True Life: I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer

So I rarely write about the actual volunteer side of my life here. Many of the projects I’ve attempted or ideas I’ve had have crashed and burned in a big way: starting a tree nursery, planting a garden at the orphanage, giving lessons the environment at schools all have not worked out. My host structure here is the mayor’s office, which means that they pay my rent ($11 a month) and are invited to Peace Corps training sessions with me. My official work partner is the mayor’s wife and she is in charge of environmental concerns in Zè. It’s no secret that she holds that position solely because she bore the mayor three sons (the other two wives gave him worthless daughters and got nothing as far as I can see). So I have a work partner that cares very little about the environment and knows even less. Thankfully in the same office (when I say office I mean 10 foot by 5 foot room crammed with three desks and multiple wooden filing cabinets, a fire waiting to happen) is someone else who actually knows things about the environment, Kadja Codjo. Not my official work partner but the person I work with most. I was just recently given a desk there which you would think would make me happy but instead has forced me to spend countless hours tied to that desk staring into space or, if I’m feeling shameless, doing sudoku. I go there every day, just for a few hours if I can. The projects I have with the mayor’s office are: - Monthly public lectures given in a different village on a different environmental/health topic each month. We meet in the village center and spend a couple hours cleaning up the public space before sitting down and discussing the topic. - A project for planting and upkeep of trees and public spaces in three of the lesser funded villages in the area. This project is part of a competition for environmental projects that an American group, Millennium Challenge Account, is having. People work in each of the three villages the last Saturday of the month and at the end of the year if we are chosen as one of the winning projects we get rakes, wheelbarrows, gloves, etc. - Eventually I’m supposed to help design a rudimentary waste management system but insofar as no one seems to care about helping me it’s slow going. Trash cans should probably be the first step but they jumped the gun and have a tractor, wagon, and tractor driver (who refuses to actually touch the trash) already. So now it’s the collecting of trash and loading/unloading it into/from the tractor wagon that is the problem. - Tree Day is June 1 so I hope to do something that day, however I have been told in no uncertain terms that the choice of where, when, and what to plant is solely up to the mayor, and I am foolish in thinking he has better things to do than plan this. Yet when June 1 rolls around and no one has anything planned I expect everyone to be lamenting the worthless yovo they have. My activities outside of the mayor’s office: - I have an English club every Wednesday night with the high school seniors to help them prepare for the English part of their high school exit exam. I often bring magazine articles and maps for us to discuss and have had guests (family or other volunteers) several times. - The girls camp that I have blogged about several times that will be in June. I think I’ll be bringing one girl from Zè. I’m sure I’ll post a blog about it again later. - Handwashing “stations” and education sessions on proper hygiene at elementary schools with my local health agent. I’ve only done this at three schools so far but I love it. Kids get so excited, about anything really. Every student wants to do a better demonstration of handwashing than the last, which generally means by the end of the day the last student is washing his/her hands for 2 full minutes and diligently picking the dirt that has been accumulating under his/her fingernails since birth.

- Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which is an old program that has just been restarted this year. They have this sort of thing in the US too but here it’s pretty different. An essay contest was opened up to female 8th graders in which they had to write on a woman they admire and why. They winners were chosen (two from Zè!) and get to spend a long weekend in the home of a working woman in Cotonou, follow her to work one day, observe how she balances the demands of a Beninese wife and mother and being a working woman. Some of the girls might never have been to Cotonou; they’ll probably be staying in the biggest houses they’ve ever been in, with the most educated women they’ve ever met. I went to the two girls houses this week to explain the event and get permission from their parents. One girl’s father is a teacher and so he spoke French and was generally supportive of it all. He did ask, in all seriousness, if I would then stay around to help her finish high school then ensure she find a university in the US to give her a scholarship. I’m a pro at letting people down gently now. Peace Corps should market that as a quality volunteers need to have. The other girl’s situation was much different. I met her at the school at noon to accompany her to her house. Turns out she lives so far away from the school that she doesn’t go home for the 3 hour midday break. We had to hire a moto to take us the several kilometers to her house that she has to walk every morning probably before 7am and every evening after 7pm, alone, by the way, because she is the only child in her family still going to school. The others, as she has explained it, chose to find work or an apprenticeship. Neither of her parents spoke French or were literate. She had to sign her own permission slip and under contact we put down some other villager’s phone number since no one in the family has a phone. I had to just take for granted that they had given their verbal permission in Fon. Peace Corps would be horrified. I tried to explain to both girls that this program doesn’t just end when the weekend is over, that Peace Corps and I hope this will encourage them to continue their studies and reach for the stars (which, it turns out, is an expression that does not translate). This all happens May 6-9 and the evening of the 8th the 8 girls who were chosen for the weekend in Cotonou will give a presentation at a charity dinner for gender equality. I’m a little worried about them speaking in front of such a large crowd, mostly because it will be 90% white people and I’ve caused panic attacks among people with just two yovos in tow.
All this and I still manage to read a Harry Potter book a day or watch a whole season of The Office in one week.