Hello everyone,
Life here in Benin continues to go well. I've already been out at post for eight weeks, and although work is slow in getting started, it's coming around. In the meantime, I've decided to give a brief cultural guide to Benin, so you can have more of an idea of where I am, considering nobody (including myself before I found out I was coming here) knows where Benin even is. (It's in west Africa, between Togo and Nigeria!)
History: Benin is a mesh of several local kingdoms, the most important of which had their royal palaces in the city of Abomey in the south. The Kingdom of Dahomey (as it was known) conquered other kingdoms, and eventually partnered with European countries, especially the Portuguese, to begin trading slaves with America. Benin is the center of the slave coast, so that most African-American slaves came from this area, from ports in the cities of Grand Popo and Ouidah. The French colonized the kingdom of Dahomey in the nineteenth century, and in 1960 granted it independence. The country itself suffered through several coups in the 60s before settling into a communist dictatorship in 1972. In 1990, the dictator, Kerekou decided to transition the country to democracy and since then, Benin has enjoyed a relatively stable democratic government. The current president is Yayi Boni.
Geography and Weather: The south is more populated and more clustered, and a little more humid and tropical. The hills begin as soon as you get to the middle of the country, which is where my post, Ouesse, is located. In the north, it gets dryer and dustier. The summer is the rainy season, which is followed by a short dry season known as Harmattan, where the winds blow dust everywhere and it gets a little bit cooler (about 80-85 degrees). This is the season we are in now. We'll have a short rainy season in a couple of months, followed by an intense, dry season known as the "chaleur" (heat!) which I've yet to experience, but I'm sure it gets very hot. This will be from February to April. The north of Benin is also where the two national parks are located, Pendjari and W, where people can do a safari.
Religion: Benin is the birthplace of voodoo. The voodoo practiced in the Americas was brought over by Beninese slaves. There are reminders of this all over the place, but in reality it's mostly practiced only by a few people in the little villages. The south tends to be more Christian, although there is a lot of sincretism with local traditions--voodoo and other forms of animism, while the north is almost entirely Muslim, although again local traditions get mixed in.
Music: The music here tends to be more rhythmic than melodic, and the traditional music rarely even uses instruments besides drums. The women sing in high-pitched screeching voices, not very pleasant to the Western ear, but interesting nonetheless. The pop music sounds a little more Westernized, but incorporates a lot of African rhythms. One of the more well-known pop musicians is Petit Miguelito, who I was actually able to meet in person my first week in country.
Food: The main dishes are rice, beans, spaghetti, couscous, and pate (pronounced "pot"). This is a dish that is bland, somewhere between bread and mashed potatoes in consistency, and you eat it with your hands, taking a chunk and dipping it into a sauce which usually includes tomatoes and hot peppers. One of my favorite dishes here is "yam pile," basically mashed yams, often served in a peanut sauce. My village has pretty much only onions, tomatoes, and hot peppers as vegetables and oranges as fruit, but there are mangoes, and mango season is coming in April. Other places in the country have delicious bananas, pineapples, sweet potatoes, and papaya. Peanuts and cashews are also pretty plentiful here. Chicken and beef are the main meat dishes served here, but oftentimes you can find a vendor of "bushmeat." This could really be anything and oftentimes its best not to ask. I've been served the leg of a bushrat, with some of the hair still on it. Restaurants are really just a woman who made beans and rice serving it on the side of the road, and you go and ask her for a plate.
Drinks: Any village will have a couple of "buvettes," bars where you can get Coke, Sprite, and a number of local and regional beers, although none of these are very good in my opinion. La Beninoise is the cheapest, Eku, Awooyo, Flag, Castel, and Star are other beers widely available here. The local liquor is called sodabi, it's basically moonshine, produced who knows where (there's not really a national distributor), and it's strong and doesn't taste like anything except alcohol. Farther north, there's a drink called Tchoukoutu, which is basically a strong cider, also made at home. People bring big buckets of it to the market on a given day, and you pay a certain amount for a bowl. You can have it already fermented, or in the process of fermenting.
Dance: Haven't seen too much of this in real village life, but in demonstrations that they did for us during our training, it involved a lot of flapping the arms, like a chicken, and walking to a beat.
Dress: People here wear outifts made from local fabric, most often the entire outfit is made of the same fabric, which has colorful patterns and designs. It almost seems like the entire country spends the whole day in their pajamas. A lot of the fabric has really cool patterns, and you can take any that you like to a tailor and have them make anything for you-shirt, pants, whole outfit, dress, etc. Western clothes is also worn here, often bought secondhand at the market, and it's kind of funny to see what some younger people consider their "Sunday best." I sometimes see 25-year old guys at Mass on Sunday wearing tight, flowery jeans, an Avril Lavigne t-shirt, and sunglasses. Impressive.
Shopping: There's no Wal-Mart here, so you go to the local market and buy what you need to make lunch or dinner, or any other thing you might need that your market sells. In my village, if the market doesn't have something, you give money to one of the local taxi drivers, who will buy it in the nearest big city during the day and bring it back to you. The market is quite an experience in itself, with everything from dried fish to vegetables, to cuetips, to cheap flashlights. My village's butcher is in the middle of the market, and that's an interesting place, too. Doesn't inspire you to want to get meat. When you ask them where it comes from, they just say "en brousse," which means "the bush." However, every cut of meat is the same price, meaning that for $2, I can get 1 kilo of the best cut of meat, so if I'm inspired I'll wake up early, go to the butcher, get my cut of meat, and cook it for lunch.
Home Life: Men often have several wives, and a number of children also. I've even run into men who can't name all of their children on the spot. Kids go to school during the day, but are all over the town the rest of the time. Women tend to stay home, clean the house, and cook. Men work, mostly as artisans (carpenters, mechanics, tailors, masons, solderers) and some, especially in my village, out in the fields as farmers.
Recreation: It's hot here, so this involves mostly sitting under a tree and talking. Kids play soccer, and the men play soccer in the morning when it's still cool out, but during the day, you just try and stay out of the sun.
This is very brief, but hopefully it gives you a little more inside info into Benin. I'm ready to spend Thanksgiving eating pate instead of turkey, which will be interesting, but fun. My village and the people have made it very easy for me to get used to life there, and I really enjoy it. It's quiet, peaceful, and my porch, with the porch-swing I had built, is fantastic.
I hope everyone is well. I really enjoy receiving your emails, and wish I had more time to respond adequately to each one. I miss you all, and hope that if any of you have the chance to visit, please take it, because this blog post is not enough to describe this amazing country that is quickly becoming home!
Love,
Sebastian
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Out at Post
Dear Friends and Family,
I have now been here in Benin for about 2 1/2 months, and having finished training, moved out to my post, a small town called Ouesse, two weeks ago.
Training was an intense 9-week long process, which for me and all of the other small enterprise development volunteers was held at a town called Azove, in the southwest part of the country.
My host family was that of the king of Azove, but this really meant nothing, as I soon came to see. Since he is king, he told me, he doesn't have to do anything all day, so he stays home and rests. As I quickly observed, this directly correlated to my host family's affluence and my accomodations were what you would expect for Peace Corps.
However, I really have nothing to complain about. My family was great, very welcoming, and helped me get through training with plenty of good memories:
I'll remember the king, telling me many times the day after the independence day feast that I had danced well at the independence day parade, and that he loved me. (Je t'aime beaucoup! Tu as bien dancer!)
I'll remember my 17-year old brother Gerard, who loved to talk about anything and everything. Once, when trying to grasp that Michigan had four season, not two, and none were called rainy or dry, he asked what naturally follows in this sort of conversation--"So what is in-vitro fertilization?" And we proceeded to talk about IVF for thirty minutes.
I'll remember my albino shoemaker half-brother, who would always enthusiastically greet me as "mon frere!" (My brother). My family thought it necessary six weeks in to point out that he's albino. "You know he's albino, right?" they would ask. Yes, it was pretty obvious.
I'll remember my friend Agustin, a fledgling recording artist, inviting me to a drink underneath his roadside stand made of sticks and palm sheeting where he sold coffee every morning.
I'll remember Johniska, the orphaned 18-year-old manager of the local bar we'd go to, who we taught to throw a baseball, and who, while never being a legitimate major league prospect, was attached enough to us that he's spent his own money more than once to call at post and make sure I'm alright.
I'll remember my host mother, and the contrast in her face between when she mercilessly slit the chicken's throat when she was teaching me to cook Beninese-style and when she nearly came to tears when she found out I was leaving.
I'll remember Armand, the Peace Corps housing coordinator for our group, who would play guitar with me, and when he found out that the Peace Corps had mistakenly left some of my things in Cotonou, thus delaying my move to post by a day, he offered to drive his motorcycle 3 hours overnight to Cotonou, pick up my things and drive them back to Azove so I could leave on time.
But mostly, I'm glad to get out to post. Here, farther north, in the countryside, the people are friendlier, the town is cleaner, and the atmosphere more relaxed. My house is nice (with a beautiful porch) and I've settled into life here. I"ll begin working soon, teaching accounting and marketing classes to local artisans and working with a local radio station.
For now, though, my days have consisted of fixing up my house, getting to know the local townspeople, shopping at the local market, having cold Nescafe coffee with my friend Victor, having drinks with local friends, etc.
My neighbor, Cofi, after wondering why my wife wasn't with me (I told him I didn't have one) said I could find one here, and if, after two years I hadn't, I could take his daughter, who's currently 8. I politely declined. She and her brothers and sisters enjoy coming over, and they are amazed that I have leg hair, and that they don't.
The entire town knows me, since I'm one of 2 white people there (I have an english-teacher volunteer here in the same town as me). I enjoyed this newfound celebrity status briefly at the first Sunday Mass I went to, where the priest made me come to the front of the church and stand in front of the whole congregation. They all clapped for me, and the priest said since I was Catholic, too, they all were my family for the next two years. It felt great, and I haven't even done anything yet.
It quickly became apparent, though, that while they all knew me, getting to know my name would be more difficult. My carpenter, after fixing a window, gave me a bill, where on the line for client, he'd written "Pour le blanc" (For the white person)
I miss home and every day causes me to appreciate each of you and the love you've shown me more and more. Yet, I love it here, and every day causes me to appreciate the people here more and more. God's given me an amazing group of people in my life wherever I've gone and I can never be thankful enough. I miss you and love you all!
Please write when you get the chance. Although I might not respond due to time or accessibility constraints, I love to hear from you!
Sebastian
I'll
I have now been here in Benin for about 2 1/2 months, and having finished training, moved out to my post, a small town called Ouesse, two weeks ago.
Training was an intense 9-week long process, which for me and all of the other small enterprise development volunteers was held at a town called Azove, in the southwest part of the country.
My host family was that of the king of Azove, but this really meant nothing, as I soon came to see. Since he is king, he told me, he doesn't have to do anything all day, so he stays home and rests. As I quickly observed, this directly correlated to my host family's affluence and my accomodations were what you would expect for Peace Corps.
However, I really have nothing to complain about. My family was great, very welcoming, and helped me get through training with plenty of good memories:
I'll remember the king, telling me many times the day after the independence day feast that I had danced well at the independence day parade, and that he loved me. (Je t'aime beaucoup! Tu as bien dancer!)
I'll remember my 17-year old brother Gerard, who loved to talk about anything and everything. Once, when trying to grasp that Michigan had four season, not two, and none were called rainy or dry, he asked what naturally follows in this sort of conversation--"So what is in-vitro fertilization?" And we proceeded to talk about IVF for thirty minutes.
I'll remember my albino shoemaker half-brother, who would always enthusiastically greet me as "mon frere!" (My brother). My family thought it necessary six weeks in to point out that he's albino. "You know he's albino, right?" they would ask. Yes, it was pretty obvious.
I'll remember my friend Agustin, a fledgling recording artist, inviting me to a drink underneath his roadside stand made of sticks and palm sheeting where he sold coffee every morning.
I'll remember Johniska, the orphaned 18-year-old manager of the local bar we'd go to, who we taught to throw a baseball, and who, while never being a legitimate major league prospect, was attached enough to us that he's spent his own money more than once to call at post and make sure I'm alright.
I'll remember my host mother, and the contrast in her face between when she mercilessly slit the chicken's throat when she was teaching me to cook Beninese-style and when she nearly came to tears when she found out I was leaving.
I'll remember Armand, the Peace Corps housing coordinator for our group, who would play guitar with me, and when he found out that the Peace Corps had mistakenly left some of my things in Cotonou, thus delaying my move to post by a day, he offered to drive his motorcycle 3 hours overnight to Cotonou, pick up my things and drive them back to Azove so I could leave on time.
But mostly, I'm glad to get out to post. Here, farther north, in the countryside, the people are friendlier, the town is cleaner, and the atmosphere more relaxed. My house is nice (with a beautiful porch) and I've settled into life here. I"ll begin working soon, teaching accounting and marketing classes to local artisans and working with a local radio station.
For now, though, my days have consisted of fixing up my house, getting to know the local townspeople, shopping at the local market, having cold Nescafe coffee with my friend Victor, having drinks with local friends, etc.
My neighbor, Cofi, after wondering why my wife wasn't with me (I told him I didn't have one) said I could find one here, and if, after two years I hadn't, I could take his daughter, who's currently 8. I politely declined. She and her brothers and sisters enjoy coming over, and they are amazed that I have leg hair, and that they don't.
The entire town knows me, since I'm one of 2 white people there (I have an english-teacher volunteer here in the same town as me). I enjoyed this newfound celebrity status briefly at the first Sunday Mass I went to, where the priest made me come to the front of the church and stand in front of the whole congregation. They all clapped for me, and the priest said since I was Catholic, too, they all were my family for the next two years. It felt great, and I haven't even done anything yet.
It quickly became apparent, though, that while they all knew me, getting to know my name would be more difficult. My carpenter, after fixing a window, gave me a bill, where on the line for client, he'd written "Pour le blanc" (For the white person)
I miss home and every day causes me to appreciate each of you and the love you've shown me more and more. Yet, I love it here, and every day causes me to appreciate the people here more and more. God's given me an amazing group of people in my life wherever I've gone and I can never be thankful enough. I miss you and love you all!
Please write when you get the chance. Although I might not respond due to time or accessibility constraints, I love to hear from you!
Sebastian
I'll
Saturday, August 25, 2007
I Know My Post!!
I’m in Parakou, where there is a Peace Corps workstation with high-speed internet, which will serve as my workstation for the next two years. I just finished visiting my post, and that is why I am now in Parakou getting to know my workstation, and I have the opportunity to post on my blog.
I’ve been in Azove, Benin for the past three and a half weeks now training for my Peace Corps service. There are 14 small-enterprise development trainees here in all, and each of us is living with a host family while taking classes all day, mostly French language classes, with a few technical classes, cross-culture classes, some health, some bicycle maintenance, some safety, and some cooking classes. I was lucky enough to be placed with the king of Azove, although this is mostly just a hereditary title. It is honored by the entire village, but there is still local government such as the mayor and police. Being the host “son” of the king of Azove, I joke around with my Beninese language instructors that I am the prince of Azove, so they have taken to calling me “Monsieur Le Prince.”
The king himself is a great person. I have nothing but good things to say about him. He has two wives, one of which I don’t see much, and the other who does most of the cooking and cleaning around the compound. I have a number of host brothers and sisters, but I mainly talk to the older ones, who are 14 and 17 because they speak French. People here speak a language called Adja, and learn French if they go to school, so the younger children around here only really know a few phrases in French.
I found out my post for the next two years. At the end of September, I’ll be moving from Azove to Ouesse (pronounced Wess-ay) , a small town near the center of the country, in a region called Les Collines. It’s absolutely beautiful, very green, and much more relaxed and open, and less polluted than the south. My house there is very nice and I have “the nicest porch in all of Benin,” as one volunteer who just left said. So for all of you that are planning on visiting, there’s some added incentive. Electricity is coming soon, as is cell phone service, most likely before January. I’m really looking forward to moving out there and having my own place and being able to start working. I’ll be teaching basic finance, marketing, and accounting classes to groups of local artisans, as well as possibly working with the local radio station. Apparently the volunteer I am replacing started a weekly radio program, and the people there really want me to continue it, so hopefully that will happen. The people I’m supposed to work with seem very motivated, which is good. With time, I’m sure I’ll also start my own projects.
It’s been great getting to know the Beninese culture. Being third-world, there are a lot of similarities to Latin America, but so many differences as well. There really are no other white people here in Azove, so for the children who see us walk by, it’s a big deal, they get whipped up into a frenzy and start shouting “yovo” which means foreigner. People here are very nice, though, and love to have the opportunity to talk to an American about anything.
I’m still trying to figure out how to run this blog. After getting here, I feel I’m doing this country and this culture and experience a disservice by trying to explain it to you in words, since the only real adequate way to know is to live it. Nevertheless, many of you won’t have the opportunity to visit over the next two years, so it’s my responsibility to allow you to share a little bit in what I am doing. So, there might be some posts with just updates, such as this one, there might be posts with single stories, and there might be posts with entire concepts laid out. Hopefully my poor writing ability will be enough to express this amazing experience to all of you. Also, if anybody has anything they want me to touch on, or any other questions, feel free to post them in the comments section or email them to me and I’ll try to get to it in some posting.
As I mentioned before, I don’t know if I’ll be able to post at all again before I move out to my post, but once I get out there, I hope to be able to make it to the workstation in Parakou to post every couple of weeks or so. As for the cell-phone, I still plan on getting one, but the government and phone companies are still negotiating, so once that clears up and cell-phone service is back in Benin, I’ll be without a phone. Till then, wish me luck having to endure many more boring French classes until I swear-in and become an actual Peace Corps volunteer and not a Peace Corps trainee. I love you all,
Sebastian
I’ve been in Azove, Benin for the past three and a half weeks now training for my Peace Corps service. There are 14 small-enterprise development trainees here in all, and each of us is living with a host family while taking classes all day, mostly French language classes, with a few technical classes, cross-culture classes, some health, some bicycle maintenance, some safety, and some cooking classes. I was lucky enough to be placed with the king of Azove, although this is mostly just a hereditary title. It is honored by the entire village, but there is still local government such as the mayor and police. Being the host “son” of the king of Azove, I joke around with my Beninese language instructors that I am the prince of Azove, so they have taken to calling me “Monsieur Le Prince.”
The king himself is a great person. I have nothing but good things to say about him. He has two wives, one of which I don’t see much, and the other who does most of the cooking and cleaning around the compound. I have a number of host brothers and sisters, but I mainly talk to the older ones, who are 14 and 17 because they speak French. People here speak a language called Adja, and learn French if they go to school, so the younger children around here only really know a few phrases in French.
I found out my post for the next two years. At the end of September, I’ll be moving from Azove to Ouesse (pronounced Wess-ay) , a small town near the center of the country, in a region called Les Collines. It’s absolutely beautiful, very green, and much more relaxed and open, and less polluted than the south. My house there is very nice and I have “the nicest porch in all of Benin,” as one volunteer who just left said. So for all of you that are planning on visiting, there’s some added incentive. Electricity is coming soon, as is cell phone service, most likely before January. I’m really looking forward to moving out there and having my own place and being able to start working. I’ll be teaching basic finance, marketing, and accounting classes to groups of local artisans, as well as possibly working with the local radio station. Apparently the volunteer I am replacing started a weekly radio program, and the people there really want me to continue it, so hopefully that will happen. The people I’m supposed to work with seem very motivated, which is good. With time, I’m sure I’ll also start my own projects.
It’s been great getting to know the Beninese culture. Being third-world, there are a lot of similarities to Latin America, but so many differences as well. There really are no other white people here in Azove, so for the children who see us walk by, it’s a big deal, they get whipped up into a frenzy and start shouting “yovo” which means foreigner. People here are very nice, though, and love to have the opportunity to talk to an American about anything.
I’m still trying to figure out how to run this blog. After getting here, I feel I’m doing this country and this culture and experience a disservice by trying to explain it to you in words, since the only real adequate way to know is to live it. Nevertheless, many of you won’t have the opportunity to visit over the next two years, so it’s my responsibility to allow you to share a little bit in what I am doing. So, there might be some posts with just updates, such as this one, there might be posts with single stories, and there might be posts with entire concepts laid out. Hopefully my poor writing ability will be enough to express this amazing experience to all of you. Also, if anybody has anything they want me to touch on, or any other questions, feel free to post them in the comments section or email them to me and I’ll try to get to it in some posting.
As I mentioned before, I don’t know if I’ll be able to post at all again before I move out to my post, but once I get out there, I hope to be able to make it to the workstation in Parakou to post every couple of weeks or so. As for the cell-phone, I still plan on getting one, but the government and phone companies are still negotiating, so once that clears up and cell-phone service is back in Benin, I’ll be without a phone. Till then, wish me luck having to endure many more boring French classes until I swear-in and become an actual Peace Corps volunteer and not a Peace Corps trainee. I love you all,
Sebastian
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Limited Communication
Hello everyone,
Apparently the cybercafes here have been shut down, and the city I'm going to for training, Azove, has no wireless, so I will likely be without internet the next two months. I'll miss talking to you and knowing what is going on in the world, but I'll let you know if I do get to post things and email, and check how Michigan football started its season!
The first few days here have been really fun. The other Peace Corps volunteers I'm with are great. We are staying at a sort of retreat compound called St. Jean Eudes until tomorrow, when we move to our different training sites, depending on what we'll be working on. All the business people will be with me in Azove, and I'll be living with a host family.
I've already played soccer with the locals here, had a guitar sing-along with the Beninese, a Senegalese, a Cameroonian and a Togolese, taken a bucket shower, eaten some great food from street vendors, and as of yet, I have yet to get sick (knock on wood!). My French is ok, much better than I thought it was, and a lot of it is coming back quickly!
I'm really excited to get out to training and eventually to my post and start my own life. I might even by a pet dog, which you can get here for about $2 and another $8 or so for all the rabies shots and all other necessary vaccinations. Plus, apparently your neighbors like it when you have a dog because they alert when strangers are nearby.
I'm really enjoying life here, and am sure there will be tough times ahead, but I know I can make it through and that I will love it. It's hard going through training. I've realized I'm much more of an experiential person and hearing things told to me over and over again doesn't quite help, and only makes me want to get out, do stuff, and find out on my own. Well, I've got to go catch up to the group, so for now, "A plus tarde!"
Love,
Sebastian
Apparently the cybercafes here have been shut down, and the city I'm going to for training, Azove, has no wireless, so I will likely be without internet the next two months. I'll miss talking to you and knowing what is going on in the world, but I'll let you know if I do get to post things and email, and check how Michigan football started its season!
The first few days here have been really fun. The other Peace Corps volunteers I'm with are great. We are staying at a sort of retreat compound called St. Jean Eudes until tomorrow, when we move to our different training sites, depending on what we'll be working on. All the business people will be with me in Azove, and I'll be living with a host family.
I've already played soccer with the locals here, had a guitar sing-along with the Beninese, a Senegalese, a Cameroonian and a Togolese, taken a bucket shower, eaten some great food from street vendors, and as of yet, I have yet to get sick (knock on wood!). My French is ok, much better than I thought it was, and a lot of it is coming back quickly!
I'm really excited to get out to training and eventually to my post and start my own life. I might even by a pet dog, which you can get here for about $2 and another $8 or so for all the rabies shots and all other necessary vaccinations. Plus, apparently your neighbors like it when you have a dog because they alert when strangers are nearby.
I'm really enjoying life here, and am sure there will be tough times ahead, but I know I can make it through and that I will love it. It's hard going through training. I've realized I'm much more of an experiential person and hearing things told to me over and over again doesn't quite help, and only makes me want to get out, do stuff, and find out on my own. Well, I've got to go catch up to the group, so for now, "A plus tarde!"
Love,
Sebastian
Monday, July 16, 2007
Leaving
I leave for staging (orientation) in Philadelphia on July 17th and then fly out to Benin on July 19th. I will be working in Benin doing business advising work for two years, planning to return to the United States sometime in the fall of 2009. Best of luck to everybody I leave in the States, I'll miss you all!
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