30.6.2007

Well, this past week I had a small bout of food poisoning and a serious case of the bedbugs from a conference center in Cotonou, but all seems back to (semi)-normal. :-) I’m trying to stay focused here with everything coming together. I will be starting some new projects (computer training; financial management), fighting to finish others, and will soon be receiving the new volunteers and will help in their training. Mid-July is my one year anniversary here! Wow, what to think?! I am enjoying my time here thanks to my friends and my daily discoveries. Yet trying to stay focused on my tasks proves to be difficult here- there are so many distractions it is really tricky to be focused and patient all the time. Really, things here are really starting to wear me down, but I will endure because it is important. I of course have a good support network here and back home, which helps enormously. THANK YOU! Anyway, after the camp and short conference the past two weeks, I am back in my routine. First order of business was, in between shooing goats and swatting at chickens, checking up on my apprentices and doing a review of English phrases. It is good to be back. In the USA I enjoy being on the run, staying busy, and in general the spontaneous life. But here, because everything is always so different and you never feel completely settled, you crave stability. Or I do anyway. You need it to feel at least a little bit in control of things, when in reality a lot of things are out of your hands. Essentially, I am fine and enjoying my experiences here. Time is passing quickly, and I will be anxious to receive my parents who will come visit me early September. Yay them!
Much love from overinbenin.

Camp GLOW

With my girls from Avrankou – Delphine and Florence. More on Flickr.

OK. Hello. Bonjour. Hola. Guten morgan. Jambo. Здрасти.

I will catch you up with everything in a week or two. I am going to only post stuff on the Camp GLOW that we just finished, as that is fresh on my mind. But so you know, I am well and busy, and hope you are too.
Camp GLOW is done by Peace Corps volunteers all over the world and stands for Girls Leading Our World. About 20 volunteers brought a few girls from their communities to the week long conference held nearby in the capital Porto Novo. I had an essay contest a while back to select my two girls, Delphine and Florence. They answered well a couple questions on the importance of community development. I had about 60 girls turn in essays. These two turned out to be perfect. And after talking to their school directors, I knew that they were not only bright and dedicated students in the classroom, but also were pretty outgoing and involved with a lot of after school activities. These are exactly the kind of people we seek in our villages as Peace Corps volunteers. They are the future of this county, and will carry on our efforts and ideas after we leave. My two girls have already agreed to help me organize some different educational programs at their schools after summer break, which just started.

So about the camp. Like I said, there were a lot of volunteers, so there was a lot of sitting around doing nothing. I did sit in on a number of sessions that were interesting. Most were given by an invited Beninese speaker. We had sessions on AIDS awareness, financial planning, goal setting, study skills, arts and crafts, internet, sports, environmental protection and others. They were really motivated and gained a lot from the camp. These girls are now even better equipped to make a difference in their country, from this point forward.

Here is a link to a travel site where we volunteers have been updating Benin’s page. Essentially the page was blank, so we are combining our efforts to complete our respective villages. Check out what I did with Porto and Avrankou, along with some random editors.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Benin

Clicking on major cities you will find Porto, and at end of that page I have info on Avrankou under the GET OUT section if you are interested. Have a great day my friends!

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My neighbor, who is a schoolteacher, makes these goodies and sells them at the school for some supplementary income.

Yummy little nuggets: A mixture of sugar, eggs, and flour, and a few other little things, deep fried and served up at 50 cfa each (10 cents USD).

Here is my other neighbor, also a schoolteacher, getting her hair tressed

This process is popular here with women of all ages. The girls are apprentices of a hair place who came to out here to do this. 5 rather painful hours later, she was done, and forked over a grand total of 2,000 cfa (about 4 USD)