And new pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/kimberly.r.sanders/ApplesAndBeninese?feat=directlink
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The heat is slowly killing me. If not actually taking my life, certainly robbing me of brain function. Figured I should write a blog before the damage is done.
It’s really unfortunate that Peace Corps volunteers don’t have regular access to social networking sites. If we could update our Facebook statuses or Tweet (feel like a tool just for using that word) on a regular basis like the rest of the iPhone- and Blackberry-toting world, it would be endlessly entertaining. Imagine a Peace Corps version of Texts from Last Night or F My Life. It’d be something like:
Spent all day trying to outrun the town crazy who has apparently made it his new and only objective in life to hug me.
Just sharfed in a field. Again.
Had to make an emergency drop trou manuver in [insert semi-public location].
Just realized my flour is swimming with maggots. AFTER I baked and devoured a batch of cookies.
While trying to ask where the toilet is in local language I accidentally said [insert something wildly inappropriate].
Found out the bracelet I bought at the market last month is actually a voodoo fertility charm.
Or anything that starts with
“So I’m in my latrine and…”
“So I’m eating what I think is chicken and…”
You get the point.
We already have a running list of “You Know You’re a PCV in Benin When…” but most of those are references that only those of us, uh, privileged enough to know Peace Corps Benin would get. I do think there should be some kind of Murphy’s Law for Peace Corps. Things like
-You will unintentionally flash every male in a 50m vicinity any time you attempt to mount your bike in African garb.
-The electricity WILL go out during the hottest part of the day when you need a fan the most.
-Insects will find even the tiniest holes in your mosquito net and eat you alive at night.
-The taxi you choose will a) brake down, b) attempt to break a Guinness World Record for number of goats and/or chickens in a passenger vehicle, c) load so much cargo on the top that either the back fender is constantly touching the road and creating sparks or the center of gravity is so high that you spend the entirety of your trip in constant fear of the car toppling and the family of 8 in the 2 seats next to you crushing you, d) all of the above.
Some volunteers do have regular access to internet, BTW. Whereas I’m about two hours from the nearest cyber so I usually just go every couple weeks, some volunteers have internet on their phones or wireless cards which allow you to get internet access anywhere you get phone reception. Apple computers, though superior to PCs in every other facet, are not compatible with these wireless cards, so even if I did want to get internet in my house, I could not. (WTF, Steve Jobs???)
Recent updates: I had a fever and the kind of all over sick feeling that begets this weekend so I was holed up in my house all Sunday. Went through all my college photos- relived Barcelona shot bars, tubing in Vang Vieng, a few too many Chi O events, and all the people and places that made up the last 4 years of my life. Seriously miss my friends, my closet, Coffee Bean vanilla tea lattes, Novel brunches, and Westwood sake specials. (Things I don't miss include LA traffic and the line at Maloney's, FYI.)
Saturday was a village clean up I’d helped organize. We chose 4 villages to clean up the last Saturday of every month. I was really excited and optimisitic about it up until the day before the clean up when my work partner at the mayor’s office and I did a tour to see what areas of the villages need to be cleaned up. It became apparent to me that he was only interested in pulling weeds and grasses, not in picking up what we Americans think of as trash. You can imagine that, since everything here is dirt road, grass and weeds are the norm. So Saturday 15 Beninese pulled weeds and carefully disposed of them about 10 feet from wherever they were pulled, while I trailed behind picking up plastic bags, wrappers, etc. which they then burned afterward without my knowledge. Pretty sure the plastic bags do more harm to your respiratory system burnt than they would do piling up on the side of the road, since apparently I’m the only one who sees it as an eyesore. It’s difficult to be an environment volunteer when your idea of the environment and theirs is almost completely opposite. Just visited the national forest 25km from Zè, which I expected to be, like in the US, a forest that is protected by the national government. Way off. It actually just means that it’s the government that pockets the money when the trees are cut down in that area. Good to know.
Just saw Kill Bill 2 for the first time and was highly unsettled by how shockingly unassuming a black mamba is. I was expecting an anaconda kinda thing- you KNOW when you see it. So my Larium dreams have a new star, which is good because I was starting to become immune to bats and cockroaches.
I often let neighborhood kids come in my house and just hang out. They don’t do much except play the voice message on my Build-A-Bear (“This is your grandma, and this is Kristen, and we love youuuu!) repeatedly and stare at me. But I find it less unsettling when they stare at my in my house than when they stand outside my screen door and stare. I feel like other people are going to see kids looking in and think there’s something to see and eventually a crowd will gather that I won’t be able to disperse. You think this sounds out there, I know it’s not. So one group of kids was here this weekend and when I finally got them to leave my house I realized one little girl had peed on my couch! The only person that has the right to lose their bowels on my furniture is me. Still pretty mad about it.
This is one of the hottest times of the year, before the rainy season starts up again at the end of this month. While I have no doubt that wouldI prefer this weather to other parts of the Peace Corps world where PCVs deal with below freezing temperatures, you should all still feel bad for me.
On a serious note, March 12 will be one year sine the death of Benin PCV Kate Puzey. There is a memorial in Cotonou that all the volunteers and American community in Benin will attend, and a separate memorial in Kate’s village along with a ceremony renaming the village’s primary school after her. Keep her family in your thoughts.
It’s really unfortunate that Peace Corps volunteers don’t have regular access to social networking sites. If we could update our Facebook statuses or Tweet (feel like a tool just for using that word) on a regular basis like the rest of the iPhone- and Blackberry-toting world, it would be endlessly entertaining. Imagine a Peace Corps version of Texts from Last Night or F My Life. It’d be something like:
Spent all day trying to outrun the town crazy who has apparently made it his new and only objective in life to hug me.
Just sharfed in a field. Again.
Had to make an emergency drop trou manuver in [insert semi-public location].
Just realized my flour is swimming with maggots. AFTER I baked and devoured a batch of cookies.
While trying to ask where the toilet is in local language I accidentally said [insert something wildly inappropriate].
Found out the bracelet I bought at the market last month is actually a voodoo fertility charm.
Or anything that starts with
“So I’m in my latrine and…”
“So I’m eating what I think is chicken and…”
You get the point.
We already have a running list of “You Know You’re a PCV in Benin When…” but most of those are references that only those of us, uh, privileged enough to know Peace Corps Benin would get. I do think there should be some kind of Murphy’s Law for Peace Corps. Things like
-You will unintentionally flash every male in a 50m vicinity any time you attempt to mount your bike in African garb.
-The electricity WILL go out during the hottest part of the day when you need a fan the most.
-Insects will find even the tiniest holes in your mosquito net and eat you alive at night.
-The taxi you choose will a) brake down, b) attempt to break a Guinness World Record for number of goats and/or chickens in a passenger vehicle, c) load so much cargo on the top that either the back fender is constantly touching the road and creating sparks or the center of gravity is so high that you spend the entirety of your trip in constant fear of the car toppling and the family of 8 in the 2 seats next to you crushing you, d) all of the above.
Some volunteers do have regular access to internet, BTW. Whereas I’m about two hours from the nearest cyber so I usually just go every couple weeks, some volunteers have internet on their phones or wireless cards which allow you to get internet access anywhere you get phone reception. Apple computers, though superior to PCs in every other facet, are not compatible with these wireless cards, so even if I did want to get internet in my house, I could not. (WTF, Steve Jobs???)
Recent updates: I had a fever and the kind of all over sick feeling that begets this weekend so I was holed up in my house all Sunday. Went through all my college photos- relived Barcelona shot bars, tubing in Vang Vieng, a few too many Chi O events, and all the people and places that made up the last 4 years of my life. Seriously miss my friends, my closet, Coffee Bean vanilla tea lattes, Novel brunches, and Westwood sake specials. (Things I don't miss include LA traffic and the line at Maloney's, FYI.)
Saturday was a village clean up I’d helped organize. We chose 4 villages to clean up the last Saturday of every month. I was really excited and optimisitic about it up until the day before the clean up when my work partner at the mayor’s office and I did a tour to see what areas of the villages need to be cleaned up. It became apparent to me that he was only interested in pulling weeds and grasses, not in picking up what we Americans think of as trash. You can imagine that, since everything here is dirt road, grass and weeds are the norm. So Saturday 15 Beninese pulled weeds and carefully disposed of them about 10 feet from wherever they were pulled, while I trailed behind picking up plastic bags, wrappers, etc. which they then burned afterward without my knowledge. Pretty sure the plastic bags do more harm to your respiratory system burnt than they would do piling up on the side of the road, since apparently I’m the only one who sees it as an eyesore. It’s difficult to be an environment volunteer when your idea of the environment and theirs is almost completely opposite. Just visited the national forest 25km from Zè, which I expected to be, like in the US, a forest that is protected by the national government. Way off. It actually just means that it’s the government that pockets the money when the trees are cut down in that area. Good to know.
Just saw Kill Bill 2 for the first time and was highly unsettled by how shockingly unassuming a black mamba is. I was expecting an anaconda kinda thing- you KNOW when you see it. So my Larium dreams have a new star, which is good because I was starting to become immune to bats and cockroaches.
I often let neighborhood kids come in my house and just hang out. They don’t do much except play the voice message on my Build-A-Bear (“This is your grandma, and this is Kristen, and we love youuuu!) repeatedly and stare at me. But I find it less unsettling when they stare at my in my house than when they stand outside my screen door and stare. I feel like other people are going to see kids looking in and think there’s something to see and eventually a crowd will gather that I won’t be able to disperse. You think this sounds out there, I know it’s not. So one group of kids was here this weekend and when I finally got them to leave my house I realized one little girl had peed on my couch! The only person that has the right to lose their bowels on my furniture is me. Still pretty mad about it.
This is one of the hottest times of the year, before the rainy season starts up again at the end of this month. While I have no doubt that wouldI prefer this weather to other parts of the Peace Corps world where PCVs deal with below freezing temperatures, you should all still feel bad for me.
On a serious note, March 12 will be one year sine the death of Benin PCV Kate Puzey. There is a memorial in Cotonou that all the volunteers and American community in Benin will attend, and a separate memorial in Kate’s village along with a ceremony renaming the village’s primary school after her. Keep her family in your thoughts.
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