What I'll Miss About Benin (and what I definitely will not miss!)

I have just under 24 hours left in Benin and I've been thinking a lot about my time here over the last year and a half and what I've really come to love and those things that really drive me crazy. I don't know if I'll miss all these things right away or if it'll take months or even years for me to have a craving for something on the list, but who knows? Here it is, my two lists. Warning, it's pretty long.


Things I’ll miss about Benin:

-the sound of women pounding yams at dusk
-the five times per day call to prayer at the mosques around Djougou
-the sound of the rain on my tin roof while I’m laying in bed
-riding on the back of a zem at night with the cool air rushing by
-seeing and wearing colorful fabric and fun outfits everywhere
-women carrying baskets of whatever on their heads
-cute, free roaming, bratty Beninese kids (even though they annoy me, too!)
-adorable baby goats and chickens running around
-yam pilee…sooooo delicious
-wagasi…there are no words for how awesome and unique this food is
-a cold, refreshing beer after a crazy hot day, especially with other PCVs
-hanging out and venting with other volunteers
-the excitement of making American food and drinks with other volunteers
-watching movies at the Nati workstation
-ordering fries at the Nati workstation
-hanging out with my Beninese friends, just sitting or making small talk
-teaching sexual health and seeing the look of understanding in people’s eyes
-greeting strangers on the street
-French, especially Franglais, the combination of French and English
-random sayings like ‘bon assise, bon travail, bon douche.’ It’s just so friendly!
-constant sunshine and feeling like summer (although Chaleur sucks)
-Zaari and cuddling with her…omg, I can’t even think about her, too sad!
-sitting out in my back porch at night smoking a cigarette and looking up at the stars in total silence, feeling small and awed by the world and my place in it
-long runs in the African bush, the red dirt dusting my shoes
-mango season
-joking around with my work partners
-the camaraderie between volunteers and shared experience of living in Africa
-being the center of attention, someone always interesting and worth talking to
-inexpensive and simple living
-lizards running around like squirrels
-the colorful craziness of the market place
-the awesome tan lines on my feet from my Chacos
-the simple joy of eating a good meal and watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother
-the excitement of others when I speak Dendi, the local language
-not having to shave and just being a dirty hippie
-Harmattan, the windy season, and the fires late into the night, burning on the horizon
-the poignancy of the first, cooling rain of the season
-feeling like I’m making a difference in people’s lives, sometimes in unintended ways
-crazy, unexpected setbacks and the lessons learned (although it is very frustrating, too!)
-feeling like I’m part of something bigger than myself

Things I won’t miss about Benin:

-13 hour bus rides in the heat surrounded by BO and noisy chickens and babies
-constant sexual harassment
-extreme pollution and trash everywhere
-Chaleur, the hot season
-frequent power outages and water being cut
-screaming babies and children
-seeing kids get beat and generally abused
-seeing malnutrition and poverty related illness
-feeling ultimately useless in the big picture of development
-waking up hot and sweaty and gross
-always feeling dirty, never perfectly clean all over
-not being able to cool off or stop sweating after a run even hours after a cold shower
-having my privacy constantly invaded by neighbors and kids
-never being able to be anonymous or walk around without getting called out
-YOVO, YOVO, BONSOIR, CA VA BIEN, MERCI!
-getting called "yovo", "batoure", "anasara", "blanche", "blondie", or "mademoiselle"
-pretty much everything in Cotonou except for the good food and workstation internet
-the subtle pressure from some other volunteers to drink and party heavily
-feeling inadequate as a volunteer and aid worker
-boring and carb heavy food options
-constant sickness and diarrhea and constipation
-having to filter water and always be conscious of how safe the water is
-bleaching vegetables to have a fresh salad
-doing laundry by hand
-bugs and spiders and having to spray and kill them
-mosquitoes and weekly malaria prophylaxis
-constant boredom
-missing friends and family and feeling guilty for being so far away
-LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP and all the crappiness that goes with it
-getting physically grabbed at the market place
-the bureaucracy of the Peace Corps
-feeling stranded at post or frustrated with outside communication or internet
-casual cruelty to animals
-the informal attitude toward time and keeping appointments
-hearing creepy rustling sounds at night and freaking out about what it could be
-sunburns and worrying about getting skin cancer
-gross, always dirty and cracked feet
-fearing for my safety on crazy taxi rides
-being frustrated at the slow pace of life (although I’ve learned a lot, too!)
-having to discuter for prices
-feeling lonely and homesick
-being constantly asked for gifts and money and to be taken to America
-Nescafe. That stuff is nasty. I don’t care how desperate you are. Just say no.

Oh, Benin. It's been life changing and amazing and I wouldn't trade it for anything. But I am ready for a change! I'm not sure if I'll be back on this blog except to post my DOS, but if you'd like, you can keep following my life journey, here at my medical school blog on wordpress.

Keep on rocking!

Elaina

A Hundred Fans

My standing fan is broken and I am sweating in my hot little house as I finish the movie. I’m frustrated and itching for a cigarette. I’m thinking about tomorrow and the early trip I am taking to the regional workstation where I know I have a package from America waiting for me. I am planning my vacation, thinking about dinner tomorrow night, thinking about anything other than where I am right now, bored and alone in my hot, airless house.
I step outside as the credits start and I shut off my computer. I rummage through my purse until I find the battered box of local cigarettes with the inked label “last pack ever” across the lid. I sit in my bamboo chair and strike a match, my cat following me out the screen door to catch bugs in the florescent glow of my back porch light. I smoke there and notice the silence that has fallen in my neighborhood. All I can hear are the cicadas and the whirring of my small refrigerator fan, and the occasional moto engine in the distance. I’ve missed the sounds of the women pounding yams, or the children playing soccer with an old deflated tennis ball. Even the mosque is quiet, the evening call to prayer not even a whisper on the wind.
And there is a breeze out here, I realize. Once I step outside my cement house the cool air hits me and I wrap my pagne around myself a little tighter, enjoying the cool feeling, knowing that I’ll be sleeping soon without the comforts of a fan, wishing a had a hundred of them. I decide I want to travel to exotic places when my service here is over. I want to be a world traveler. I think about that for a while, filling my passport with stamps, taking trips with my lover, leaving the hypothetical kids at home. Mommy and Daddy trips, we’ll call them. We’ll eat local foods and learn local language. I think about those days in the future while I finish my cigarette.
I’m not ready to go inside yet. For some reason I feel like I’m missing something out here and as the winds shift I understand what that is. I am here right now. I am living here. I live in Africa. I live in Africa. Instead of berating myself for not living in the moment, I just stop thinking and listen to that silence. I watch Zaari as she intently stalks a carpenter ant and I really see her in this moment. I don’t think about the future, or my trips, or how hot I’ll be sleeping under my mosquito net tonight. I even manage to not try to guess what’s waiting for me in my American package. I just let myself go as silent as the night, and empty everything else in my life. I close my eyes and take a deep breath and find that quite unexpectedly, I am happy. I drink it in, feeling the world as simply a part of my happiness, as part of the love that I have for myself, for Zaari, for that carpenter ant.
It doesn’t last very long and soon I am wondering if there are Oreos waiting for me tomorrow and debating whether or not I should order French fries for dinner. I set my watch for three minutes and decide to meditate. I know I should get back into the habit and I’ve always felt centered after doing so. I cross my legs over the bamboo armrests and close my eyes again, forgetting the time, forgetting dinner, clearing everything away but my smile and the love I feel for the whole world. I think of myself as a small island with all the stress and frustrations swirling around me and disappearing into the earth through the legs of my chair. I breath deeply and every time my mind wanders I gently bring myself back to the center of myself, my island of calm and peace. When my watch beeps I am genuinely surprised. It had felt like 30 seconds, like I had just begun to find that peace. I stand and stretch, the pagne falling to my feet. I am here, in this moment under the African sky. I will not be shaken; we are all as one. I take another deep breath for good measure and decide to take a quick bucket shower to rinse off before climbing into bed for the night.
As I step over to my shower I see a small spider is floating at waist level, diligently building a web in the evening glow. I watch her work with a small smile on my lips. Typically freaked out by spiders I am impressed with my own calm, a direct result of my awesome meditation and powers of living in the moment, I think. She is, however, blocking my entrance to my shower. I wiggle my finger in the space around her, thinking I guess of lifting her web and depositing her elsewhere so that I can cool off in the water and go to bed in peace. Instead of just allowing me to move her, however, the spider rapidly climbs up the web and onto my hand. Immediately my calm peaceful meditation mindset vanishes and I am totally freaking out, wiping my hands together, jumping up and down, heart beat racing, praying that the damn thing is dead and not crawling over my naked skin burrowing in to lay her freaky baby spider eggs.
As my heart slows and I am sure that I am not the future host for a hundred spider babies, I start to laugh. Quiet at first and then full out cracking up. I actually have to lay my hand against the wall to steady myself (after making sure there are no bugs of course). I laugh for longer than I meditated, until my eyes are tearing up and I’m sure that nothing makes any sense anymore at all and that’s okay. I don’t have to be a balanced work of art, I can be a messy finger painting. I don’t think I could live in the moment, every moment even if I really wanted to and devoted my entire life to it. I need to plan, I need to think about the future, tomorrow, my vacations, my trips, my package from America with the possible Oreos. That’s who I am and that’s really alright, too.
I pour a couple of bowls of cool water over my back and smile, loving the cold chill of the simplicity of it, loving my body, myself. I close my eyes and rinse off the day, the stresses and frustrations, the heat, and I am content. As I step out and pick up my fallen wrap I realize that I had just spent the last few minutes living in the moment without even trying, just actually being and experiencing life. I grin to myself as I shut my screen door and put Zaari to bed.
As I climb under my mosquito net I decide that I might spend the entire night feeling too hot, wishing I had a fan, wishing I was somewhere else, but that when it really counts I can find my own inner peace, too. And that knowledge is worth a hundred fans.

Taking the leap

I've been thinking about faith lately, contemplating the reasons we believe in certain things and choose to allow so called reason to take the reigns on others. Do we choose these distinctions or do they just somehow develop? Can the balance shift and should we seek out challenges to encourage our assumptions to change?

Something I've been feeling in the last 9 months is that what we know to be true is never static as long as we allow it to grow. Ideas, beliefs, faith--all these things are dynamic and should be dynamic for social and personal change to really be affected. We can so easily get caught in our knowledge, in what we know to be true, that we forget how to learn, forget that discovery comes from the sometimes unforeseeable opening of the mind.

I've become so jaded while here. I came to Africa thinking change was possible and somehow along the way my thoughts shifted to a deadlock. Everywhere I looked I saw roadblocks to change from the very people who could benefit the most. All the stereotypes we laughingly discussed at the beginning of training seemed to be true. From believing that people here wanted my help to assuming that I was irrelevant and unwanted, my truth made a complete shift. I struggled with finding friendships among women who seem to just perpetuate the injustices against them, and men who daily and constantly harass me to the point of demoralization. Sometimes I really do just want to give up because I know that nothing I do here is going to have any sort of impact in the long run, so what's the point?

Volunteers get together and binge drink. Sometimes there's a therapeutic bitch session where we complain about the administration, the country, the people, the corruption, but mostly people just drink themselves into a stupor so they don't have to think about it at all. It's cathartic in its own way, I suppose, but not particularly helpful and not something that I participate in often. There's something so juvenile about it, like being trapped in a frat house party where no one seems to justify the real occasion. I'm not trying to blame the volunteers; life here is difficult and frustrating so much of the time. But we do get so trapped into our own assumptions and our own frustrations that no one really says anything about anything anymore. It's just the same thing every time, hoping to pass the time away so we'll be one more day closer to being finished with the pointlessness of these two years.

The last three weeks I've been paying my thirteen year old neighbor girl to come over to my house on Saturdays and help me with my laundry. I get everything set up, she washes, and I help her hang the clothes up to dry. She's quick and efficient and gets 500F out of it, which is a pretty good deal for us both. This last Saturday she didn't show up at the time we had agreed on, 10am, which was extremely irritating for me. I assumed that she had either forgotten or didn't care enough to respect my time or her money and I was grumbling pretty angrily to myself while I started doing the laundry on my own. I was starting to scrub a t-shirt when I thought to myself that perhaps something had happened, maybe there was an emergency. Of course that would be my first thought if I was paying an American girl to come over and help me. I would immediately worry about her and want to check up to make sure she was okay, not angrily assume that she had ditched me for some other more interesting activity. Why did I make the choice to be upset with my neighbor for those reasons? Was it a choice? I tend to think yes it was.

 I am conditioned to think the worst of my fellow neighbors because time and time again, the worst is what I've seen. When a Beninese man comes up to me, my first instinct is to be aggressive and dismissive. I am rude automatically because so often I am harassed. Is this fair? I don't know. I'm not sure if it was wrong for me to assume that my neighbor had ditched me. But when she showed up, an hour later, she explained that she was making lunch for her little sister and brother because their mother was traveling somewhere and couldn't make it to my house on time. She said that she would have called but that her family cannot afford a cell phone. Immediately I felt both guilty and elated. Guilty because I had assumed that she was just being lazy and in reality she was working much harder than myself. Elated because a small part of my cynicism had been chipped away by this girl with her honesty and strength. I realized, for just a moment, that my time here did not have to be shaped by the static preconceptions I'd developed, and all I felt then was joy.

As far as faith goes, I know that nothing is certain. I know that challenging our assumptions is the only way to get to a place of acceptance, of peace, because if we let ourselves, we will be surprised by small acts that alter our perceptions. Before I got here, I knew I would change the world. Three months ago I knew I wasn't going to make it all the way through my service. Today I know that with an open heart and mind, I can be changed. I wonder what I'll know tomorrow?

Death Match Destruction: A lizard's tale

I have to confess that I’ve been terrified to go into my kitchen for two days. I haven’t been able to do my dishes or cook anything, although I just bought some couscous that I really want to try out. This fear due to several factors including the dust covered “clean” dishes, the pile of crusty, dirty dishes left by a not-so-considerate group of PCVs, the spider webs and spiders, and…the two huge freaking lizards who set up shop between my water filter and grimy stovetop during my absence.

 For two days, these lizards have been the bane of my existence. I know they are both males because at first they would both do the push-ups, head bobbing thing which is a sign of dominance, an act to show off who is the more bad-ass of the two. At some point this morning, their constant challenging came to a head in an epic, lizard battle, death match.

They battled. Using their spiny tails and heads as fierce weapons, they jumped and dived and dove and circled each other with looks of menace in their eyes all the while in my kitchen and patio. They scaled the walls, chasing each other back and forth, leaping astonishing distances to either escape or catch the other. I watched, mildly horrified, mostly annoyed at the noise, until their heaving chests marked an impasse. That’s when I struck.

Like lightening, I burst through my screen door with a bucket and lid and bolted straight for the smaller lizard looking shell shocked on my western wall. He made a futile attempt to scurry away, but when I thought he might outrun me, I reached for my broom and freaked him out with the threat of continued violence. The larger lizard watched from his hiding spot behind the kitchen door, content to rest, but clearly shaking with fear. I lunged, dropping the broom. The lizard leaped dramatically, but I was not distracted. I lithely slipped the bucket underneath him and used the lid to gently swipe him from the wall after his unsteady landing. The lid went on. He struggled and then went still, playing dead. It didn’t matter; I had what I needed. I marched through my living room and deposited him outside of my front porch by tipping the bucket over. At first, he tentatively ventured his head out, not believing in the promise of freedom. And then, once he realized there was nothing holding him back, he darted into the weeds faster than I’ve ever seen a lizard move.

Feeling smug, I went back for the second, larger lizard. I’d like to say that my experience with catching lizards thus far (ie the one I had caught minutes before) prepared me well for this one. It did not.

After twenty minutes of chasing and lunging, poking and trying to trick him into running into the bucket, he tired out and retreated under my sink. I moved in, grabbed a spatula off the counter, and literally scooped him up like a pancake and plopped him into the bucket. He didn’t even struggle. Outside the front door, he bolted to join his mortal enemy in the weeds and, presumably, to continue their epic battle of destiny.

And me…well, I went back into the kitchen to do some dishes and make some couscous.

Probably the worst thing ever (and some good ones, too)

So colt is not coming to Benin tonight. If he had made his flight with his visa and passport he'd be getting here in Cotonou in exactly 2 hours. But he didn't get his visa/passport back from the benin embassy in time and so he didn't get on a flight to Benin and so he won't be getting here in 2 hours...in fact he might not be coming here at all unless he gets his visa/passport before his next scheduled flight which he set for the 24th. Nothing is set in stone, I should have known better than to get so hopeful, but I can't help it. I always hope and I always put all my damn eggs in one basket and when they break I'm always surprised even though it was the hundredth time and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. So, long story longer, I was angry, than sad, than angry, than numb, and now I'm just tentatively optimistic. I'd...um...sort of like to see him, you know? But I'm done ranting and crying and complaining to everyone around me. I think everyone here is sick of me...especially since I spent the last like five days complaining at least four times a day about how much the the humidity in the south sucks!

Good things: I bought a hookah for not too expensive and smoked some delicious apple/vanilla tobacco at Kara's amazing second story apartment in Cotonou. It was wonderful and relaxing and really helped take my mind off of...that really really unpleasant stuff in the paragraph preceding this one...ha. We went up on the roof and watched stars and airplanes coming into the airport...although it was really depressing thinking about how colt wasn't...er...on one of those planes approaching West Africa right now. Ok, fine, let me say one more thing about the suckiness of this whole thing. Like ten people have friends, family, and lovers coming to visit this week and I'm just like in this unpleasant limbo listening to people talking about it and ugh. it sucks. I mean, the other guy's fiance's flight got in tonight at like 11:30pm and I was totally on the roof when her plane touched down and i was totally bummed. But than someone made a joke about sheep and boredom and well, all was good for a while.

Other good things: this extra time means i can actually clean my house, buy some food, and get clothes from the tailor before colt (maybe) arrives.

Bad things: We can't go on safari anymore and I had to cancel our reservation for that. I don't think we can afford to go now, either in time or money since he had to pay like the majority of the ticket price in order to just switch the dates of his departure. He would still have to go back to the US the same original day, the 5th. So that sucks.

Other bad things: I find it unlikely that there will be enough money for me to get a refridgerator. And i'm not gonna lie, at this point I was almost more excited for that than colt. Almost.

Good things: I bought three cans of diet coke to take back to Djougou. I was going to wait and put them in the fridge, but I don't think I'll be able to wait just to be disappointed, you know. I think I'll be drinking them during this next few days of really intense waiting.

Other good things: I purchased some champagne at Erevan for colt's (hopefully) visit/christmas. I was really proud because I talked to the guy for a while about what was the best brand for my money...i really wasn't prepared to spend the 30 mille for real champage, so i convinced him that good sparkling wine would work and got a good bottle for 4 mille. GO ME!

More happiness thoughts to keep my sanity: the Cotonou workstation is almost completely decked out in Twilight posters which makes my heart sing whenever I see taylor lautner smiling out at me.

Also: I am going to try to get Anthony Bordain from NO RESERVATIONS to come to Benin. We've all decided that I am the one in charge of creating the suggestion letter and sending it to him. We think a Peace Corps themed show in 2011 is perfect because it's the 50th year anniversary for the Peace Corps and it's like the premier volunteering organisation in the world and well, you know, television shows like that stuff. Doug and Kim are applying for the Amazing Race, so it only makes sense to jump in on this. He can stay at my house and I'll take him to this awesome yam pilee place...yes, I'm seriously stoked about it. Actually, if someone wants to download NO RESERVATIONS episodes and send them to me, I'd be really really happy and love you forever.

Also: Just read NEW MOAN, a Twilight parody that Dana sent me and it was probably the best thing ever (in contrast to the title of this blog post haha). Thank you DANA and FAMILY!

AND: SWIMMING!! The American ambassdor opens up his swimming pool to Peace Corps volunteers each Saturday afternoon and this was the first time I happened to be in Cotonou on a Saturday so I went swimming with Eric and Heather and Kara and a bunch of other volunteers. It was glorious and even though I only had a bra and panty combo, I felt like I was in America for a few hours...somewhere in America with palm trees and poorly constructed french...but still. I definitely got a bit sunburned.

I've decided that I am going to start going to mosque more frequently like probably once a week. I like my headscarf, I like the rituals, it's relaxing and really helps me integrate into the community, which is really difficult to do in a larger city like mine. And I can learn local language that way and even work on my casual Arabic which is really kick ass.

OH! Another good thing: I got a Dendi practice book to study! I'm going to learn so much I cannot wait. All the mamans qui vendent les choses will sit through my practicing and love it so much I've never had anyone so excited by my education except for maybe my dad when I was like 8. Ah, it's so exciting!

Hmmm, quelle autre? I love air conditioning and there's a lot of it this week....er....hmmm. I'm taking a FREE shuttle up to Djougou on Monday instead of the bus, so I'm saving some money, right on with your right on. Keep on with your keepin' on. Yeah, i should probably go shower and go to bed now...colt's nonflight would be getting here in one hour and 20 minutes and I'd be getting picked up from the workstation to head over to the airport in like 15 minutes.

Wow, these next few days are going to be awful. But (hopefully, the eggs! the eggs! one basket! faire doucement!) when he gets here, all will be remedied. At least after I give him the silent treatment for a whole five minutes or something.

life's too short

i know that life is very slow here and i am often frustrated by inefficiencies and stress like bad internet connections, heat, bugs, constant harrassement from men, and the lack of regular sex. I have recently decided though that there is absolutely nothing i can do about the vast majority of those problems and stressing out about them just raises my blood pressure in 95 degree heat. I also spend a lot of time annoyed by the slow pace of my work and how ineffectual i feel like I have become at a time when I thought I was going to be having the most impact on the world. I have realized, though, that this is just the way it is and i should spend more time trying to be successful working in this system than trying to change the system. This is Africa and there are many many cultural and historical (not to mention geographical and climate related) reasons for the way things are here. Honestly there is a certain amount of naivete and meglomania associated with the assumption that a volunteer living here for just two years can have any impact on the larger social structures that make up that system. I am starting to see, though, that if I accept the things I cannot and should not change, I just might be able to help in a way that works for Africa.

Eeny Meeny Miny Mo

Ok I can't help it. I've created a pro/con list for each country to help me work through my thoughts before I actually have to absorb the placement. I know it probably seems a bit neurotic, but it helps me. And it also serves as procrastination since I've gotten all caught up on all the television shows I watch!

Benin

pros: Jungles, the typical African atmosphere with humidity and heat! I've read a lot about Benin and feel a connection with the country already from spending hours imagining myself in the place of many PCV bloggers. West African culture is something I don't want to miss. Beaches. Higher standards of living than the others. Very democratically stable comparatively.

cons: Humidity sucks. Could be primarily speaking a super specific local language that may not be useful after the peace corps.

Mali

pros: Deserts and dry heat. West African culture ftw! Cool rock climbing locations. A lot of sweet history. Wicked music festival in the desert each year. Maybe I'd get placed in the village of the RPCV who wrote Mango Rains?

cons: No beaches, very landlocked. Lower standard of living than Benin/ is one of the top two most difficult programs for PC volunteers to serve in, I've heard.

Niger

pros: West Africa, desert. Cool Muslim influences. And still on the main land. Fulfulde is a cool sounding language, too.

cons: hot and dry. Very poor country and very politically unstable. PCVs have had to evacuate in the past.

Madagascar

pros: Madagascar is way cool. People know about it and think it's awesome. Malagasy is pretty sweet sounding. The "8th continent" has a lot of unique biodiversity and NICE weather. This is pretty much the only one of my options where the weather won't suck/be ridiculously hot all the time, but is still Africa. And super close to Tanzania where the amazing Lauren will be serving!

cons: Is it really Africa, though? It's not on the mainland which is a MAJOR bummer. There was a lot of political instability last year and the PC program was suspended for some time and only just re-opened up. There are only 11 volunteers there right now! I also really don't want to listen to people singing "I like to move it move it" constantly before I go.

So there's that! Murphy's law says that my placement will be Madagascar but we'll see. I'd be super happy no matter where I end up but I'll be honest up front that I would prefer the mainland. But if that's not in the cards for me, I'll make the most of it. Lemonade and all that.

E