“SUPPER!”
My mother’s voice would ring out like a dinner bell in a train yard. On the table there would be a delicious, cold green salad. On the stove, served buffet style, baked potatoes, steak with béarnaise, corn and green beans. For dessert there would be fruit, cookies or ice cream depending on the occasion.
“Vien, Manger!” or “WA, Kadje!”
The child lifts her sticky hand off pate up off the plate and waves it near my face, bringing the scent of the greasy, mutton and tomato based sauce d’arachide. Cornmeal boiled in water and beaten with a stick until it becomes pure starch, it sticks to everything. Pate Rouge, which is cooked with tomatoes, oil and onion and Pate Noir, which is as far as I can tell beans boiled and then beaten to a similar consistency, are two variations of the same meal. The sauce de legumes, de sesame, d’arachide, de tomate are the usual side dishes. You wash your right hand with water from a pitcher, pouring the run-off into a small bowl beneath. Sometimes there is soap. That’s always nice. You use that hand to grab chucks of pate and with some practice you then whip it around the sauce that settles nicely in a communal bowl. If you are wealthy, or at a restaurant, you can have wagasi cheese, goat, beef, or fish. The meat varieties are barely recognizable as they’ve been fried within an inch of their being and hard to chew. Wagasi is delicious, but difficult to find in Manigri. It is sold wrapped in big green leaves that turn the white skin a bright, beautiful red.
“SA-RAHHH, It’s TIME TO GET UP”
My mother’s voice again, jarring me from the dark haze of sleep. I’d fumble around in my bed, wracking my brain for any reason at all why I could not emerge from my room. I’d tumble out of bed and half crawl, half run to the intercom before my mother could decide to ‘beep’ me. My parents installed an intercom in my room when I was thirteen. The beeping sound, even when done accidentally, still irritates me to this day.
[ a cacophony of animals ]
The animals wake around five thirty in the morning. The roosters and goats must wake each other from their own rumbling sleep to then flail about the concession, screaming. Goats that sounds like small children, roosters that must want to fight everything in sight. And the sweeping. The sound of stiff bristles scraping against the sand.
“You fly, I’ll buy”
A monstrous building in the middle of a parking lot that could be full but once a year. Cars. Shopping carts. Seagulls eating trash. You drive yourself there, park it in a space and then march into the supermarket with the intent of only buying one thing. You emerge fifteen minutes later having in fact bought six or seven. Those companies are so much smarter than you. How did they know you’d find the 2 for 1 L’Oreal Shampoo sale so alluring, and when is the last time you ate White Cheddar Cheese-its? But there they are, in your ‘reusable’ shopping bag. Because you care about the environment and will absolutely use those petroleum-based plastic shampoo bottles again and again. And, I don’t know, fix your car with that cardboard box from the Cheese-its.
“Ouebo! Ouebo! Viens! Viens! Wa-Wa-Wa!”
The wrinkled ladies crouch down over their wares like they’d like to strike at your knees. There are people pushing in every direction, their shoulders digging into your back. Huge trays of food pass above as Marche Mamas with babies on their back walk by, balancing their entire stock on their heads. You argue, plead, and feign disgust over their prices. You walk away. You tell them that you know the real price (even if you don’t) and insist that they don’t rip you off just because you’re white. You reach into your pocket to pay her, and then it is her turn to be disgusted. “Il n’y a pas la monnaie!” They’ll exclaim, pouting at you. You stare them down, and for a moment it’s like the two of you will really fight over this transaction. Finally she’ll break down and shrugging walk off, leaving her stand (safely guarded by the other women hovering around anticipating your business), in search of change.
When you’ve found the gari (manioc powder), the okra (known as gumbo here), and maybe the dried beans you came for an hour later, you head is ringing from the incessant microphone that screeches “My Heart Will Go On” as a midi file, and you’re less hungry than you were when you came. Maybe it’s the goat meat sitting on the wooden stand collecting flies. Or the little girl who is peeing right next to the place where you just bought your vegetables.
“Well, what will it be?”
A gin and club with lime. Jack on the rocks. A martini. A seasonal microbrew, maybe with blueberries or orange slices, from the tap. It’s served to you in a frosted glass. The music croons via a juke box in the corner. There are three different televisions showing various sports games. If you’re a regular your drink is waiting before you walk in the door. There is ice. Delicious, cold ice. Everyone minds their own business for hours. There is no eye contact, no joining a stranger’s table, until those who are scamming to pick up sex for the night are left to feed on one another.
“Je voudrais une beninoise” or “Fu me Sodabee”
The skunked beer in a gritty green bottle. She will bring the beer in a little basket, but for some reason- no matter what bar you are in- she has to go back to the same place she came from for the bottle opener. Liquor is ten dollars a glass and they have no idea how to serve it, and so most of their mark-up is lost. The majority of bars have only beer or soda, the beers being limited to five different kinds of domestic or African imports. No two Beninoise beers are the same. Music pumps out of the nearest television at its loudest pitch, encouraging people to dance but making it difficult to talk. The Tantis sit with the men who they think will buy them sodabee, or perhaps pay for other services. There is no ‘girls night out’ in a society where women rarely have their own income, and so it can be assumed every girl in that bar is looking for the same guy (named John). Frequently someone will sit down with you and try to talk to you, to try to befriend you into taking them to the United States. Or give them money. Or buy them beer. Sometimes their advances are funny, usually irritating, and once in awhile just sad. The bartenders (the tantis) may be the worst of them all, but frequently also the saddest.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Happy Birthday Hannah. Hannah Happy Birthday.
The 9th of March and the first rain is here.
For two days it's been unmercifully teasing. The humidity rises, the clouds gather, flashes of lightning were flickering in the distance. But at 10:20pm, the hot silence finally broke and for the first time since October it rained. Odje. Nagot for rain. I haven't been this excited in a long time. The wind has been wrecking havoc all afternoon, kicking up dust and covering everything in a fine coat of brown, including me. I was reading outside and had to retreat into my house to hide from the small windstorm that made it impossible to see.
I lined up about six buckets beneath my roof so the rainwater could trickle into them. I'll use it to wash dishes and clean the sheen of dirt that has consistently covered everything in my house through the screened windows and doors for months. I'll use it to save Luc and Mouda and myself from carrying heavy buckets of water from the well. I'll use every drop. Water is so precious.Life is so beautiful.
Narcissis and Okounde barged into my house just before it arrived, animated and drunk, to talk about their plans to build a tall wooden fence around our row of houses. Narciss will co-opt students who arrive late to school or who are sent to him by frazzled teachers into building this fence. The labor will be free and we will only need to pay for minimal supplies. They are looking forward to cooking outside and sleeping on mats in front of the house. It is unsafe to do so now. I did not have the heart to tell them that I have a gas stove (They've never seen my house beyond it's elaborately furnished front room) and that I have been sleeping outside when the power is out between my shower and latrine on a cot, my mosquito net hung over the clotheslines.
I had been having an extremely difficult time adjusting back to life in Manigri after IST. It was difficult seeing all of my lovely friends and listening to their stories. My best friend in Peace Corps, my dear Emily MacDonald, is leaving to continue her service in Namibia. I had been depressed that she was leaving. The 107 degree heat and intermittent electricity was of no help either.
However, to bore you with some teaching details, before IST I had broken my classes up into teams. They were allowed to pick their names, and each activity now functions as a competition to earn points. I promised the team with the most points at the end of the year a prize. I think I will do something fantastic for them, but I will not yet say what it is. Anyway, this method has made teaching a lot more exciting for me and the students. They lose points for bad behavior and earn points for answering questions and doing well on exams and interrogations. It also helps that the bulk of my grading for the semester is over- nothing makes me feel more uneasy than staring at a stack of ungraded papers that I know will only make me feel inadequate as a teacher and desperate as a person who hates tedious desk work. I am now in the middle of calculating the averages for the semester, and it's been a pleasure noticing how my grades compare to the rest of the teachers. Either my exams are easier or my students are in fact learning.
Yesterday was International Womens Day. I took ten girls from my GIrls Club to Bassila on Saturday to meet with three other local PCV-run GIrls Clubs in Bassila, Pira and Pennesoulou. The girls had prepared sketches and I was so impressed with everything they had put together. The girls from Pira sang songs and danced, the girls from Bassila did a skit about sexual harassment in schools and unwanted pregnancies, the girls from Pennesoulou did a hilarious sketch featuring the much detested teacher 'Dieudonne'. My girls did a very simple sketch called, "Je suis." Each girl wrote a "Je suis" poem during one of our meetings which we then turned into a larger production where each girl named one thing that she was. Such as, I am a girl, and I am strong. Or, I am a girl, and I am a good example for other girls who want to succeed. I am a girl, and I am intelligent. I am a girl, and I can be the best in every domain. It was cute. We sang a lot of songs, including Rilo Kiley's "The Frug" and a song that proclaimed each volunteer as the mother of a family.
Unfortunately, while at the Maison des Jeunes in Bassila, someone had gained access to my purse and stole my cell phone, about thirty dollars worth of cfa, and about five dollars worth of phone credit. I was pretty upset about it for a short period of time. I just felt so stupid. However, thanks to my wonderful parents I was able to get enough money to make it through the next couple of weeks. When people ask me in village, even those who I haven't told but I suppose found out from others, I just tell them that i'm not upset and that money isn't everything. I suppose it isn't, now that I have some.
My friend Benjamin in Bassila had a visitor this weekend from Hamburg. The three of us spent Saturday night playing poker in a bar in Bassila. It was fun. I took Stephen (the foreinger) to see Manigri. It was kind of nice to have a westerner who hadn't been living here for the past seven months and show them around. He was very impressed by the cows, the flora, and- of course- the poverty. I was talking with our beloved Tanti at Marquis, the buvette I go to with my close-mates, and she told us that she makes 500 cfa, roughly a dollar, a night. Of course, as we discussed in a bit, depending on inquiring male customers, this amount could be raised. He was shocked that even for two dollars, someone could buy a girl. I explained that just about anyone you see in my village makes only 500 cfa on a good day. The women who sell tomatoes at the market, my lovely Petit Mama who sells yams on the road, the zemidjians- 500 cfa a day is barely a wage, but they survive.
I try to stay away from Peace Corps cliches, such as "Ups and Downs" to describe my experience here. However, I find that as it has permeated my perceptions as to my frantic mood swings in this country, that it is the only phrase that will suffice. Despite the fact that I was sad and lonely when I first got back to post, the past few days have been wonderful. Despite the heat. Despite the missing my friends. Despite my cell phone being stolen. I was asked about procuring mosquito nets for a local NGO, and I am going to go see my health center about planting Moringa. There is an orphanage to build in Bassila. There is work to do.
For two days it's been unmercifully teasing. The humidity rises, the clouds gather, flashes of lightning were flickering in the distance. But at 10:20pm, the hot silence finally broke and for the first time since October it rained. Odje. Nagot for rain. I haven't been this excited in a long time. The wind has been wrecking havoc all afternoon, kicking up dust and covering everything in a fine coat of brown, including me. I was reading outside and had to retreat into my house to hide from the small windstorm that made it impossible to see.
I lined up about six buckets beneath my roof so the rainwater could trickle into them. I'll use it to wash dishes and clean the sheen of dirt that has consistently covered everything in my house through the screened windows and doors for months. I'll use it to save Luc and Mouda and myself from carrying heavy buckets of water from the well. I'll use every drop. Water is so precious.Life is so beautiful.
Narcissis and Okounde barged into my house just before it arrived, animated and drunk, to talk about their plans to build a tall wooden fence around our row of houses. Narciss will co-opt students who arrive late to school or who are sent to him by frazzled teachers into building this fence. The labor will be free and we will only need to pay for minimal supplies. They are looking forward to cooking outside and sleeping on mats in front of the house. It is unsafe to do so now. I did not have the heart to tell them that I have a gas stove (They've never seen my house beyond it's elaborately furnished front room) and that I have been sleeping outside when the power is out between my shower and latrine on a cot, my mosquito net hung over the clotheslines.
I had been having an extremely difficult time adjusting back to life in Manigri after IST. It was difficult seeing all of my lovely friends and listening to their stories. My best friend in Peace Corps, my dear Emily MacDonald, is leaving to continue her service in Namibia. I had been depressed that she was leaving. The 107 degree heat and intermittent electricity was of no help either.
However, to bore you with some teaching details, before IST I had broken my classes up into teams. They were allowed to pick their names, and each activity now functions as a competition to earn points. I promised the team with the most points at the end of the year a prize. I think I will do something fantastic for them, but I will not yet say what it is. Anyway, this method has made teaching a lot more exciting for me and the students. They lose points for bad behavior and earn points for answering questions and doing well on exams and interrogations. It also helps that the bulk of my grading for the semester is over- nothing makes me feel more uneasy than staring at a stack of ungraded papers that I know will only make me feel inadequate as a teacher and desperate as a person who hates tedious desk work. I am now in the middle of calculating the averages for the semester, and it's been a pleasure noticing how my grades compare to the rest of the teachers. Either my exams are easier or my students are in fact learning.
Yesterday was International Womens Day. I took ten girls from my GIrls Club to Bassila on Saturday to meet with three other local PCV-run GIrls Clubs in Bassila, Pira and Pennesoulou. The girls had prepared sketches and I was so impressed with everything they had put together. The girls from Pira sang songs and danced, the girls from Bassila did a skit about sexual harassment in schools and unwanted pregnancies, the girls from Pennesoulou did a hilarious sketch featuring the much detested teacher 'Dieudonne'. My girls did a very simple sketch called, "Je suis." Each girl wrote a "Je suis" poem during one of our meetings which we then turned into a larger production where each girl named one thing that she was. Such as, I am a girl, and I am strong. Or, I am a girl, and I am a good example for other girls who want to succeed. I am a girl, and I am intelligent. I am a girl, and I can be the best in every domain. It was cute. We sang a lot of songs, including Rilo Kiley's "The Frug" and a song that proclaimed each volunteer as the mother of a family.
Unfortunately, while at the Maison des Jeunes in Bassila, someone had gained access to my purse and stole my cell phone, about thirty dollars worth of cfa, and about five dollars worth of phone credit. I was pretty upset about it for a short period of time. I just felt so stupid. However, thanks to my wonderful parents I was able to get enough money to make it through the next couple of weeks. When people ask me in village, even those who I haven't told but I suppose found out from others, I just tell them that i'm not upset and that money isn't everything. I suppose it isn't, now that I have some.
My friend Benjamin in Bassila had a visitor this weekend from Hamburg. The three of us spent Saturday night playing poker in a bar in Bassila. It was fun. I took Stephen (the foreinger) to see Manigri. It was kind of nice to have a westerner who hadn't been living here for the past seven months and show them around. He was very impressed by the cows, the flora, and- of course- the poverty. I was talking with our beloved Tanti at Marquis, the buvette I go to with my close-mates, and she told us that she makes 500 cfa, roughly a dollar, a night. Of course, as we discussed in a bit, depending on inquiring male customers, this amount could be raised. He was shocked that even for two dollars, someone could buy a girl. I explained that just about anyone you see in my village makes only 500 cfa on a good day. The women who sell tomatoes at the market, my lovely Petit Mama who sells yams on the road, the zemidjians- 500 cfa a day is barely a wage, but they survive.
I try to stay away from Peace Corps cliches, such as "Ups and Downs" to describe my experience here. However, I find that as it has permeated my perceptions as to my frantic mood swings in this country, that it is the only phrase that will suffice. Despite the fact that I was sad and lonely when I first got back to post, the past few days have been wonderful. Despite the heat. Despite the missing my friends. Despite my cell phone being stolen. I was asked about procuring mosquito nets for a local NGO, and I am going to go see my health center about planting Moringa. There is an orphanage to build in Bassila. There is work to do.
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