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!

Joyeuse Jour de Dinde

...or Happy Turkey Day!

Just incase you are worried that we are not getting our share of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie, we are celebrating Thanksgivng here in Benin. Miranna has been in Parakou (a larger city in the middle of the country) with the other education volunteers in her group all week for a training. Charlie came up today to join us! Tomorrow (Thursday), after the training is done, we will be preparing a "traditional" feast...well, as traditional as we can make it here in Benin. There were a number of volunteers that killed the turkeys tonight- Miranna opted for preparing the stuffing. Even though there will be a number of substitutions of ingredients, the menu has al the traditiaonl dishes and I'm sure the meal will still be delicious!

We are well. We know many of you have sent us packages, but we have not yet been to Cotonou to check our mail. We will be able to do so in the next few weeks and we'll let you know when we get them. As they say here, "Merci en Avance!"

Going Yaya for Boni

Two weeks ago it was announced at school that the President of Benin, Yayi Boni, was to visit Lalo. This was very exciting news- the president of the country was going to visit little ‘o Lalo?! While at first this was exciting, in the end it was a pain because academic life at school practically stopped because every day the President was going to arrive. The first few days all classes were cancelled because the students had to clean (let me note here that he was never even coming to the school directly, but the athletic field behind the school- so why everything had to be cleaned repeatedly is beyond me). The other days only half of the students showed up assuming there were no classes, there were constant interruptions by administrators coming into classes to make announcements “in case he arrives tomorrow”, and oh yeah- there was more cleaning. Everyday, we wondered, “is he coming tomorrow?”
Well he finally arrived this past Friday- two weeks after the original arrival date. So, of course all classes were cancelled because he was going to arrive at 9AM. (Side note: You might not think it is such a big deal that classes kept getting cancelled, but the problem is that many of these teachers literally began teaching classes 2 weeks ago- even though class supposedly started October 1st- because of numerous other issues in the education system here. So at this point, with only another month of school until exams before the Christmas break every class counts!!) He did not arrive until 3PM.

In the meantime, however, it was quite a site to see! There were more people in Lalo than we ever imagined possible! People were brought in from surrounding villages by the truckloads- literally! Imagine an open top 18 wheeler filled with people- because that’s what we saw! There were many different groups of women, artists, villagers, etc. all dressed in matching tissue, playing instruments, and singing. We walked around, talked with students, and took in the sites and sounds as folks danced and made use of the time while waiting.

After a few hours, we decided to stake out our spot. We were with Miranna’s friend, Judith that works at the school, and the school director’s oldest son. Judith sweet talked us into a place under the sound/technical tent which was directly to the left of the main stage/tent. We stood there for a while, when the mayor of Lalo (whom we had not yet met) noticed us- being the only Yovos in Lalo, we weren’t hard to miss! He came over to the side tent, introduced himself and then asked if we’d like to sit with him at the front. Of course, we weren’t going to refuse! The good news: he led us to 3rd row seats directly behind the President’s seat- the bad news: we were instructed that we were not allowed to take any pictures. You’ll see below we snuck one.

Well his helicopter finally swooped in around 3PM. That’s right- helicopter. In a town where not everyone has electricity or running water (like us), the president comes in, hovers around with the helicopter and lands in a nearby corn field. This is quite a site to see for many who haven’t even left their village, or seen an airplane, let alone a helicopter; it nearly caused a stampede as people rushed to follow it around and see where it would land. He made a round to greet the crowds, sat down and we proceeded to listen to local representatives of the ministries and artisan groups speak for over an hour. Finally, Boni got up to speak- for 5 minutes! And then he was gone! In the end, it was a very anti-climatic day. We sat in the heat (luckily, not directly in the sun!) for 5 hours waiting for his arrival. By the time he left it was 5PM- we were hot, hungry, thirsty, tired, and annoyed! We went home, showered, ate, and took a 4 hour nap! But, the people love him. Apparently he’s done a lot of good for the country, but we are still trying to find out what and how exactly he’s benefitted Benin. He did note how well agriculture was doing in Lalo given how he had just landed in the corn field. Oh, and the helicopter was pretty cool.

Miranna (wow- do I stand out in a crowd here?!), friend Judith, and lots of women from Lalo in matching tissue at the entrance to the school. The sign says “The population of the commune of Lalo welcomes his Excellence the President Yayi Boni to Lalo.”

Our view of Boni- just two rows away- but you could barely see him from his surrounding entourage.

Two girls selected to greet Boni. One girl is holding a cup of water- it is a Beninese custom to offer water to visitors. The other girl is holding flowers.

A Few Good Questions

Our good friend, Matt, called us last week. (Matt, thanks for calling- it was great to hear from you!) He asked us a few questions that we thought other people might be thinking as well, so we decided to expand upon them on the blog.

Do you experience racism?
Well yes- but not in a negative way. In Benin, the word “Yovo” means “white person or foreigner.” We are constantly called “Yovo”- which would be like walking down the street in the US and having someone call you by your race- like “black” or “white.” But I should also preface this by saying that here everybody is referred to by their title or job. For example, you call the carpenter “Carpenter” or the school director “Director,” etc. Names are not so important here- pretty much everyone is often referred to as “brother” or “sister” even if they are not brother or sister. This is a very bizarre concept for us coming from a society where there is such an emphasis on individualism. Can you imagine just calling your teachers “teacher” and not “Mr. and/or Mrs. So and So”? It has taken some getting used to, but now being referred to as “Madame”, “Monsieur,” “Teacher,” or “Yovo” is normal and by the end of the two years, we might even forget our own names (c said he still might call m yovo)!

When kids see us here they start singing a song:
Yovo, Yovo bon soir
Ca va bien, Merci!
This is left over from Colonial times where the colonialists taught the Beninese children this song. The children would sing the song for the Colonialists and then they would be given treats and candy. They are not singing it to get gifts, but just because that is what they have been taught to do when they see a white person. They are not singing it to be malicious, but usually because they are super excited to see us- someone so different from them! Also what’s interesting is that often times the kids actually don’t even know French and our merely singing the song just to sing it to us not even knowing what they are saying- most obvious when they sing the song first thing in the morning saying bon soir “good evening” and not bon jour “good morning.”

So yes, the name “Yovo” does get old, as we would prefer Madame or Monsieur. However, we have been assured many times over by friends here that it does not carry a negative connotation. While we hate to be constantly referred to by our race, in Benin “Yovo” is a prestigious term because they see “Yovos” as the superior race, who are more intelligent and have more money. Even though they are not only referring to Americans- but basically everybody not from West Africa- we hate to be thought of in this manner. We have expressed that we don’t see ourselves in that way and our friends and colleagues that see us everyday don’t use the term “Yovo” we’ve just come to accept that there is no way we can change the mentality and history behind this word in the two years that we are here (or for the 40 years that Peace Corps has been here, as a matter of fact!). So, yes, by US terms, the fact that we are called by our skin color everyday- that is racism. But, in Benin- c’est la vie!

How much do things cost there?
The easy answer: a lot cheaper than in the US! Things in Cotonou and Porto Novo (the 2 largest cities) are, of course, more expensive. But, here are a few examples of costs here in Lalo:
Lunch (rice, beans, fish) for 2 and 2 cokes in a buvette: $2
beer: $1
8 oranges: .25 cents
bunch of bananas: .25 cents
½ dozen eggs: $1
baguette: .30 cents
pile of tomatoes: .50 cents
Charlie’s haircut: $1
water (refilled every other day, about 30 gallons): .40 cents

That is about all we spend our money on in Lalo. So, our day to day expenses are next to nothing which is nice! While you are loathing how much you just paid for that fruit you bought or the lunch you ate out today- just remember the difference in how much money you are making at the same time!

Please send us questions that you may be wondering about our life here- others might be thinking the same thing!

Package Requests

Want to send us something?

These are some things that we’d like. Don’t worry about if other people have already sent something on the list, because we can definitely use more than one of anything listed!

Food:
beef/turkey jerkey
dried berries (like craisins, but any variety)
dry roasted almonds & sunflower seeds (can get peanuts here)
tea (anything but regular lipton which is what we can find here)
whole wheat pasta & brown rice (we really miss whole grains!)
condiment packets (all those free ones you get from fast food joints- including soy sauce, honey mustard, ketchup, lemon juice, jellies, etc- hint- we love chick-fil-a)
splenda/equal packets
granola bars- a variety (M requests Fiber One bars)

Other items:
stain removal sticks
ant traps (wrapped up in a separate bag)
coloring books and crayons (generic pics- no Disney, etc- all the characters, etc that are so popular at home don’t mean anything here)
uno cards- a plain deck
calendars- new and old (don’t throw those 2009 ones away!)- will be used for pictures for visual aids for M’s classes- and also are good to show people here pics of scenes from different states, seasons, holidays, etc- all of that is so foreign)
variety of magazines (after we read will be used to cut out pictures for visual aids for M’s classes)stickers (for graded papers)

Merci!!

Where Have You Guys Been??

Charlie adminstering polio vacinations in Lalo.


Miranna with our taxi and all of our luggage when we left Porto Novo for Lalo.


We are now official residents of LALO! Yes, we are alive and fine, but we do not have access to email in our new town. Hence, the lack of communication from us. Today we have come to the regional capital, Lokossa (which is about an hour away for us), to do our banking, check email, and most importantly, celebrate the big 3-0 for Miranna with other volunteers in our region.

Things are going well- wow, where to start? We have been in Lalo for about 3 weeks now. Our house is great, though it is taking time to get settled in since it was completely empty when we arrived. We have acquired a bed, bookshelf, and a dining room table with 4 chairs from another volunteer nearby (he moved into a previous PC couple’s house, so he had lots of everything). We just put in an order with the carpenter for some other items such as a chest of drawers, a clothes rack, and another bookshelf. It’ll be nice to finally take clothes out of our suitcases that have been there since July! Well technically we have been living out of a suitcase since May, so you can imagine how excited we will be to not have to dig through a suitcase everyday! Once we are really settled in, we’ll take some pictures and post them.

But to give a general description, we have a large main room that we will use as a living room/dining room/office. Then we have 2 smaller rooms- one is our bedroom and the other is our storage room- clothes, food, etc. We have a small outside area in the back- one side has the kitchen, the other side has our toilet (yes, we have a real toilet, not a latrine- but since we don’t have running water, it is pour flush) and an area for our bucket showers. It is very comfortable! We have electricity which helps- so we are able to run the fan and have lights at night.

Everyone has been really welcoming and we feel very safe here. While Miranna was initially hesitant about the small size of Lalo, we now realize how better it is to be in a smaller town where everybody knows who we are. It would be nice to be in a bigger town where access to goods (and email) is easier, but you’ll never get to know as many people and not feel as comfortable as we are getting around town. One of Charlie’s work counterparts, named Fagla, is the Chef du Village of Lalo. Our house is very close to his and he has taken us under his wing. We eat dinner at his house most every night, he introduces us around town, finds us things we need, etc. He has known other volunteers in the region in the past so he is familiar with Americans and is excited to show us Beninese culture. We’re not sure how many wives he has (at least 3), but he has 13 children! Not too atypical for here. The older girls (between 13 and 10 years old) fetch our water for us every other day and sometimes they just come over to hang out. So what does “fetching water” mean? Basically, they use large aluminum basins that we have to go down the street to a house where the person charges folks to collect water. We give the girls enough money to pay for it and give them sweets or fruits once they’re done. It works out nice for everyone. Eventually we want to start teaching them English because none of them are in secondary school yet and it’ll give them a jump start in a few years when they do start English in school – where M is teaching.

And, what about work? The reason we are here, right???
Miranna: I officially started school on October 1st, but after a week and a half, I had not yet taught a class. The “1st day of school” has a very different connotation in Benin than in the US. Basically it means that students start to show up to pay their school fees and clean the school grounds and classrooms. Primary school is free, but secondary school (the equivalent of middle and high school) costs about $20 for continuing students and new students have to also bring a bag of cement to help finance the construction of new buildings. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but for families here it is a lot of money. This is one reason why after primary school many girls are not able to continue school. If a family only has enough money for one or two of their children to go to school, it will be the boys. So, students are not allowed to find out what class they are in until they have paid. So, even if I had wanted to start teaching the first day there wouldn’t be any students because they hadn’t yet had a chance to pay. What this means is that there will be about a 3 week period that every time I have a class that meets, I will have new students. This makes it hard to teach because everything will have to be repeated until all of the students are finally present. By the end of this past week classes had started to fill up- I had about half my students in all my classes (the average number of students in a class is 50- so classes of 25 sure did feel full- I’m not too excited about that number doubling!). I am tired of teaching “Good Morning,” “How are you?,” My name is…,” etc… I really don’t want to start teaching anything important, such as the verb “to be,” until everyone is there. I am one of the only teachers that has actually started teaching- so I don’t see everything getting into full swing for at least another week. It really is bizarre!
I officially only work 18 hours a week, but I spend at least that amount of time at home on class preparation- so my days are still full. My schedule is as follows:
Monday: 8-10AM 6eme A (equivalent of 6th grade); 5-7PM 6eme BTuesday: 8-10AM 6eme C; 3-5PM 5eme A (equivalent of 7th grade)Wednesday: 8-10AM 6eme B; 10-12 English Department meetingThursday: 8-10AM 6eme C; 10-12 6eme A; 3-5PM 5eme A
I don’t have class on Friday, which is great, but by the time it gets here, I’m exhausted- especially after teaching for 6 hours on Thursday. Everybody has “repose” between 12- 3PM. This is fabulous because at that time of the day it is too hot to function here. The mornings and evenings are very pleasant, but it is so HOOOTTT in the middle of the day, I now understand why everyone takes the repose- think “siesta” like in Latin American culture. Between classes and for repose I typically come home, prepare for classes, do laundry, take a nap, read, clean, etc.- but most important sit in front of a fan!
Overall, I am happy with my school placement thus far. I enjoy the change of pace from an office job and the challenge I have everyday creating lesson plans. It is sad to say, but with my limited training I am one of the better English teachers at my school- mostly because I always show up and I actually care if my students learn something. Everyone at the school has been nice and open to answering all my questions. I am super lucky because the person at my school that takes the school fees- called the Comptable- is a women (named Judith) and she is also an English teacher! In Benin the majority of school staff and teachers are men. In fact at my school, we are the only women; in such a male dominated society it is nice to see a woman in an important position. You can tell Judith is super excited to have me there and I am glad she is there! I am able to go to her about anything- including how much I should pay for eggs or tomatoes in town, where I should get clothes made, etc. We have talked about finding a night for her to come over and exchange 1 hour of speaking in French for 1 hour of speaking in English. I look forward to getting to know her better!

Charlie: Hmmmm, where do I start? Work for me i.e. health volunteers, isn’t exactly as clear cut as Miranna’s teaching gig. It’s not too unexpected for me, but a challenge to deal with. In Benin, people at work have very specific roles, so to have a volunteer come in and start working is a bit of a challenge because they don’t know quite what to do with us. It’s not to say that I can’t find something to do or they don’t want me there, it’s just that coming in to working as a community health volunteer doesn’t give them much to go with…..yet. On top of it all I have my language barrier to work with and everyone speaks local language to each other for the most part. What’s frustrating is that they will do it in front of you and leave you completely stranded trying to figure out what they are saying. I have to then ask, “what’d he/she say?” and get a short version of the story. Oh and did I mention they actually speak 2 different local languages around here?

While we were in Porto Novo, we had gotten a few courses in the local language Adja. That was great and helpful to know we would get to learn that language. Of course, we get to Lalo and everyone in town is speaking Fon, another local and more widely spoken language throughout Southern Benin. Then one day I go on a trip into the bush with Fagla to see the rice fields and scare away birds – its rice harvesting time so this is a very important activity! We meander through narrow dirt paths and come along a small village at the outskirts of where he is still considered village chief. Here, he says, is where they speak Adja. “Wonderful”, I say, and immediately bust out the few greetings and phrases I knew. Let me tell you it’s one of the most rewarding experiences to be able to be in such a strange, different, culturally awkward environment and make a connection that is as simple as- “hello, how are you?” They love it!! So, after a few shots of the local brew, sodabe, I leave slightly buzzed and confused about what language they do speak around here. I’ve come to find out everyone pretty much understands bits of the other and just depending on where you are you have to speak that language even if the village is only a few kilometers away from another speaking a totally different language- it’s really fascinating.

In response to an increase in polio (yes, the polio that has long since been eradicated in the US) cases within West Africa, Benin is participating in a door to door campaign to vaccinate all children under 5 years of age. As soon as I found out this news I quickly began asking around to find out how I could help out. Turns out they put me on a team to work within the center of the village here in Lalo. I even dragged Miranna to help out giving vitamin A doses to the kids. It was an amazing, and not to mention incredibly tiring, 3 days of literally visiting every house in town and performing the vaccination which is simply done by administering 2 drops of vaccine into the kids mouths. It was a great way for us to see parts of town we would have never gotten to visit (there’s not really a reason we would go there) and also just get the word out that we were here for the next 2 years and make new connections. (See picture above)

Another question that might be on your mind:
What do you eat? For breakfast we typically have bread, fruit (bananas or oranges), and tea- nothing too fancy. For lunch we eat a lot of hard boiled eggs, soy cheese (most easily compared to Tofu), tomatoes, rice or couscous, and fruit. Dinner is more typically Beninese when we eat at Faglas’s house- it consists of pate blanc (a staple starch made from corn or cassava meal boiled with water- about the consistency of really thick mashed potatoes) or rice, a sauce, such as sauce de legume (a vegetable based sauce made with tomatoes and cassava leaves- basically the only form of green vegetable you get here) or a tomato and sesame based sauce, and fish or chicken- all eaten by hand (the right one, of course!). The few times we have cooked for ourselves we have made some version of American dishes, but you have to be pretty creative since finding ingredients isn’t too easy! What we can find on a daily basis: tomatoes, eggs, rice, beans, fried dough concoctions, onions, ginger, and peanuts. Things we get excited about when I find them in town (or walking past me on top of a women’s head): bread, pineapple, bananas, oranges, avocados, soy cheese. And that is about the extent of our diet! While we eat well, we do miss the variety from home!

Please send us your questions and we’ll do our best to answer them in the next blog post. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to check email again in the next few weeks! In the meantime, if you miss us, please call us! We’d love to hear from you! Our parents have been buying phone cards that work well that get you about 20 minutes for $5. Our numbers:
Miranna: 011-229-96695532
Charlie: 011-229-97914934
Keep in mind that we are 5 hours ahead of ET, though that will be 6 hours when you all change time. We are typically home after 7PM our time.
A bientot!