July 26 Gboma, Toilet and Zemi

I just got to my host family's house two days ago. I am writing this on my second night in their home. I have my own toilet and shower attached to my bedroom, but the toilet doesn't flush and the shower doesn't actually work, but water comes out of the spigot so I don't have to get little kids to go fetch water for me like my companions do. So I'm now somewhat used to "flushing" my own toilet with a bucket of water and bathing with a bowl crouched over a hole in the floor. It's not so bad when I can think far enough ahead to boil water beforehand and then might have somewhat warm water when I bathe – but I haven't yet be able to do that.
For eating, I'm doing well. I have had couscous with fried cheese. I've had "saus de gboma" (pronounced "boma" like "bomb-a") which goes along with the popular cuisine: pate. Which is basically one of two ways: blanche – corn flour – or noir – yam flour – which is then mixed with water and boiled in the pot until it's thickened and somewhat clumped together into a tasteless ball you then dump or mix or dip into whatever delicious sauce you've cooked up to go along with it. The "saus gboma" aforementioned was delicious (if not a little to spicy – as most of the things I've had to eat so far were) and also featured the fried frommage. For all of those of you who thought I'd be losing weight, yea, not so lucky. I'm eating well – unless you think tons of oil is bad.
It's been raining cats and dogs here and for that I am thankful I have my bright yellow rain jacket that allows the rain to only seep through a little bit. I look pretty ostentatious in my bright yellow rain jacket riding down the busy street with my helmet on and my little bag of tricks hanging off the side without so much as a strap to keep it on. Which brings me to my next story. After I have the fan tail of mud down my back I'm riding back from training when all of a sudden the bag of "just in case of a flat tire..." goodies pops off the side of my rack. I stop to pick it up, now fully gathering the attention of all who surround. Another stagaire (what they call us before we're sworn in as volunteers) who lives one house away from me with her family was trying not to laugh. After I got all situated I start riding down the hill towards our house calling out to Emma, the other stagaire, that she's gone the wrong way. I don't know how she did it, but somehow, in turning around, she hit a brick lying in the corner of the corn field around from the gas station where I had just lost my pack. Unable to keep her balance, she fell sideways off into the corn bringing her bike down with her and calling out the entire time "help, help!" One of the neighbor kids laughing at us was kind enough to come help out but other than that, they all had a pretty good laugh at the two "yovos" (foreigners) stuck in the red clay mud who can't ride their bikes for anything. The terrain is super terrible, by the way, and really bumpy and covered in either sewer/rain water or plugged up with trash (there are no trashcans in this country – everyone dumps their trash on the ground then, every four or five days, someone comes around to sweep it up and then burn it somewhere; it's called "trash burning day").
Today we went to introduce ourselves to all the local authorities: the mayor (le mairie), the gendarmarie (the "national guard of Benin"), and the police – who had the stinkiest building I have ever been in!). It was somewhat scary to see the uniforms of the gendarmarie, but not so bad once I saw them playing around with nearby kids and a baby goat eating with a baby pig nearby. Not related, but nonetheless very cute. That's something else that's interesting about the town where I'm currently living (with no internet, by the way). There is an abundance of these things: zemis, bars, hair cutters, tailors, baby goats, baby chickens, baby pigs, and just plain human babies. Everywhere you look they're crossing the street, eating corn on the ground, whatever.. just hanging out. It's like a petting zoo, but I would actually be afraid to pet any of them and, as someone so blithely put it, it's dinner. I'm not talking about the human babies anymore, by the way.
So tonight I got to spend learning how to make saus gboma. Then we all ate together and I ate an orange in the weirdest fashion – I can't wait to show you all. It's actually not that weird, but they eat it like an apple but from the inside out. Juice went everywhere, but it was as fun as falling into a field of corn.
If the cell phone and internet situation doesn't clear up I'm going to just go buy a cell card from one of the remaining existing companies (the only problem is that since two of the four closed everyone is using the two remaining and the network is getting bogged down with everyone's calls so it takes up to thirty tries to get through to someone, but eventually (if you're patient) it works. Otherwise, I have notes to pass along to other stagaires if we wanted to try and meet up. It's so rudimentary – last night I wrote a note to my friend asking if he wanted to meet up in his town bar if I rode my bike there (yea, that cool) and I had to give to my housing coordinator (really spacey dude) to drive over to the next town over (where my friend lives) then to give to the housing coordinator there, who will then give the note to my friend. At this point my friend is either conveniently there and can respond immediately or I have to wait for a response until he gets the note (IF he gets it), then writes a response and gives it to his coordinator who will then bring it back to my coordinator and finally to me. By that time it will probably be Tuesday, haha.
From now on I'm going to just put a list at the bottom of my e-mails and it will contain the items I most want, assuming it's going to take a month or two to arrive. If at any time you have some spare money and just sort of feel like sending me stuff, feel free to do so from the following list:
THE LIST:
Trail mix (everyone loved it Tiffany! I hardly got to eat any myself)
Any sort of candy – if I don't like it, someone will, and then they'll like me!
Hot chocolate packs (I'm going to drink through those like it's going out of style)
Seasoning packs
Good "stove top" easy recipes – imagine cooking with a propane tank next to you and two burners
Magazines
Soft-covered books
Beef Jerky – the bulk of my protein
Stationary (I just need one or two sets and they don't seem to sell it here, but I'm still searching)
Little makeup samples (girls actually wear makeup here and I'm looking bad!)
Small bottles of lotion (I'm talking "trial-size"; it's cheaper to send and I need it afterall)
Small bottles of conditioner (ditto)
Big, cool earrings – men make fun of you because they "can't tell" if you're a woman or not if you're not wearing earrings and I'm allergic to the cheap nickel they use here.
And it goes on each time I remember stuff I used to really like. I don't suppose anyone could ship some Tanqueray, carne asade fries or Taco Bell could they?
A la prochaine fois!