Joyeux Noel

or..."Merry Christmas" from Benin!

Of course we are missing not being at home for Christmas, but we’re making do here! It doesn’t feel at all like the holiday season and Christmas music just doesn't have the same ring here: it isn't "beginning to look a lot like Christmas," it's never going to snow (even if we repeat "Let it Snow" a million times) so it won't be a "White Christmas," and we won't "be home for Christmas" (even if we wish we could be!)! However, we are having a great week.

We are spending this week of Christmas in Cotonou. We lucked out and got asked to house/dog sit for an American couple that lives here, so we are enjoying the luxuries of AC, satellite TV, and internet! Tuesday night we were invited to a reception at the Ambassador’s house- it was a lot of fun and the new ambassador and his wife are really nice! Last night we hosted a Xmas Eve dinner for the other volunteers that are also in town. The menu: chicken, sausage and apple stuffing, greenbean casserole, and mashed potatoes. For dessert: homemade eggnog and xmas cookies. It was so nice to be able to cook in a real kitchen!

The Ambassador has also opened his pool on Christmas Day for the American community, so we’ll be spending some quality time there today! Saturday we are going to attend a wedding with a friend from Lalo, who is going to a co-worker’s wedding here in Cotonou. That should be fun! Otherwise, we are relaxing and enjoying a break from the heat!

We wish everybody a very Merry Christmas back home!


No photos allowed at the Ambassador’s house, but us before we went to the reception.


Bon Appetite! Christmas dinner is ready!

1st Three Months in Lalo

This week hits a milestone for us- we’ve officially been at “post”- or Lalo- now for 3 months. This means that we have been in Benin now for 5 months! It really has been flying by. So, we wanted to write an update about what has been going on in our lives since we have been official residents of Lalo.

Overall, life in Lalo is good! Our house is starting to feel like a home- especially with the addition of a kitty! We are starting to get in a groove with our schedule and work, we’ve pretty much figured out where we need to buy what we need, and we feel like we know a good amount of people in town. Our next hurdle is trying to learn the local language. Up to this point it has been difficult to pick up a lot because there are two languages spoken here in Lalo- Adja and Fon. We have a few of the greetings down in both, but we never know who is speaking what and/or which one to use- it is very confusing! We have chosen to study Fon, mostly because it is the predominate language in the center of town, but also because many people in Cotonou speak Fon, so we think it will be more helpful in the long run. After the holidays we will start with a tutor (an English teacher at Miranna’s school) and see what progress we can make!

For Miranna, the month of December has been a long exam process: writing and correcting exams for all of the English classes at her school, reviewing exam material with her students, proctoring exams (boring!!), grading exams (super time consuming), and finally handing back and reviewing the exams with the students. What a process- and she gets to do it again at the end of January (they have tri-mesters here)! The grading scale here is out of 20, not 100 like we are used to, so students have to get a 10/20 to pass. Most of Madame Miranna’s students did- on English anyway- but the grades ranged from 19.75/20 to 2/20 (it was not a hard exam!). This gives you an idea of the range of students in each of the classes. Are you curious what Miranna is teaching? Luckily, up to this point, it hasn’t been anything too complicated for the lowest-level classes (6eme): we have covered the verb “to be,” greetings, school vocabulary, question words, prepositions, days of the week, and numbers 1-100. After the holidays, she’ll be teaching time, possessive adjectives, and the verb “to have.” The 5eme class has been concentrating on reviewing verb tenses they learned last year and learning the simple past. This is not so easy because of all those irregular verbs (ate, spent, bought, etc)- that are only irregular in the affirmative, but not negative and interrogative forms! It's been a learning process for me, as well as the students!

Miranna and some of her students outside one of the classrooms.

Charlie is doing fine at work. He has still been going out into villages and helping with vaccination days. There’s another PC volunteer in a nearby town called Dogbo and she comes down to a nearby village close to Lalo. Together they do baby weightings and provide consultations to the mothers on how they should continue breastfeeding their child up to 6 months, when they can start weaning the babies, and what they can do to increase the nutritional value of the food given to them. He has also visited a few villages with the chef du village, where he works with groups of rice growers. He plans on organizing some educational sessions to talk about health issues. For example, learning proper hygiene practices or doing a cooking demonstration to illustrate how they can supplement meals with the leaves from a local tree called “moringa,” which grows very quickly in this part of the world. A big part of the work for both health and environment volunteers here is to encourage mothers to use the leaves in their cooking to provide a nutritional supplement for their children.

One of several artesian wells found in surrounding villages. The water flows nonstop year-round. It’s used for drinking water, washing clothes and to irrigate nearby rice fields.

The dry season has begun because it is the beginning of the “harmatan.” It is a time when the dry Saharan dessert winds sweep over West Africa and actually make it cooler and less humid most everywhere in Benin- including Lalo. It actually makes for very pleasant evenings! Also, when we do laundry, the clothes dry in about a day which is awesome compared to when we first got here and it took several days due to the humidity! But, don’t get us wrong- it is still hot! We love our fan more and more everyday!

Boy on his way to school (this is the boy's uniform) cutting through a rice field.

Ho Ho Ho

Santa made an early delivery to Lalo last week...

TOO Cute!

Needless to say, Miranna is tres content! She dosen't have a name yet- Charlie wants to have a naming contest with the local kids- we'll see what we come up with!

Another post coming later- so stay tuned!