them and I'm trying to be a good vegan, but that is definitely tricky here. In America, I'm going full out vegan, but for now, I'm just avoiding dairy, cheese, eggs and transitioning a bit. 

Going vegan for me is just going to be a great way to feel more connected to the Earth, to my particular brand of spirituality and philosophy, and to be healthy in a way that ecologically and economically impacts our planet and the animals in it. I don't know if I'll be vegan forever, but I think this time I'm really serious about it. When I get back to America for good next year I'll be scoping out those cheese substitutes hardcore!

Switching gears, we just finished up with Camp Sucess up here in Djougou. We had 60 girls from all over the Donga region and we spent the week talking about empowerment, sexual health, healthy relationships, self-esteem, staying in school and not getting pregnant. 

It was great to see the girls making plans and becoming friends. I spent a lot of the week doing general help, running all over Djougou getting supplies and making sure everything ran smoothly. I also had my fair share of time with the girls and really enjoyed getting my hair done and dancing late into the night!

 My session was the sexual health one and I had a local midwife nurse from the health center come and talk to the girls about what sex is and how pregnancy happens...and how to avoid it! It went really well and I know they learned so much.

 I laughed more and was impacted more as a volunteer in Africa than I have been up to now. Camp was hands down the best and most moving experience of my time in Africa so far. 

doesn't Jared look adorable?

Anyway, immediately after camp let out, many volunteers met up in Djougou for the fourth of July celebratory weekend. The weekend included a huge soccer match against the Germans, an American football match (I scored a touchdown!), lots of beer, freestyle rapping, and an awesome rainbow.

Team America and Team Germany all together in harmony after the big USA win (1-0, my postie, Doug, scored the winning goal!)

This is a tiny sack filled with honey flavored sodabe, African moonshine. 

Doug eating a victory meal of pate blanche, sauce des legumes, and a cold beer

This rainbow circled the sun during the afternoon of the American football match

Post BBQ and post busting out some 4th of July themed rap fireworks.

I can't believe I've been here a year (well, in about a week). The new stage has arrived already and are all cozied up in their host families' houses. I've scheduled my mid-service medical exam for September, and am at the point where I can plan out my work for the rest of the year. I'm not really sure what I'll be doing after January, but until that point I actually have a lot going on!

Time has flown by a lot faster than I would have thought. And everyone says the next year goes by even faster. We've got some more ETs coming up, two people that I know of. That puts our total at fourteen people out of our original 59. At this point they said that it would be 20%. I didn't believe it then, but here we are, one year later. A year ago the idea of ETing was just terrifying, something that only people who couldn't cut it did...now, I see that each instance is very specific, very unique to that person. It isn't always a clear cut "oh, Africa/Peace Corps wasn't right for them" or even that it wasn't right for them "right now." Sometimes it just is right for a certain amount of time and then it's not anymore...things change, especially work situations. I can understand that. Who knows what the future will bring for the rest of us? A year is a long time...even if it passes by quickly!

Here's to us! We did it!

A food post!

So it's been awhile since I posted pics up here and since I'm at the workstation in Nati I thought I'd drop by to post some of my favorite kind of photos: FOOD!

The food here is amazing, honestly. Most of the time I cook for myself in my little kitchen, lots of couscous, oatmeal, pasta with tomato sauces with onions and other random veggies. I also like to add soy cheese (basically tofu). I've started really getting into black eyed peas, too. They take a while to cook, but are so much healthier than a bowl full of bleached pasta. Every now and again I'll do something fancy, like make a pizza or attempt a dessert. I had a cookies phase...which is essentially satisfied by cooking in a dutch oven, very interesting. You can probably find a picture of one on the internet. Imagine that, but more ghetto and you've got my oven. I also used to bake my own bread, but I'm trying to lesse the carbs a bit if possible and trying to get into tip top shape. I figure I'll never really have this kind of time again to devote to it, so I might as well take advantage. That doesn't stop me from enjoying my watche, yam pilee, and wagasi, however. One good thing about yam pilee? It's not processed white, empty calories. You're actually getting some bang for your buck there in nutrients. Woo hoo!

Anyway, here's some food fotos:

Watche and wagasi. The watche is rice and beans and the wagasi is that fried cheese that is amazing and might be the only food I really actually miss. Must be eaten with cold, natural sugar coke. Ah.

This is mango pie. We made it up in Nati yesterday at the workstation. Mary is a genius. I had it for breakfast today and it was awesome.

This is from my three month "let's pretend I eat meat" phase. This was taken at Chateau Vert, an amazing chicken and fries place in Djougou across from my office. You have to order an hour in advance, but it's worth it. That's Colt on the side there, dipping his french fries in this delicious tomato and onion sauce they serve avec les frites ici.

This picture didn't load quite right, but it's the New Years cake Colt and I made when he was here. It's chocolate and amazing. Affissa tried it and thought it was fabulous. Ah cake. Thanks to Alex for providing the mix. It was loved.

Colt eating yam pilee for his last time in Djougou. He started getting pretty skilled at it by the end. 

Me eating yam pilee. The pounded yams are stickier than mashed potatoes and you scoop up the sauce (usually a tomato, onion, palm oil mix of awesomeness, occasionally with a peanut sauce that is my absolute favorite) with the piece of squished yam. If lucky, you'll also have a few pieces of wagasi to snatch up to make the perfect combo. And of course, a cold coke next to ya.

This is the coconut curry at Hong Kong's in Cotonou. This meal is like real Chinese food. I can sometimes be tricked into thinking I am in Americaland when I eat out in Cotonou. This meal was awesome...but so expensive I've never been back!

Colt at Livingstone's, the expat hangout in Cotonou. The pizza is expensive but real. I think it's good even by American standards, but I am a fan of thin crust pizza. Colt was unimpressed I think, but screw him. He can get Papa Murphy's whenever he wants! Ahhh, pizza. I blow some money here pretty much every time I'm in Cotonou. 

Not really a meal, per se. But this packet of barbecue sauce I got from Becca was a vrai delight on some watche. I wish I had some more. See how excited I am about it??

This was our delicious attempt at crispy potato soft tacos. The purple bowl is filled with chopped up and fried potatoes with taco seasoning. The green bowl has an awesome fresh salsa I made with guacamole, tomato, onion, and pimantes with a dash of lime and salt. The strainer has fresh, bleached, chopped up lettuce, those are definitely homemade tortillas in the back and we made a ranch-like dressing for the typical Taco Bell ranch sauce they put on top. We didn't have shredded cheese, but what do you want? Eggs in your beer? Geez.

Here we are pounding some yams for our dinner at Affissa's house. We pounded just long enough to get this photo, haha. Colt is such a dork.

Lapain and frites (rabbit and fries) et La President's in Porto Novo. This was the first meat I purposefully ate (there was the auspicious hot dog incident of 2008), and this rabbit was fabulous. I thought it was amazing and I wondered why I had been a vegetarian so long. Then I went to America and ate meat there for a month and wondered why the hell I would even bother eating meat in this country. So I'm a vegetarian again...after a short vegan stint in March and April. But that rabbit still looks good, huh?

Another Livingstone's pizza shot. I mean, Matt looks awesome, Scott is mid mouthful, how could I not post this pic? Eat that pizza, Matt!!!

Oh, wow, three Livingstone pictures. I mean, I thought this epic cheese string was pretty badass. And note my cool Beninese soccer jersey. Their team is the Squirrels. 

After all that food, pretty much we just go out for beers. It's the best staple of any good Peace Corps Volunteer's diet!

I hope you enjoyed the pictures! 

Photos and Videos from the fete!

Some bomb ass tissue prints of some kids during the flag raising.

The kids here really like getting their picture taken. These girls were hanging out at the mayor's house after the parade and eating some snacks they bought of of a maman's head.

This girl was almost lost in a sea of singing ladies during the parade, but I snapped this quick picture of her.

The internet is being pretty shady, but that seems to be typical here haha. These pictures are from the 50th independence day on the 1st of August. Enjoy!

I'm not sure if the video will work, but it's a few seconds of this guy who was encouraged to go out and dance to the drums and he went out there and kicked some ass.

This is a video of a women's group who rocked at the parade.

internet on a monday??!

i am using a french key board right now at the small cyber cafe near the school we have classes at during the week. i have all my blog entries typed out on my computer but forgot my portable hard drive today. it's not too bad though because we are going to songhai tomorrow and i can update then. but these keyboards are crazy!

we find out our site locations on friday so i will try to get online before the following tuesday to let you know where i'll be for the rest of my time here after swear in in september. we are all really nervous and excited to see who will be near us (and thus become our better friends!)

things are good, the 50th anniversary of independence for Benin was yesterday and was a big party all over the country! we got to meet a lot of the other volunteers in the country and i even got to hang out with two volunteers who were finishing up their two years of service and heading back to the US of A. seeing them and their enthusiasm was very good for me; i will talk about that more in one of my 3 blog entries tomorrow!

i added my number and adresse at the top of the blog so ppl can get in touch with me easier. ok time for more french and bicycle training. woo hoo!

a demain,

E