Pictures, Ouidah, so sleepy...

I'll be posting more pictures soon, I promise! Work has been busy, weekends have been busy... I keep forgetting my camera at home to upload my pics on the computer here at work (excuses excuses). EDIT! I'VE ADDED PICTURES BELOW! Also, visit my Flickr site to see all the photos I added. I'm having trouble rotating some of the pictures in Flickr... I'll try again when the computer decides to be cooperative.

Went to Ouidah on Sunday with Mathieu. My dreams of living the Motorcycle Diaries have been dashed! Sitting up straight on a motorcycle for 30-40 minutes is HARD! The trip home was non-stop and my ribs are KILLING ME! Not to mention I kept *almost* falling asleep on the back of the bike. (I've turned into my mother, able to fall asleep anywhere!!)

On the way there we stopped by the cemetary to visit Mathieu's dad, except he couldn't find the tomb because the cemetary has changed so much in the last few years since he's been... it's unbelievably crowded and over grown with shrubs, plants, weeds... the person who normally keeps the books wasn't there on Sunday, so we'll have to go back some other time. He says his sister knows where it is, so hopefully we can come back with her.


Took Mathieu to have lunch at the 'fancy' hotel in Oudiah, Casa del Papa. It's a nice hotel, but I haven't seen any of the rooms. I really should've asked. It seems like a pretty big complex, with rooms on the Lagune side and rooms on the ocean side, pools, conference centre, tennis courts, etc. (Sounds a lot like Cancun, doesn't it!)

He had the spaghetti carbonara, I had pasta with seafood. Pretty good, was really nice to have some alfredo sauce!! Worth the $30 for lunch just for the taste of alfredo! Water was 3x what we're used to paying. There was, on the 7 groups having lunch, 1 black family there. Mathieu recognized him as a politician. I think it was his birthday, as we were leaving I heard them singing "Joyeux anniversaire, joyeux anniversaire..."

One lady had her little ugly French dog with her. The kind where their hair is way too long and if you're not careful you might step on it. It kept chasing after the lizards.

Mostly French-from-France people from what I could tell. A cute little blond boy collecting sea shells and singing to himself. Apparently a lot of people who live in Benin come spend the weekends there.

The most impressive thing about the beach in Ouidah are the palms trees. They line the beach for miles and miles... Mathieu says that at one point the king of the region commissioned their planting. They are all lined up. Not sure how long they've been this way, they're huge!


Drank some local brew on the way there (made out of Mil?)...


bought some local cheese on the way home. I love the cheese here. They fry it and put it in with the peanut sauce... YUM. Can't wait to fry it myself at home.

TONS of crabs running around the beach in Ouidah! TONS! So fun to see them scuttling about, and watching Mathieu run after them in the hopes of grabbing one.

No success.
Pics tomorrow?
Your breath is bated, I'm sure.

Knocking and getting knocked

My life has been blessedly violence-free. I've never been punched in the face, never been beaten, have never witnessed someone really being beaten (except this one time in Detroit, some guy was on the ground getting kicked in the stomach but we were in a vehicle driving by so I just looked away...)

Generally, violence is deemed as bad in Canada, unless you're watching a UFC fight on TV. Not that it's not seen as bad here, but generally it seems that people seem to think it's ok to use corporal punishment -- if they "deserve it", it's ok.

Obviously it's a changing attitude. More and more people are getting the message that it's not ok to hit children and women. I think maybe our society has gone too far, to the point where school teachers can barely touch students anymore without being worried that they'll get charged with assault, either sexual or physical.

So anyway, last night there was a knock on the door.
Did I hear properly? The TV's kinda loud.
Knock knock knock...

C'est qui? (Who is it?) C'EST QUI?
C'est moi... a meek voice answered. And then the young voice mumbled something in Fon.

I'm not keen on opening the door to strangers, but happily Mathieu was there so I let him deal with it. He opened the door and a voice just went on and on in Fon, and suddenly I heard "1000 Francs" and on and on again until she just started to bawl her eyes out and Mathieu started to search his pockets for change and kept telling her to calm down. He gave her 500 francs (1000 = $2.50) and sent her on her way to find the rest of the money at someone else's door.

He said to me that he didn't understand her whole story, but apparently she sells flour in this neighbourhood and someone had gyped her out of 1000F that day, and if she went back to the lady she sells flour for without the money, she'd get a beating.

Oy. For 2.50 you get a beating? Mathieu insisted she may have been acting, but her tears and cries sounded real to me. Then again, I've cried pretty convincingly in my day.

It has also come to my attention that someone I've met is a bit of a polygamist, but not out of religious affiliations, but rather just because he can. Plus he hits his "women", but I think the children are too small for him to take anything out on them. Apprently there's even more to the story, but upon seeing my scathing disgust the person who told me decided to stop. This dude has no job and counts on his mother (he's in his mid-to-late 30s) and his baby-mamas to support their own families. A leech. The worst kind. So gross.

I can only pray that karma is a bitch.

Because what can I really do? Can I go to the police? Can I interfere in people's affairs like that? Can I go to the girl and say, "I hear your boss is beating you, come with me and we'll file a complaint with the police"? And what if it doesn't work? What if she gets beaten even worse? What if she gets kicked out of the house and ends up on my doorstep?

My responsibility... not my responsibility... my responsibility... not my responsibility...

I can see why Africans are so into God... you have to pray a LOT around these parts.

A beautiful day

Holy moly it's hot outside! A gorgeous day for a walk down to the bakery to pick up a little pizza for lunch and a meat-filled pastry. Yum.

There's this one street that I take to get to the bakery that has my favourite house on it... the front of the house is filled with flowering trees and with the heat and humidity today the flowers smelled sooooooo good...

Thought about more stuff that I miss from home:
- drinking water straight out of the tap! i hate how many bottles of water i'm going through right now... Planet! I'm soooo sorry!!!
- taking walks... sigh. Cotonou is uber-polluted so taking a walk around the block isn't quite pleasant. And if the exhaust fumes don't get ya, the flies and mosquitoes will.
- grocery stores. the markets are fun n' all, but i miss going to ONE store and finding everything I need. Like meat. The market is good if I want to kill my own though! eep! (no, that's not true, you can find ANYTHING at the market... from hair extensions to extension cords to live chickens to carrots and herbs! I FOUND HERBS!!) too bad i don't have a freezer to store the meat in! how do people live with a bar fridge??!
- breathing. Mathieu has a motorcycle and riding around with exhaust in your face is just gross. On a good day Cotonou's air quality is probably like Toronto's when it's been 35° for 4 days straight. barf. someone send oxygen, stat! The beach offers some respite, but going to the beach on my lunch hour is difficult on account of getting bothered by random men when I go alone and after work I often go to the gym with Mathieu... so I guess I'll breathe on weekends or when I travel...

I also miss my shoes and wish I'd brought more pants. I've discovered that sweating is better than mosquitoe bites and my swollen and itchy feet are eased by wearing socks.

Guess who's going to bed with socks on. Had the best night of sleep in a long time last night! weeee socks!

TV in Benin

Television in Benin is basically comprised of 5 parts. First, there are very, very few channels. As far as I can tell, unless you have a special satellite dish (in which case you get Francophone BBC and some French-from-France channels), you get about 4-5 channels, most of which broadcast the same stuff. Radio seems to have a nice variety or programming, but I don't have a radio.

Part 1: the News. Most of Benin's TV is newscasts or special news shows. They talk a lot about politics and education. I guess in a developing country, they like to keep an eye on their government and the most recent developments in their country. Yesterday they were talking a lot about micro credits for women. They were interviewing women in the north of the country, they had subtitles because these women don't speak French or Fon, they speak whatever language they speak up "in the north". After the news they had an interview with the Minister of Secondary and Post-secondary Education. He was funny in a I'm-Way-Too-Honest-To-Be-A-Politician kind of way. I liked the cut of his jib.

Their TV reminds me a lot of TV in Canada in the 80s. When they try to cut to a caller who wants to ask a question sometimes they can't get through or the call comes in with a lot of feedback. They try to cut to a special report and the technician can't quite seem to get his shiz together, so the news anchor will have to say, "we'll get to that video later." They use blue screen, but they're not sure which camera to cut to. The production side is a work in progress... but the content is pretty interesting and well edited.

They very rarely have international news, but I guess once a day they'll have international news for about 15 minutes. They often talk about Obama, if there's something interesting to be reported. I saw Hilary on a few days ago, but the volume was cutting in and out and I didn't really hear what they were talking about. I really have very little clue what's going on in Canada or in Europe. Happily my friend Emma sends me little email updates on the state of the world. Doesn't seem that anything much has changed over there: gun violence, economic crisis (this is one helluva long "crisis"), politicians being douchebags, Obama being dreamy... strangely, I don't miss not knowing what's going on in Hollywood, although I hear Madonna adopted another baby.

One thing I love/hate about the news here is that they show dead bodies and disease. Police gunned down some robbers? Please have a look at their bullet-ridden bodies! Car went up in flames after hitting a post due to drunk driving way too fast? Let's cut to the charred remains they pulled out of the vehicle after they managed to put out the flames! Disease is ravaging a village? Let's look at how it's eating at the flesh of this 7 year-old.

Not sure how I feel about it, except that it's actual reality and it's kind of refreshing. Rather than glorifying violence and disease in Hollywood and watching it on CSI... enough glorification and you start to think that reality doesn't look like what it looks like...

The thing in Benin is that there's often GOOD news on television and rarely violence, robberies or political stupidity... but that might just be because of the productivity of their current president, Boni Yayi. He seems to be getting a lot of stuff done.

Normally the last 5 minutes of the news is horse-racing results. We do lotto 649, they do horseracing.

Part 2: Music Videos. Most of the morning TV is made up of music videos. A lot of it is American hiphop, but a lot of it is also local artists, either from the Ivory Coast or Benin. There are a couple African hiphop artists that are really good. Some are considered pretty big stars although I've never heard of them. Just like it was funny in Montreal, it's hilarious to me when a hiphop song is uberpopular in a French-speaking place where they don't understand the lyrics.

Any music video made in Benin is normally shot at one of the nice hotels on the beach. They're all pretty funny and look like they were shot by highschool students, but hey, keep at it. The music videos for traditionnal songs are nice and normally have a story, so they're interesting to watch.

Part 3: Soap Operas. In Benin, they call them "feuilletons" which to me is a piece of paper or a small booklet, but to them is a soap opera series. As far as I can tell there are 4 TV shows that I could follow if my TV channels came in properly. First and foremost, there's a soap from Mexico. Yup! Mexico dubbed in French. I think it's Mexican because the help looks Mexican but you know how soap operas are pretty generic in their locations... Could be Spain. It's a typical soap opera - rich families who all sleep with each other or want to. Ungrateful kids who try to split their parents' new relationships up. Poor families who become rich, disown each other... someone was murdered and they're trying to figure out who the killer is before they hit again. The mother went away to prison and her kids don't know she's their mother and now she's back but they hate her and maybe it's her husband that killed the woman she went away to prison for killing... Love it!

Next there's the Beninese soap called something like, "2 sisters for the same man". I haven't been following this one as much, I'm not sure what time it's on. From what I can tell, right now, one sister is pregnant with the other sister's husband's baby!! And her mother is supporting her in this decision and may have even encouraged the pregnancy. There's another Beninese show that's more of a comedy, but the only time I saw that one was when we were in the waiting room at the Minister's office. Otherwise I'm not home during the day to watch it. I'm learning a lot about what's considered "normal" in relationships here (and yet SO not cool), but I'll get to that in another blog entry.

If I get all my channels, sometimes I can get S-Club7 and Las Vegas, yes, dubbed in French.

Part 4: Variety Shows. Oh Variety Shows. They do something really weird here called Play Back, which I guess is the same thing we do in America except we hide it better. I guess no one bothers to sing live here unless they're in concert. So they announce that the artist they have coming on their show will be lipsyching to a tape. I love when the CD skips. It's basically an opportunity to showcase some dancers, which is nice, But I think it makes the artist look stupid. No one here seems to mind though. I love when they show the audience dancing. We would consider some of their dancing to be a little, um, inappropriate, but this is Africa.

This one guy has a daily news/cooking/authors/singers/whoever show on at lunch time on weekends (and maybe during the week but I'm not home to watch it?). He always wears the shiniest satin shirts!! So awful. The cooking part is fun, but it's sponsored by an italian pasta company, and the parts I'd like to learn how to make, like their peanut sauces or other sauces, they just say, "now add your peanut sauce" like everyone already knows how to make it. Oh well, sucks to be me I suppose!

Part 5: What could part 5 possibly be?? FOOTBALL of course. There's a match on every few days. One of the Paris teams has an awesome player from Benin, so those matches tend to get played at the bars here more often. I haven't become addicted or anything, but I don't mind watching games.

No one here even knows what hockey is. I can't say I miss it.

I will say that I miss The Hour. Oh George. I know you're available online, but online is so difficult here! Sigh... I guess when I get back I can have fun catching up on all my George time...

Uphill both ways

So now I get it. We used to make fun of our parents and grandparents stories of how difficult it was for them to get to school, but they weren't kidding. I look at some of these kids here in Benin and I drive down the roads they walk on every day to get to and from school, sometimes walking 5km or over an hour to get to school and I wish we could all get together to give them a standing ovation. It's really hot outside. They go home at lunch (from noon til 3pm I think) and work (in the fields or with their mother at the fruit stand or home to do housework) and then go back to school.

Of course, there are kids here who get a ride to school in their parents Peugeot or on their motorbike. It's not rough for all, but for most...

School for the typical Canadian kid is not a priveledge, it's a huge pain in the ass. When I think of the effort my parents had to go through for me to get out of bed... forgive us for we know not what we have.

I imagine being 7 years old and walking to school, proud of the homework I finished the night before, only to get caught in the most torrential downpour during rainy season. No wonder a lot of kids decide to drop out rather than walk to school in the rain, in the mud, in the heat, surrounded by flies and mosquitoes. Uphill both ways.

Gogo Dagbe

Where do I even begin? I had to play interpreter last week and spent a lot of time "in the field" because when we have guests, we spend a lot of time showing them around. Translating is exhausting work. I'm pretty good at it though and the work is much appreciated -- it even got me some face time on TV because I got to translate what our guests were saying to journalists for the news! I'M A STAR!

We went to visit a school for the blind with our group. I fell in love with this one little boy there. The games he gets to play through the work my NGO does was making him so happy, clapping and swinging his head around. I can't imagine being blind and I sure as hell can't imagine being blind in Cotonou. The motorcycles and cars don't care who you are or how good your eyesight is. GRATEFUL MOMENT as I think about all the beautiful and amazing things that I've seen in my life... I can't imagine never having seen the moon rise on the ocean in Cancun, or the beach I saw on Wedesday in Ouidah. (More on the amazingness of Ouidah later...)

At the Ministry of Education in Toronto I was working for a Division within which was the Provincial Schools, or schools for deaf, blind and deaf-blind kids. We visited one with a group of managers in April 2008 and I remember being so impressed with the kids and what they were capable of, despite their disability (or, to be politically correct, their "differing" ability). This school in Benin didn't have half the equipment, faculty or resources that the kids back home do, but the Director of this school for the blind was very hopeful, stressing however that they only had a tiny part of the blind population attending their schools. They also have a section for the older folk who lose their eyesight.

Picture the most remote village in Africa, accessible only with the most rugged Land Cruiser (mmm Toyota Land Cruisers), and then imagine surviving to be elderly in one of these remote villages, while your children and grandchildren all move to the city, leaving you behind, when you start to lose your eyesight. There's no Shoppers Drug Mart next door to buy a pair of cheap reading glasses. There's no optometrist down the road. You might not even have a phone or a neighbour.

Some NGOs try to go around to every village and do awareness gatherings, and try to find those with the most need to bring them to these centres for the blind. The numbers are sad though. About 20,000 people are blind (a little or a lot) in Benin, and only 300 attend these schools.

And just when you think you've gotten a handle on all the problems a society can have... you find a new can of worms.

So Wednesday we took the gang to Ouidah. This city is known as the tourist city because it has a python museum and a slave-trade route. Of course my camera's battery died about 2 hours into the day, before we even got to Ouidah, but hopefully I'll go back.

The python museum was really cool and we each got to have a big ol' snake wrapped around our necks. The people whose tribe revere the python have 10 scars on their faces. Two on each cheek, two in the middle between their eyes, and four more tiny ones on the forehead. The pythons are their protectors and gods. They let them roam around freely... it's considered good luck for one to make its way into your home. They're harmless (but freaky and huge!! eep!).

The slave route was depressing, as you can well imagine. One King resisted the temptation of the Portuguese Ambassador, De Souza, and even imprisonned him for wanting to sell the African people, but the next King wasn't so nice. The men sold were robust and strong, prisoners of war that the King was able to capture thanks to the weapons provided by the white folk who wanted the slaves. Handy, no? Land and power for the King, slaves for the Americas, for France, Holland, Portugal, Spain...

When I said the beach was supposed to be nice, I understated. Holy crap it's gorgeous. Row upon row of palm trees and clear clean sand with huge waves... gorgeous. I could've stayed there all day and all night. A long sandy road took us past a bunch of huts built from tressed palm leaves where the fishermen live with their families. I don't imagine many of these kids go to school considering it's a 30 minute *drive* to the city. But if there's one place I'd want to live the simple life, it's there. I'm not sure I could live on fish, but to live there, I'd certainly give it a try.

I'm currently writing a report for the work I accomplished in February and I'm actually quite pleased. I have tons of great ideas that can hopefully help... here's to hoping I have the time and the ingenuity to get them up and running in the next couple months.

oh, and PS: Thursday at lunch, my colleague Jean-Paul joined me and had rabbit head in some sort of sauce. Crunch. They eat everything here... not the skull mind you - although he really did bite right into it - but the eyes, ears, nose... yum? I couldn't watch. Happily the TV was on.

Burned myself a little on the tailpipe of Mathieu's motorcycle. Reminded me of the time Stephanie charred her leg on some boy's bike and showed up for my sweet 16 all bandaged up. No bandage needed in this case, and happily I have polysporin.

Mathieu's nieces bought me a dozen tomatoes for 300 West African Francs (or $0.70) and 18 eggs for $4... Life's good when you know where to get your food. And I now know how to say, 'eggs', 'peanuts' and 'nice bum' (see blog title) in Fon... ;)

I now no longer wonder why they're called "gogo dancers"...

Tomorrow is Today

It's International Women's Day, or was yesterday, or something. In Benin the newscasts were filled with statements from Ministers talking about the rights of women, how men don't have the right to beat them, how women should be taught about health care, especially with regards to pre-natal care, and how they have a right to an identity, to ideas, to dreams.

I raise my fist. My sisters.

I haven't left the house today. I was light out and it's getting dark. I'm in my room, sweating despite the airconditionning and my nakedness, playing Spider Solitaire on my laptop, and I'm not quite sure what time it is or where I am, except that there are kids running around outside playing in French, forcing a smile from my lips.

Earlier I was putting some candles in some empty wine bottles because later I want to light some and have a little candle-light ceremony for Brenda (as I know Brenda's friends and family are doing back home). A year ago today I was in my apartment in Toronto, avoiding my friend Dave's phone calls cuz I wasn't much in the mood for a chat, except he wasn't leaving messages and kept calling. On the third call, I think, I answered.

Had I heard? Brenda died. What? ... What?

Today as I was putting the candles in the wine bottles, I explained what I understood of Brenda's death to Mathieu. We talked about how I knew Brenda and that a big part of the reason I'm currently in Africa is because she was killed and it completely changed my perspective on life.

Every day was suddenly filled with the possibility of life and death, and every day spent in the office in Toronto wasn't.

As Björk is so fond of saying, "there's more to life than this."

Mathieu and I were supposed to go to Ouidah today. Ouidah has a python museum where they put big snakes on you so you can take pictures, and a beautiful beach, apparently. On this beach there's a huge gate to mark the spot where thousands upon thousands of slaves were shipped off to the Americas, stripped of their humanity. A beautiful beach. I imagine being myself, there, in my underwear on that beach, whipped and beaten, dizzy and starving, wondering where the hell I'm being taken, scared and surrounded by strangers, watching the beautiful sunset on that picturesque beach. Days filled with the possibility of life and death.

So Mathieu and I were supposed to be gone except that early in the morning, Mathieu got a call from his mom saying that she'd had a dream that there was an accident and that we shouldn't go. I laughed when Mathieu told me -- if I didn't do something every time my parents got worried, I wouldn't do much.

I have, however, been reminded by various people that Mathieu's mom KNOWS - so I should just go with it. There will be other weekends.

Mathieu's mom is full of protective jewellry and I now have both a protective bracelet and a protective pinky ring that is currently black but is supposed to turn to a gold colour as I wear it. Hey man, can't hurt.

I can't help but wish someone had told Brenda to stay home that day. And I can't help but wonder where I would be right now if she had. Oh life. Cruel and beautiful.

Mathieu and I talked more about my life before I left for Africa, my life when Brenda was around. How much we partied and went out dancing (or stayed in dancing). The never-ending weekends interrupted only by the fact that we had to make some money to pay the bills. He started lecturing me on things I pondered 10 years ago, on moderation and fun, on being careful about where I go alone, on going out dancing, how people can put things in your drink, about destiny and the inevitability of death. I just sort-of listened and I thought of Brenda when I noticed that inside one of the wine bottles was a cockroach, still alive, fumbling around slowly. There were also a few white worms in there trying to crawl their way up to the top.

Ewwww! Coooool... oh Africa.

I asked Mathieu to stop talking and I blew out the candles. He asked, "why are you so sad she's gone? Was she that good a friend of yours? Did you know her long?"

If he had seen her smile, heard her laugh, danced by her side, would he understand? Would I be as sad if she'd suddenly been diagnosed with cancer rather than murdered? The sadness and the hurt stem from the violence, the fear, the uncertainty and the unfairness of it all. The idea that something like *that* could happen to someone as kind and as happy-go-lucky as *her*... just makes my brain go numb.

So I guess now I'll get dressed and walk over to the Cyber to post this online. Mathieu is gonna come over again later to pray with me so that I'm not alone for Brenda's candle-light vigil. I think of everyone back home and wish I could carry some of their sadness with me, away and into the ocean. I send tons of love to the Goofs, my beautiful girls and boy-peeps... I send huge huge hugs to Brenda's sisters and parents.

My good friend Dan sent me an awesome quote that made him think of Brenda and the joy she spread everywhere she went:

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. - Buddha

Maybe before we're born we all pull candles like straws, and B's was shorter than ours... but man o' man did it ever burn bright.

Burn bright my friends. Tomorrow is today. I love you and miss you all. xox

What day is it??

Too many kids in the street today... I find myself squinting my eyes at them thinking, WHY AREN'T YOU IN SCHOOL???!!!

Then I realize it's Wednesday afternoon and kids have Wednesday afternoons off. Doh!


Work finally got me a map of Cotonou... except when we looked at it closer, we realized it's from 1995. They're still selling 15 year old maps! Cotonou has changed a LOT since then!

Hoping to get a map of Benin for my office too... y'all know how I love maps... they're handy when you want to know where you are. And here, often, I wonder!


Oh, and I realized something I miss from home... I MISS NORMAL. I don't miss snow though, and I hear March is offering no respite, so I don't want to come home just yet. I offer my sympathies to my Canada-peeps suffering the end of despair/Winter. I'm with you... but happily only in spirit!!!


I might have to move out of my apartment. The inside walls look like they're getting wet, and it's only rained twice. I noticed a lot of condensation in a doorway yesterday and there are dark spots in corners in the bedroom that are getting darker. Oh yay mold!

Plus there are holes big enough for lizards to come into my house, so I can't wait for it to start raining for real and for other creatures to find respite in my home. So maybe I'll move... not sure yet. My landlord is shady and doesn't seem to care too much about me. I'll stay for March I guess. We'll see what I'll do for April. I have to talk to the guy at work about it and he's in Ghana for the rest of the week!

Also, I'm kind of out of the way. I wouldn't mind being within walking distance of work/the beach... or at least a decent market so I can buy groceries daily rather than once a week. Doing big grocery trips with Mathieu on his motorcycle is pretty funny! Backpacks, holding a bag of eggs and a 2-4 infront of him while he drives! eep! Talk about driving carefully!

Cooking more now... checked my bank account and realized that eating out may be cheap here, but it ain't cheap enough!! I can get lunch for about 2-3 dollars CAN, but dinner's more around 10.

Made the most delicious french fries last night! YUM! I love peanut oil!

OH MY GOD I'M SO ITCHY!!!

MOMMY!!! The bug bites are unbelievably annoying, but I'm trying to breathe deep (not too deeply, I'm wearing insecticide!) and relax and deal with it. Oh Africa.

Started to rain a little everyday, which only makes things more humid.

Work is great, and gets better everyday. My boss asked if I wanted to extend my stay... as much as I would love to, I'm going to need a salary at some point unless they want me living off my line of credit. Supposed to meet with government officials again tomorrow... pray for me!

I've started cooking more... I have to watch my food... the bugs, mice, roaches, ants, lizards, etc. are unavoidable... unless i want to bomb my house with insecticide and honestly, whatever - i'd rather cover up my stuff properly and live-and-let-live. I'm poisoning myself enough with exhaust fumes as it is...

Does anyone else remember that "public service" ad from 20-odd years ago?? All I remember was a guy going to a pay-phone-type-vending machine for oxygen because the air was so polluted... except the machine didn't work and he collapsed to the ground at the end of the ad. I could use an oxygen machine here.

Oh my roadtrip to the bush last week, I realized how clean the air was... made me think of the summer when we roadtrip from Toronto to North Bay and stop for gas halfway and realize we can suddenly breathe...

So... when is it we start to worry about the environment?

Gimme Five

(note: the internet has been a catastrophe this week. i manage to send one email and the power goes out, or the network goes down. MAJOR UG.)

I've been out "in the field" the last few days and coming home exhausted. The trips are long and bumpy and there's so much to take in. I feel like I'm in a movie most of the time, driving in a convoy with a Toyota truck leading the brigade, with 2 grey SUVs trailing through the African jungle to visit these remote villages where these NGOs do the awesomest work I have ever come across. Them roads are BUMPY.

I'm writing blog entries for the NGO I work for, but they *edit* them (booo!) and it takes a while to get a version we can both agree on. Apparently my writing is too "familiar" for the kind of work I'm doing. IT'S A BLOG! oh well. I smile, nod, and easily accept the editing. You gotta do what you gotta do - I'm easy.

Hopefully there will be a few entries soon so that you can all be up-to-date on the crazy work and things I'm seeing and doing.

I met the most amazing group of kids yesterday. They're part of a counsel of children between the ages of 12-15 who represent all the children in their villages. The things these kids do... I can't wait for them to start working with my NGO, they'll do AMAZING things together. DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THE YOUTH!!

It reminded me a lot of the work la FESFO does in Ontario. FESFO is the Fédération de la jeunesse franco-ontarienne (formerly la Fédération des élèves du secondaire franco-ontarien) or Franco-Ontarian Youth Federation, if you will. They're young leaders who do different things in their community and in school. FESFO gives them tools to be leaders. How to lead a group, lead meetings, how to organize activities at school, how to rally the troups, as it were. FESFO should consider working with this NGO. Their young leaders would totally get a kick out of it, if it were possible. Not sure. But my brain is working on it.

We visited a site in the backwoods and while we were talking to these kids about their needs as young leaders, there were a few small boys (3-4 yrs?) hanging out, staring at me. I flirted with them and they smiled.

When we were leaving, these little kids were kind of looking at me sideways, curious, so I walked up to them and told them to put their hand out. The little boy thought I wanted to shake his hand (the most common way of saying hello here, other than kissing on the cheek 4 times or touching heads 4 times), but then I held his hand out and gave him five, and got him to do the same for me. Then all the little boys got excited and I gave them all five. teehee!!

We got in the car and I drank from my water bottle. I opened the window to shake another little boy's hand when my colleague Jean handed one of them an empty bottle. The kids went NUTS! We started giving them all the empty plastic bottles in the car and Jean told them not to be greedy about it and to share.

When's the last time you saw a kid go nuts over an empty water bottle? It has many uses, but I'm not sure why they're so valuable. Maybe like in Québec, when you return them at the store you can get money for them.

Jean and I had a huge discussion on the way home about credit cards, mortgages, the credit crisis and Walmart. He said, "if people spent $1 on an NGO everytime they poured out the rest of a bottle of wine, imagine the difference."

Imagine.