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.