Post Visit with Amanda and Radio Show

Hello everyone!

I got to the internet again. Thanks everyone who's been sending me e-mails and calling. It's so great to hear from you. As an addition to my last message my cousin Kevin, who did this whole Peace Corps jumbo already a few years back in Kenya, had the great advice of going to 7-11 or some local gas station and picking up a calling card for Africa for super cheap. You can get on the horn to me for pennies a minute! Assuming I'm there (my maman doesn't speak English and sometimes doesn't think to knock on my door so you might end up speaking with my friend, Emma, who lives up the street and is another volunteer) I should be pretty easy to get a hold of and would love to talk to you!!! I try as hard as I can to get all the details and feelings of each experience down, but words sometimes just don't do justice. I can't believe it's only been, and already been, a month since I left home. I never thought it possible for time to simultaneously slow to a crawl as it flew by. I've already experienced and accomplished so much personally that just daily living in Benin seems like the Life Olympics and I just don't imagine how two years can go by without celebrating my 50th birthday at some point.

Here are some more tasty morsels to whet your palettes for what's been going on in the Motherland:

Last week, after a painful French lesson (where I attempted, in vain, to explain the plot line of Gone with the Wind in French and then had to write an essay on my trip to Benin and a book I have recently read ) Aaron (my postmate in Djakatomey) and I went to give a formation on the importance of savings (s'epargner) to a group of photographers in our area. The good news is that it was absolutely thrilling. I feel as though I can really do some good work here and got excited about volunteering all over again. People looked like they were interested in what I was saying (or what I was wearing as they don't really speak French here) they were, for the most part, asking questions. So what that they were asking questions I had already answered or previously addressed; at least they were pretending to pay attention, or maybe the second time around they got it. We had one guy who liked to come up and stand right next to us while we talked so he could write down every word on the board – despite my protests that it was just a summary story to use as an example of how to do savings. Would you believe it, but I was told to slow down my French because it was too advanced?! Most of these people haven't been through all of their education because it costs money once you pass through elementary school so girls especially don't really receive any education after junior high. Could you imagine? I had to commence the formation by explaining the actual word "savings" and what you physically have to do to (i.e. Put cash money in a bank or in a Lipton tea box locket in your bureau; a more likely scenario in this community). Not a single person in my group had a bank account and I had to explain to them the importance and benefits of not worrying about house fires or mice eating your money or, for many of them, water damage in their house. The additional benefit of gaining interest on their savings just flew right over their heads: how could they earn money from doing nothing? I just let that one go for now. The point was, it really was so basic that I feel I can do some immeasurable amount of good, especially if I can maintain the high levels of enthusiasm required to get these people to actually listen to what I say and then ACT IT OUT. That's the most important, as Amanda (the volunteer whose place I am taking) also reiterated to me. Follow-through is key with these people. Of the ten people in my class, probably only 6 will show up next session (and four of them will be there solely with the purpose of asking me to become their second or third wife – they're all pretty young so I don't think any have passed the five mark).
I'm actually looking forward to working with kids in this town as they get excited about doing homework; they love having something to do and they really want to learn English most of all. I'm going to start a correspondence program if anyone could possibly help me set that up with local schools in your area. I need to find out how many people here are interested, but I heard that the last group was somewhere around 40 students that would get together and write letters in English that the PCV (Peace Corp Volunteer; I'm going to start using a lot of acronyms) would take home, correct, return, show, then send off to America to exchange with students there. If anyone know of students that might like to do that (in the 6th grade level), please let me know so we can get started! I know they would love to get going on that, everyone wants to know English here – Niger, Nigeria and Ghana all speak English and a lot of business gets done in these countries. The radio deejays the three of us then went to see (Amanda, Aaron and myself) were also adamant in wanting to learn English. Amanda's been doing this program at a radio station about 30 minutes (on a zem) outside of Azove in a town called Adjahomey. It's called "English Hour" but the normal host wasn't present so it was half-French, half-English hour. They spent some of the time actually discussing cool things; introducing the new PCVs, saying goodbyes and thank-yous to the leaving PCV (Amanda) and talked about what we're going to be doing, what we hope to get out of the experience, what we expect, blah blah, but then they dig deeper: why isn't Amanda already married? Did she not like Beninese guys? Will I go out on a date with the deejay? He actually went off the air to say he liked me and wants me to teach him English at my house – don't worry, but it can get pretty dangerous if you're too nice to men around here, they get the wrong idea very easily. Then poor Aaron got the grill on why doesn't he want a wife. Girls without husbands are bothered, but only because men want to take on the young yovos as wives, but young men that aren't married are like societal anomalies. How do they eat? How do they live in a clean house? Women do all these things and if you're not married that must mean you aren't clean and you don't eat. Aaron is pretty skinny, so it's only making it worse I suppose. Women in the towns and society feel it's their duty to marry him so he can survive. At least I just have to deal with annoying horndogs that I don't have to feel badly about shutting down – he's going to have to deal with not only the women themselves, but men as well pushing their daughters and sisters and cousins on him. In the north it's not uncommon for the village chief or mayor to present the lonely PCV with an underaged "domestique" to do his laundry, cooking, and whatever else is needed during the two years here. We were even taught how to politely refuse (as things illegal in America are illegal here for us as well and punishable in court).
The radio program itself was really cool, though. It's a forum for Aaron and I to go and talk in English for the benefit of the Beninese and to shamelessly promote all of our Peace Corp programs; to go over our lessons and things we want the people in our commune to know. We can talk about AIDS, global warming, savings and credit, polygamy, whatever we want. They don't have an FCC here. I'm really looking forward to having the opportunity to share my interests with the Couffo at large (the region where I'm stationed). I've already started learning Adja (one of the three local languages: Fon, Mendi and Adja are the primary; but I would like to learn some Dendi or Yoruba – further north). That will help me to integrate more successfully and to gain the trust of a lot of people around here. If I could effectively communicate in their native language I would be GOLDEN! I already have a pretty strong command of French – at least to the level necessary to teach the majority of these formations. It's only when speaking with more the more educated that my level of French will need to be heightened. The only problem with the radio broadcast was the naming issue. Here it's always last name first, but as we are from America they figured it would be good to do our last name's first. Actually I don't know what they were thinking because they did Aaron's name correctly, but the end of the story is they think my name is Henderson and they call me "Son Son" because that's the first thing he noticed in my name. Everyone who heard us on the air now thinks my name is either "Son Son" or "Henderson Allison" but that will work out okay since most people introduce themselves by last name first anyway. The zem ride back was quite amazing. It was pouring rain off and on for the day and we would pass through dark clouds then into bright, sunny skies over the freshly washed cornfields and red mud huts. There was the most incredible, full, bright arc du ciel (rainbow) in the sky and I really enjoyed the ride. Except for the fact that we could only get two zems for three people and therefore Aaron and I had to share one, which made for a slightly uncomfortable, close-quarters type of ride, but the scenery was absolutely worth it. Everything so fresh and clean and the women walking back from the marches single file along the highway with their goods riding atop their strong heads.
When we finally got back to Azove we went immediately over to Amanda's host family (now Danielle's – another stagaire in our stage) to hang out, listen to music, have our introductions and get tanked off of boxed Sangria. I'm sorry Grams and Gramps, but in this culture it is totally mandatory to drink with your colleagues; otherwise you lack a very key part of a strong relationship: trust. Of course you don't have to get drunk, that was totally optional, but it's too difficult to explain why you would prefer not to drink because their hundreds of years of tradition tells them that to share a drink with someone in their home or at the buvette means you're "good people" and can be trusted with their financial books and accounting practices. You are granted access to their livelihoods. Of course this is NOT the case for all of the people with whom I will be working, so rest easy. My family, for instance, is very, very Baptist and I will therefore more than likely be attending church with them in the near future and will more than likely find myself participating in their early morning bible reading. My counterpart is Catholic and I see him at church frequently, as is the case for another colleague of mine that is working on the AIDS project with me. Even still, some are Muslim and never drink. So don't worry! But, to continue, after visiting with Amanda's host family (who think my name is Alissandra) and then going to her uncle's (the older brother of her host family) and drinking more boxed wine I was ready for bed. But first we had to walk through the candlelight marche (where I could finally see how the voodoo is strong here) to our houses. I have met so many people already that are so excited to have me here that I can't wait to get started. Everywhere I go people want me to eat with them, to drink with them, to sit and talk with them. I just hope I have enough energy and enough things to say that I will never run dry and end up sitting at someone's table with nothing to say and no energy to open my mouth even to eat.