NEW YEAR'S CELEBRATION!

We Americans like to celebrate the evening before January 1. We like to ring in the new year all night long, drinking, kissing, watching balls drop, you know – a real New Year’s Eve Celebration. While I didn’t forget that I was American, I did somehow seem to forget I was no longer in America, but rather in Benin.

I had Emma come and stay with me during the Christmas holiday and then we went down to Cotonou for our flu shots! Yay!! I got back home on the 27th and hung out, cleaning up a few things (all the Christmas decorations I was sent to make my holiday just as festive as possible). After spending all of the 28th cleaning up and getting my house back in order (we spent all day on Christmas cooking and cleaning and even got to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade! As well as Home Alone and Love Actually – hey, I didn’t say we were with the times over here, but luckily holiday classics don’t lapse in time) I awoke on the 29th to find that I was expecting the arrival of a new guest, my friend Aaron who is an Environment volunteer across the country. A few more days of trying to be a good host and I wasn’t too bent to see him go (as fun as it was, sometimes it gets to be a little more than I can handle when its weeks at a time). That was January 31st and I got a call no later than an hour after Aaron left that Liz was coming into town to spend it with me. I finished watching my disappointing Cowboys/Jets football game (I HATE shut-outs, not very entertaining) and sat around. It was very much as it should be on these days. When Liz got here we went out into the craziness that was “marché day” before the storm of New Years! We bought some good vegetables (well, they were alright) and headed over to Jack City to spend the evening with Aaron and Evan.

After spending a few hours sitting around with an audience, drinking really, really bad whiskey and cokes and cooking some spicy, spicy peanut sauce with pasta we got to discussing all those philosophical and moral issues worldly and mildly pretentious people like to discuss – as bad as the whiskey tasted, the alcohol content persisted at standard. The sun went down and we were invited to go along to the nearby town of Kinkinhoue (pronounced “kin-kin-whey”) with Souro, a super nice Beninese Buddhist guy that Aaron and I work with. Liz and I were a bit skeptical – walking around at night, buzzed and through the unleveled dirt terrain a good two kilometers with no clear idea of what type of festivities we were walking into. Good sports, such as we are, we went along anyway and, when we were piled into a white-paneled van with sleeping Togolese refugees and ropes to tie the doors closed we were smiling knowingly for this was Africa, go with the flow. We arrived at the “party” to find that they had waited for us. It was already 12:30 in the morning and they were just preparing to go off on their high-horses about political issues. Liz and I knew it was time to get out. We made our excuses and left Aaron and Evan to their demise. The two of us jumped into a car that just happened to be going to Azovè at 1 in the morning. I think, however, that this man was insanely drunk as we were going so slowly at one point we almost rolled backwards due to the minor incline in the road from Jack City to Azovè. Not exactly a goodie two-shoes myself I climbed out the window and shouted good wishes to those passing on foot (yes, some passed us going in the same direction). Whether I got my point across in English or otherwise I can’t remember, but the reception wasn’t overwhelming at any rate.

Upon our arrival to Azovè we sought out where the festivities could be had – it was New Year’s Eve right?! Our normal bar had crickets chirping, “Come tomorrow,” Johniska explained. What a disappointment, so we headed into town in search of new excitement. Passing by the gas station, hands to the sides of our faces, we were obliged to share a beer with the guys sitting around. At this point I was so full it was hard to keep anything going in, so I faked it for a while. Liz said it reminded her of high school, hanging at a gas station, I thought of Taco Bell. Then boredom struck again so we moved on once more – the night was a spring chicken ready for the plucking. As we moved our way down to the “Moov Bar” across town (named for a cellular phone service in Benin – branding is big here) a white-vest clad youth attached himself to us. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was dressed in a very metro, no metro was too mild for this, sexual way so we entertained his thinking we might be interested in his company. When we reached the Moov bar it was also dismally empty and, despite the cries of the DJ for us to remain, we moved on to a secret warehouse party. Well, it wasn’t secret and it wasn’t even a real warehouse, but it was like a huge abandoned building and it was fun! Vesty still clung to us, telling us who we should talk to and who we should avoid and explaining how all the other guys were jealous him (yawn!). Despite the nuisance, Liz and I enjoyed the African beats and it was especially amusing to note that of the 60+ people at said party, we were the only two females. I really should count one more female: the one wife who sat in the corner that I didn’t see as her husband unabashedly danced with me to her vexation (Vesty had to point her out to me)!! The overload of men made for a very entertaining “slow dance” moment when the men shamelessly groped their best friends closely and swayed their hips in time. They had no idea how this looked to us Americans and frankly, the explanation would have been too painful because you see, homosexuality doesn’t exist in Benin. So, as the bats flew around overhead and the fans rested still, we danced to music we couldn’t understand in a dark, sweaty abandoned building to bring in the new year.

When finally it was time to go, we had to gracefully lie to our chaperone to throw him off the trail to my house and gave him fake numbers. The men here are very persistent and the usual “no, you may not have my number, you are underaged” is not sufficient for them to stop asking. Sometimes not even a “No, I’m actually not a woman” is sufficient to get them to back off!! So there it was that at four in the a.m. of January 1, 2008 I was turning down a white-vested high-schooler and escaping the wrath of a Beninese man’s wife.

When I awoke at 9am the next morning (yes, thank you for the calls, family) and then again officially at 11am I was beat raw by the evening beforehand. For the third time since I came here, I felt what it was almost like to have a hangover (the second being just the week before on Christmas Eve). To my utter horror, what I had failed to realize by all the commentary last night was that the real festivities were on the 1st of January itself!!! While we Americans focused on our Evening parties with the intention of sleeping all the next day, the Beninese were storing up their energy to rock it all night long on the 1st!!! Oh, the unbearable pain as I shook off my sleep and got ready to go make pretty faces for the town. The first stop of our party train was at the Coovi’s (Amanda’s host family’s house). They always have the best beans and usually some good drinking, but after last night and a painful morning I wasn’t really feeling the loads of rice, beans, meat and soy cheese Mama Amanda and Danielle piled on my plate. To top it off, I have the sickening problem of eating everything on my plate and was near bursting by the time the “after luncheon” Cokes rolled in. It was all just a little too much and as we sat on the couch afterwards, digesting to the sights and sounds of Akon music videos, I swore I heard my stomach screaming out in agony. My spine even had to shift a little backwards to make room so that now I’m a hunchback chubby. Oh the horrors! After a few hours of that, Jordan and I (Liz went home to Toviklin to celebrate ‘au village’) began the walk to my host family’s place. I knew they would be much more laid back and I wouldn’t have to entertain so much.

On the way we passed Aaron and Evan, also making their rounds to the host families. We parted with the same agonizing look in our eyes. The walk that normally would have taken no more than a half hour was a good hour to two on this holiday journey. Every single inebriated soul on the streets (and there were quite a few) stopped us to wish us “happy new year” and “may your thoughts and wishes and health and goodness and money and” (bit of swaying interlude here) “all of it becomes your reality.” The general consensus was that everything good I thought (After I asked what about my bad thoughts) could come to fruition with a firm handshake and a smile (one guy was a real bone crusher and I had to excuse myself from his grasp with a plea for mercy as I wondered if Freud had anything to do with it). The good wishes all around made our long walk almost impossible. We got around the corner of the other big gas station and saw the little urchins coming, hands held out in expectation, and snot trails glistening on their filthy little faces. I love these kids and passed out my little candies with glee – the best part of the holiday. Then I went back under the tree where all the adults sat and passed out goodies to them as well (they’re not above a little American sugar fix). Luckily, as I had foreseen, Mama and Papa were very relaxed and just enjoyed us sitting there. When they offered us food I cried out that Mama was trying to kill me by eating and she acquiesced easily. Our tour of duty was almost complete. À quick run around to the house and I had a few hours to myself to gather my wits and composure.

Two hours later and no slack on my stomach, Jordan and I again set out for our last obligation of the fete: the Catholic Church concert. We peeled ourselves off of the couch and set out at the last possible moment.

Azovè is a large town, but seeing everyone out full force at night is impressive. I have lived in cities before, but the anonymity a real American or European city affords is so wonderfully comforting when compared to the in-your-face “Bonsoirs” and well-wishers you pass in hordes along the warm African streets. It was completely overwhelming to step out into the night and be accosted with hearty handshakes and inquiries about that success of your partying (“Vous avez bien fetez?”). Managing our way through the streets became an even more worthy feat of genius as rudimentary fireworks commenced in the streets of the marché. Green, yellow, red fiery sparks shot helter-skelter across the street, impartial in their aiming, the obviously shoddy engineering of these air-blazes struck fear into our hearts. I don’t know how to get Jordan or myself to the hospital in any sort of rapidity should one strike home on our personal American soil. Though I was intrigued and touched by the festive sparks (I always said I either want fireworks at my wedding or funeral, since only one is a guarantee, but the other at which I could enjoy them), Jordan got the upperhand and we passed safely through the slightly less celebratory back streets. “Booms!” and shrieks were all around by the time we finally reached our destination and joined the throng of folks trying to pay their way into this God-(aw?)ful concert.

Long ago I learned the value of not waiting in line and pushed my way to the fore. I paid and we got in. Mission accomplished. Now just to stand where Jocelyn would see we attended but far enough away that we could escape again as soon as her gaze was averted. She found us and promptly sat us in the third row front, in full view of the Choir, the Father, the nuns and all the children sitting on benches behind us. DRAT! We were trapped and my tummy was flip-flopping. The crap M.C. (I swear, it’s almost a rule you HAVE to suck to handle a microphone here) begged us to clap for nothing and asked repeatedly if we were warm (“Vous etes chaud? Montrez-moi!”). I didn’t have the heart or energy to scream back, “Hell Yes! We’re in Africa!” Luckily I’m not one to back down from festivities and after only two terrible, terrible song and dance numbers (they have good singers somewhere in Africa, but for performance purposes only choose awful ones – must be some politics of which I’m not yet aware) I was bouncing an adorable vision in pink frills on my knee while bumping my eight-year-old neighbor into a rhythm the Jackson’s would envy. Thoroughly enjoying myself despite the Risk War I was waging inside, I eventually gave into Jordan’s demands to return to my place, I was pretty tired too, considering when I normally get about 9 hours of sleep a night and at least a one-hour nap a day that I had gone the past 48 hours with only 5 hours sleep and one nap. It almost felt like my last few weeks in the States all over again.

At eleven o’clock, full of good wishes from the town and feeling every bit a part of it I closed my eyes hoping and wishing and praying for you and for me a spectacularly successful and adventurous 2008. Now, Grams, somewhere in those next twelve months is a luxurious bubble bath, right? Otherwise it was a miserable and spoiled wish.

Love, Allison