Official Volunteers

Nous sommes volontaires du Corps de la Paix Benin!!

Our official 2 year service started as of yesterday, September 25, 2009. The swearing-in ceremony was very nice and was followed by a reception at the Peace Corps office. There were representatives from Beninese ministries, the French Embassy, and the American Embassy that all spoke. Also there were selected volunteers that gave remarks in French and many of the local languages. We gave the welcome/thank you speech in Adja- our local language! We really had only had about 2 days to practice, but we werent nervous because we figured no one would really understand anyway since it is not the local language in Cotonou and the surrounding areas. However, when the Minister of Education gave his remarks later on in the service he commented that he was impressed with our Adja! Turns out he is from Lalo- and now he has our phone numbers. We cant wait to invite him over for dinner!!

Here are a few pictures from our swearing-in ceremony yesterday:




Miranna and Charlie with our host Maman. The rest of the family was out of town, but she came to support us.

A Note on Mail

See a previous entry (July 14) for our address and mailing guidelines. However, a few important tips:

Never write the real contents of a package- write general items such as "food," "clothes" and "magazines"- not the specific items or brand names. Don't give them any reason to want anything that is inside.

Never write the real value of items on the customs form- always put $10 or less because we have to pay taxes on packages- if they think there are valuable items, they will open the package and then charge us more money.

Write "Dieu Te Regarde" on the package in large letters- if they think God is watching them there is less of a chance it will get opened.

Use the US Postal Service- not a FedEx, etc.

Even though we are moving we are going to keep the main Peace Corps address for now because I think there is a higher chance of us getting our mail.

Thanks for all you support! Keep it coming!

Pictures!

Finally, a few more pics... Enjoy!!

Miranna and Charlie in front of the "Gate of No Return," the point where slaves were put on ships bound for the Americas'. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is at the beach in Ouidah, a town in Benin that was the center of the African slave trade.

Miranna and Charlie posing with a voodoo fetish in Ouidah's Secret Forest, where a Beninese King once hid from being killed by turing himself into a tree. Believing in spirits runs deep in all aspects of life here! We're still working on acquiring magic powers- and no, we don't have voodoo dolls!



Miranna and Charlie with their host dad, Jean, on the balcony of our host family's house.

Miranna showing off her African moves with a local dance troop during a cross cultural session. Charlie's group was not present or he would be in the picture too!

1 More Week

One week from today we swear in as official Peace Corps Volunteers! Our training has flown by and we've already been here for 2 months!

We have passed all the requirements necessary to become volunteers. The biggest worries:
For Charlie- passing his French exam- which he did today! He has made beaucoup of progress!!
For Miranna- teaching English grammer. Today was the last day of model school which means that Miranna is officially qualified to teach English in Benin- oh la la- a scary thought- the children of Lalo will soon be speaking English with a southern accent!

We will spend our last week of training in Porto-Novo learning Aja (our local language), filling out paperwork, shopping for supplies, and spending time with our host family. Last week we made banana bread for our Maman's birthday and they loved it, so we now have to teach her how to make it before we leave!! We're thinking about making them a Southern meal as well if we can find similar ingredients needed to pull it off.

A few pictures

We know everyone wants to see some pictures, so finally here you go:

C and M enjoying the local brew - La Beninoise.


C & M during their post visit to Lalo- outside the director's office at Miranna's school. The director is to Miranna's right and one of the other English teachers is to Charlie's left (notice the matching outfits called Bumbas).



Charlie participating in a baby weighing training session in a village outside of Porto-Novo with the other health stagieres.


That's all we have the battery for now!

A Quick Update

Yes, we are alive and well. I know everybody is anxious to see some pictures, but they are proving impossible to upload. We will figure something out and post some soon. We have not had as much access to internet as expected because our days are packed so full. This past week Miranna started teaching model school: a free summer school for local kids so we can practice our teaching. Charlie is learning how to weigh babies and has started learning our local language: adja. So needless to say, free time that was previously spent after school checking email now goes to lesson planning or language studying. We have a lot to write about and hope to catch up soon: our host family, model school, our visit to Lalo.

A week ago we spent a few days in Lalo and the surrounding area checking out where we will be living for the next two years and meeting our work counterparts. We’ll write more about this in the new future, but all in all it was a good visit and we look forward to settling down there at the end of September.

Thank you for all of your emails, we will work on typing up responses this week and sending out updates soon. Keep them coming. A few of you have asked what you can send us: magazines or books, pictures, individually packaged snacks and drink mixes, anything creative you can think of that will fit in a padded envelope and entertain us, and of course old fashioned letters with all your news. Our address is in an older post below. Merci en avance.

A Day in our Life as Peace Corps Trainees

We thought you might be interested to know what have we have been up to since we have arrived in Porto Novo. We are called trainees because we are not officialy Peace Corps volunteers until we complete training and swear-in at the end of September. There is a group of current volunteers that are with us each week to help in our technical sessions which has been very helpful. So, this is pretty much what our weeks are like (there is a little variety from day to day):

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
6:30-7:30 Get ready, have breakfast (Charlie typically has an omlette, bread, coffee and Miranna has pineapple, bread, tea)
7:30 leave for school (Miranna goes via zemi because she lives far from her school, but Charlie can go via bike- pour schools are about 30 minutes apart so we dont see each other during the day)
8-10 Language class
10:30-12:30 Technical class (For Charlie this includes classes on child and maternal health, AIDS, maleria, etc; for Miranna this includes lesson planning, grading, grammer review, etc)
12:30-1:30 Lunch at school- we buy lunch from women that bring something theyve made to our school- typically rice and beans, or avocado sandwhich- also easy to find pineapple and bananas
1:30-3:30 Language class
3:30-4:30 culture or technical class

After school things vary: some days their is a soccer game, some days I come to the internet cafe, or some days well go with some friends to a buvette for a drink. We rarely go right home after school because our family dosent get home until about 7 so their isnt much to do- but we are home by 7:30 when it starts to get dark.

From 7ish-9ish we chat with our host brothers, do homework, boil and bottle water.
9ish- 10ish we eat dinner (no, im not kidding) and chat with our host maman and papa- the kids dont eat with us. We typically have fish or chicken, some sort of starch like potatoes, rice, or couscous, and some kind of vegetable- the food is very good but everything is cooked in palm oil!!!
10ish- to bed (yes, right after we eat) so we can get up at 6:30!

On Tuesdays the whole group is together and it is when we do all of our medical sessions, cross cultural sessions, and any admin work that needs to be done.

We also have class on Saturday until about noon- typically language. Last Saturday my group got together after school and had a cooking session where we learned how to cook Mexican food here in Benin! It was yummy! The next cooking session: American breakfast foods.

And there you have it- our typical days- its pretty exhausting even though we are sitting all day!