My Home Sweet Home

Post visit was a welcome break from the monotony I so despise. Post visit was a chance for all volunteers to spend two weeks at their future home for the next two years. It was so great for me because it let me know that in a month I won’t be in a classroom with the comfort of other Americans or patient professors who understand my botched French but that I will actually be doing what I imagined when I imagined my life in Benin. My village of 40,000 people is about two hours away from the largest cities North (Djougo) or South (Savalou). It has a good number of boutiques where I can find cold drinks and good cookies. There is also a restaurant where I can find French fries, yay! I will be living in a concrete house with a porch right across the street from the Mayor’s office and I will be working at the health center which is oddly placed right next to the hospital. My home has electricity but no running water, but my neighbor’s children have agreed to do that for me. I will try.

Now I get to start the fun stuff, now I get to start tech training and learn how to do the job I can here to do! SO far its been great, learning how to track my projects and measure their effectiveness. I will be learning how to do baby weighing's and track the growth of children. I'll learn how to make nutritive porridge to increase weight and health, and a bunch of other things  

French

One of my goals is to be fluent in French and Arabic by the time I leave here. Now that I’m here I realize that maybe I set my expectations too high. French is so difficult and I have history with it. I took French in high school for two years and in college for two semesters. The foreign language you learn in a classroom is different from the foreign language you actually use in the field. School is good for teaching you the basics, the structure of the language. It is impossible to truly learn a language by sitting in class or sitting in front of a computer. You have to be able to talk to native tongues. You need to hear the accents. I was warned before coming to Benin that the French spoken here is ehm, special. So true.

A Day in the Life of a Trainee

7am: Wake up

7:30: Eat breakfast, head out to class

8am: French class

10am: Break

10:30am: More French

12pm-ish: Lunch (beans and rice, pasta, bread, or fried plantain)

1:30pm: Even more French, cultural class of some sort, personal study time, French game time

5:00pm: Finish! Hang with the wonderful RCH, bike for an hour, or go home for even more French

7pm-ish: Return Home (help mama cook, French review with papa, sit awkwardly while everyone talks)

8pm: Eat dinner with the family, go to the masjid

9pm: Head to my room, shower, and study more, read, watch a movie, type up a blog post, or call home

11pm: Lights out

Pass the bush and to the left

My host family placement far exceeds my expectations. I must say, I really lucked out. In fact my colleagues have deemed me one of the “haves” as opposed to the majority being the “have not’s”. But they are lucky in that they get the gritty experience now as opposed to experiencing true shock when they arrive at post. Because it is highly likely that myself and the other volunteers will be living extremely rural. “En Buisson”, or in the bush. We are only here in the lovely village of Dangbo for 3 months and then we move on to our permanent post for the next two years. So it is very likely that I won’t have all of these conveniences for very long, but I’ll enjoy them while I do.

So what is it that makes me a have? Well I have a fridge for starters. Even though it is not used nearly as much as it should be, I have a full size refrigerator. In fact I’ve never seen an egg, or milk, or any other dairy product inside of it. They mainly use it for La Beninoise (the local beer), left overs, ice, and other things that really have no need to be refrigerated, but I take full advantage of its ability to provide me with cold water on a hot day. I also have coconut and papaya trees that provide me with deliciousness every day. As for my living quarters I pretty much have my own section of the house. I have a sitting room, a bed room, and an attached shower room. I still have to use a latrine outside but I actually find the latrine to work better for me. Gravity gets to really do its thing. I have a couch, a dresser, and a bed frame. In the family room where I eat my meals my parents have a pretty decent size TV (bigger than the one I had in my dorm room) and a sound system. My house is a 5 minute bike and an 8 minute walk away from the school which is wonderful.   The biggest luxury is that I have electricity! It does cut off unexpectedly but I hear that’s because Benin is in debt to Nigeria and they keep cutting the lights out as a way to conserve. But For the most part I always have charged electronics. However Dangbo does not have a Cyber Café and I am not able to afford an internet card on my stipend. Though I may invest in one for post if I’m not near a Cyber Café there either. 

My family is composed of a mama (over 50), a papa (over 50), a brother (24), 6 sisters (19, 27, 30,?, ?, ?), and a male cousin (between 14-19) who does most of the cooking and cleaning for the family but never eats with us. I think he may be living with us to go to school. I know that happens a lot here. However big my family seems, on a daily basis I only actually see my mama, papa, cousin, and neighbors on a daily basis. My siblings are spread out around Benin and all either in school, working, or married. I can tell I have pretty good parents because all their children seem super sweet and smart. My neighbors rent the house in front of mines from my papa, and from what my brother tells me they have been living there for a long time and are now more like family than neighbors. They consist of an aunt (no older than 25), a big niece (23) who is married but whose husband is away working, their son (1yr 8mths) who cries if I come within a foot of him but will smile at me from afar, and two little sisters (8 & 12). They all come over daily and the sister’s even taught me to wash my clothes in buckets. The big sister enjoys asking me to give her my clothes but I just laugh that off. The little sisters do so much work. I enjoy talking to them because they have weaker accents and take it easy on me when I mess up. My papa is a retired primary school teacher and my mama is a vendor of fabrics, beer, and other random things. On my property I have plenty of goats, chickens, and a dog named Yoopie that is 17 years old and going blind Oh and let me not forget about the squirrels that have been hanging out in my ceiling and fight or mate every night. They are so loud! And their poop sometimes falls through the cracks of my ceiling but luckily I sleep with my handy mosquito net every night that has come to protect me from so much more than mosquitoes.

I’m very happy here despite not having internet and I’ve already gone sightseeing with my brother. I saw “Fleuve Weme” wish is apparently the second largest river in the world. Its only 20 minutes away from me! It was breathtaking! It looked like the Africa you see in the movies. Again, I think I really lucked out with my host family and placement. I only hope I’m as lucky with my permanent site. I also love that the majority of the time I feel like an only child because I am able to have a decent amount of me time which I can use for studying French or just clearing my head.

Meeting Africa

Staging in Philly was brief so I’ll skip over that, the only important thing you need to know is that my last meal was amazing. Two ladies and I went to Joes Crab Shack and I indulged in a whole pot of crab legs, lobster claws, shrimp, and clams to myself along with chips and cheesy crab dip. I ate it all. That’s what’s important.

Everything since that has been astounding to me. Just skip the things that seem stupid to you because to me it is all incredible. I have never left the US and I have never been further west than Missouri so the entire flight from JFK to Brussels and then from Brussels to Cotonou had me ooh-ing and aah-ing. I can say I was in Belgium! Only for seven hours but I was there nonetheless. I was able to snag an authentic European croissant, one plain and one chocolate. Yum. I even had my first taste of being swindled abroad. No big deal I just had a hired official tell me that the terminal I was in only took euros when they certainly took USD and exchanged my money at a pretty pricey exchange rate. It all worked out in the end I assure you.  At the Brussels airport I took a picture of the toilet paper because it was different and so was the bathroom. The bathroom doors are so cool, they were full steel doors and in order to flush the toilet you just push a big button located on the tank of the toilet. I soon learned this wasn’t a big deal because in Benin if you are blessed with an actual toilet you will have to pull a knob to flush it.  Another European delight I was privileged to witness was the architecture. Even from the airport and looking from the airplane I was able to see the beautifully built cottages and the airport itself was constructed beautifully. Picture large steel beams painted white forming an arch above your head. Move on from Belgium and take off to Africa. Most of the flight was clouds but the plane had this really neat touch screen display that I could use to track my flights progress from Belgium to Cotonou and I was lucky enough to get a window seat. So when I saw that we were flying over Africa I looked out of the window and was finally able to see the African plains! I may have even spotted a pack of zebras! j/k. Haha.

I landed in Benin around 8pm-ish local time (the whole concept of time change in itself confuses me). The airport is a different world compared to JFK. For one thing we didn’t have a port (?) to walk through. No, we pretty much just walked right off the plane onto a bus with no seats and were taken to the zoo that Cotonou calls baggage claim. After rescuing my luggage I was finally able to make it out of the airport onto another bus to our hotel (?). We ate Pizza!!! And took our Malaria prophylaxis!!!  I must salute Peace Corps here. They did amazing with taking care of our lodging for the first few nights. I feel like we stayed in 5 star resorts compared to everything else I’ve seen these past two weeks. They fed us well, and gave us so much useful (cough cough) information. I’m serious about everything but the useful information. I understand why they had to tell us things like “be safe” and “be secure”. Turn on your RADAR, blah blah blah… but it wasn’t anything my mother didn’t tell me a thousand times or that I couldn’t and didn’t read for myself in the loads of books they gave us. Idk. Maybe I just bore easy, I’m sure it was very helpful for some of the others. However, I was very happy to see that most (all but two) of the staff were Beninese. I don’t know why this surprised my white washed mind so. It was very nice meeting the intelligent, poised professionals and being welcomed to their country, by them. I also had a chance to meet the ambassador of the country who kindly invited us to use his pool every Saturday, or maybe it was Sunday? I’ll find out eventually. I doubt I’ll be doing much swimming anytime soon with all of this “useful” information I’m receiving.

Aside from being welcomed by the lovely staff here I was also welcomed by a not so pleasant host. Hello humidity! Never did I know humidity until I arrived in Benin. The heat is fine. I love the African sun kissing my skin, nothing is better. But feeling stuck to myself all the time? Not so great. Benin really is beautiful, if you just look past the trash on the street and look up at the people or even higher to the trees. Or even higher than that at night and see a sky full of more stars you ever knew existed. If you observe the colorful fabrics, the beautiful dark skin, the tall trees ripe with fresh fruit it’s quite easy to be taken aback. What does Benin smell like? Depends on where you are I’d imagine. But from where I stand the majority of the time it smells like burnt trash. It reminds me of late afternoons in Bamberg, SC when my dad would burn trash, except its all the time here. Unless it smells like fumes but then its fumes + burnt trash, smoked fish + burnt trash, whatever’s cooking + burnt trash, etc. In Cotonou (the biggest city in Benin but not the capital) you may be fooled into thinking you are not in an underdeveloped country if you take in the tall buildings and well paved roads. But drive 15 minutes from the center in any direction and you will as soon as I did be hit with the reality. I know I quickly remembered my reason for being here. Cotonou is city loud, but Port-Novo (the actual capital) is a different type of loud. Close your eyes and imagine hundreds of voices talking in at least 5 or so languages at once, screaming pigs, goats, children, and horns honking. At the resort in Port-Novo I was blessed with the familiar sounds of the Adhan and Quran being recited in the background. Of course I was too preoccupied receiving “useful” information to make it -_- … I recant… I can’t really describe the food just yet since most of that I have been eating is pretty standard, rice, chicken, salad, yogurt, even the spices are pretty norm to me coming from an Islamic background. But Stay tuned. I just moved in with my host family and I’m sure I’ll soon be eating some traditional cuisine.

From Africa

When I think of the last time I posted I feel ashamed of myself. I mean how could I lead you all on and then just leave you hanging like that? Well the blame can be equally split between the Peace Corps and Africa. Seriously though guys, my mom can attest for me, two weeks prior to my departure, la Corps de la Paix kindly blessed me with loads of paperwork including some 3 hour long test. Add that to working up until a week before I was scheduled to leave and my much needed but tiring trip to NY and well, I was very busy. But enough of that, I mean aside from you future volunteers out there who may be reading this no one really cares about the stresses behind actually getting here. You all only care about the pictures right? Ok well I will try to upload pictures but as I am writing this I am not actually connected to the internet. The one time I have actually tried connecting to the internet I paid for an hours’ worth of internet and was only granted 20 minutes of usable time because it is SOOO SLOW. What I did discover in those 20 minutes was that no one was worried enough to send an email checking to see if my plane crashed or not. But hey in case you were curious, I am GREAT! I  Aside from a slight bout with food poisoning my health has been faring well. My French is coming along and I really have just been devoting my time to becoming integrated.

 I want to do these posts a little different. I want you to experience Africa through me because I know a lot of my family has never and may never be able to come here. So what I am going to do is try to describe my experiences through all 5 senses; sight, scent, touch, sound, and taste.

I started writing this post July 1^st, continued July 12^th, posted on July 23^rd, 2013. I’m sorry. I mean what else I can really say. Oh well, here you go. Blog moi. Enjoy.

*try to excuse the poor writing, most of my blogging is done after many hours in the African sun. J

Timeline

 

September 20th, 2012- Submitted application
I knocked it out in 5 hours in one night because I knew if it didn’t get done that night it wouldn’t get done at all

October 16th, 2012- Last recommendation submitted. Interview Scheduled.
The reason why it took so long for my last recommendation to be submitted is only one of the many reasons why I use the word friend very loosely. Also, it seemed like my recruiter was waiting at the phone for that last recommendation because no more than 5 minutes after it was submitted I was called and my interview was scheduled for two days later.

October 18th, 2012- Interview conducted. NOMINATED!!!
My interview lasted about an hour and during that same phone call she nominated me. I was only told that my nomination was for a health extension program, my program may entail some food security, I would have to bike long distances, and that if all the legal and medical goes well and timely I could be leaving as early as the day after my graduation, May 5^th.

October 31st, 2012- Legal Packet arrived
I'm staying on campus and so I have been calling my mom basically everyday making sure she checks the mailbox. Two weeks later it finally came! I worked a 7pm to 7am shift, and went home to pick it up that morning. No, I play no games with this. Time is of the essence and I know the sooner I get everything to them the sooner they will get everything back to me.

November 1st, 2012- Legal Packet sent out
The very next day I went to my campus police dept., had my fingerprints taken, filled out the forms, packaged, sealed and sent everything right back to them. This process requires diligence and commitment.

 

November 13^th, 2012- Legally Cleared

Checked my portal like I habitually did multiple times a day and discovered that I was indeed legally cleared.

 

January 4^th, 2013- Placement Interview

So the longest waiting period by far was between being legally cleared and actually receiving an invitation. I don’t want to give the impression that I did nothing in between these dates. Much nagging and many emails were definitely sent, but there was absolutely nothing to be done but to wait. I’m pretty sure that fact that this also fell around the time of the holidays didn’t help. Yet and still almost two months later I received a call when I least expected it and had my placement interview on the spot. I was told that next I would be receiving my invitation, through email WITHIN two weeks. More waiting…

 

January 16^th, 2013- INVITED

Opened my email to see the header “Peace Corps invites you to serve…”   as a Rural Community Health volunteer in Benin West Africa beginning June 24^th 2013. Celebration commences!!! I have to work that night but I read over the materials at work and confirm my invitation in the wee hours of the morning. The next day tasks are opened up on my medical applicant portal and I immediately get to work getting appointments set. The infamous big blue packet is received via airmail a few days later with hard copies of everything.

 

April 29^th, 2013- Submit final medical tasks

$800 dollars and three months later I am finally done submitting all of my tasks, now more waiting to receive my final medical clearance.

 

May 2^nd, 2013- Final Medical Clearance received

Only had an issue with one form that was missing a signature, hunted down the physician for that and finally received an email saying I was medically cleared. Ain’t no stopping me nooow, I’m on the move!

 

May 4^th, 2013- Graduated from Columbia College

Finally was at the 50 days left mark and was also able to submit my final transcript!

May 24^th, 2013- Received flight information from SATO

 

June 25^th, 2013- Arrive in Philly

 

June 27^th, 2013- Arrive in Benin

 

In preparation of my departure...

Inshallah (God willing), a month from tomorrow I will be arriving in Benin! It is so surreal already. At graduation I was 50 days away and now I just booked my flight with SATO. I've been spending my time since graduating with my mother. I'm lucky that it is just me and her in the house for this short amount of time. Lots of quality time, food eaten, and movies watched together. Did I mention she's leaving me for 16 days and won't be back until the two days before I leave?! At least she gets back in time to drop me off at the airport. It will probably be my mom, my sister, and my grandma seeing me off. I don't want to spend too much time thinking about that tearful moment...
In the past I have been notorious for packing light, quick, and efficiently. I've never been a big fashionista or materialistic in any sense, but somehow packing for this 27 month adventure has been an unexpected challenge. I mean I have to fit my life into 107inches and 100lbs for goodness sakes! There is a rumor of a volunteer that packed nothing but a multi tool in the past and did just fine, I don't think I could ever do that. I mean my hair products alone are 15lbs, lol. I've been working to pay off the last of things that need to be payed off and buy the last of things that need to be bought. I managed to get all the clothes I need from Marshalls and Goodwill and I've been scouring other discount sites for deals. I truly lucked out at graduation and I am so blessed to have such an amazing and generous family. I cried like a baby on that day from all the outpouring love. It was truly an amazing day; the perfect lasting memory to bring with me. I have pretty much all the big things that I want to pack packed besides a shortwave radio, some sports bras, and an ipod. I also have a few tasks I need to complete before departing, here's my list:
-put in my two weeks notice at work (my last day will be June16th!)
- sign my car over to my sister
- visit my dad and if all works out right visit my grandma in NY
- cancel my car insurance
-buy my last things

I think ill be posting my first vlog soon and my next blog post will be an updated timeline from the day i first applied until the day I fly out!

Qadar Allahu Wa Masha Fa'al

I lay now at home, back with my mother after moving out of college for good. I really am so happy to see her and so happy I get to spend the next 52 days in her presence. Lately I have been recognizing how beautiful life is and I've caught myself either crying or smiling without much notice. When I walked out of my last exam I smiled, even though Im pretty sure I didn't get the grade I wanted. When I got off work yesterday morning I cryed, even though I would be off for the next 5 days. When I pulled up to my moms house I smiled, even though the front door was locked. Each time the emotions come as some innate response that I can't prevent even after trying. Graduation is two  days from now and I am sure I will smile and cry.
These last few days leading up to graduation have proven to me how blessed I am (I also received my FINAL DENTAL AND MEDICAL CLEARENCE, can I get a high pitched shriek of joy?). A lot went wrong these past four years but so much more went right. "Qadr Allahu Masha Fa'al" is what Muslims say when something happens that they may not have wanted to happen, it translates to "God has decreed it and what he willed has happened". This is the mindset I want to maintain while in Benin, because truly, nothing is in our control. I am sure being stood up for meetings, sicknesses, botchy communication, and other unforeseen events will make me question my being there. Through it all I just want to be able to see the big picture and remember that God put me there for a reason. So I know on my last post I said I would post next about my fears. Well aside from ants, snakes, and possibly losing a loved one while miles away from the USA, I am so afraid that I will not discover my purpose while I am gone. That I will either grow impatient and leave in blind frustration or that I will waste my time while there and come back with none of my goals fulfilled. Hopefully I can look back at this post and remember Qadr Allahu Wa Masha Fa'al.

Lets not be drab

Hello fellows! I just wanted to make a post letting you know some of the feelings I'm experiencing now. I've read through plenty of amazing blogs, my favorite being Elaina 's blog. I think she perfectly chronicled life in Benin, struggles and successes. Even though she ET'd (early terminated) I would suggest you all to check it out, but also keep checking on mines ;-).

I think some of the normal feelings to be experiencing right now, with 72 days to go are sadness, apprehensiveness, anxiousness, maybe even a slight feeling of excitement? Honestly, I'm only experiencing the latter two, but then again I'm about as far away from normal as it gets. Does it make me a heartless person that I'm not that sad about being away from my family (I don't mention friends because I don't have any)? I love my family, let that never be mistaken, but honestly we're not really all that close. We used to be and I'm sure we still would be if everyone were not so preoccupied with trying to make it day to day. I think it will be good for me to get away and give my family a chance to miss me and show they care. I forget sometimes to be real. It will be good for me as well to be able to get away regain a new perspective of how important they really are to me. The other day my Dad surprised the heck out of me when he called letting me know that he had Google Peace Corps Benin and learned about the Kate Puzey case and voiced his concerns. That conversation really sucked but I felt a little happy because it showed me that he does care enough to do the fatherly thing and check out where I would be going. It would be nice to feel that from all my family. I guess that's more of a latent goal of mines. As for my main goals...

 

 

 





So I'll leave you with that... next post will be on my biggest fears.

Updates, quick and thorough!!!

Hello fellow bloggers and bloggets!!!
It has been a while, i apologize for that. But insanity has insued since receiving my invitation and I've just been trying to maintain. But you don't care about that do you? Haha. Here has been my life for the last nine weeks in bullet formation:
-I have submitted all of my medical paper work and am about $800 poorer because of that
-I have been working insane hours due in part to my last bullet and because i had a hospital bill that needed to be dealt with before i left the country
-I was inducted into two honor societies (Omicron Delta Kappa and Chi Beta Phi), talk about better late than never ...
-Trying to keep all A's so that I can continue to be apart of said honor societies
- Running the Premed Club
-Trying to organize and plan a leadership project
-Became CPR/AED/First Aid certified
-Learning to play the guitar
-Trying to have somewhat of a social life and enjoy those around me before i leave for 2 years

Invitation!!!!!

OK so my slackness knows no limits. I actually received my invitation 8 days ago, January 16th, but with classes beginning the same day things were just too hectic. So where am I going you ask? The anticipation is killing you you say? Alright, Alright, lol. I'm going to this beautiful little key shaped country called Benin. My assignment is a rural health advisor and my departure date is June 24th!!!! I'm going to West Africa guys!!! AHHHH. I am still in shock, in my list of places that I wished to be sent to Benin was fourth on my top ten list so I am just too stoked.

I stayed up all night reading all the informational materials they sent and accepted my invitation at 3am in the morning. *Note: I submitted my application September 20th and was invited to serve January 16th, that's just a little under 4 months. Diligence and dedication pays off. In these 8 days since receiving my invitation I have already submitted my aspiration statement, had my eye exam papers filled out, and I am currently getting my dental paperwork filled out. I found where I can get all my physical exam related things inexpensively handled (since I do not have health insurance) and probably would have already knocked that out of the way if they didn't have to be filled out within four months of me leaving.

The most difficult thing now is trying to focus on finishing up my last semester of college when all I want to do are Peace Corps and Benin related affairs.

Did YOU Know?

The official language in Benin is French
(which is great because I took french in High School and in college)

The official religion in Benin is Voodoo
(But its not like the voodoo we see here in the states where people stick pins in dolls of exes)

There are four seasons in Benin: wet, really wet, dry, and really dry

National Park Pendjari is located in northern Benin
(Animals!!!)

Benin touches the Atlantic Ocean
(Beaches!!!)

Slaves were shipped from Benin's coast
(History!!!)

Place me please

Yippee!!! I received a call from my placement officer yesterday, January 3rd. He caught me completely off guard and said he was ready to interview me for placement and asked me if i wanted to do it then or set a future date... um no, now please. So there on the spot he interviewed me on my placement preferences, diet restrictions, and just other general questions in regards to my expectations, strengths, and weaknesses. Then on the spot he told me that he had found me suitable for placement and that I should expect an invite in my email WITHIN the next two weeks. I hate it when they say "within" because now I know ill be checking my email daily until I get something. Anyhow, ill take what I can get. Its about to get so frigging real!!! I'll finally know where ill be going so i can look at pictures, research the climate, get my medical work done, and basically just prepare myself for the next two years. I asked about "the big blue packet" that i see everyone in their videos and blogs getting and he said I'm going to get that after I confirm the email. Which was sort of a downer because in my head I pictured opening the packet in front of my family and us all finding out at once where i would be going. But hey, I will not complain. Maybe ill still wait for the packet to come to tell everyone... lol, sike. We all know I'm going to be too excited. Whelp peeps, when I know you will know! May all your processes go quick!