Our long awaited move to post, the “Grand Trainee-Volunteer Migration”, happened three weeks ago yesterday, perhaps resembling college-move in day on a grand scale. Just replace your chauffeuring and teary parents with a cantankerous taxi driver, friendly welcoming upper-classmen with a gaggle of village children, and your dorm room with a village house inhabited by more insect species than exist in North America, and you have the basic idea. This merely illustrates the average PC Benin Volunteer’s experience. My own was a little more rocky and perhaps a bit more bug-ridden.
My adventures began immediately upon my arrival at post. There, I learned that my proprietress had mysteriously lost the keys to my house. Yes, this was one challenge I hadn't planned on facing, and therefore, had no idea about what to do. I brilliantly faced this problem by blankly staring at my house for twenty minutes surrounded by all of my belongings and the aforementioned gaggle of children. In turn, the proprietress spent that amount of time staring at me, and staring was about all we could do given the language barrier. When it was clear I wasn’t about to immediately herald the next taxi bound for the airport, the proprietress decided to allow me to stay in a different room next door, where the gaggle and I dragged my mattress and things. I ended up staying in this small, poorly lit, chamber for four days as the proprietress “looked” for my keys, after which I decided to approach a locksmith about the situation. This issue, compounded by the fact that my latrine still was not built, there were no screens on my windows (I would regret this later), and that I did not have any furniture made these initial few weeks a little uncomfortable.
Nonetheless, I have had the chance to meet some amazing people within my community and get a greater understanding of where I might fit into this village’s picture. I've been working on becoming acquainted with any structures existing in my village and the local leaders. Just figuring out where to get water is a week long project. Integrating and discovering are the goals of the first three months at post. Therefore, my days generally follow very similar patterns consisting of local language lessons, hunting down the elusive fresh fruit or vegetable, taking the most beautiful bike rides, and, most time-consuming of all, greeting everyone in village. I have made it a priority to take a walk through village every day and say hello to the people I pass. This is particularly challenging given that I must do this in Bariba. Nor is it polite to simply say “hello”: Their household, work, health, children, husband, sleep the night before, second cousin twice removed, must all be inquired about in turn. It’s a slow process, to say the least.
Luckily, I got a bit of the malaria to make things a little more exciting. Having malaria is an uncomfortable experience I've found, particularly when you inhabit the boonies of Benin and need to take a two day journey to the PC healthcenter in the capital. I quickly consulted my doctor and decided I had to go to the Peace Corps health station last Wednesday after I woke up with a 104 degree fever. The driver I asked to bring me to Nati didn't quite understand the gravity of the situation, which I only realized once he came over to my concession and told me we had to go look for parts for the moto we would be riding, and parts are never easy to find in a Beninese village. Therefore, I ended up stumbling through the village, halfheartedly performing my obligatory greetings and attracting a lot of attention. I'm not quite sure I was looking my best. However, you will be glad to know that it all paid off and the moto was fixed :)
However, the first leg of the journey to Natitingou is quite rural, and I found my feverish self on the back of a motorcycle driven by a one-armed man. For five hours. Wildly clutching my 2 hastily packed bags (you always need a bike tire pump, right?) as we maneuvered through the rural back roads of Benin. The second day of malaria journeying was little better. I was on a bus for 16 hours straight, producing more sweat than I ever thought humanly possible, and placed next to screaming newborn child. The woman next to me kept giving me the stink-eye and shifting further away, while one man took my near-to-tears, pallid patheticness as a classic case of home-sickness. No good, but at least he gave me a very uplifting talk about the values of family and friends.
However, sickness does mean a hot shower, electricity, and seeing friends for a few nights :).
Hope all is well in the states, I miss you all immensely, and keep in touch!
However, the first leg of the journey to Natitingou is quite rural, and I found my feverish self on the back of a motorcycle driven by a one-armed man. For five hours. Wildly clutching my 2 hastily packed bags (you always need a bike tire pump, right?) as we maneuvered through the rural back roads of Benin. The second day of malaria journeying was little better. I was on a bus for 16 hours straight, producing more sweat than I ever thought humanly possible, and placed next to screaming newborn child. The woman next to me kept giving me the stink-eye and shifting further away, while one man took my near-to-tears, pallid patheticness as a classic case of home-sickness. No good, but at least he gave me a very uplifting talk about the values of family and friends.
However, sickness does mean a hot shower, electricity, and seeing friends for a few nights :).
Hope all is well in the states, I miss you all immensely, and keep in touch!
Love from Benin,
Anna
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