Perspective

If it seems too good to be true...

2009-07-14T02:32:00.000-07:00

The internet has been down at work over the last few weeks, so I've been going to the cyber a lot with Bernadette and Mathieu. Not much time to blog with Mathieu sitting beside me, telling me what websites to check and asking me if I'm done writing my friends. I can't wait to be home with an internet connection!!

Being at the cyber is always interesting. How do I adequately explain what the guys *do* at the cyber here? No, they don't surf for porn or anything like that. They basically swindle people out of their money. They all do it, and they do it all day. It's their job. Dupe one person and you're in it for hundreds of Euros, thousands if you do your job really well.

They scour the internet for email addresses, using businesses, mailing lists, etc. looking for people to send mass emails to. A little bit more sophisticated than, "I live in Africa and need someone to cash my dead rich uncle's cheque."

They "fake sell" everything from dogs, cars, apartments, property, you name it. You hear them on the phone with people, calling them to say that they've received their order, and it'll be in the mail just as soon as they receive their money transfer. Did they need the transfer information again? Or that construction has begun, did they receive the pictures they sent? It's going very well.

The men on the phone are very literate, very convincing. "Des escrocs, des arnaqueurs," says Mathieu. "Ils font du n'importe quoi. Les Français se laissent faire parce qu'ils vivent chacun dans leur petit monde et personne ne demande des conseils à ses voisins."

He says that we're able to be dupped because we don't know a deal that's too ridiculously good to be true. That, and we don't bother to ask a friend or neighbour, "Is this the best way to go about buying something from overseas?"

I loathe these men. But I'm not really allowed to. When your country educates you but can't give you work to do... one does what one can to afford to live.

What really bugs me is the dishonesty of it. The dishonesty and the resourcefulness that could be used for good, not evil.

And the fact that you'll see children in cybers doing the same thing. It becomes a family business passed on from older brothers to their younger siblings. I sat beside an 8 year old boy in a cyber, who was chatting with far away men pretending to be some young woman... "xoxo hearts and kisses" "when can we meet? do you miss me?" I wonder how long it takes for them to ask, "send me money for my plane ticket to visit you."

Buyer beware.

The best! I was apartment hunting and saw an ad in Now Magazine. Beautiful apartment on Bay Street near Dundas. Huge! $700 a month, included a bunch of stuff. The picture was too beautiful to be an apartment on Bay Street, but I decided to email the person and see what the deal was.

Thanks for your email response. The Apartment is still available for rent on 761 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario M5G2R2, ready for move in at $700monthly. ready for move in. I inherited the Apartment from my late father. (Awwwww...) I lived in the Apartment with my younger sistser, i but presently now i am in West Africa and i will reside here for some time due to my current assignment. I just need someone with an open heart, love and clean to occupy the Apartment and put all my worries off concerning the maintenance of the Apartment for, since i am not residing there for now. I left behind some Facilities and electonics like satellite TV which you have to pay for the subcription, and a sony DVD player, air conditioning, alarm system..

The kitchen is fully equipped with all necessary cooking utensils, a refrigerator-freezer, four-hob and oven, microwave, dishwas her and washing machine. Also the keys to the Apartment are right here with me, and the lease document.......... Which i can send to you after all necessary agreement has be accepted.. Also i will like you to know that the rent charges is not really the issue , but your absolute maintenance of my Apartment, because that is the only valuable property my late father left behind, and it also took him so much time and money to put all those facilities in place..

Bedrooms: 1
Bathrooms: 1
Beautiful open floor plan
Plenty of storage space
Bedroom has walk-in closet
In-suite laundry
Outdoor Balcony, North West facing
Parking for one vehicle
Bike storage

Amenities include:
Gym, weight room & cardio
Billiards room
Meeting room
Pets are allowed
smoking allowed

Terms: Lease Terms:1,2,3,4,5 6 to 12 months and 12 to 4years leases and more available Please, call me as soon as possible if you are really interested in having my Apartment

Regard

Benson adams

mobile .........011-2347081917857

ha!

things i hate vs. things i love

2009-06-24T02:10:00.000-07:00

First, the immigration paperwork is DONE. I think. I hope. I hope I did it right. I hope we were convincing enough so that Immigration Canada thinks that Mathieu and I are for real, so I can see my husband again soon. If anyone has immigration paperwork advice, now's the time to give it. I sent everything home to my parents... which was a hoot.

We went to DHL this week (Tuesday) because there's someone at our Regional Office in Ghana who's going home to Toronto on Sunday. I figured, it'll be cheaper to send it to Ghana then to send it to Toronto, and far more secure, so let's go that route.

Package to Ghana from Benin: 68000F CFA ($161cad) and the package will arrive on Friday at the latest.
Package to Canada from Benin: 71000F CFA ($168cad) and the package could be there as early as Thursday, and at the latest by Monday. RIDICULOUS.

It's a fairly big package full of immigration-worthy wedding pictures, relationship pictures, and 109 pages of forms, phone bills, emails, passports, etc.

I know it's 109 pages because we had to copy the entire file before we sent it. And I stood there as she copied page 1, opened the lid, took page 1 out, put in page 2, made sure it was in the corner, closed the lid, hit print. If print didn't work, she would flip the photocopier on and off really quick and hit print again. Opened the lid, took out page 2, put in page 3, etc. etc. ETC. At the end I swore I would never be angry at the photocopiers at work ever again.

I love photocopiers with feeders!

So needless to say, I sent the immigration package straight home to MOM&DAD where they'll put their teacher eyes on it and hopefully catch any glaring bureaucratic mistakes (and hopefully my mom won't pay too close attention to my spelling and grammar...)

Less than ONE MONTH to go before I get on a plane to go home. I had a bit of a fit last night thinking about it. In one month I get on a plane by myself and set out to settle down again in Toronto.

Mixed emotions, as you can well imagine. I can't wait to have a huge salad made of fresh vegetables, I can't wait to see my friends, to walk around Toronto's streets, but I'm not so eager to come home to an empty apartment, and to talk to Mathieu through a webcam and on our crappy cellphones for months.

Life in Benin is hard and getting more and more frustrating, if anything. I love being with Mathieu, but I can't wait to get out of this country. I care for these people, I care that their children are not in school and that most everyone lives way under the poverty line. But I just can't be here anymore.

One month is going to go by too fast, and not fast enough. But probably too fast. 4 weekends, 28 days. sigh.

My African Wedding

2009-06-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

I must say, that was probably the easiest wedding I've ever had (or attended I suppose, seeing as this is my first wedding). I'm sure it would've been much more fun if my friends and family had attended, but what can I do? That's what I get for getting married in Benin.

I'd love to post pics within this post, but the internet is wonky... You'll have to bare with me. If you make it to the end of this blog entry, god bless you. It's really long and I only make it to the ceremony. No info on the reception or the following day where we took Maman to the beach. You can check out the pictures on my Flickr site.

The night before the wedding, Mathieu was going to sleep at his mom's house and I was going to sleep at Bernadette's. She and I were going to do each other's nails and drink rosé and be girly. Mathieu was going to do some "traditional" stuff with his mom. "Elle va me laver," he said. I was kind of bummed - why wasn't I getting "washed"? What was this "washing"? Shouldn't we be doing it together??

When he saw that I was interested and sad that I hadn't been invited, he told me to come along. "On va aller chez maman la nuit - il faut se laver la nuit." Weirdo rituals the night before my wedding? I only hoped my skin wouldn't turn green or something.

I told Bernadette she would have to wait for me to return. She told me to go do whatever I needed to do.

Around 9pm, we arrived at Maman's house and hung out in the living room to watch TV. I kept looking at the clock and thinking... anytime we want to get this ball rolling, I've got girly stuff scheduled!!

Maman talked to Mathieu and blessed us (she often will start to pray and bless us, and the only way I know what she's doing is that Mathieu will suddenly look solemn and start saying "ah-min" after everything she says).

Suddenly the power went out. Maman stopped and we hung out waiting for the power to come back on. I played flashlight games with my cellphone's flashlight with Aïsha and Tania. The lights came back on and maman started her business again. Her son Jean brought in this white powder in a bowl, and I wondered if we would have to eat it or something, but nothing came of it.

Outside, it started to pour. "Oh no!" I thought. The rain means we can't leave for a while -- when it pours, you can't ride on a motorcycle.

Mathieu says that Maman says that the rain is a really good sign. It means God is happy with our union. I like making God happy. A happy God is a good God.

We watch some more TV and then Mathieu says, "Ok, we're gonna go wash now." I follow him into Maman's room where he starts to undress.

At this point, I start to get a little worried. Do people know what we're doing tonight? Or are they just going to walk into Maman's room while we're doing this? But I know Mathieu wouldn't let random people see me naked, so I get undressed and follow him to Maman's on-suite bathroom.

First, you have to understand that there's no running water at Maman's house. They have to get water from the well, so there's often lots of garbage bins full of water to flush the toilet and to bathe. Maman's bathroom doesn't have a shower or bath either. Her bathroom is comprised of a sink, a toilet, and lots of large bins of water. The pipes are all there to be connected to the city line, but it's the next step on her to-do list.

Those of you who wonder how you bathe without running water or a bathtub: take a large plastic bowl and fill it from an already-filled large bin of water. Dump it on your head. Lather your body with soap, and dump another bowl-full of water on your head. Repeat until squeeky clean.

That night, however, there was a new large bin in Maman's bathroom. This bin was filled with a yellow-ish water and there seemed to be stuff floating in it. I had to keep repeating to myself, "Don't ask, just breathe, don't ask, just breathe..." Mathieu dunked the bowl into the water and then dumped it on his head. He flung the plastic bowl back into the bin and rubbed the water into his skin like he was lathering it with soap. Then he dunked the bowl back into the water and dumped it back on his head. Little pieces of leaves would stick to his shoulders. The water smelled like medicated tea. He dumped water on himself one more time and stepped aside.

My turn.

I did as he did, except I didn't dunk the bowl into the bin with as much vigor, so as to avoid the leaves and "stuff" that were in the bin. Yellow water was all I needed, thanks. I dumped the water on myself thinking, "oh my god oh my god oh my god, don't inhale, and close your mouth!!" I "lathered" myself like Mathieu did and went again. This time it really drenched my hair and totally covered my face and I threw the bowl back into the bin and lathered again. The third time happened and then I realized that Mathieu wasn't toweling himself off.

"Il faut rester mouillé." I scolded him a little for letting me wear a white blouse and khaki pants to this affair (we'd gone to meet some "friends of the family" that he calls aunt and uncle eariler in the evening, and he told me to dress up for that), so he let me put on the traditional shirt he was wearing (which is nice and warm and kinda flannel-y) and I got back into my khakis. My hair was drippy and I was generally uncomfortable, but whatever.

Outside, it was still pouring. We went back into the living room and Maman smiled at us. Mathieu then told me that there was a part 2 to the washing, but we had to wait a while and I should just lie down on the couch and watch some TV. We snuggled on the couch and I fell asleep for about 45 minutes til he woke me up again. By now it was past 11:30pm and the house was completely quiet. It was still raining.

I quickly txt'd Bernadette to let her know this "ceremony" was on-going, and she txt'd back that there was no problem.

Mathieu led me out into the courtyard where Maman had built this large concrete cylinder with a large bowl up top, filled with "water". The concrete cylinder was decorated with "cori", small white seashells. There is also drippy brown liquid carefully splattered on it. Took me about a week to figure out it was animal blood. I'm not very quick.

Again I was worried someone would walk outside while we were doing this. Everyone's front door leads out into this courtyard, but there were no lights on and I suppose everyone was sleeping. It was dark and raining still, and the rain made it very cool outside. Plus, I was still wet from the previous "washing".

Mathieu got naked first and dunked his hands in the "drinking water" position into the bowl of water atop the concrete cylinder. He poured the water on his head and lathered, as before. I think he did this 3 times until it was my turn.

It was darker here than in Maman's bathroom, so I had no idea what I was pouring on myself. It didn't smell and I didn't see any weird colour in my hands, so I like to think it was plain old "blessed" water. When we were done, we put our clothes back on and went back into the living room. Maman smiled again and then headed outside to wash herself.

By the time we finished it was midnight and still raining. We fell asleep on the couch and woke up around 1am. Mathieu said, "Ok, let's go." We couldn't hear the rain anymore, but when we got to the end of the courtyard we saw that the rain was still falling quite heavily - just more quietly.

Mathieu unlocked the door to his room and we decided to sleep there. We'd never slept a night in his room before -- and it showed. There were no sheets, except there was some fabric laying around and there were pillow cases on the pillows. The mosquito net had been left up for months and was kinda gross, but he wiped it off and brought it down. He swatted at a few bugs while my eyes closed.

Just before I fell asleep I remembered that I should probably txt Bernadette. z z z z...

I woke up at 4am in a panic. OK! WE HAVE TO GO NOW! Mathieu grunted and I realized he wasn't going anywhere. I repositioned myself and went back to sleep til about 6am. I could hear some action in the courtyard outside and I really wanted to get a move on since I had to do all the stuff I didn't get to do the night before, like paint my nails and um, paint my nails? Drink wine?

Again, I relaxed. 15 minutes later Mathieu was ready to leave, but not before turning on his stereo full blast so that the whole house was filled with music. I thought, "Oh no, won't everyone be annoyed at having music this loud this early?" but no, just me. Everyone else was bopping their heads and getting on with their day.

As soon as we got home I showered. Washing myself with random liquid and then spending the night in a no-fan no-aircon zone made for a very gross Maria. I decided to wear my Hello Kitty tshirt and jeans for the getting-ready morning and Mathieu told me to pick something out for him. I love when he wears his greenish tshirt with his grey cardigan and jeans - so cute! At 7:30am we called Bernadette to see if she was up and about. Actually, I told Mathieu to call her cuz I didn't want to wake her up!

She asked if we'd had breakfast and invited us over for some yogurt and nut-granola. She made us coffee and gave us a couple fancy new cups (we've been drinking our coffee out of glasses) as a wedding present. Bernadette did SO much for us, we hardly needed another present, but she'll get them back when I move back to Canada, so it's actually a present to herself. :)

After breakfast I stayed at Bernadette's while Mathieu went to run some last minute errands. She started to do my nails and then let me know that she wasn't actually used to do doing nails. I laughed and told her to hand me the brush. I spent all of first year university learning to give myself manicures, so I'm pretty much an expert.

Then she left to go to the Cyber to print out "something" and I went to get my hair done around 11am. Mathieu was already at the salon and kept calling to see where I was and why I wasn't getting a move on. I had to keep reminding myself that this wedding was important for him because it was his family and friends... mine were far away and it's probably why I had more of a "whatever" kind of attitude.

Then the guy who was lending us his car arrived and wondered where the girl who was supposed to decorate it was. Apparently he thought it was a bad idea for us to decorate the car at Maman's house because it had to be a surprise. So then I had to make calls back and forth between Mathieu who just wanted things to go HIS way and Jean who thought it was a horrible idea and wanted things to happen promptly and his way. By the time we arrived at the hair salon, we'd decided he would drive the car to Marie-Joséphine's house nearby and Caroline (Diana's older sister and Mathieu's niece - who is older than he is) would go decorate it at her house. Everyone was fine with that and I went in to get my hair done.

The ladies stared at my head and were excited to give me something "different". Oh no. Not something different. I explain to them that my hair curls naturally and goes into ringlets naturally. They understood I wanted ringlets and showed me curlers. I told them that my hair curls without curlers. I explain that I have these little flowers that I'd like to put in my hair. One of the ladies starts to do little braids and little sections on the side of my head that I really like. I start to relax, thinking that whatever they do I can fix later.

Four products later and when I try to fluff my hair my hand comes out incredibly gunky. One lady does these spikey things down the side of my face and then starts to flatten these curly-type flat bangs on the front of my forehead. I'm not sure I can adequately explain how stressed I was getting. Then they tell me to sit under the dryer. And sit. And sit. I could feel my hair hardening with every moment. I wanted to scream. MY HAIR ISN'T SUPPOSED TO HARDEN. I wanted soft curls!! SOFT CURLS!!

I touched my face and the spikey "side-burn" things were completely stuck to my face. I started to have some sort of panic attack. The lady sensed it and let me out from under the dryer. I sat back down in the chair. The lady who was going "let's make you different" crazy said, "Que tu es jolie!" OOH no. NO NO NO NONO.

"Ce n'est pas du tout ça que je voulais." Sorry ladies. Get the water out, and grab that diffuser over there and we're going to do this my way. We can do "different" some other time. NOT on my wedding day.

I left feeling much better about the whole ordeal. I left knowing that I could still make it look even better once I got home.

Mathieu was done about the same time I was (looking very dapper), and we walked back to Maman's house. It was 1pm and Caroline was supposed to have been there at 11am to decorate the house and the car. She was no where to be found. Several calls later and finally she was there and then she was off to decorate the car.

Mathieu and I almost got into an argument over all the decoration craziness, but then we realized that we were arguing over stupid stuff and relaxed again.

Mathieu's brother Alphonse drove us home to get ready. I went over to Bernadette's who lives behind us, and Mathieu stayed home. "Do you know how to tie a tie?" I asked. Nope.

I had asked Jean to buy Mathieu a plain white tie and hankie. I was sad that Mathieu's dad wasn't around to help him on our wedding day. I told him he could probably ask Jean-Paul, our driver, when he came to pick me up.

At Bernadette's I fixed my hair some more and grabbed her scissors to make some adjustments to the haircut I'd gotten on Thursday (another time when the man stood there and stared at my head for 5 solid minutes, not quite knowing what to do). Soon my hair was as close to perfect as it was going to get, and I had to leave it alone. I got half dressed and started to apply makeup.

Soon it was 3:30pm and Jean-Paul was knocking at our door to see if we were ready. FIVE MORE MINUTES! I frantically grabbed the nail polish to give all my nails a final top coat, so that they were all even and pretty. One last sip of wine, and one last look in the bathroom mirror. Through the bathroom window in Bernadette's apartment you can see into our apartment (fairly clearly, actually). I could see Mathieu walking around with his nieces getting stuff ready. Soon JP was knocking at the door and helping him on with his tie. He looked so dapper from afar, I couldn't wait to see what he looked like close up.

Finally I was ready to go and Bernadette and I hopped into the car with JP. It was 3:50pm, but Mathieu hadn't left yet.

As we drove along the road, we noticed a bicycle in the middle and a girl was laid down on the road, a splatter of blood under her. Someone was helping her up and off the road. I quickly prayed for everyone's safe arrival at my wedding and hoped she would be ok.

Knowing that we were ahead of Mathieu, we parked the car a little further away from the City Hall office and waited in the air conditionned comfort. It was a beautiful hot sunny day.

Marie-Joséphine, my Director at work and the other witness at our wedding (besides Bernadette), was awaiting our arrival and quickly had a conference with Bernadette while she stepped out of the vehicle to take pictures of our ride.

Soon the actual wedding photographer pulled up beside our car and started to snap pictures of me in the vehicle until Mathieu arrived and he went to greet him. JP moved our car forward and pulled up to the wedding hall. Another wedding was just finishing and it was a wedding much like ours - a white girl to a Beninese boy, except there were a ton of white people outside this wedding.

A wave of jealousy washed over me as I longed for my friends and family. I took comfort in thinking that I looked better in my white suit than her in her big white dress and let the car move forward til she was out of sight.

Mathieu opened the car door and helped me out of the car, except when we got in the hall, we were the first ones there. So we sat where we were supposed to sit, as did our witnesses, and waited as the hall filled up. Oh Benin -- no one is ever on time here.

By 4:20pm, 2 ladies had already come by to see if we could start the ceremony, but Mathieu's mother was still not there. Mathieu kept asking for family members to find out if she was on her way. Fashionably late, she arrived around 4:30 and finally the ceremony started.

The photographer and videographer did their thing throughout the ceremony. The "Chef d'arrondissement" Brice Chanhoun (pronounced Chaoun) did a great job on officiating, although I wished he had spoken more Fon considering the amount of people in the room that barely spoke French. He went through all the rules in Benin around marriage, talked about our responsibilities towards one another. He asked Mathieu if he was marrying me willingly and asked me the same. Then he asked me to talk a bit about why I was marrying Mathieu. So I said a little shpiel and the ceremony went on -- but I totally got gyped!! He never asked Mathieu the same question!

Finally he asked the witnesses to give their little bit of advice to us. Marie-Joséphine talked about commitment and how each of us was representing each other's country. Bernadette spoke about how beautiful our relationship was, and then she invited Marie-Joséphine to read a message from my mom, she read a message from my dad (in English, translated by Marie-Joséphine) and then a message from Pierrette, my nanny growing up, my 2nd mom. Tears welled in my eyes but I managed to keep myself under control. No one in attendance actually knew me or has known me for over 5 months... a very strange feeling.

Rain rain rain rain rain

2009-06-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

I have a BIIIIIIIIIIG ol' blog entry about my wedding day, and the pre-wedding "lavage" that Maman gave us. Stay tuned. I'm still writing. Summary: I missed my friends and family, and looked fabulous. Mathieu is so dreamy. swoon!!

It's been raining every other day for the last few weeks. When it rains, IT SUCKS. It's beautiful as long as you get to stay home. The wind is cool, it sounds nice... except for the thunder and the car alarms that go off cuz it's raining so hard.

When you wake up on a work-day and it's raining, you know you can sleep in. It's great. The roads flood like crazy. It's horrible for people's cars, never mind if you ride around on a motorbike. Taking a moto-taxi anywhere is hugely difficult.

The mud is fun too. Remember that every other road, if not the majority of roads are dirt roads. Mmmmm mud.

Anyway, immigration paperwork calls. And dinner with Mathieu. The internet has been hella crappy lately, so forgive the lack of updates and communication...

Wedding Bells

2009-06-05T06:11:00.000-07:00

Preparations are in full swing here in Benin. We made an appointment at the Mairie du 12e arrondissement where the Chef de Circonscription, Mr. Brice Chanhoun, will perform the ceremony on Saturday, June 6th, at 1600 hours. His secretaries’ eyes got bigger when they saw that it would be a white-lady wedding. I have to say I’m getting really tired of people thinking I’m rich. Every time anyone gives me the price for anything I have to wonder whether it’s the actual price or whether they’ve doubled it because of the colour of my skin. Should I be flattered or insulted? Regardless of what I “should” be, I’m annoyed.

I met a lady at the Novotel pool on Monday. My new friend and colleague, Bernadette, took me for a “bachelorette” day. We went to the spa, to the market to buy shoes, and then the following day was spent lounging by the Novotel pool, drinking fruity drinks and getting a nice tan.

So this lady in the pool comes up to us and asks where we’re from. “Canada,” we answered. “Well duh,” she said, “Where in Canada?”

Toronto.
“Really? Me too!”
What brings you to Benin?
“Oh I just got married on Saturday!”
I’m getting married on Saturday!
(Congratulations are exchanged. She points to her husband who is lounging by the pool, filling out papers.)
“We tried getting him a travel visa, and they rejected him, so in February, he called me in Toronto to ask me if I would marry him, and I agreed. My friends and family wondered whether I was crazy and whether I could really trust this guy… but I brought my son with me on this trip, and when he met my husband he said, ‘Mom, he’s everything you said he would be.’ We’re going to do another wedding in Canada with everyone.”

I laughed. My story to a T, with a few subtle differences – this lady could be my mom, she met her Beninese man in London, England, and they’ve been ‘seeing each other’ for the last 2 and a half years. The fact that this fairly well-travelled and well-off man’s travel visa was denied put me at ease. It’s not just Mathieu, it’s everyone who has a hard time.

The fact that she was a week ahead of me in this whole process has been helpful. I’ve stayed in contact with them to be able to find out more about the immigration process, which is also quite annoying. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork…
I want to get all the forms filled out and sent as soon as humanly possible. The faster we send them, the sooner we’ll get a response, the sooner Mathieu can come to Canada. This time the paperwork will be ridiculously complete. They want details? They’ll get an encyclopedia of them. They want to know how our relationship has evolved since we met? I am able, thanks to my journaling, emails, pictures, and record of txt messages sent, I can basically give them a play by play.

I’m a woman on a mission.

First things first however, we need a marriage certificate. Outfits are pressed and pretty, cake has been ordered, food is being prepared, we’re good for music, Maman’s house has a fresh coat of paint, my work colleagues are all pumped and have their speeches prepared (people LOVE to make speeches here – they LOVE it)… OH! And fear not: the photographer has been hired and there will also be a DVD made. As much physical evidence as possible that Mathieu and I are married and that this is for real.

Getting nice emails from friends and family has been delightful – keep them coming, more proof! More proof!! Sigh… oh Immigration Canada…

Tonight, Bernadette and I are hanging out and Mathieu is spending the night at his Maman’s house. This will be the first night we’ve spent apart since… February 17. When we were counting days and figuring stuff out, I realized that we will be getting married only 4 months after meeting one another.

I can hear you all saying, “Maria, are you just realizing this now?”

I really feel like I’ve been with Mathieu for years. It feels like I’ve been in Benin for years. Have I really only been here less than 5 months?

Bernadette and I submitted a proposal and a report to have our “Consultancy period extended”. Makes me sound so important. The request was accepted and with a bigger budget, so the next month should be better on my bank account. I can’t wait to get back to work to have an actual income, but at the same time, I wish Mathieu was coming with me.

First we have to send our immigration package to Mississauga, who will take a look at it and if they believe us and if everything is properly filled out, they’ll send it to the Canadian Embassy in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Those lovely people will have another look at it, and if they believe us or if they don’t, they’ll either call Mathieu in for an interview, or just send a letter of rejection or acceptance.

Thoughts and prayers are welcome. Wish you were here… The next time you see me, I’ll be a MRS.

WEIRD!!!

Not Sure What to Say

2009-05-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't written in a while, and I'm sorry about that. Since the end of April, a girl named Bernadette from Toronto has joined me at work and she's been a bit of a saving grace. Someone to keep me in check and someone to bounce ideas off of. Working with her has been great.

Life has revolved around getting work done and hanging out with Mathieu. Nothing much exciting... oh, except maybe the fact that we're getting married next week.

Yup, I've lost my mind. Africa does that to you, it seems. Mathieu makes me smile and think and I don't ever want to let him go; and since the government won't let him visit, then I guess I'll just have to make them let him immigrate.

I told everyone at work today and they were very excited and happy! One of our witnesses, the Director where we work (and a very wise lady) spoke of Mathieu representing Benin and me representing Canada in our relationship - we have to keep up the good names of our country.

Anyway, Mathieu just called to say the tailor is ready to meet with us with the changes he made to my suit. I'm getting married in a white suit -- I always have been a bit of a tom boy.

To all those friends and family who are discovering that I am getting married through my blog and are a bit confused or sad or frustrated or weirded out or something, feel free to write me.

I hope we can have a big "after-party" with tons of friends and family when I get back and Mathieu is able to join us -- hopefully by September. Hopefully before the colours start to change!

Although he's had 26 years worth of summer - he's due for a little cold.

I'll be back with more updates AND PICTURES soon, I promise!! xo

Bribing Customs, Traffic Jams and Getting into Canada

2009-05-18T01:57:00.000-07:00

(The internet here is still being annoying. Sorry for the lack of updates, but I can't handle wasting what little time I have in a cyber waiting and trying to send messages - it's really infuriating!!)

What a week. Mathieu and I left for Ghana last Monday to do a bit of tourism, so I could meet with some important dude who's with the company I work for, but mostly to apply for a tourist visa so that Mathieu can come home with me in June.

Yup, the girl who swore up and down that she could never fall for a man in Africa has fallen for a man in Africa. Maybe I never expected for an African man to make so much sense. Maybe my preconceived notions and prejudices towards what being 'African' means were wrongly squewed... because if anything this trip has, again, just solidified my belief that we are all the same in this world. All bastards and saints; all confused, searching and finding. All of us hoping for the day when we have a little more cash in our pockets and fewer worries in our heads. (preachy moment: I believe we are being herded to the edge of the world, where everything we own and everything we wish we owned pushes us further away from everything we are and everything we love.)

The difference, I suppose, is in the cultural norms and what is generally accepted here, like polygamy and cheating (but perhaps cheating is expected and accepted in Canada too? Take a mental survey for yourselves...).

But like everywhere else in the world, not everyone accepts what is generally accepted and not everyone follows cultural norms. There is no 'normal', there are just a huge bunch of people trying to make due.

Anyway, we went to Ghana on the bus. What a trip. The bus was supposed to leave at noon and ending up leaving at 3pm. No air con, so the windows were open, which was really fun when we were following a big truck on a dirt road. I had to get 2 visas for the ride: one to get through Togo and one to get into Ghana. My passport is all stampy - I feel so international.

The road from Benin into Togo is beautiful -- it follows the beach almost all the way from Ouidah, past Grand Popo which is near the Togo border. The big city in Togo is called Lomé. Looks and feels a lot like Benin. There is a huge market there where you can get tons of stuff that comes out of their port and into the market. Might be coming back to do some shopping... Adidas for $5? sure!

The border was easy to get through (I tried to take a picture of the Benin/Togo border sign but I was quickly told NO PICTURES NO PICTURES and I don't like to mess with big black men holding automatic riffles) and on we went after about an hour stop in Lomé to pick up a ton of other passengers making their way to Accra in Ghana, and Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Abidjan, the big city there. An interesting mix of accents and people... I was the only white girl on the bus. The driver and his friends started to play Bob Marley - we travelled on his birthday, May 11th.

Togo is the smallest country ever and takes about an hour to cross. Maybe less. Finally in Ghana, and what a pain in the ass. Emerging nation = even more annoying bureaucracy -- developed enough to be modern and thorough, but developing enough to still be corrupt.

Which reminds me... all the way from Benin to Ghana, we'd have to stop at these customs check-points where the cops stop vehicles. Often though, if not always, it's just a question of slipping the officer a few dollars and you're back on your way. God forbid you can't afford a few West African Francs or Ghana Cedis, cuz it can mean a huge delay in your trip, especially if you have a lot of bags packed in the car. My dreams of road tripping through West Africa in a Land Cruiser were dashed - ug. Not worth the bother. I can't imagine how much money these guys would expect if they pulled over a car full of white kids.

So we're at the Ghana border. Mathieu, who could've just as easily used his Beninese National Identity card, used his passport to accompany me through the borders. Once in Ghana, they had customs forms to fill out, which reminded me of the forms you get on the plane on the way in to Mexico or when you're coming back on the plane into Canada. The ladies scanned our passports (oooo!) asked us where we were headed (I invented an address in Ghana, although we stayed at the Bani Guesthouse/Hostel, a real place), and sent us on our way. Their English/African accent was cool and I was excited to be in an anglophone country.

We got back on the bus and drove for a while. We got stopped at another check point and since by now we'd been travelling for 9 hours, I really had to pee. Everyone had to get out of the bus and there was a bathroom at this checkpoint, which cost 50F ($1.25) to use it... except when I got in it was a dirty stinky urinal-type just-pee-on-the-floor and I couldn't deal. I went back outside and told the dude, "listen, I'm gonna need my 50F back because I need a toilet to pee." He laughed and pointed behind him where there were 4 toilet stalls. God bless Ghana.

We finally arrived in Accra (pronounced Ac'crA) at 2am. The never-ending bus ride. My bum was killing me. Mathieu was really nervous about where this hostel was and where we were going, especially since he doesn't speak English or the local language, Ashanti. My friend Gord in Toronto had told me to call his friend Gavin who teaches at the University, and he had been nice enough to rent us a room in the residences for 30cedi or a little less than $30 a night.

We got there fine, except the girl at the desk didn't have a reservation for us. The administration probably had one, but obviously the office wasn't open at that hour. She found us a room with a bunk bed and we crashed. We had to be at the Canadian Embassy at 7:30am and the taxi driver had told us that traffic in Accra was ridiculous during rush hour and that we should leave at 6am if we want to be there for 7:30am.

He wasn't kidding. Accra has real roads with curbs and painted lines and overpasses and everything. Obviously though, they don't have enough. People are used to sitting in traffic for up to 2 hours a day - IN the city.

The city looks like a mix of north Montreal and Cotonou, some high rises, what we north americans would consider regular architecture and normal looking homes and apartment buildings, both ghetto and nice. Then around the corner are shanty hoods with outdoor maquis restaurants serving fish and pounded igname, and ladies selling things on their heads, men standing in traffic selling random stuff. The major difference is that there are very few motorcycles in Accra. Everyone has a car and drive very nicely, probably cuz they know they'll be stuck in traffic for HOURS no matter what they do. There aren't very many touristy things to do unless you like chillin on the beach, which I'm kind of over by now. We found a museum I'd seen on a map except it was totally empty and the windows were broken and it had scaffolding inside.

The food wasn't too expensive and neither were the taxis, although comparatively, the taxis were ridiculously expensive to what one pays in Cotonou. They don't have counters so whether you're sitting in traffic for 2 hours or not, the driver states his price and that's it. Of course, when they see a white girl get in the price goes up considerably... I hate negotiating, but it worked out alright.

We arrived at the Canadian Consulate or High Consulate or whatever you want to call it around 8am. The guards at the door made us leave all our electronics (iPod, camera, USB keys, cellphones, etc.) in a little locker at the door and made us walk through a metal detector. There were tons of forms to fill out above and beyond the forms we'd already filled out. Then we had to go make a copy of his passport down the street and come back. Then Mathieu went into another section where apparently the lady took all the paper's he'd brought and sent him on his way, telling him to come back at 2pm.

When we came back at that time, we waited around with 20 odd people until everyone got herded back around 3pm into that same room and were each handed either letters or visas. Mathieu came back with a letter telling him his temporary visa was denied for reasons X, Y, and Z, and if he wanted to resubmit a request, his situation would have had to change drastically and of course, he would have to resubmit the fee and forms.

I was really surprised. I thought it would be so much easier... we really don't let people into Canada very easily, which I suppose is a good thing, but in this case, not so good.

Apparently there was no one we could speak to, and any appeal would have to be made by email, which we did that night, in a decent cyber café we found about a KM away from the residence we were staying in.

Uber-bummed, we headed back to the residence where we rushed to pay for our room and find out if there was a room we could stay in for another few days to see if we could change the minds of the Consulate or find another solution. The admin people were very nice and the room was suddenly only 15 Cedis and the new one they gave us had a great TV too, but to Mathieu's dismay, no French channels. Happily though, the cafeteria had great and cheap food and there was a football game on TV later that night - that lifted his spirits.

On the Wednesday, I had an appointment to meet with the important dude from work, and it went really well. It wasn't an official visit, just a "I happen to be in town", but it's always good to make a good impression.

What else can I say about Ghana? Not too much. People are people, cities are cities... and cities are rarely representative of the country. Hopefully one day I'll get to see a bit more of Ghana.

Leaving Ghana was a debaucle. There was no bus leaving for Cotonou until 10pm and we wanted to leave around noon. Plus, Mathieu was insisting we take a bus or a big vehicle that could easily traverse the bad roads. Eventually we found some dude who was leaving with 3 other men to go to Nigeria in a Volvo station wagon, and could drop us off in Cotonou on the way. Four people in the back and 2 in the front for 6ish hours. Ug. The longest part of the trip is between Accra and the Ghana/Togo border. Once there, we had to fill out another one of those customs forms and then move into another room to get our passports stamped.

Except we'd never had our passports stamped on the way in. Stupidly or ignorantly, once they'd scanned our passports and given us back our customs cards we'd just left and no one controlled us on our way out to make sure we'd been stamped. Whether they forgot to tell us to go into the next office or whether I just didn't pay attention; who knows.

Happily we still had the customs cards from the way in, which had been initialed by the customs officer, and I insisted about the fact that the ladies had scanned our passports, so we were in the system.

While we were discussing the situation, a white man with a French accent was getting his passport stamped (it wasn't a French passport) and asked me if there was a problem. I explained the situation to him and he said, "Soyez cool, expliquez bien la situation et donnez-leur un petit quelque chose et ça va aller." (Stay cool, explain the situation and give them a little something, it should go alright.)

By then the driver of our ride arrived to see what was taking us so long. We explained and when we told him we were thinking of giving them 5 cedis, he said it wasn't enough. Ten should do the trick though.

The customs officers were going back and forth from the computers and were saying that my story checked out, that they had found all the information and they were going to stamp us in (dated on the 11th) and out of the country, but we needed to step outside.

We stepped outside and I realized that this is where we could either wait forever or give them some money to make this go faster. The driver asked for the money we were going to give them, and he took Mathieu by the hand and told me to wait there. Bribery is best done among locals. Moments later we were on our way. Boy was I glad we had 10 Cedis left from the money we changed!

The rest of the trip went off without a hitch. We stopped at the Togo border and picked up some roadside fried chicken and fried igname which we ate in the car (moist towelettes are your friend). We got back to Cotonou around 6pm, exhausted and hungry and went to grab a bite to eat.

Since then I've been working like crazy. Life has gone into high gear in more ways than I have ever experienced before. It's both stressful and amazing, and it's making me think that I'll be extending my stay here a few weeks to make sure my work is well underway before I leave, and figure out another way to get Mathieu into Canada.

More on that some other time. ;)

Now I get to click "publish" and see if the internet will let me.

Hit "Pause" and try again

2009-05-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry about that. Got malaria myself there for a bit. Got a bad fever, couldn't/didn't feel like eating, passed out in my apartment, went to the clinic at 3am, got some blood work done, feared for my life, got some medication, stayed in bed all weekend, felt better by Monday, went into work...

A new girl has arrived from Toronto to work with me - what a lifesaver. She's a great lady and we get along really well. She's helped me put my work stuff on hyperdrive, hence the lack of blog updates.

Note to self: you work better in a team.

On Wednesday a group of us left for a work-mission to talk to some school board people leading the monitoring and evaluation. Took advantage of the situation to also hit up one of Benin's National Parks, Pendjari. SAW ELEPHANTS! HIPPOS! eep! Lots of cool animals, lots of cool things. Got back on Sunday and have been busy busy ever since.

I'm still feeling feverish and tired. Malaria pretty much sucks.

In other news, it's rainy season. Rains almost every day and makes driving around HELL. Mathieu lost control and had to fall off his motorcycle the other day because he got caught in the pouring rain. Nothing serious, nothing damaged. Craziness.

I come home in a little over a month. I'm looking forward to highways sans huge pot holes!! Looking forward to a stomach that works normally again.

But for the time being, I'm really enjoying my work and the company I'm keeping.

Going to Accra, Ghana next week. Leaving on Monday and coming back on Thursday. More on that trip later! Gotta run!

ps - the internet here is poo, if i haven't said so before. I'm having lots of trouble connecting, posting, accessing Facebook...

Hit "Pause"

2009-05-07T10:17:00.000-07:00

Malaria

2009-04-23T01:18:00.000-07:00

So, have I mentioned that little Tania's being a bit of a wuss lately? Extra clingy and whiney? Well, turns out it she has malaria. Pesky mosquitoes. She's had a fever which has been persisting and I was worried so I insisted that Mathieu tell his sister to bring her to a clinic. Call me North American, but malaria isn't something you self-medicate.

Let's all take a moment to thank Canada for Federal Health Care, despite its problems. We can whine about having to wait in Emergency for a long time, but at least, at the end of the day, you don't foot the bill (unless you have to get a prescription...).

By my standards, it wasn't very expensive - 7000F for the consultation and some blood tests, and some 7000F for the medication. $35 in total.

But when I got to the house after work yesterday, another little one, one of the twins (pictured at the amusement park eating popcorn) had a really high fever too. Wrap him up and ship him off to the clinic! They didn't give him the same treatment and I'm not sure if he had exactly the same thing as Tania, but they kept him at the clinic for a bit because his fever was too high. His visit and medication was a total of 7000F, a little under $20.

Tania's mouth was really pastey and full of sores. She looks thinner, poor thing. Mathieu tells me that that's how it is, when you have malaria... you can't eat and you just generally feel like crap. High fever, cough, aches and pains, and a useless mouth.

Hopefully they'll get better now. Sigh.

There are mosquitoes everywhere. It's the start of rainy season, so apparently it'll only get worse. Recently in the news, a Beninese doctor received a high award (can't seem to find a link) for developing a new and highly effective malaria medication. It's fairly cheap here, but it still affects way too many people.

Oh Africa.

museums, merry go 'rounds and music

2009-04-23T00:26:00.000-07:00

So I mentioned in my last post that I managed to take 16 kids to both the Zinsou Museum and to the Village de Paques (which is also known as the Village de Noel, in December), an amusement park. I won't say too much on the day and will let the pictures do the talking. The kids had a great time and want to know when the next outing is going to be. I'm not sure I would take the wee ones next time, or if I do, I'll invite the other parents along so that they can help manage the crew. The little girl twin peed all over the floor of the bathroom of the museum, and my shoes. oops.

First, they all got dressed, which I've never seen. I tried to take as many pictures of them as I could in that state. The bus/van was a half hour late, and Mathieu and I went to the house an hour early to make sure they were all ready... Tania's mom had dressed her in a fancy dress, which wasn't appropriate and she was really uncomfortable, so we got her into shorts and a tshirt and she was much better. She hasn't been feeling well lately, so the dress must've just been torture. But more on her later.

I didn't think we'd all fit in the bus, but it worked quite well. I guess when you don't have carseats to deal with, piling 3 little ones makes it easier to squeeze everyone in.

We drove around for a bit because a lot of these kids don't get out much beyond their school and the house. We took them to see the Stade de l'Amitié (a big stadium in Cotonou) and l'échangeur (the grand new overpass built a couple years ago). Little Boris, Diana's little brother, was able to spell "échangeur".

The Museum was more or less kid-friendly. The guy showing the kids the exhibit did it in a very "school" type way, which was very informative of him, but when you have a group ranging from ages 2 to 16, you shouldn't really be spending too much time on each item, asking questions and trying to drag the answers out of the group. The got to colour, which was nice.

From there it was off to the Village de Paques. The museum was free, the park was not. And there were 18 of us!! Still really cheap comparatively. Entry 200F ($0.50), $9 total. Then, a little something to drink, 200F each, another $9. Plus one for the driver, of course.

And a little something to eat, popcorn, 100F or $0.25 per bag, either salted or sweet.

Then everyone got to pick one ride, 500F or $1.25 for a total of $22.50. Most of the boys picked bumper cars, the girls picked the swings on the merry-go-round (so did I, and my stomach turned for hours afterwards), and the little kids were relegated to the cars-on-tracks, much to the dismay of the older ones... I let Mathieu make the executive decision of who was too young...

After that, the crew was getting restless and our time with the van was running out so we hit the road (we paid 18,000F or $45 for 5 hours with a driver - and he helped with the kids), but not before everyone scored a second or third MTN hat. MTN is a local cellphone company.

Everyone was really happy with getting a free foam visor... and we all wore them proudly for the group pic (the oldest guy is missing, dunno where he went) once we got back to the house. Of course, I didn't manage to get the group picture before half of them were out of their clothes already...

Maman was just beaming at me on our return. She was very happy that I was able to do something like this with them and thanked me.

The kids thanked me too, but I told them we had to record a message for my parents who sent me the money to take them out. I recorded them a few times, they're so funny. One time, they said, "Merci Monsieur et Madame Le Blanc!" LOL! I repeated my parents names and they said it properly the second time. Too funny. Then they started rapping in French and everyone piped in, even the girls. It's actually really good.

Goes to show, kids are kids - no matter how rich or how poor, they all have favourite artists and sing them obsessively.

That seemed like a good idea... FOR ME TO POOP ON!!

2009-04-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

The title is a reference to Triumph the Insult Dog.

One thing my mother warned before I left: Don't mess with voodoo.

There are many things in this world that we don't understand and therefore don't believe in. Ghosts, for example. Witchcraft, sorcery, voodoo, hoodoo... lots of people dismiss it as bullshit... but I live in Benin. No one dismisses it here.

**warning: gross stuff ahead. if you've just had lunch, or are faint of heart, don't read this!!!**

I was waiting for Mathieu to pick me up after work on Friday and I was reading the paper. The headline on page 11 of La Nation reads:

Les "gourous" de la mort -- Le fléau mystérieux qui décime la gent féminine (The Gurus of death -- The Mysterious Plague that is Decimating the Female Race)

The article goes on to say that women in love are being killed. Not by AIDS, not by cancer... I have to quote it for you to believe it:

Des prédateurs, ce que les Ivoiriens (de la Côte d'Ivoire) appellent les "gourous", ne sont que des personnalités mues par un souci effréné d'entretenir leur fortune qui font succomber à coups d'argent, leurs victimes en quête de gain facile et gagnant donc leur manger à la "sueur" de leurs cuisses. Le mode d'emploi trouvé par ces gros bonnets, les "grotos" comme on les appelle ici, est tout simple. Pour assouvir leur dessein lugubre, ces exterminateurs contemporains sans scrupule demandent à déféquer ou à uriner sur des filles ou vice-versa après avoir satisfait leur libido avec elles, en échange de faramineuses sommes d'argent. Quelques heures ou quelques jours après, les victimes commencent à sentir des malaises; une maladie "bizarre" s'installe et prend plusieurs formes. Puis, la suite, c'est le trépas en douce.

To translate basically. Rich and powerful men who want to keep or improve their richness and power, get intimate with women and then offer them absurd amounts of money to let them or ask the girls to... well... relieve themselves on the man or let the man do it on them. Days or hours later, the women fall mysteriously ill and die. DIE.

A "marabout" or powerful sorcerer is quoted in the following text, the article's continuation:

D.S., un marabout et exorciste à Abobo BC, très sollicité par bon nombre de footballeurs, d'artistes et de personnalités ivoiriens, a reconnu que "ça existe vraiment" et explique : "C'est une pratique que certains féticheurs (voodoun)conseillent à leurs clients. Soit, la personne défèque sur sa copine ou il demande qu'elle défèque sur lui. Ca peut paraître dégoutant mais, je vous assure que c'est un moyen infaillible pour avoir de la puissance et pour consolider sa richesse". Evidemment, cela n'est pas sans conséquence : "La fille qui accepte de se faire ch... dessus, est, dans 98% des cas, vouée à la mort. Ca peut prendre du temps. Mais, elle finira par mourir", confie le féticheur.

He explains again what I explained earlier, that in Ivory Coast, some clients of voodoo priests come to them for riches and power and they recommend this practice of not-so-golden showers to give them riches and power. The girl dies in 98% of cases, data which I'm sure has not been scientifically verified.

They quote one girl who politely declined a man's requests, despite the offer of 10 million francs or $25,000. Another girl whose friend died mysteriously discusses how they had laughed when she said that her boyfriend wanted her to pee on him:

"Moi, je soupçonne fortement son amant, une grande personnalité du pays qui lui offrait tout ce qu'elle voulait. Il y a un mois, AD m'a confiée que son amant lui avait demandé d'uriner sur lui après qu'ils eurent fait l'amour. On a bien ri. Mais, c'est depuis ce temps que ma camarade est tombée malade..."

They also quote doctors who looked at these patients and declared these diseases as "mal mystique".

How do you convict someone of murder?

I asked Mathieu how these guys can be punished since there's no way to prosecute them in any modern courts, and he assured me that karma's a bitch, although of course, he never could put it that way. I picture their faces shriveling up and them falling into a pile of dust, like in an Indiana Jones movie.

Anyway, I'm sure I've grossed everyone out thoroughly. Voodoo may or may not be a thing of the past, but certainly shouldn't be taken lightly. West Africa, and Africa in general, is very powerful.

The modern world underestimates itself greatly. We pride ourselves on our "intelligence" and our ability to make machines "Go", but these people can cure disease with plants and can create wealth with magic... poop.

Why, then, with all their magic, haven't they dug themselves out of the proverbial hole they're in? Perhaps for the same reason we have an economic crisis, or why we can't seem to put even a small lid on our consumerism to help out our environment... because there is good *and* evil in the world. The Good understand that using magic and powers for your own advancement will not lead to anything durable. And until the Good stand up to the Bad, until women stop taking money and gifts from men for "fecal favours" (lol, i slay me!)... until we really and truly stand up and speak out against that which we know to be evil... then evil will always win.

A little preachin' for those who made it to the end of this post.

In other news, I took SIXTEEN kids to the museum and to the amusement park this weekend. :) More on that, and pictures, tomorrow. SIXTEEN. Started with 8, and then the family got wind of it. You know, I think I'll miss the kids most of all. They're pretty adorable! And really sweet! And very well behaved! I was impressed!

Taxis, Shrimp, and Bob

2009-04-17T03:38:00.000-07:00

Last week I was feeling pretty beat. I have a general idea of the work ahead of me in the next 2 months, but everything keeps changing and moving around (infuriatingly so, but I’m breathing), so when I found out that contrary to my original belief, I didn't actually have to work on Easter Monday, I called Mathieu and told him to pack a suitcase. "I made a reservation; we're going to Grand Popo."

I asked my boss how one gets to Grand Popo, because following the falling-asleep-on-the-motorcycle trip to Ouidah, I figured we should take a bus or a car or something.

"You can take a taxi from Godomey," she answered. "It shouldn't cost you more than 1 500F CFA ($3.50)." Sweet!!

We finish work early on Friday, and I got the work driver to drive me home and wait for me to get a few more things together, change quickly and drive Mathieu and I to Godomey, which is on the outskirts of Cotonou, so we could catch a taxi.

When we got there, there were 5 or 6 random cars, unmarked except for the fact that they were all old cars, falling apart, with drivers shouting out different destinations. Lomé, Ouidah, Lokossa, Abomey... Of course, when they see a white girl they want to know where she's going and if they can rent out the car. 8000F to rent it out. Still cheap, you might say, but way more than 1500!!

We found a driver that would take us for 1300F and waited for the car to fill up. When we left, there were 4 of us in the back (a bigger girl, an older man, Mathieu and I) and 2 people plus the driver in the front (a student and a young military man). Wow, after about 45 minutes I was wishing I'd shelled out the $20 for our own private car, or at least a bit more so that there would only have been 3 of us in the back. Live and learn.

We drove along quickly and I managed to snap some fun pictures along the way of this village built entirely on the lakeside, or in the lake... boats and people milled around everywhere, even in the water.

There were a few scheduled stops and when we did the ladies selling nuts, water and other random food would swarm the car. I kept praying that the driver wouldn’t try to cram someone else in with us, but it seems no one else needed a taxi.

The military man up front got out first and left the 4 of us in back. Happily there was only about 20 minutes left to our trek, and soon the taxi was leaving us on the side of the highway in Grand Popo to continue on its way to Lome, Togo.

We stopped at a restaurant because I'd gotten off work at noon, packed, found a taxi, waited for the taxi to fill up and drove to Grand Popo ... and we arrived at 5pm. 1500F for fresh fish and a local pâte which is different from the stuff we found in Cotonou, grainier and red. Except when she got back from the kitchen, suddenly the price had gone up to 2000F. She let out an "Ah!" of disbelief when we accused her of changing the price because I was Yovo... but regardless, it was delicious.

Sidenote: they don’t speak Fon in Grand Popo, they speak Mina, the language they also speak in parts of Togo.

Then Mathieu and I got on a scooter in search of our hotel. La Maison Blanche had quoted me 25,000F CFA or $57ish for a bungalow beach-side for the night, negotiable, and Mathieu thought it was outrageous, so we went in search of something else. Having called around, I already knew that everything else was booked solid, but I let him try and we drove up and down the Grand Popo strip, Mathieu, the driver and me, on a scooter that had definitely seen better days.

On the way up and down the strip I noticed a raggae bar painted brightly in red, green and yellow... a definite stop during our weekend, I thought.

The Auberge, an old colonial house, was full, but there was a pool we could swim in for 1000F and a nice restaurant we thought we might eat at. Back down the strip to L'étoile de Mer, also booked, and not that nice anyway. Finally we went to La Maison Blanche (the website doesn’t do it justice and I didn’t take any pics of the bungalow itself, sorry), where we pretended not to have a reservation, and the manager (who also turned out to be a great chef) let us know that the rooms are both double, and are 25,000 for a family, but 15,000 or $35 for a couple. Sweet!

Mathieu was worried about security, and asked if they had any guards. Two, apparently, although I never saw any. Regardless, according to everyone Mathieu asked, Grand Popo is pretty sleepy and quiet and no one makes any trouble for anybody. "This isn't Cotonou," they'd answer.

We had a little look around, the beach was much more sea-shelly, less fine than Cotonou's or Ouidah's. I think I prefer Ouidah actually, but Grand Popo had more of a touristy feel. More hotels and places to hang out on the beach.

After sunset we had a bit of tea and pulled up some chairs to watch the many many stars come out, only to see the moon rising on the ocean. Sweet!

I wanted to go for a walk along the water, but Mathieu was worried we’d get attacked and asked a young man at the hotel to join us for our walk. Mathieu likes any excuse to talk to people, and started asking the young man a bunch of questions on Grand Popo, its origins, and what there is to do here. The young man, Godfreid (his mother is Nigerian, but he doesn’t speak English), was more or less knowledgable/helpful. Apparently he’s the chef at a local restaurant, and has been for a whole 3 months!

Saturday we had an omelette and some instant coffee with some pineapple juice, fresh, of course. Then we played in the waves a little, but the lack of any life guards or anyone who can really swim prevented me from diving into the water. I’m an okay swimmer, but the ocean is merciless.

We decided to walk down the beach to check out the menu at the Auberge restaurant and passed by some fishermen and their wives collecting the catch from their nets. Didn’t seem like their catch was much to write home about, but what do I know. One of the fishermen objected to my picture taking – “you should ask permission before you take someone’s picture.” I should know better!!

The menu at the Auberge was expensive and getting to the Auberge was difficult! The sand was burning hot and we had to run from shady spot to shady spot! OW!

On the way back we decided to jog because we’d ordered a shrimp lunch for noon and god only knew what time it really was. We sat down and ordered a tall bottle of water and were so pleased to see our shrimp arrive – super tasty too! Garlic shrimp! The seafood was probably the best part of the trip (except the crab Mathieu had that night – no meat).

Then it was time to go back to the beach to sit under a palapa with some beer to watch the waves and look for seashells from our shady spot.

After a while I started to realize that my skin was pretty burned. I haven’t had a sunburn in Benin yet, despite my time on the beach, so… I kinda stopped wearing lotion. The burn wasn’t too bad, but still owwie.

It was time to get in from the sun, and I went it to take a shower, which was hot because the reservoir is black on top of the bungalow… I haven’t had a hot shower in months! Very nice. I patted myself dry and we decided to nap for about an hour and then go take a walk around town to check out that Raggae bar I saw on the way.

It was a great little place called Lion Bar. There are rooms for rent and there were tents pitched sea-side. There was an elevated concrete dancefloor with lights all around and I thought it would be a really fun place to come for Bob Marley’s birthday on May 11th – a big deal for the youth in Africa.

The owner/DJ was playing some funky little tunes. We had already been drinking beer all afternoon and their cocktail menu was too fun to pass up. We danced a lot that afternoon. The tunes were fun. The owner was happy to have us.

Then Mathieu asked if the SDB or sodabi on the menu was the real stuff… Eau de Palme… the local hard stuff, but it’s actually very nice, very soft. The owner, insulted that we would ask if it was the real stuff, immediately poured us a couple shots, which we sipped, with our cocktails, and our beer. Geez.

One of the shot glasses was from Québec, and when I asked if someone had given him a gift, he said that his wife was from Québec – that she was coming on Tuesday and that he couldn’t move with her to Québec because he has children here in Grand Popo. Very thoughtful for a father, I thought – but Mathieu says that he must be a polygamist. Who knows. Oh Africa.

The idea of Rastas and Rastafarian tradition is interesting. He had a nice mural that talked a bit about the Rasta relationship to the Bible, and a quote by Hailé Sélassié, an Ethiopian Emperor (whose title at one point was Ras Tafari)… check out the wiki en français et in English.

Drunk and late for dinner of disappointing crab and more shrimp, we called our scooter friend who drove us home in time to sit to watch the stars come out and order another big bottle of water.

Again the moon rose on the ocean, and I had the brilliant idea of order a half liter of white wine with dinner.

There was no walk on the beach that night. Actually, I’m not sure I remember much of dinner.

Slept well though and woke up with the worst dry mouth and really achy skin!!

On Sunday we decided that we’d relaxed enough. We packed up our things and had one last jog and breakfast by the sea, and then decided to go hang out at the Rasta bar until we felt it was time to leave, except when we got there, our friend was no where to be seen and there was no music playing, everyone was having breakfast since it was only 11am… a little bummed, we just decided to catch a cab home.

We got to sit in the front on the way back, which was nice – roomier, although there were only 3 people sitting in back. When we sat down, Mathieu asked the driver if he had any music. He scoffed as if to say, “As if I have music in my car. Have you seen my car?”

I have music! (This device has paid for itself many, many times over! So handy!)

Note to travellers: Never go anywhere without a Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers album. It will get you through anything. He’s so easy.

On the way back I took more drive-by pictures and Mathieu pointed out a small grave just outside one of the toll booths. Remind me to tell you the sad story one day.

Sunday we hung out at Mathieu’s mom’s house and went for dinner in an “expensive” restaurant where I ordered pizza with mozzarella on it! Happy Easter! I had rabbit for lunch on Tuesday, and that’s about as “Easter” as I got! No chocolate bunnies or eggs here!

The traffic to and from the beach in Cotonou on Sunday and Monday was unbelievable. There were people everywhere, on motorbikes, in cars, on foot... I decided I didn’t particularly want to partake in the craziness, so we stayed in.

Rained all morning on Monday… Sigh… Life’s a beach!

Tons more pictures in my Flickr set…

Le français au Bénin

2009-04-09T03:45:00.000-07:00

Tout le monde sait qu'une langue se parle de différentes façons. Mon français n'est pas celui de mon frère à Paris, ni celui de ses amis à Dax dans le Sud de la France, qui n'est pas celui de ma cousine à Montréal, qui n'est pas celui de nos amis en Acadie, etc etc.

J'ai pensé essayer de faire la liste des particularités béninoises... je ne sais pas si je vais réussir, mais bon:

Doucement! = Fais attention! ou Regardes où tu t'en vas. Si tu trébuches sur quelque chose en marchant, par exemple, ou si tu t'accroches sur quelque chose en débarquant d'une moto, on va te dire, "doucement!"

Bonne arrivée = Bonjour, bienvenue chez nous, bienvenue n'importe où dans l'fond. Dans un resto, au bureau, peu importe.

Bonjour = ce qu'on dit le matin, entre 6h et midi.

Bonsoir = ce qu'on dit à tout moment, mais surtout après midi et en soirée. Si tu dis "bonjour" après midi, les gens vont te répondre "bonsoir". Ce concepte m'a confuse pendant un bon moment -- MAIS IL FAIT ENCORE PLEIN SOLEIL!!!

A tout moment: on le dit souvent aussi, pour dire "n'importe quand". Cela remplace souvent l'au revoir.

On se coince: on se rencontre quelque part. Souvent, dans un bar.

Tu quittes déjà? = Même quand je quitte le bureau tard, je quitte "déjà".

Un maquis = un petit resto/bar qui sert le menu basic du Bénin: frites au poulet (non, ce ne sont pas des lanières de poulets, c'est du poulet servi avec des patates frites), riz au jus (jus, voir ci-bas), poisson, fromage (fromage local, frit dans l'huile, trop bon) avec sauce d'arachide (mmm! mon plat préféré!), et diverses pâtes. Défois spaghetti blanc servi avec piments, onions, tomates. Les breuvages: Coca, Sprite, Fanta, bières diverses.

Pâte: pas des pâtes/pasta, de la pâte. Igname pilée, pâte noir... c'est essentiellement de la farine de maïs ou de la farine d'igname (on dirait toujours qu'ils disent de la farine de yam, et ça ressemble en effet aux grosses patates sucrées) avec de l'eau qu'on mélange et qu'on bat avec un gros baton pour que ça devienne de la gélatine. Très bon.

Jus: On met ça sur du riz - tomates, oignons fris dans de l'huile d'arachide. C'est très bon.

Un pressing: Là où on amène le linge à faire laver. Je l'ai fait une fois, ça coûter beaucoup trop cher ($25!!!)

Une von: une rue. "Tu prends la deuxième von à droite..."

C'est pour toi? = C'est à toi? J'ai mis quelque temps à la comprendre, celle-là. Pour moi? Comment? Aujourd'hui dans la voiture, il y avait une enveloppe par terre et mon collègue a voulu me demander si elle m'appartenait et il m'a demander, "C'est pour toi?"

Ou bien = N'est-ce pas? Une autre chose qu'on dit souvent ici, à la fin des phrases.

Tu as fait un peu? = Tu as bien travaillé? Tu es entrain de faire quelque chose?

Un peu, un peu: On peut dire, "J'ai fait un peu, un peu," "J'ai travaillé un peu, un peu" ou "Elle m'a remis l'argent un peu, un peu" ou "Je me sentais pas très bien alors j'ai mangé un peu, un peu" qui veut dire petit à petit ou tranquillement.

Tu es où?! = LA question par excellence au téléphone cellulaire, qui remplace presque le "bonjour".

Maman: N'importe quelle madame agée de plus de quarante ans, surtout si elle travaille dans un maquis et elle fait à manger, ou si elle travaille dans une école et elle s'occupe des enfants. Ou, n'importe quelle madame qui est vraiment une maman dont on ne connait pas le nom.

Je n'arrive pas à en trouver d'autres... je vais y penser! A tout moment!

In the news

2009-04-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

I realized it might be interesting for everyone to know what's in the news here.

French President (funny little guy) Sarkozy made a stupid comment about Africa's men not being in the history books (wonder why that is you stupid colonialist!) and then his opposition apologized profusely about it during a visit to Dakar.

There's a solar energy convention happening in Cotonou! Woot!

Benin's wonderful president Boni Yayi is celebrating 3 productive years in office. Various meetings, demonstrations (in the good sense), and debates ensue. (More on him in another blog entry. A very interesting fellow. Good guy.)

The opposition party is delaying parlementary sessions by having parlementary assistants call in sick.

The government has decided to make césariennes free (or almost free). From what I understand, they used to cost around $250, plus medication post-birth. I think they made the operating kits and operation free. The tests and medication may still cost... Editorial cartoons of men chasing their wives to make more babies... as if they needed another reason to make more babies! LOTS of debates and problems around this (what is free, what is not free, what comes in the free kits, etc.), although generally everyone agrees that it's a good idea. Personally, I would make birth control pills free. Mathieu says that you could never take away an African's right to make babies... I prefer to ask the women feeding 'em.

In Cotonou, the rain is coming and they're fixing up the drainage systems. The work is behind schedule.

Football. Something about World Cup qualifiers or something, I dunno. ;)

Weekend: Kids, Art, Bats and Salsa

2009-04-07T02:49:00.000-07:00

Was a pretty good weekend, all in all. Was feeling extra tired on Friday, and my stomach was unhappy with something or other (part women’s troubles, part the-fish-I-ate), so I left work a little early (noon) and went home to sleep it off.

Mathieu was at his mom's house. On Thursday night, (keep track now) the daughter of Mathieu's brother's wife (from a first husband), had fallen really ill and was brought to the house, perhaps in the hopes that Mammy could help. The little girl died shortly after her arrival. Mammy wasn't home; she's got a client that's been keeping her very busy these days, to the point where she's even spending nights at the clients' house.

I've never met the little girl. Apparently she was around 10 years old. I don't know the circumstances of the death, whether or not she was sick, how she died... frankly, the less I know, the better. A kid dying is just sad.

Friday evening Mathieu and I stayed in since I wasn't feeling well... until we could stay in no more, and he took me to a restaurant he'd been meaning to check out. I figured I felt well enough to sit in an air conditioned restaurant. We went under the premise of ice cream (after the Casa del Papa lunch, we had ice-cream-on-a-stick and he's become a little addicted to ice cream!) but discovered that they had cheeseburgers and pizza at reasonable prices (small pizza was $8, cheeseburger $3.50). My appetite suddenly returned.

The cheeseburger was actually really good! The owner is Lebanese, and they put fries, coleslaw and lettuce on the burger. The pizza was cooked in a nice fire oven and quite tasty, but you could tell all the ingredients were canned: artichoke hearts, mushrooms, olives... bah. Oh, and the ice cream was good too (500F or $1.25 per scoop).

On TV, a West Life karaoke DVD. So we got the music and chorus of most of the West Life musical collection. I hope never to hear the full songs. :rolleyes: I prefer the old school ‘90s version of More Than Words, thank you very much!

On Saturday, Mathieu took me to Maman's and the whole place smelled of campfire. Outside I met little Aisha crying her eyes out. I would have asked her why except that she's not in school yet and doesn't speak French, so all I could do was tickle her a little, wipe her tears and ask her, "ça va?" before giving her a little kiss on the head and making my way into the house.

I mentioned that Maman's been working, which means some sacrificin! YUM! Lots of sheep and chickens getting butchered. Mathieu laughed that when he was at Maman’s on Friday a chicken laid an egg right in front of him.

There were a few shaved hens that the kids were carrying around and at one point one of the boys took a large knife to one of the hens as I was walking by. HOLY CRAP DON'T KILL A HEN RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME PLEASE!!!!

He was just cutting the rope that was holding both hens together. I almost had a heart attack. Part of me wants to watch them kill something (so I can become a vegetarian?) and part of me just doesn't want to know.

Spent the rest of the afternoon playing with Tania, Aisha's little sister who’s about 2 years old. We play "slap my hand and I'll try to grab it", a game I used to love playing with my dad. We play peek-a-boo. We play “make weird noises”. We play "honk my nose". And finally, we play, PUT THAT DOWN. Wooden matches (which she totally knows how to light), machetes, glass. Oh Tania. Maman tells me I can take her with me. She's a riot. (AND she fits in my suitcase!)

The kids like to hang out in Mathieu's room (not that they ever dared go in his room before I got there) because he plays the music really loud and watches TV. They come in and dance, which is the funniest and awesomest thing ever, as anyone who has ever watched babies dance can attest.

After a bit of dancing, I was sitting on Mathieu's bed and Tania leaned her head on my knee. I started giving her a little baby back massage. Poor kid has a bum leg so she has to limp all the time. I can imagine it must wreak havoc on her back. Of course she was out like a light and drooling on my knee in no time.

I put her on the bed and watched some more TV. The only thing cuter than a kid dancing or laughing is a kid sleeping.

Mathieu kept coming into the room and giving me random pieces of meat. Delicious. The kids were running around trying to avoid the big patches of smoke and it reminded me of sitting around a campfire with Aimée saying, "I don't like white rabbits!" trying to coax the smoke in another direction.

Eventually Tania's mother came and got her and I took my own nap until Mathieu was ready to leave. I took home some meat! mmm...

After a quick shower to wash off the smoke, I asked Mathieu, "what next?" Ice cream on a stick, of course! I better get to the gym soon. We tried a different kind than the one we'd tried before, but we both prefer the ones with the almonds in the chocolate. I'm happy they don't have Hagen Daaz here, otherwise it would be game over!

Then, WE WENT TO AN ART EXHIBIT! weeeee! ART! La Fondation Zinsou is an NGO here in Benin that promotes art. The founder of the foundation is the niece of ex-president Zinsou (1968-69) of Benin. The President's brother married a white lady. Their daughter is very cool and the exhibit was very awesome and made even more awesome by the fact that it's free to visit.

The exhibit displayed African art by 5 collectors (if my memory serves) including the Zinsou parents. Some art was very old (BC), some very contemporary, all very cool, very inspiring. Then again, going to museums and art galleries is always inspiring. There were a lot of “masks”, which I quote because they’re massive and ornate. There were quite a few talismans and fortune-telling devices. In the “contemporary” section were photographs and more abstract art.

I couldn't take any pictures, but the joy of the internet is that you can click the link above and check some of it out for yourself. You'll probably have less of a hard time loading the page then I do.

I'm hoping that next weekend I can borrow the company car and take a couple of the kids from Maman's house to the exhibit. They have kids' activities from 14h-16h on Saturdays and those kids probably never get the chance to do that sort of thing.

After the exhibit we were travelling down Jean-Paul II Avenue when I saw this flock of birds... they just kept coming and coming -- a never ending stream of black birds! So impressive!! Wait. THOSE AREN'T BIRDS!! eeeep! BATS! Hundreds if not thousands of them. I tried to snap a picture, but it was dusk. Mathieu said that this is their migrating period. Gross and cool, I wish them a happy migration, wherever they're going.

Then we’d planned to go to the Centre Culturel Français (CCF) for a concert. I didn’t know the artist playing and Mathieu hadn’t really done a good job on selling me the show. He was saying that the dude was playing his father’s music, and that his father was much better than he was… gee, sounds like fun.

But I hadn’t been to a concert since I got here, and I really wanted to check out the CCF because they have a poster outside announcing “Les semaines de la photographie” and I love photography! (awww! the website says I missed my chance! the exhibit was over on Saturday, the day we went too late! booo!)

The photography exhibit was closed after 19h, so I hope to go back soon to check it out. The CCF itself is a very cool place with a library (which also loans DVDs) and a membership card only costs 3000F ($7), so I may get one, we’ll see. Inside the CCF is a large courtyard with great trees and crazy birds that I’ve never seen or heard before. I really felt like I was in a jungle somewhere. In the courtyard there’s one small stage and a large one for concerts that sits about 100 people. We grabbed a small beer and waited for the show to start.

The concert ticket was 2000F ($6.75ish) and well worth the price. The man may be imitating his dad, but he’s got a great set of lungs and is a very good dancer. Gilles Gnonnas & les Dadjés (his father Gnonnas Pedro). He did both traditional and salsa music, which is also traditional African music, FYI.

I had to google the origins of Salsa and Son music… those slaves I tell ya…

To find the roots of Cuban music we look to West Africa where the slave trade thrived. The Yoruba, Congo and other West African people created rhythms in ancient times to call forth various gods. Sadly, these wonderful rhythms were brought over to the New World under dire circumstances. One drummer named Ijibwa was taken captive and placed on a slave ship for America. He was forced to play on deck to keep up the spirits of the prisoners so that the "merchandise" would arrive alive.

I may as well have titled this blog entry: Everything Is African.

Tick Tock ... M' fon gandji!!

2009-04-06T00:32:00.000-07:00

The cool thing about TV here are the documentaries on awesome African dudes.

Like Patrice Lumumba, first elected Prime Minister of Congo. Very anti-colonialist, the Belgians killed him for being a pain in the ass. They really did, and in the documentary, they laugh about it. (The Americans helped. The CIA was going to use poison toothpaste - so crafty, those Americans.) It's pretty gross. Actually, the longer I'm in Africa, the more I think that colonialism is pretty gross... not that I didn't think it was gross before. You can read his speech on Congolese Independance Day (June 30th, 1960) ici en français, and here in English. Apparently the Belgian King gave a very racist speech just before, saying something banal like, "We gave you so much, we're so great, and now we think it's good that we give you your independance." Then, without being on the agenda, Lumumba got up and infront of the international press, gave his speech.

Last night there was a documentary on General Amin of Uganda. What a guy! He was a child soldier, backwoods poor kid who rose up through the ranks because he was smart and ruthless. He's really funny, witty. In the documentary he talked a lot about telling the truth, always. I admire that kind of attitude. He wasn't always right and he killed a whole lotta people, but what a dude. If you get a chance to watch a documentary on him, please do. He's quite charming... and pretty scary. My favourite part of the documentary is when he is waving at the elephants!

Anyway, in one part of this documentary, he had bought a few new fighter jets for his army, which was quite well equiped, and he was talking to the pilots saying something like, "You must know these planes inside and out, you must read the manuals very carefully. You must know all the maps very well so that if you are asked to fly you can go and know exactly where you are going." Good advice.

He went on to say something that touched me:

When you are on your mission, do not think about coming back to the base. Think about your mission only, and God willing, you will come back to the base.

I've been thinking about coming home a lot lately. Maybe it's because I'm at the halfway point, my stomach plays tricks on me weekly if not daily, the heat is beginning to not be so great anymore, and my trips to the beach are becoming less frequent... but the General (aka His Excellency, President for Life) is right. Thinking about coming back to base only makes the fight that much harder. Be where you are now and be where you'll be later, right?

...

I bought the dreamy President Obama's The Audacity of Hope for the plane-ride here and I'm still only 50 pages in. I don't know what happened to me and reading. Up until high school I was a voracious reader. Perhaps I should blame university.

Aaanyway, I just got to the part where Obama is talking about our freedom as Americans (justice and liberty for all), and how at the end of their visit to Africa, just before their wedding, his wife, although she had a great time, talked about how happy she was to get home, how much she missed the freedom and protection from general insanity that you feel there (general insanity is my term, not hers).

They talk about how their family members and neighbours in Africa would loathe the bribes they would have to give to get anything done, the poverty they had to endure, how difficult it was to find work. They talked about the random visits from relatives, how they would expect gifts, food and shelter.

I love that I'm comparing myself to the First Lady.

I expressed to Mathieu how frustrated I was not to understand the language they speak here. He took it as a bit of an insult, thought that I didn't like his language, which is not at all what I said, but I guess what I should have said was, "I really want to learn to speak Fon." Learning to speak a language is HARD, and I don't imagine I'll be fluent by the time I leave, but I should at least give it a go.

I've never been one to expect people to go out of their way to accomodate me. I guess I was expecting for everyone to speak French - my brain really needs to get over it. There are several local languages here... and the language of the conquerer is French. Gotta love the colonials!!

Language is a funny thing. It means so much. In Canada it's the same. Depending on the language(s) you speak, it pretty much defines who you are (where you're from and where you went, how much money your parents had, what country conquered yours centuries ago).

Here, the better your French is, the better the chances you come from a rich family who could afford to put you through school, or you really struggled to make your way through school.

So today's the day I say, "Brain, get over it. Fon is the language you'll be hearing most. Take it and learn it as much as you can because you probably won't get the chance to speak it much when you get back to Toronto!!"

Fon lesson of the day:
Are you good? // Ah dough dagbay yah (accent français: a do dagbé ya - ça va bien?)
I'm good. // M' dough dagbay yah (accent français: M' do dagbé ya - je vais bien.)

Did you wake up well? Tu t'es bien réveillé? // Ah fow gangeeya? A fon gandjia?
I woke up well. Je me suis bien réveillé. // M' fow gangee. M' fon gandji.

You really have to watch when you "hmm?" and "uh huh" here -- you never know what you're actually saying!!!

I only wear Gucci, sweetie

2009-04-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

Oh Africa.

I've been clothes shopping a few times in some boutiques near my house, to no avail.

"Do you have anything that doesn't have a huge Dolce&Gabanna logo on it?"

Everything here is branded. Lacoste, Polo, D&G, Gucci... 5$, 10$... not bad quality, but just wrong. OBVIOUSLY it's all fake. I know it, they know it... do they even know who D&G is? They don't really seem to care. Apparently the Chinese can even fake cars. FAKE CARS!! Anyone care for an imitation Cadillac?

What is the world coming to?

When I ask if they have anything plainer, or without a logo on it, they look at me like I'm crazy.

And people here dress UP. At work, there are days when some of the ladies come dressed in what I consider a GOWN. I've learned to up my look a little (sometimes), but they seem to not care what I wear. They tend to let white people wear whatever they want (although God knows what they say to each other in Fon when they see the white girls walk by!). Like the time Jean didn't tell me we were going to a freaking funeral and I was wearing jeans and a tank top. GRRRR!! I'm still mad about that one!

I'm looking forward to having a few dresses made, and having a blouse fixed, and having them copy a pair of pants that I brought. I'll let you know how much those run me. There are a lot of seamstress/tailor places around, and a lot of bright coloured fabrics! OH AFRICA!!!

Sometimes, like at that funeral, you'll see a whole group of people walking around in different outfits, but all made from the same fabric. Like someone just bought a bushel and people chose their own patterns. Nifty!

Oh! Gotta run! Wednesday nights at 17h we have a trainer come in for an aerobics class. Friday mornings too.

Happy April everyone... I'm home in 2.5 months... eep! (Went to get my visa renewed this morning. Need a form from City Hall saying that I live here, and a letter from my boss saying that I work here. Met a girl from Saskatoon in the visa line-up! Was nice to meet a girl from "back home" and made me realize... I really should make an effort to make it out to central and western Canada one day!!!)

Pictures, Ouidah, so sleepy...

2009-03-30T05:21:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-26T02:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-23T00:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-20T08:44:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-14T07:15:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

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??

2009-03-04T06:13:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2009-03-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-01T05:14:00.000-08:00

(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.

Je suis sirène

2009-02-18T05:32:00.000-08:00

Oh Africa. Africa Africa Africa.

This week has been good and crazy and well, normal Africa I suppose. Spent Sunday having lunch with my boss, her husband, my colleague Jean, his wife and their 3 year old son who has the coolest little fro!! He's a little king, and he's about to be de-throwned cuz mommy's pregnant. We ate Fou-tou which is basically yam pilé, just different. I can't quite make the difference between all the different kinds of pâte.

Next time I see them make it, I'll have to shoot a video cuz it's really cool. It's a pestol/mortar concept, except in huge format. A big wooden bowl/barrel and a big wooden malette, or two, and they pound the yams into a fine flour by throwing their whole body into it. Add water and voilà! Again, I'm not sure on the process or anything, but I'll report back when I know more. If you google Yam Pilé you could probably find a YouTube video.

They opened a couple bottles of wine, a bottle of champagne to celebrate my arrival, served couscous AFTER the mountain of fou-tou and veggies and an appetizer of cucumber and onion salad with a mayo dressing... these people EAT. She served me Nescafe instant when I agreed to a cup of coffee.

When I got home I called a new friend, Mathieu, to take me to the beach. Yes, Mathieu has already proposed marriage, but he drives a really nice motorbike and has a great smile so I think I'll keep him around for a bit.

La Plage des Cocotiers, as I mentioned before, is awesome. Obama beach can be rented to hold special events, which totally peaked my attention (peak peak!). I can't be in West Africa for a whole 5 months and not throw a huge party on the beach. What kind of raver would I be if I didn't??!

Anne called me while I was there. Talking to my girls back home is unbelievably hard... Slowly but surely I'm making friends here and everything is falling into place, but I think of everyone at home often!! (Dernièrement, beaucoup à mes collègues au Ministère. Jean-Guy m'a envoyé les nouvelles sur Dodine... mon coeur a brisé. Je vous envoie tous beaucoup d'amour!!!)

Tuesday after work I got the idea that I wanted to see where Mathieu lives. He's an interesting guy, into Kung Fu, weight lifting, Chinese philosophy, and Bob Marley (and R Kelly, which he sings along to HORRIBLY cuz he doesn't speak English, but I can forgive him that), and said he lived in the same area that I work in, so I thought, maybe I can check out his place and then we can go hang out at the beach for the evening.

I txt'd him my thoughts and he called to ask, "Do you want to see how poor I am? Are you looking for a reason not to marry me?"

Honey, you should see where my brother lives. (Montreal ghetto reprazent!)

He said that his mom has a gift for me, and speaks very highly of his mother. He worries about her getting older (she's 64 and he's her baby). He said she heals people. That people from around the world come to her for it.

His motorbike took a sharp and awkward turn off the main road just before the bridge in the Fidjrosse neighbourhood and we were suddenly driving past huge piles of garbage and had to honk a woman (with a baby on her back) out of the way so we could get by. Oh Africa.

Then, old cars, chickens and chicks, goats, sheep, people, more moms with babies on their back. He pulled up to a concrete house, like every other concrete house, and shut the motor. He's very proud of the fact that when his mother got a big chunk of money, she entrusted it all to him to arrange for the house to be built, trusting that he wouldn't take any of it for himself and would have everything done properly (unlike his older brothers).

Everyone lives together in Africa. The "house" is huge, a long hallway on the outside, like a hotel in the Carribean, with doors leading to individual apartments. There's a large platform on the end for a sitting area and cooking area. Each little apartment has its own sitting room, bathroom and bedroom. Only one or two have their own kitchen. There was a small coal-fire burning outside one of the doors too.

There were a couple toddlers walking around, one little boy (one of twins, I later discovered), one little girl with a bum leg limp, and one with one earring. All naked, wearing beads around their waist.

First I met Mathieu's older sister, whose name I forget (he has 6 brothers and sisters). She had a couple kids hanging around her too.

An older lady was sitting at the end of this long concrete outdoor corridor, dressed all in white with a beautiful blue and white beaded necklace on, and about 5-6 beaded bracelets on each wrist. She saw me and smiled and got up to greet me.

"C'est maman?" I asked.

She laughed and I told her I can see where her son got his smile. Mathieu laughed. She hugged me tightly and invited me into the parlour, which was piled with stuff like a lady who shops at Walmart too much. Pots of various sizes (unused), pans, plates, random stuff. She doesn't speak much French so I had to rely on Mathieu to translate from and into Fon. I told her I loved her bracelets (they're beautiful) and Mathieu said that this is the gift she wanted to give me. She told her son to hand her a silver purse and she pulled out tons of beaded necklaces, bracelets, and waist beads.

I can feel Giannina's jealousy from here!

WOW. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I ask if she sells them (cuz I could make a fortune back home) and it takes a while for me to decifer what she does.

She said she gives them to the people she heals to help with their healing (gri gri? talismans of sort?). She said she's healed diabetes, anxiety problems, cancer even. People write to her or call from all over the world apparently. She sends them remedies, they send her money or gifts. She once got a car. She makes money how she can and orders these beads, herbs and who knows what else. She used to travel a lot to get her remedies all over Africa, but doesn't really anymore.

I've never been one to dismiss this sort of thing. I wonder to myself if she's got anything for this cold.

She asks me about health care in Canada, and if anyone there can help with her eyes. She's getting old. We talk about how hospitals kill people, and I say that it's the same everywhere in the world. Prevention is the best medecine.

She says that when I marry her son she will come visit us for a few months and we'll take her to get her eyes checked. I say "yes" because I've learned that when you say "yes" here, it means more "yes, I heard you, and God willing it will happen" and not so much, "yes and let's draw up those papers right now."

Kids of various ages keep coming into the parlour, bowing politely to me, to Mathieu and to maman, saying Bonsoir and repeating themselves when they don't get an answer, leaving the parlour and putting their flip flops back on, only to show up later in various states of undress (some in their undies, some in shorts and a tank top, but it didn't seem to matter much). It's Africa. Naked is normal.

Apparently maman takes in stray kids, kids with no parents, kids with parents but no money. She has remedies that help children get identification papers fast, remedies that will help you pass your exams. Remedies that will bring you money and success. All the children are fascinated by me. They come hang out in the parlour and whisper to each other. I ask some of them what they're learning in school.

I really begin to realize how important my work is.

The cell phone rings and it's Mathieu's sister in Paris. Aimée. He hands me the phone and she is happy to speak to me. I tell her my oldest brother lives in Paris too, and I hand the phone back to maman. Aimée married a "white African", from the North, which isn't white at all, but it's all good.

Maman takes out the photo albums now to show me Aimée. She is very proud of her daughter. She's beautiful.

The phone rings again and this time it's his brother Alphonse, one of a set of twins (who is the dad of the twin I saw earlier). Again the phone gets handed to me. He laughs easily and is very nice, very polite. Everyone in this family seems to have an easy smile.

I tell maman that my dad's name is Alphonse. She asks me if I have both my parents, I say I do and she says that's good. Her husband died a few years ago. She lost her oldest daughter, too. I learn that Mathieu's oldest sister was my friend Diana's mother. So Mathieu is Diana's uncle, even though she can't be much younger than he is (he's 26).

Mathieu tells me that he told his mother how much I love the ocean and the beach, and how I could spend all day and all night there. He says that she's like that too, that she loves it as well. "Moi, je suis sirène" she said, pointing to herself, "moi sirène. Toi, sirène?"

Who ARE these people?? This is all so awesome I think I might burst.

But do I want to see her altar?

It's not voodoo, he says. It's medecine, she has a gift. I ask but no one else in the family has this gift. An old seer who lived to 150 saw her gift and helped her cultivate it.

The altar is in a room designed for that purpose, except there's an empty wooden bedframe in it, taking up most of the room. The walls are painted with tribal designs and on the floor there's a low table with various statues on it... I can't remember what the statues look like (except that they were all white) because I was distracted by the ceramic unicorn head on the end.

Oh Africa.

Mathieu asks if I want to take a picture but maman says that I can take pictures during a ceremony, it will be better. I can't quite tell if the ceremony will be for me or to bless the union of her son with me (just go with it) or if it's for someone else all together, but I'm easy - so I just agree. I don't want to be inappropriate.

Then she tells Mathieu to give me a tour of the rest of the house. There's a second floor and a rooftop that aren't finished yet. Concrete randomness with piping that is ready to go whenever more money comes in to finish it all.

We come upon a room when suddenly I hear bêêêêêêê! OH! The cutest little agneau! A baby sheep with wobbly knees, tied to a concrete block with a bowl of milk and stuff to eat beside it. It's excited to have company, and even though Dr. Wise in Toronto would not have agreed, I just had to give it a little pat on the head. It was white with black spots... eep!! Too cute!

I asked why it was tied there; apparently it's mother is dead or eaten or something, and the little one is too small. Something or one of the children might kill it, by accident or on purpose, so they segregate it for a while. Poor thing.

We go back downstairs and maman has put aside some of the necklaces and bracelets I thought were beautiful, and a couple more she thinks I should have. I tell Mathieu to tell her this is WAY too generous, but, um... I wouldn't want to be rude, right?

Update: My boss lady came into my office just now to give me some files, and asked me where I got my beautiful necklace. I told her my friend Mathieu's maman gave it to me, that she's a healer.

"C'est mammy Wata? Elle était habillée tout en blanc? (It was mammy Wata? She was dressed all in white?)"

Can I freak out now? I txt Mathieu quickly and ask him. "Yes," he says.

Boss Lady says that her sister was desperate for some funding for an NGO she wanted to start in Benin and nothing was working. She had consulted with tons of politicans, financers, and then went to the healers and seers and nothing had worked. Someone told my boss lady that her sister should go see Mammy Wata, that only she could help her.

Mammy did a purification ceremony, made her dress all in white. Apparently it worked, her sister got financing from an organization whose name I didn't recognize.

Then when I told my other colleagues that I had met this "mammy Wata" one said, "Quoi?! Tu as rencontré la déesse des eaux?? Tu es allée chez elle??! (What?! You met the goddess of the waters? You went to her house??!)"

Everyone's mouth hit the floor. We laughed when I said maybe it could help with the work we have to do with the government. Certainly couldn't hurt.

There you go. Maria, Queen of Benin, is making her way up in the world. And is bequeathed to the High Priestess' son.

I asked about all the kids, and Boss Lady says that when you have money in Africa, people send you their kids so that you can feed, house and clothe them while they're in school. In return the kids help you cook and clean. Fair trade, I suppose. Boss Lady says she has 7 kids at her house right now!! I noticed a bunch of kids around her house on Sunday, but wasn't introduced to any of them and didn't think to ask, figuring they were hers, or neighbourhood kids.

It takes a village, or so they say.

AFRICA!!!!!!

PS - maman, le boulot va bien. Je ne peux pas en parler sur ce site à cause que je vais en parler sur le site de l'organisme pour lequel je travaille. Comme partout, travailler avec le gouvernement, c'est frustrant. On avance, mais par la grace de Dieu et le travail acharné de mes collègues ici.

Ma boss est extraordinaire, tu l'aimerais beaucoup! J'ai beaucoup de chance de travailler avec elle. Elle est vraiment le modèle accessible et la mentor que je cherchais!

PPS - You'll notice I updated a link to Wikipedia's Mami Wata entry. Mammy Wata is a goddess that one might incarnate for a specific purpose, so she's not an actual person... I'll have to ask Mathieu for further explanation!

I Give Up

2009-02-16T05:55:00.000-08:00

At some point you just accept the fact that your feet are constantly covered in dust and sand.

I have a bit of a cold. Had an awesome/huge/boozefull lunch at my boss lady's house on Sunday. Then my boss called me this morning to see if I was doing better or worse, cuz if it was worse, she was taking me to the hospital!! HOLY CRAP! I gots Tylenol Cold and Flu! I'm good!! (Better safe than sorry here though, I suppose.)

I also went to the dentist last week cuz I keep getting meat stuck in my teeth and wanted to make sure I don't get an infection. He gave me a "bain de bouche" (mouth bath) and told me to keep flossing and I'll be fine. Hope so!

MEN!!!

2009-02-15T07:09:00.000-08:00

Enough is enough. The men in this city are unbelievably needy. I am different and attractive, and for some, I am the ticket to freedom/the American dream. They don't understand women at all. They certainly don't understand modern women.

I explained to Lud's friends that I'm not in love with him, and know that I never will be. "Why don't you give him a chance?"
- Did you love every girl who has ever loved you? Every girl who approached you and bothered you with how much love she had for you?
- No, and there have been many!
- Impressed, I'm sure. But do you see what I mean?
- But he's in love... you could change your mind... it's different.
- It's different because I'm a girl?! Diana, help me out here! Did you fall in love with every man who wanted to date you or said that he loved you?

- Oh no!! Of course not!

She tried to explain, but it's like their brain goes blank when you try to make sense of it. They still couldn't compute, and now one of Lud's friends is in love with me too. They both say that it's because I'm so great, but they also say that they have decided that they will marry a white woman. Every white woman therefore becomes the potential mother of their children. Beautiful melado babies, they say. Yovo!

I'll concede that I'm great (so modest am I), but as much as they proclaim love, one must wonder whether it's the illusion of riches and fortune and a visa for Canada that is really attractive to them. Because to them, white = money and America = the easy life. Little do they know, people are miserable everywhere. Poor souls. I pray for them.

At least here they have sunshine and a beautiful beach. Take what you can get, boys.

Immigration is HARD and I am not someone's free ride. My friend Jeanne and her American husband are having a really tough time getting all his paper's sorted out, and he's a friendly neighbour! These guys don't speak English, have no savings and no real skills that might be on Canada's "easy entry" list.

I just can't respect someone who thinks they can get what they want by asking someone else to do it for them. Teach me English Maria! Marry me and take me to your country Maria! Everything will be fine and we will be happy! I promise!!

Oh really. Honey, I have been through a lot of shit in my life, and I can smell your cluelessness a mile away.

I decided against staying at the Novotel this weekend. Rooms are $250 a night!! Instead I paid $10 to sit by the pool all day, and had a nice buffet lunch for another $20. An expensive day, but you have to pay for peace and quiet around here. It was so worth it. It was so hot out I was dripping sweat just sitting by the pool...

Apparently the pool made me sick! I got home and thought I'd spent too much time in the sun, but then everyone at Diana's bar* said it was because I went swimming in the water and there was probably a lot of sea water in the pool... Here, apparently, it makes you sick!

I also found an AWESOME beach that is CLEAN and fun. They call it the tourist beach, but it's really called la plage des Cocotiers (coconut tree beach, dunno why, it's not particularly tree-full) and it's also called Obama Beach! Oh Obama. I miss hearing about Obama.

Anyway, people left me alone there. There's also a spot you can leave your bag if you want to walk around or go swimming, which is nice. The waves are pretty crazy though, so I'll stay on the shore.

*Went to Diana's bar cuz I needed to eat and didn't have any food and it was Valentine's day and Lud was insisting we do something... so to appease him and to get me some company I told him to call his friends and come visit me, then we all went to Diana's bar cuz I was sick and hungry... she made me pasta! Poor Lud didn't know what to do with himself. He's trying to back off but is still so frustrated that I won't just love him already!!

OH! I also went to see the club owner to see if i could use their DJ equipment. They said that I can use it before the club opens on Saturday, and I should come around 11pm cuz they open at 1am and then I can talk to the DJ. Hopefully soon I'll find someone with equipment, cuz these beaches were made for parties.

Tastes Like Chicken

2009-02-13T11:25:00.000-08:00

This morning I saw a man taking the fur off a dead pig on my way from work to the Cyber (internet café) down the street. A nice lookin pig too. He smacked it and it made a good blubber sound. Made me wish they made bacon here. (The internet at the office has been down for a week and a half, so I have to go to the Cyber to check my email. Everyone in the office is very frustrated and the internet provider says they're doing maintenance, but the Director's admin assistant says that they're probably having trouble with their supplier.)

As I sat in the Cyber which is on the 2nd storey of a building, I could see him gut the pig. One of those situations that makes me shake my head and think, "Wow, I'm in Africa." Luckily the Cyber is far enough that I couldn't really see too much, just that he was lifting innards out of the pig. I saw him empty out the intestines - and I only know that's what he was doing because I've seen my dad do it to make sausage.

mmm sausage. I could go for some nice italian sausage right about now. I miss Italian food!

A few nights ago I went to Diana's restaurant for a drink with Ludvert, because I wanted an excuse to hang out with Diana a little. She's really cool and owns her own little restaurant, and I think she would be a good person to get to know, except I think I'll have to lose her in the Ludvert divorce.

Anyway, I told her I was hungry and asked her what she could make me since I didn't really know the food they make that well. She asked if I wanted fries! SURE!! And chicken? SURE!! Yay something "normal"!

Fries are fries no matter where you are in the world. Good old trusty fries. The chicken, however, ain't your Maple Leaf chicken breast.

Ladies and gentlemen, chickens have lots of bones! And unless they're from a bountiful canadian farm, they're not very meaty. I had a lot of trouble getting the meat off the bones -- you really have to get your hands dirty when you eat meat here, because the meat is tough and you really have to rip at it with your teeth and your fingers.

On my roadtrip over the weekend we had chicken and fries again, and my colleague's friend Max actually had to help me get the meat off the chicken (with his knife and fork, not his fingers!) because he's more used to it. I acted like I wasn't hungry anymore, and invited him to eat off my plate, and he kept putting all these big pieces of juicy white meat on the side telling me to eat them... YUM! I think I need someone to follow me around and help me eat, cuz there were huge chunks of meat that I would have completely ignored, probably hidden behind a bone.

Another thing they eat are the sheep, which is what I had stuck in under my tooth the other day. Really tough meat, and they only ever serve it in small chunks and sometimes the chunks are all bone and fat. There are no steaks here. I very, very rarely see beef on the menu. One restaurant had burgers, and I ordered one, but they had pre-made patties that they heated in a toaster-oven. Mmm.

Along the road to Allada where the ladies sell the food, one lady had this weird BBQed rodent meat. Made me realize that the food here actually LOOKS like what it is. The chicken gets served with the ribcage and when you order the fish, you get the whole fish, and when you want fish sauce, you're sure to have a head in there too.

It made me realize how disconnected we are from the food we eat. The chicken is force fed to be huge and flavourful, with a little MSG for some added umph. We buy baby carrots in resealable bags... all they are are big carrots cut down and blanched so that they stay nice and orange. Who needs reality when you can have carrots from Mexico?

Everything here is fresh and "organic", except maybe the rice. The rice is always crappy white rice, which is surprising. It's not like they have rice farms or anything, and rice is cheap (thanks China!)(then again, what do i know, maybe they do grow it here) so I guess it's not that surprising. They eat more pâte which is yams or maïs pounded into a flour with water added to make a gunky gelatinous paste. Root veggies seem to grow well here. Carrots, yams, potatoes, corn (not that corn is a root veggie, but they seem to have a lot of it).

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to say that eating chicken here actually makes me think about the chicken I'm eating and that it once had a life. It's not something I thought of back home.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

2009-02-12T12:35:00.000-08:00

I got into some really interesting discussions about garbage during my trip on Saturday. The guys kept throwing stuff out the car window and it was driving me nuts. I couldn't hold back and kept telling them not to do it. It really got me thinking about garbage and how we deal with it.

There is litter and garbage everywhere here. Sometimes in piles, sometimes just randomly strewn around. Some yards are very tidy, and next door there will be something under construction/on-hiatus-until-there-is-more-money that is completely covered in litter.

I'm not sure if they do garbage collection here. I'm starting to have a bit of garbage collecting in my house and wondering what I'm going to do with it. I'll have to go see Mme Caroline at the corner store to ask her how it works. I think a lot of people just burn their garbage, but there must be a collection of some sort.

When I scolded Roger for not having garbage bins around his restaurant at the beach, he said that when people buy garbages they get stolen. A lame excuse, I think, since you can always chain the garbage to something.

I started to wonder why the garbage was making me so upset. Sure it's unsightly, sure it could be more tidy in a nice garbage bag... but I realized that we are no more noble because we are tidy. The garbage always ends up somewhere. Just because we stow it away in a dump, or (sigh) in the ocean, doesn't mean we aren't just as bad.

Our street-cleaners and garbage collection services give us the illusion that we aren't polluting the planet. One trip to the Dollar Store should be enough to realize that we are far worse than any African village. Imagine a store like Walmart or Costco and then imagine them in the garbage, then imagine all the Walmarts and Costcos in Ontario, in Canada, in the US.

Where does it all go?? Nowhere. Years and years of consumerism is piling up in our dumps. So much so we don't know where to put it anymore. We incinerate some, we recycle others, but both those processes pollute the planet. Why companies don't bother to even try to make bio-degradable products is beyond me. Cost-effectiveness means nothing if there's no planet for you to sell your products on.

There's a Lebanese restaurant in Toronto off Yonge street a couple streets south of Bloor (on Hayden I think) that serves all their take-away food in biodegradable containers. Even the forks and knives are bio-degradable, made from corn! Cheers to them.

But there *is* something to be said for tidiness and safety. There is glass and oil and animal guts getting dumped, and children (and adults) running around barefoot. It's not very nice to look at, either. There's something soothing about a tidy environment, something unsettling about having garbage and disorder everywhere. Makes you wonder what it is about our brain chemistry that makes us feel that way.

Anyway, I just thought it was funny that I took garbage collection for granted. Toronto's so clean, I've often walked around barefoot after a night of wearing heels to go out. And anyone who's walked down Church or Yonge Street the day after the Pride parade knows that the city's clean-up crew are miracle workers, though nothing gets rid of that beer stank right away.

People who work with garbage are my heroes... I certainly don't want to have to deal with it. Bless them!!

(update: a non-government organization or NGO picks up the garbage in my neighbourhood. there's a big concrete bin at the end of my street where everyone puts their garbage. i can empty my garbage now!)

What Do You Mean, "This Is The Bathroom"??

2009-02-12T12:27:00.000-08:00

If I didn't have a proper toilet at home, I think my bladder would explode. This might fall into the "too much information" category, but I can't pee squatting. I guess there are muscles you need to relax when you pee that I just can't relax when I'm squatting. Or maybe it's the unusual environments I find myself in.

They're very laid-back when it comes to bodily functions here. When I was on the beach with Ouade and his sister Yasmine, we were walking towards the water when the little girl just squatted, moved her underwear to the side and peed right there on the beach without a second thought. !!

You really have to watch where you put your hands here, because nothing is really sanitary! I certainly realize how often I (used to) touch my face. No more of that. And I wash my hands at every opportunity.

You see men peeing on the side of the road all the time. Really makes you wonder what the women do when they have their period.

Last Sunday, after a day of drinking beer at the beach, I asked Roger if he could show me to the toilet, "Tu dois uriner?" Yes, I have to urinate. He brought me to the back of the restaurant where there was a kind of alcove with a concrete floor and a drain at one end. No door, no curtain, just 3 walls and a drain.

Um, do you have a real toilet?

Not understanding what I meant, he brought me to his house a block away where I met his dad, and he showed me to their bathroom. Same thing! A freaking hole in the floor! The beach bathroom was better than this one, but I wasn't going to say anything. So I peed a little bit, but couldn't really deal with being there too long, knowing that he was waiting for me outside. Happily I had kleenex with me in my bag and I was wearing a skirt, because otherwise it would all have been too much for me to handle. I admit I threw the kleenex on the ground when we made our way back to the beach because of course there was no where for me to get rid of the paper. I really don't want to know how they wipe. Really.

Later, Lud took me to Diana's to meet some of his friends and I thought, OH! There's gotta be a bathroom here. So I asked her where the toilet was and she pointed to an alcove right off the front patio. I walked in and again, an empty space with a drain in the corner. NOOO!! So I peed a little bit more and put my kleenex in an empty bucket on the ground. The bucket is normally full of water to throw on the ground when you're done, but it was empty so I used it to throw out my kleenex. There was a sink at the exit which I used to thoroughly wash my hands.

At work, the toilet closest to my office has a seat that broke off and is just sitting behind the toilet, so everytime I go I have to put the seat on. I had to clean it off cuz it was dusty and had cobwebs. The other toilets don't have seats. They all have toilet paper, soap and towels to wash your hands, which is great!

I am so not made for this. But I suppose I am. Humans went for a really really long time without sit-down toilets. I'm really glad I haven't gotten a bad case of diarrhea while I've been away from home! I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHERE THEY POO!!

I guess I'll have to practice squat-peeing at home. I have never felt so priveledged/spoiled/suburban. As if I don't know how to pee without sitting down!! What kind of human being am I?

Another thing I took for granted: I flush the toilet, my excrements magically disappear and I don't have to worry about them anymore.

Here the toilets gurgle when you run water in the kitchen sink and when someone flushes upstairs the toilet gurgles downstairs, really driving home the fact that all the plumbing is connected.

Like the garbage though - where does it all go? To a magic poo hell in the depths of the Earth? Honestly, I don't want to know where and if they treat the water here once it's flushed. I'll leave it to the poo gods and hope that when rainy season comes I don't get any drainage surprises.

Take Me Dancing

2009-02-11T06:12:00.002-08:00

Upon my return from Bohicon on Saturday night, I called Ludvert to make sure we were still going dancing. "Do you want to go just the 2 of us, or do you want me to invite my friends." OH MY GOD INVITE YOUR FRIENDS. (I had to have a little chat with him that night about my not being interested in him, because it was getting to be too much and he really wasn't taking a hint. I made it abundantly clear, but he still kept trying - but that was much later in the night.)

He came to get me around 11pm and we went to Diana's restaurant where a few of his friends were drinking some "eau de palme" which I could compare to Canadian Eau de Vie -- really strong booze that could probably double for rubbing alcohol. They soak herbs in it for flavour. Tasted awful but certainly woke me up.

After Diana closed up her shop we went to her boyfriend's house so she could change and then we all piled into his car and drove off to a club where there was some live music.

The music was so awesome! I wished Gordon was there, cuz he really woulda gotten a kick out of it. It was Beninese music, except it was salsa! The Motherland truly is the motherland of everything. I keep forgetting that slaves were brought throughout South and North America, and Spain, Portugal... and they brought their music with them. One of Lud's friends Mathieu said that the Spanish and Portuguese made the salsa dance and music better... different perhaps? Not necessarily better!

So it was me, Diana, and 6 guys. The boys were all dancing like crazy, loving every minute of it. They certainly aren't as prudish as the boys back home, girating and moving their hips, and dancing with each other. I've never seen guys dance like that and I've seen a lot of guys (gay, straight, black, white) dance.

We left that bar around 2am and went to another place where there was supposed to be "techno". We didn't end up going inside, but instead left for another club near the airport.

There were a lot of white people there. The bar is owned by a Lebanese dude -- apparently there are a lot of Lebanese people in Benin. The music was pretty crappy (very top 40 house music with some traditional tunes thrown in for good measure -- oh! there was a remix of Aline! "Et j'ai crier, crier! ALINE! pour qu'elle revienne..."), but the company was fun.

I found the DJ booth and was happy to see that they have CDJs. I'll try to go again this weekend, perhaps even alone, to see if I can talk to a manager or the owner. I don't necessarily want to spin when they're open, I just want to be able to use their CDJs to get some practice in and hear some good beats every once in a while. Then again, who knows. Maybe upon hearing that I'm a promoter from Toronto, they might be interested in some business. Guess it depends on whether or not they know anything about the scene.

This is where the night went sideways, and annoyingly so, but awesome in another way. We all piled back into José's car (Diana's boyfriend) and they were all speaking Fon and I was just staring out the window so I missed the actual conversation. I *think* José offered to drive me straight home, since the club is just on the other side of the airport and pretty close to my house, but instead Lud insisted that they go get his motorbike at José's on the other side of town, have his friend Zee drive the motorbike back to Lud's house (they live next door to each other) which is just outside of the city and then Lud would drive me home on his motorbike.

Of course no one told me what the f#*k was going on and only said that we had to make "a stop". We sat waiting at José's when Lud explained that they could've driven me home but didn't and that we had to go somewhere else before I went home. Already, not impressed.

When we got to Lud's house I had to get angry because I didn't understand what was happening and suddenly José was driving off, leaving me in some far off place with a boy I didn't want to have to spend any more time with.

I had to be stern and express my anger, "mais QU'EST-CE QUI SE PASSE? On est OÙ?" Which is when I realized that Lud had gone to great lengths to be able to show me his house and then drive me back to my house when I could already have been in bed. I scolded him and his friend - "you have to WARN a girl before you take her to some strange place outside of town." Neither of them had thought of it, and Zee agreed with me. Lud was probably upset that I wasn't happy to be at his house.

By now it was 5:30am and I was mad. I was tired and confused and felt like I was being taken advantage of because I didn't speak their language.

Not only that, but he was about to abandon me to sit in his waiting room/living room while he went on his motorbike to drop off his friend Zee next door (next door is around the block and down the street... we were kind of in the country or a suburb).

So he let me inside the house and introduced me to his brother, although you never really know if "brother" means "brother" here, or if it means cousin or best friend.

I felt really out of place, but his brother was really good looking in a 17 year-old kind of way, and he didn't sit with me and force me to have a conversation with him, so that was good.

I asked for a glass of water, and then realized they probably just gave me tap water, so I just had a couple sips and put the glass down - I didn't want to get sick.

Lud came back and said he had to change because he had to go to the sports arena to play some soccer at 7am. All I wanted to do was go home and go to bed, and again he was being annoyingly lovey towards me, despite our "conversation" where I blatantly told him I was not at all interested in anything.

He invited me into his room to chat with him while he got ready, and I politely declined, saying it was too hot to be indoors and that I would wait in the courtyard to get some air.

I wish words could adequately describe the beauty and awesomeness of the scene I witnessed when I walked into the courtyard... let me try to paint the picture:

It's 5:45am and still really dark outside. The whole first floor is one big open concrete room with concrete floors, part of it covered like a garage, with the rest of the house on top of it, and the rest of the yard has no roof but is completely fenced in with tall grey concrete walls. In the middle of the open-air section is a well made of stones and concrete and beside the well is a large metal basin that they carry water in - I've seen many women put those basins on their heads to walk from the well to their houses.

In the garage there are a couple large wooden tables and 10-15 wooden chairs, and it reminds me a lot of my grandpa's mechanic garage. There are a few blackboards with writing on the walls, but I didn't have the time and felt too out-of-place to do any inspecting of what they were. There are short but long wooden shelving units along the walls with a lot of jars in them. The whole place is lite with bright orangey fluorescent lights, so I can't see the stars from the courtyard.

I went to leave Lud's room when I saw that someone was in the courtyard, standing at the well and it wasn't his 17 year-old brother. Not wanting to meet ANOTHER one of his family members, especially not at 6am when I haven't slept, I stood back. It was so quiet, all I could hear was the sound of the pulley at the well and when I looked, I saw a youngish fit shirtless black man in an ankle-length green sarong with one leg braced against the well, pulling hard on the rope to get the water up, using every single muscle in his back, shoulders and arms. Then, from the yard next door, a rooster crowed. And again. And again.

Good morning Maria, you're in Africa.
Holy shit, I'm in Africa.

I immediately ran back into the waiting room so I could write down a note. I didn't want to forget the moment, it was so surreal and beautiful.

Finally Lud came out of his room proclaiming that he couldn't find the tuque he wears to drive his motorcycle. Did I steal it? Or put it somewhere? Oh Maria, what did you do with it? Haha.

I could have punched him, and I'm sure I didn't look impressed. Stop with the excuses. "Just take me home, I'm exhausted." And then on the motorbike... Are you holding on tight? Are you sure? -- I am NOT holding on to you. I'm fine!

The road from his house back to the highway was a dirt road and again made me freak - I'm in Africa. Quite a few people were making their way to church - it was 6am, time to pray. The scenery near his house was beautiful, and I thanked life for having an upside to this annoying situation.

I was pretty nervous at him driving down this sandy road on a motorcycle, but he said, "N'ait pas peur, je suis désert" (don't be afraid, I am desert). The boy does have a way with words.

It's pretty fun to drive around on a motorcycle - fun to be a passenger since I can look around in awe at the scenery. If/when I decide to get my own bike I'll have to keep my eyes on the road and it probably will feel more terrifying than fun (at first)!

I was still afraid though. Obviously he was still trying to convince me of how cool he was and I was sure he would try to impress me with his driving skills.

When he proclaimed that he could make the motorcycle fly, I put my foot down and asked him to cool it. He could show me how fast his motorcycle can go another day, when I've had some sleep (ie: NEVER). Still, a little while later I had to ask him to slow down, which seemed to frustrate him since he thought I was perfectly safe.

When we got to my street he said it was my turn to drive, which would have been super fun at any other time and with any other person. But I realized that finally I'd be in the driver's seat, literally, and was excited to get my ass home. Of course now it meant he got to sit behind me and "help me drive" which made the experience even more uncomfortable. He wasn't a very good teacher and I was a very impatient student, but luckily we were only a minute away from my house.

I gave it too much gas and had trouble gearing up (like I said, he wasn't a very good teacher - "press down on that pedal" isn't an instruction I can follow. WHICH pedal? That pedal. WHICH??! grrr!!!!) but we made it without my stalling it. Except then I didn't know where the break was and tried to stop it like a bike by putting my feet on the ground - which doesn't really work for a motorcycle!! Handbreak Maria! Handbreak!

Well, the next day we went out again because he was going to bring me to a store where I could buy a USB internet key for my laptop and then we were going to go to the beach, except the store was closed, "oh I guess they close at noon on Sundays," he said knowingly. Again, I was NOT impressed - and then he parked his bike infront of his cousin's place without telling me where we were going or who I was about to meet, which pissed me off.

This guy wasn't winning any brownie points with me.

Finally some of his friends showed up and we all headed for the beach. He was getting more and more possessive as he could see how disinterested and angry I was getting with him, at which point I really had to have another conversation with him and then he kept getting progressively more upset with me, which has led me to understand that we can't be friends.

I also had the same conversation with Roger, who also persisted and asked if he could come home with me!!! WTF!! no!

Maybe I'll get a new SIM card and change my phone number. Isn't that horrible? I'm so mean!! (But it really is the perfect/easiest solution to my boy troubles!)

Everyone comes into your life for a reason. Lud has taught me that even though someone can give you everything you want, doesn't mean you have to take them up on it.

You can't always take the first offer that comes your way, no matter how good it is. Sometimes the strings attached will choke you!

So Much to Say

2009-02-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

I have so much to write about I don't know where to begin. Too much even. I hope things start to become "normal" soon... it's all so inspiring/crazy and I want to tell you everything!

First I guess I'll write about what's most on my mind: the fact that I'm really going to have to find new friends. At first it was cute that both Roger and Ludvert were so smitten, but now it's very annoying and tiresome and puts me ill-at-ease. Despite trying to be nice and even not-so-nice about the fact that I am NOT the love of their lives and indeed not even attracted to them, they persist and insist and it's getting to be too much. I guess they think I need convincing? What I need is to get away from them!

It's a real shame though, Lud's cousin invited me to attend a voodoo funeral (his wife's 95 year-old father died... 95 year old FATHER? She can't be more than 30...) and Cérémonie des revenants (a ceremony where the dead come back to life). Apparently the father was really high up in the voodoo priest world, so it will be quite the party, but I can't imagine having to spend an entire weekend with Lud and his family bugging me to make beninese babies with him. There's nothing worse than a guy you're not attracted to trying to be possessive of you around his friends and family. Gross!!

So I guess I'm gonna have to go back to the friend drawing-board. I'm trying to think of opportunities where I could meet some cool and fun people. In Toronto I met a lot of friends clubbing, so perhaps there would be the same opportunity here. I also hope to catch some concerts or art shows. I'll have to ask if there's any college newspapers to find some student art shows or something. Maybe some theatre. Again, going places when there are no street names is hard. I have to depend on people to get around and it's pretty frustrating. I need to buy a map of Cotonou!

I have no choice but to be patient and hope things will just work themselves out. I've only been here 2 weeks and it feels like I've been here forever.

So, otherwise, my weekend was jam packed with crazy experiences. I'M IN AFRICA!!! and sometimes it's unbelievably surreal.

Friday, I went with my colleague Jean and his best friend Max to their hometown of Bohicon and Abomey. They said they wanted to take me to do a little tourism. What they didn't tell me was that we were in fact going to visit a bunch of their friends and family and that they were going to their hometown to attend a party at a funeral -- this omission almost made me cry when we arrived at the party and everyone was all dressed up. I was wearing a tank top and a pair of jeans!! I was SO MAD. I couldn't believe they didn't tell me we'd be going to an event like this. I scolded my colleague for not telling me and tried to hold back my tears. Everything is intense here and my eyes well up at the smallest thing.

They kept assuring me that what I was wearing was fine. Apparently white people can get away with wearing whatever they want, but I felt so rude and disrespectful - I wanted to hide in the car. I could just imagine my grandma looking down on me from above being ashamed of her granddaughter showing up to a funeral dressed inappropriately.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm a girl or if it's because I'm a guest that they don't tell me anything, but it's getting frustrating. The men keep taking me places without saying where we're going, or keep making pit-stops without saying that we're making pit stops. So I think we're going to one place and we end up in another, and suddenly I'm meeting entire families of people with no time to prep my brain for what I'm about to encounter. It's very disconcerting. And when I ask where we're going or what we're doing, they act as if I don't need to know and that it's funny that I'm even asking. Don't I trust them?

It's not a question of trust, dumb ass, it's a question of MAKING ME FEEL COMFORTABLE. I'm in a new country, far from everything I know. I don't have a clue what's going on half the time, and the other half of the time they're speaking Fon and then I really don't have a clue. So I guess I don't have a clue 100% of the time. Bah!

They just go with the flow here, so pit-stops and deviations from the original plan occur often without anyone seeming to mind. It's amazing anything gets done.

So I barely got to do any tourism. A highlite of my trip was my colleague's friend Eric (hilarious dude who kept singing along to the tunes and telling me what they meant; he reminded me of Jayski because of his sense of humour and his belly, but less scrapey! And he didn't hit on me, except jokingly, which was great!) who came out of his hotel room in the morning wearing his boxers and a white tank top, drinking a glass of whiskey (the men here drink ALL the time - drinking and driving is not an issue, it's pretty scary). I told him jokingly/not jokingly to put some pants on, but he didn't. Then later when he asked me why I didn't hang out with them while they were drinking, I said it was because he wasn't wearing any pants. He got all dressed up in traditional clothes for the funeral (not that I knew until we got there that that's why everyone was so dressed up) and he looked very dapper.

For lunch we went to Max's aunt's house. She made pâte with a veggie/fish/fried cheese sauce.

I ate with my fingers! It was delish and his aunt was very nice.

I also met this amazingly nice woman named Elizabeth. She was so kind and hugged me like we had known each other forever. At the funeral party she had a little bundle strapped to her back, the granddaughter of the lady who had died, apparently. She had this great big headdress too. I wanted to ask her how she got it to stand up like that, but I barely saw her at the funeral. Hopefully I'll get another chance to see her. I didn't get her picture.

At the funeral party, everyone was eating and talking and drinking -- just like Italians in a church basement. Except at one point all the women in this one section broke into song. I wasn't sure why and didn't ask, but it was really cool.

I asked to use the bathroom and the girl brought me to a bedroom that had a bathroom off the side. There was no door to the bathroom and the toilet had no seat (the toilets never have seats, if there's a toilet at all), and I just couldn't go. Never mind that a lady walked in when I was trying to go.

The kids are always so fascinated by me. Yovo! Yovo! I had my big round sunglasses on, and this little boy at the funeral party was staring at me, so I smiled at him and pulled my sunglasses down and winked. He freaked out and went to tell his friends, and when he came back I did it again. He was so excited, it was adorable.

Did a wee bit of tourism I suppose. We did stop to see the statue of one of the great kings of Abomey. He refused to sign a treaty with the French saying that it compromised his people's independance. They say he was a huge man and the statue certainly shows that he was massive. I realized that there are very few statues of black people, that I'm aware of.

The roads here are brutal. There are so many potholes! And where the roads are new, there are tons of speed bumps -- way too many. So many in fact that my colleague's muffler fell off in Bohicon. I got to experience a Beninese mechanic shop! The work progressed slowly and everytime we came back to see if he was done, the mechanic needed some money to buy another part. Imagine: show up at the repair shop, and when you come back, the mechanic says, I have to buy this part, but you need to give me the money so I can go buy it.

And of course there are roosters and chickens walking around.

The drive back was long, and we kept stopping, because apparently that's what the Beninese do. There are ladies selling fruit, nuts, anything and everything along the side of the road in certain areas. When we got to Allada we stopped and the ladies rushed our car selling pineapples, bananas, plantains, nuts...

It's really amazing what they manage to carry on their heads. Even the children carry really heavy loads on their heads. I didn't realize our heads were so strong!!

I bought some peanuts and my friends warned me that peanuts give you zits. I wonder if their nuts are much oilier than ours and I guess we'll see. They're really good. Wish they made peanut butter!

They were also selling these little snack-bags of boiled corn and boiled peanuts!! Boiled peanuts are delicious!! Apparently you just boil them in some salt water until they're a little soft and then allow them to cool down... delicious!

When the boys were finished with their shopping we continued to make our way back to Cotonou. We stopped at a bar where one of the children saw me and put his hand out like he was begging for change. Another saw the little red ball I have on my bag and said, "cadeau?" (present?). I'd never seen the children beg before. To be fair, the boy who was begging for change looked like he was immitating something he had seen someone else do, to see if it would work. He didn't look very sure of himself. I didn't give him any change, even if 10 cents would have meant the world to him. I'm not sure what I should do in those circumstances. I'm very torn.

In Cotonou the children are more used to seeing the occasional white person and those who live along the beach will ask for a 100 francs or a gift, "Yovo! 100 Francs?" "Yovo! Cadeau!". But it's certainly not the norm and the children are mostly just excited to see me.

It's really hard to see some of the poorer children. At the bar on the road back from Allada, there was a set of twin boys hanging around, fascinated by me. They must've been 6 or 7 years old. They were adorable and had beautiful smiles, but skinny with big bellies and with the belly button sticking out. The only thing they had on was underwear, dirty from them sitting around.

Everything's covered in red earth and dust. The mother in me wanted to take them home with me and get them some clothes, some shoes, some food and a bath. I took their picture and pray that they will be fine.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, making our way back to Cotonou in the dust. They're rebuilding the highway near Cotonou and the traffic is ridiculous. Some lanes are blocked off, some aren't, and it's basically a free-for-all. The car windshield was so covered in dust we could barely see out of it, and we had no fluid to wash it off!

Apparently they started the construction of the road before making sure they had all their financing in order, so the work has stopped.

I have so much more to talk about... but this is already ridiculously long. More tomorrow.

Superstition ain't the way...

2009-02-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

Maman, ma boss me dit que sa mère a eu 12 enfants!! Mais que seulement 4 ont survécu. Voilà la réalité africaine. Dans le fond, on voit les mêmes phénomènes. Ici, on disait aux mères, "N'entends-tu pas les enfants qui crient dans ton ventre pour sortir? Il faut continuer de les avoirs!!" Ensuite, les générations subséquentes en ont 4 ou 5, ma génération en ont 2 ou 3...

Superstition plays a big part of life here. At least for the older folk. Apparently, my boss' daughter was born bum first, but they never told my boss' mother who would've thought the baby was a witch and probably would've KILLED it. (her daughter is 13 now.)(Georges should come do his good works here instead!!!)

She also told me of a neighbour who has an 18 year old girl. When her teeth started to come in as a baby, she had just one on the top gum. Also a sign that the child is a witch. The child's father, an educated investment banker, would have killed the child had he seen it, so for weeks, when he came home for lunch my boss would take the child and pretend that she was baby-sitting it, and when he came home at night, she would do the same... until the baby had another tooth come in on the bottom. Can you imagine?

I asked, do they just do this for girls? Nope, boys too. No one's immune when it comes to curses and witchcraft. And this was 15 years ago.

Went to Porto Novo today to talk to government officials. More with less, more with less... The electricity went out 5-6 times during my visit, even in the Minister's office. Someone needs to start giving these people solar panels, it hasn't rained since I got here and won't til March.

They're very "Mexican" here... everything is "Yes, yes, of course, tomorrow I'll get that to you." Mañana, mañana...

Going out of town overnight to do some sight seeing. Forget the name of the place, but I'm excited to go! Will take pictures and report back. Poor Ludvert will be crushed. We were supposed to hang out tomorrow during the day and do some shopping. He sent me 4 txts today. :rolleyes: YOUTH!!

Fun Facts: Student to Teacher ratio... and Student Success

2009-02-04T12:24:00.000-08:00

Taken from the 10-year education action plan of the Ministry of Primary and Kindergarten Education (Plan Décennal du Développement du Secteur de l'Éducation du Bénin, Ministère de l'Éducation Maternel et Primaire, octobre 2006)

En 2005, le ratio élèves/maître est passé à 50.

On average, in 2005, in every region of the country, for every teacher, there was 50 students. The AVERAGE. A teacher might have 100 students, might have 20. That teacher may or may not be qualified. That teacher may or may not have a teacher's aid to support them. That teacher may or may not show up for class on any given day. Huh. (And there are many, many, MANY children who aren't even in school.)

In Ontario, we have policies to decrease class sizes (from 35 or 30 to less than 25 or 20 for the younger kids) so that each student can receive individual attention. In Benin, they have to do more with less, and are therefore trying to adapt their pedagogy to maximize the teacher with as many students as possible.

Le problème des écoles en sous effectif d’élèves (classes de moins de 40 élèves/classe) (29%) est plus prégnant que celui des écoles réellement surchargées (au-delà de 70 élèves/classe) (10%) soulignant le caractère perfectible des modes d’organisation scolaire et la sous-utilisation du jumelage des classes, faute de pédagogie adaptée.

The problem of schools with classes with under 40 students (29%) is more important than the problem of classes with over 70 students (10%), underlining the notion that there is room for perfecting the modes of organization in schools and the under-utilization of combined classes (grades 4-5-6 for example), since there is no adapted pedagogy. (forgive my awful translation here.)

At first this shocked me: smaller classes are better! Individualized attention!! Recruit more teachers! Pay them fairly! Get 'er done! Invest! Invest!!

Which is all fine and good, except one must be realistic (thanks to Jenny for pointing this out to me!) ... in Benin, one must do more with less.

Everywhere, we should be trying to do more with less -- being inventive is what got our Canadian society to the comfort level we now know. Going from small rural schools to computerized distance schools where teachers and learning can be shared. It's to the point now, in Northern Ontario, some schools share a principal, and the principal will discipline students via videoconferencing. Use what you got to do what you can.

In Benin, the issues are far more basic. In the Plan Décennal, they state some of the conditions for student success that we all know:
- students succeed better when each student has his or her own book
- students succeed better when the teacher receives training on a regular basis

and logically, we know that, "La qualité des infrastructures, des équipements, la disponibilité des supports didactiques ont également un effet net sur le taux de réussite" (the quality of infrastructure, of the equipment, the availability of didactic support will also have a net effect on the success rate).

Except it also states:
- students succeed better when there is electricity present in the school
- students succeed better when the classes are constructed with concrete walls (as opposed to being open-air)

I had to give my head a shake, didn't you?

Another major aspect that seems to influence student success is the proximity of the school to the school board. I wonder if we can draw the same conclusion in Ontario. Makes sense! The closer you are to the school board, the easier it is to get face time with pedagogical counselors, board directors, and the clearer the messages are.

Benin is developing policies to improve education in their country, but as in Ontario, you can develop as many policies as you want, but if the inspectors and pedagogical counselors are not trained in monitoring, evaluating, and supporting the teachers in the implementation of policies, or if no one monitors the implementation at all (or only monitors it half-assed), then you can never know if your policy is 1) being properly implemented in every school, or 2) successful until it either fails miserably or you notice great gains in student standardized-test results (and hope that it's remarkable enough that you can credit the appropriate policy change).

More fun facts from the Plan Décennal:
- more than half of all children who go to school leave before grade 6 (talk about a drop-out rate!!)
- half the teachers are not qualified (and they still need many more)
- great progress has been recorded in girls' education (yay!)

Alright - I have to get to bed. I'll end this entry on that high note. More girls in school! More girls in school!!!

You can stand under my umber-ella

2009-02-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

NOTE TO ALL READERS: there's a comment section in the blog for a reason -- interaction. I'm all alone over here folks! Leave anonymous comments if you want, if something shocked you about what I wrote, or if you think I talk too much (not much to do in the evenings here... no CSI to keep me busy...) :P ... ask me questions if you're curious about anything and I'll try to answer. My dad is reading, so be nice. ;)

So, I'm realizing that the kids here don't seem to play with toys at all. Even those families with a little money, the kids don't seem to play with much. I guess that culturally, they just don't play? I don't want to say that they're not raising their kids properly, since I've met tons of awesome adults who grew up here... more investigation is necessary.

I think back to Christmas with my niece Elbie and nephew Buddy, or the time I spent with little Ollie B and all the toys kids in North America have, no matter how poor the parents are. A ridiculous amount of toys, so many that they'll never play with them all. I remember the basement full of toys my cousins used to have and wonder where those toys went.

So the babies just sit there without even a rattle or a set of keys to distract them. Dzzt. BOORING! And I have no idea what the older kids do for fun. I know that some of them work, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. The girls also help out their mothers at quite a young age, getting water from the well, taking care of their siblings, cleaning, etc.

The child-work thing is weird. Having a 10 year-old come up to your car window selling gum, pens, and other random items at 11pm on a Monday... he/she'll be there til late at night and go to school the next morning. I know university students who complain when they have to work that kind of schedule.

No one sleeps here. There are a lot of patios and bars to go to if you're not working late. "Cotonou by night," the boys I work with joke. I guess when it's 30°C at night, no one feels much like sleeping indoors. I have air-con, but it's a luxury they installed for me because I'm white and I'm a wuss. But seeing kids running around after each other in the streets at 10pm and having no one around seem concerned - it's just weird. "Mom I'm going to Billy's!"

Then again, everyone's the same. I believe it more and more. Just because we don't see the kids running around outside, doesn't mean there aren't tons of kids running around at crazy hours in the night, not getting enough sleep, in Canada. And they have warm/cool homes, lots of food to eat, and don't have to work to pay the bills (at least I hope they don't).

Today we visited my colleague who lost his wife. Before we visited with the widower, my colleagues warned me not to cry infront of him (I can't help it, someone talks about someone they love dying and my mind automatically goes to Brenda and I can't help but realize how much pain that person must be in!!).

I asked Brenda to help me not to cry, and I didn't!! I was proud of myself, but it helped that he wasn't crying. There was a very dark cloud over his head though. I even smiled a lot, which I hope was a comfort - my colleagues may have warned me not to cry, but they had really long faces and heavy shoulders, and that's no help.

He's staying at his brother's because he can't sleep in his bed, and his kids are staying with a friend of the family's, a lady from his church. The kids must be wondering what the eff is going on.

They haven't told the kids yet, they're all under the age of 7... we went to visit the kids afterwards. Such cute kids. The oldest girl had these awesome spikey tresses with different coloured elastics. I told her I liked her hair and she smiled, shyly.

They must be wondering why random people are coming to see them, why they're not in school, where their mother is, why their father is only coming to visit sporadically. I know that they know - they're kids, they're not stupid. I'm not sure what I would do in his place, but they say that they normally tell the children at the burial, so that the child can visually understand that their parent is dead and then they tell them that they should put a bit of dirt on the tomb. Sounds traumatizing to me, but I've never had to bury a parent :grateful moment: ... I leave it to their experience and trust in their knowledge.

My colleagues are really trying to tell him that his focus must be on his children, and how they will be taken care of now that their mother is gone. They talked to him very clearly that they, together with him, will examine all his options and with their support they will come to a solution on how best to care for the kids.

One thing was clear, they need their dad in their life, so that the separation isn't too intense. The widower must have courage, and not let himself get into a deep depression. The boss lady actually told him, "don't commit suicide." Gee. Don't mince words or anything. It was an admirable discussion. I really admire my boss lady.

The weekend was awesome and rough all at the same time. Knowing that my friends were partying it up without me was H A R D ! ! ! Hector Moralez! Jason Hodges! Loopity Goofs, Gerard, Pepe... sigh... I won't get to hear my friends spin for months and months. It's almost as bad as knowing I won't get to eat peanut butter for 5 months (and you know I luuuuv my peanut butter)!!

I saw pictures on Facebook today and my girl Joanne brought a picture of me to the party and snapped me with all my peeps!! It was so awesome! (Jean-Guy, Nick B, you have to check Facebook, she used a Maria-Eating-Picture!! LOL!!!!)

The awesome part of my weekend was, of course, the beach. I managed to sit alone for all of 20 minutes, watching the waves roll in and out. I can sit and watch waves for hours - it's way better than TV. I can amuse myself by watching the rhythm, watching the waves get bigger and roll over, smaller and smoothe, watching them cross and how they hit the shore. There are also lots and lots of little crabs on the beach! :scuttle scuttle scuttle: cute! A few sea shells, but, uh, nothing to write home about. Even though I am.

So after my 20 minutes, a young man named Ludvert asked if he'd be a bother if he sat with me "pour discuter un peu". Apparently he was named for an American army buddy of his dad's. He's 22 and wants to move to Chicago in the summer to study accounting (to do his masters), or to Montreal where his brother is studying law. He wants to practice his English with me... but his English is reeeally bad.

I think he has a bit of a crush on me. I guess Roger, the dude who owns the beach bar, has dibs on me, but neither of them have managed to woo me yet (or ever, if my meh-ness is correct). (Update: Ludvert just brought me this tacky ceramic angel as a gift. He called and said, "I got you a present, can I bring it?" Very cute. He's a smart kid. I enjoy talking philosophy with him, and apparently he likes to go dancing and loves music, so I think we'll get along just fine. Plus he has a motorbike, so he can take me places, or teach me to ride when/if I decide to get one.) (Actually, come to think of it, Roger called to say that he bought me a present too... but I think he got some garbage bins for his bar as a present to me because I keep complaining of the garbage on the beach. That would be awesome! There's a retarded lack of garbage bins on the beach -- it's criminal.)

My brain is so filled with the enormity of the task before me at work, that boys are the last thing on my mind -- I really need to make some girlfriends pronto so that I don't really have to deal with boys at all, but girls don't seem to be around half as much as boys. Ludvert says that they're at home helping their mothers with the household - they're home doing shit because their mothers are tired since they've been doing it since they were 10 and then when the girls are old enough, the mamas stop doing anything and leave it all to their daughters, and the guys are kind of left to their own devices. I see a few ladies around and I really need to make more of an effort to talk to them.

But the boys I've met are all very nice and not at all threatening, and they have lots of fun and interesting friends to chat with, namely a big Nigerian dude who speaks English (DTJB just asked me in an email if I was speaking English at all and until I met him I hadn't!) and another kid who's really into Jay-Z.

The Umbrella song came on the speakers at Roger's bar when I was there with Ludvert and his friend, and I told them what the lyrics meant. So funny, they had no idea.

You can stand under my umber-ella-ella-ella eh eh ;)

Random Entry, Things I Forgot to Pack (aka the Golden Floss)

2009-02-02T17:07:00.000-08:00

I forgot to pack dental floss. I have a tooth ache and figured out I'd gotten food stuck between my teeth. I think it's pork... it must be. Anyway, they serve this dish with a small piece of pork, and it's really tough and you kinda have to rip it apart with your fingers and then chew like crazy and you get tons of stuff stuck in your teeth... I'm really not used to it!

I'm hoping that when I ask them if they know what "de la soie dentaire" is, they won't stare at me blankly. I used the string from a tea bag... lol - necessity, right? As I was walking to the bathroom with my little tea bag string, I thought to myself, "this might be the best or the worst idea you've ever had."

Well, it worked, and I dislodged the chunk of whatever-it-was from under my tooth, then rinsed my mouth out properly with salt water, to disinfect, and I'll keep disinfecting every hour, and see how it feels in the morning. Hopefully I can find floss on my way home from work tonight so I can clean my teeth properly every day. This is not a place I want to have a dental emergency...

update: yup, I got the blank stare. My colleague suggested we hit a pharmacy, and the first pharmacy suggested we hit the mother-pharmacy. So we went... :( I had to pay $10 for freaking dental floss. But I got pizza for dinner so I feel happy again. :)

Week One: I'm being a big baby today, missing my friends!

2009-02-01T03:37:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I've only been here ONE week.

I miss home, miss my friends, miss Toronto. I miss:
- having a Starbucks on the corner
- a GROCERY STORE on the corner (I hope to find one nearby today, it's my mission, for breakfast I had to hit up a street vendor who was selling rice with a chicken wing and a piece of meat-something -- pork maybe? in this spicy-ish sauce and a baguette which cost me 450CFA or 85cents -- because all i have at home is gross gross Wonder-type bread that's too sweet and kinda tastes like soap)
- a 7/11
- a washing machine
- a TV with more than 4 channels
- an awesome internet connection at home
- peeps i can call up whenever i want to (and talk to for more than 20 minutes without it costing me $10)
- being able to cross the street without reciting a Hail Mary
- Toby! ;)
- RUNNING WATER FOR CHRISSAKE!!! apparently the owner is coming Monday with the plumber. geebus.
- a toilet that flushes properly and doesn't gurgle (now i know why my co-workers were saying i should get air freshner for the bathroom... eesh!)
- a shower
- i miss knowing where i'm going at all times... not knowing where i am is disconcerting to say the least!

... ok, enough missing, i'm taking my ipod and hitting the beach. apparently Sunday's the big beach day, everyone comes in from out of town.

when i went to the beach yesterday, this dude Roger (the fact that they all have French names is so weird, cuz it's like Roger Abolomo or something...) started to talk to me (African men... luckily they're very nice) and showed me the business he started, a small bar on the beach. He's got big plans and kept making fun of me and calling me Yovo and making fun of how i pronounced the name of the neighbourhood i live in. Jack-ass!! So I made fun of him back. His friend Richard was really interested in hearing about Canada, and I was very happy to talk all about it. He asked if it was hard to get a bursary to study in Canada... but I have no idea.

I rode a motorbike taxi (they're called Zim) and lived to tell the tale!!!!!!!! It's actually not that scary... I just try to find a bike that looks like it's in good condition, and a driver who looks nice. LOL - cuz who needs a helmet when you look like a good driver?? (says the girl who always wears her seatbelt when she gets into a cab...)

Ok, enough. I'm getting out into the heat and sunshine.

"Let the rhythm take you where you want to be...
Let your troubles all go by...
Release the pressure from your inner life...
Just get your groove on... lose track of time..."

Hope my friends all shook a leg for me last night. I was SO there with all of you.

There's a first time for everything

2009-01-29T21:05:00.000-08:00

A lot of firsts this week. Last night Jean took me to try to get money at a bank machine. The thing is, they have bank machines for Visa cards, and I don't have a pin number for mine. Shit. I'll have to call or email the bank to see what they can do. A lady Jean knows who works for a bank says that the bank in Canada can transfer funds to an account in Cotonou. Either that or my dad will have to send me money through Western Union - there's a ton of those here. (update: found a bank machine at the Novotel Hotel.)

So, last night, on the way back from banking, Jean stopped the car on the side of the road because there was a coconut stand and I had mentioned that I'd never had a fresh coconut. They chop the top with a machete and stick a straw in it.

It wasn't as sweet as I'd expected, but apparently there are different varieties, which makes sense. When you're done drinking, they chop it open and give you a hard part of the shell to use as a kind of spoon to eat the mushy inside part. It was gooey and kinda gross, but not un-delicious.

I'd have it again, unlike the pinapple I had to eat this afternoon... I feel bad because it was fresh picked and I should think that it was delicious, but it just wasn't. I'm sorry!! I'll save the 2 that Jean gave me to have on pizza... although I may give one to a neighbour... I'll never eat 2!

My god this week was so action packed I don't know where to begin. On Tuesday they took me to Porto Novo to meet with some Gov officials. A combination of boring and nerve-wracking, cuz, well, they're government officials. You get what I'm sayin? Porto Novo is a cool town, I'll spend more time there and hopefully get to know the town a bit more.

Everything here is littered. I keep catching Jean throwing shit out the car window, even though he agrees that it's gross and unnecessary. "Did you just throw your can of Coke out the window??" :head slap:

I guess it's just not a big deal to them. I put a little plastic bag in his car to avoid him throwing stuff out the window... he looked at me the next time he finished using a napkin and rolled the window down to throw it out. He smiled, rolled the window back and used the bag. We had a good laugh. There's hope for him yet.

Benin is one giant Capacity Building seminar. They need classes on how to do everything. They're uber-eager and very very capable, and their mistakes are totally ignorance-based. I REALLY want to try and find a rake so that the next time I go to the beach I can rake up some crap.

They have the hugest beach I've ever seen and it's covered in litter - including broken glass (won't anyone think of the children??). Of course, the area where the waves roll in is completely fine... The problem is that there are no garbage cans, no infrastructure in place to take care of these things. So garbage lines the streets, the beach...

Today Jean (he's an awesome guy, I'm glad there are people like him in the world) took me to a "manifestation", which in my French means "protest" but in his French means "ceremony"!!

Anyway, it was a graduation ceremony for a career college. They asked me to participate in the ceremony and give one of the students their new sewing machine as they were graduating from the tailoring class and some students who qualified under specific criteria got equipment to use. They asked me to make a little speech, introduce myself, etc. and shake hands with the dude and give him his new kit. Another colleague said he saw me on TV that night! I was sitting in the front row and shiz was going down right in front of me - I'm almost famous! It was cool.

Actually, it was not cool at all, it was boiling hot and in an area of the country that was very open and dusty. I came home very very dirty only to find that... I HAD NO WATER. I would've had to go to the well around the corner to get water, but I don't have a rope for my bucket. I'll have to get one this weekend. I had to open the tap every 5 minutes and let whatever water was there fall into the bucket, and then I gave myself a sponge bath. Aye aye aye... what a life.

GAH I could go on and on there's so much stuff to talk about.

I've been having problems with my power. My landlord happily installed an air conditioner for me, but didn't think to check if the electric box could handle it. So now when I turn the air con on for more than 10 minutes, the power goes out and I have to go around the corner, (right where the well is, actually), and go into the shed where everyone's electricity counters are to click the black button for my apartment.

The lady at the corner store says she knows someone at the city's electricity department who can help me up my amps from 5 to 10 or 15 really quickly, so I'll bring her my bill tomorrow so she can ask her friend. Cuz if I wait for the landlord to do it, it'll take weeks. I love how things work here. People are way too nice. (update: power issues are taken care of! no thanks to the landlord, and thanks to a little under the table cash...)

Spent most of my night on the phone with my parents and I also called my friend Jenny. I wanted to hear about a meeting that was held for the Brenda Foundation, a charity Brenda Healey's family is starting to help pay for counseling fees for the families of victims of violent crimes.

It went really well, apparently. I thought a lot about Brenda today, since I heard that the wife of someone I work with is very sick and may die. Jean was the one who told me about how sick she was. (update: my colleague's wife died this morning at 6am, leaving behind 3 small children under the age of 9. Please send your comforting thought to my colleague and his family...)

We had a really long chat about death. Jean is 37 or so, and has had quite a few friends die over the years.

We are all in between life and death my friends.

(oh! a chicken just started making freaky noises outside!!) ... where was I? Oh death. Ug. I should probably get to bed. Tomorrow's Friday... I think I'll bring what I need to hit the beach in the afternoon.

... death makes angels of us all and gives us wings where we had shoulders, smooth as ravens claws ... Jim Morrison

The Good in Everyone

2009-01-28T15:00:00.000-08:00

Aw ya... listening to some Herbie Hancock, rockin the air conditioning, just got back from my first walk to the beach (the feeling I had this morning that I should buy a plane ticket home vanished when I saw the waves roll in on the sand -- home? what home?) and an uber-filling lunch. Oh my gaaaad I can't wait to be more familiar with the food here so that my friend Jean can stop ordering for me. I accused him of trying to fatten me up. "Just a little," he said.

My colleagues here are all awesome. Such thoughtful and hard-working people. At noon today, I thought, "Holy shit, if I have to wait til 1pm to take a lunch break and go for a walk, I will DIE." They work straight from 8h30 to 1pm!! NO CAN DO! Call me lazy, I call it HUMAN.

I asked Jean - don't you get hungry?? No, apparently not. Then again, at the age of 6 he was getting up at 5am to walk 20km to the fields where he spent all day under the hot African sun cutting down branches, pulling weeds and burning stuff only to walk the 20km home afterwards. There is no lazy work-ethic here.

Anyway, as I made my way to the door at noon -- actually, a funny language barrier here. They didn't understand when I said, "Je m'en vais prendre une marche." Apparently they don't "take" walks. It's kind of a funny expression when you think about it. We could just as easily say, "I'm going walking," or "I'm going to walk," which is way more accurate. Anyway, everyone was working, but I found Jean downstairs reading the paper, so I asked him if he wanted to join me on my walk. Once he figured out what it was I wanted to do, he came with me. "Do you want to go to the beach?" EEEEEK! Yay!

We started to walk and a bunch of kids came out of a school nearby for lunch. The children here are SO CUTE!!!

They have a word for "white person" in Fon, the local language, which sounds like YEY-VO (I'll have to ask how to spell it). The children see you and sing a song that goes something like, "Yévo, yévo, Comment allez-vous, ça va bien merci!"

I'll have to learn way more Fon while I'm here. I wonder if I can find a textbook of some sort. SPEAK WHITE, DAMMIT! (kidding, kidding...)

This little boy was hiding in the shade under a bench, playing in the sand while we were walking along the beach. Jean wanted me to try some local fruit... and we bought it from his mother. She had this little bundle of baby blubber straped to her back, sleeping soundly... I wanted to eat the baby!!!! It's hair was all natted with different coloured elastics... holy cuteness! While Jean was negotiating the price, this little boy started to sing to me.

I'm sorry Maria, WHAT?! Yes, I've been eating the fruit here.

Those who know me, know I don't eat fruit... but I promised my friend Dair that although I wouldn't go out of my way to eat any, if any fruit was offered I wouldn't decline. I think my body will go into shock, but we'll see. Speaking of which, I think he left the bag of fruit we bought from the lady at the restaurant we stopped in after -- I should go ask him. In any event, he made me eat some local fried bananas at lunch, so I think my fruit quota has been met for the day. HAPPY DAIR?!

Anyway, during lunch we got on the topic of fear... oh right, because we were talking about how people here talk to each other and aren't really afraid of one another, and how when he went to Toronto, a girl was afraid of him when he went to help her take her bags off the subway, or the time he was walking down Gerard and a girl started to run in the other direction (he's not shady or anything, quite good looking, he's just black). Or how our first instinct is fear (or annoyance) when we go to a bank machine and someone is waiting behind us. It's a crazy world we live in. It's just not like that here. Everyone talks to each other, or doesn't. Whatevs.

We started to talk about how important it is for the good in the world to stand up. The bad in the world speaks very loudly. The good whispers. The news we watch is all bad, all the time. Violence, war, disease, corruption... why? Is it not the minority of events? Isn't there far more good going on in the world?

I wish people would talk more about organizations like UNICEF or Right to Play rather than Al Quaeda. Why not promote these messages of hope rather than the messages of violence? It's important to know about the bad, but far more important to know that there is good. Why not mention that a black man saved a white couple from drowning rather than splatter the headline, Black Man kills White Couple?? Why doesn't the first make the news?

This is why I watch The Hour and not The National. It has an effect on us -- don't think it doesn't.

When was the last time you smiled at someone on the subway? Or said, "Hi, good morning" to the people who work in your building, in the elevator? What happened to our humanity?

Of course our conversation ended with Obama. He is the quiet good majority turned into a roaring lion of hope. SPEAK UP DAMMIT. Make the kind of world you wished you lived in. What's the worst that could happen? Someone will look at you funny for saying hello? For helping them with their bags?

The risk of violence and accidents exists no matter what we do.
So forget the bad for a moment and do more good. Ignoring each other is not good.

Oh my god - 2 of the 4 croissants they brought me for breakfast are staring at me... "we are chocolate and we are delicious!!" oooh my belly is so full from rice and cheese and plantains... Africa's gonna make me fat.

Oh Paris...

2009-01-24T23:24:00.000-08:00

The meal on Air France was amazing and the croissant I just had was awesome. I'll get a cafe au lait later... when I'm ready to wake up. For now, I found some cozy leather chairs in a cafe and I'm going to conk out since my computer's about to conk out due to low battery... and there's nowhere to plug it in!! GR!

Next stop, Cotonou... plane leaves in 5 hours. UG.

In 24 hours...

2009-01-23T09:23:00.000-08:00

In 24 hours I'll be in a frantic state making sure I thought of everything... either that, or I'll just be hanging out with a few friends, drinking a glass of wine... or maybe I'll still be in bed. We'll see!!

Toronto:
Saturday Morning
Cloudy periods
Temp. -17°C
Feels Like -27°C

Cotonou:
Dimanche soir
Très nuageux.
Max: 30°C
Min: 24°C

Baby it's cold outside

2009-01-21T06:13:00.001-08:00

The last week has just flown by. Today's Wednesday and I leave Saturday afternoon... all my time between now and then is packed with seeing people and buying last minute things...

Last week I got to do a few things. I visited a Kindergarten class in North Bay, just to get a feeling for being in a school... the teacher's globe said Dahomey instead of Benin, even though the name changed in 1975. The globe's older than I am. The kids were very sweet and very cute and very chatty - I'm eager to see how different the classroom situation is in Benin. I took the teacher's email address so that I can send the class pictures while I'm away. "Send pics of the animals," she said, "that's pretty much all they'll care to see."

I also had a few days of training with the organization I'll be working with. I feel a lot better about the trip - the org has great insurance and offers quite a few services. They're also just plain nice and I know they'll support me in my work, no matter what I need.

I was especially happy to have a nice long chat with Dr. Mark Wise (visit his website... tons of great information and he's really funny). I liked the way he asked me a lot of questions to challenge what I thought I knew about where I was going. "What do you know about malaria? What are the symptoms? What would you do if you were feeling really sick? What would you do if you were to get sexually assaulted? What would you do if you were feeling depressed?"

It was great because it's one thing to be afraid of disease or worry about being assaulted, it's another to have a plan to deal with it.

I got to talk to people in the organization who'd lived in that part of the world before about cultural differences, food, nightlife... but the one thing they did say is that they didn't want to tell me what kind of experience I should have - I'll figure it out on my own.

I had a little goodbye party and a friend was saying how "zen" I seemed. I think my brain is just shutting itself down so as not to get too excited or too nervous.

3 more sleeps til my plane takes off.

It's cold in Canada. Did you notice the BBC weather watcher for Cotonou, Benin in the right hand column of this blog? Toasty!

How many hours between Saturday and Sunday?

2009-01-14T12:57:00.000-08:00

Summary:
Plane leaves Saturday, January 24 at 5pm from Pearson, and at 6am Paris time (midnight in Toronto) I land at Charles de Gaule (flying Air France). Then I wait around/sleep in the airport til 1:30pm and take another Air France plane to Cotonou to arrive at 8pm on Sunday, January 25th.

A 21 hour journey.

I'll be back in Toronto on Monday, June 15th at 1:15pm.

Details:
24 JAN 09 - SATURDAY
AIR AIR FRANCE
FLT:353 ECONOMY
MULTI MEALS
LV TORONTO ON
TIME: 16H55
(that's 4:55pm for the simple folk)
EQP: AIRBUS A340-300
DEPART: TERMINAL 3
07HR 25MIN

25 JAN 09 - SUNDAY
AR PARIS DE GAULLE
TIME: 06H20
NON-STOP
ARRIVE: AEROGARE 2 TERMINAL F
REF: 26MVHL
AIR AIR FRANCE
FLT:814 ECONOMY
MULTI MEALS

later that same day...

LV PARIS DE GAULLE
TIME: 13H35
EQP: AIRBUS A340-300
DEPART: AEROGARE 2 TERMINAL C
06HR 15MIN

AR COTONOU
19H50
NON-STOP
REF: 26MVHL

5 months later...

14 JUN 09 - SUNDAY
AIR AIR FRANCE
FLT:813
ECONOMY MEALS
LV COTONOU
TIME: 23H05
EQP: AIRBUS A340-300
06HR 05MIN

15 JUN 09 - MONDAY
AR PARIS DE GAULLE
TIME: 06H10
NON-STOP
ARRIVE: AEROGARE 2 TERMINAL C
AIR AIR FRANCE
FLT:358
ECONOMY MULTI MEALS

LV PARIS DE GAULLE
TIME: 10H50
EQP: BOEING 747 400
DEPART: AEROGARE 2 TERMINAL F
08HR 25MIN

AR TORONTO ON
TIME: 13H15
NON-STOP
ARRIVE: TERMINAL 3
REF: 26MVHL

I'M INVINCIBLE! (... and more Fun Facts!)

2009-01-11T19:17:00.000-08:00

I must say, upon leaving the Travel Medicine Centre, I kind of felt invincible. Bring on the bugs, bring on the medical crisis... I CAN TAKE IT! (or don't - no, really, please don't.)

Vaccinations:

Yellow Fever, 27 November 2008, Dr. F. Philip Scappatura, valid 10 days after vaccination, 07 December 2008, valid for 10 years, 07 December 2018.

Meningococcal ACYW135

Vivaxim (HepA-Typhoid)

Tetanus-diphtheria (had it already, good for 10 years)

Hepatitis B (had it already)

Malaria... oh Malaria. The Malaria meds cost me over $900. I have to take a pill every day for 5 months, and for 2 weeks when I get back. I'm taking the most expensive kind, Malarone, because I'll be gone so long... and well, the cheaper kind... the kind you take once a week... side effects include suicidal ideation. yyyyya. No thanks.

To find out more about Africa's diseases, check out the World Health Organization's (WHO) website on Africa.

You can also check out the Country Profile specific to Benin. The data is all from 2000-2004 though. Actually, I much prefer the CIA's World Factbook.

Let's do some World Factbook comparing!! MORE FUN FACTS!

Canada vs. Benin

Canada - Area:
total: 9,984,670 sq km
land: 9,093,507 sq km
water: 891,163 sq km

Benin - Area:
total: 112,620 sq km (fits into Ontario 9.5 times)
land: 110,620 sq km
water: 2,000 sq km

Canada - Population: 33,212,696 (July 2008 est.)
Benin - Population: 8,532,547 (July 2008 est.)
est. stands for estimate, btw.

Canada - Age structure:
0-14 years: 16.3% (male 2,780,491/female 2,644,276)
15-64 years: 68.8% (male 11,547,354/female 11,300,639)
65 years and over: 14.9% (male 2,150,991/female 2,788,945) (2008 est.)

Benin - Age structure:
0-14 years: 45.5% (male 1,978,897/female 1,901,005)
15-64 years: 51.9% (male 2,195,667/female 2,236,458)
65 years and over: 2.6% (male 91,213/female 129,307) (2008 est.)

HOLY MOLY HALF THE POPULATION IS UNDER THE AGE OF 15.

Canada - Median age:
total: 40.1 years
male: 39 years
female: 41.2 years (2008 est.)

Benin - Median age:
total: 17.1 years
male: 16.7 years
female: 17.6 years (2008 est.)

Total fertility rate:
Canada: 1.57 children born/woman (2008 est.) vs 5.08 deaths/1,000 live births
Benin: 5.58 children born/woman (2008 est.) vs 66.2 deaths/1,000 live births

HIV/AIDS - adult (15-49) prevalence rate:
Canada: 0.3% (2003 est.)
Benin: 1.9% (2003 est.)

HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:
Canada: 56,000 (2003 est.)
Benin: 68,000 (2003 est.)
(take into consideration that Benin has a quarter of Canada's population)

HIV/AIDS - deaths (in a calendar year):
Canada: 1,500 (2003 est.)
Benin: 5,800 (2003 est.)

Canada - Ethnic groups:
British Isles origin 28%, French origin 23%, other European 15%, Amerindian 2%, other, mostly Asian, African, Arab 6%, mixed background 26%

Benin - Ethnic groups:
Fon and related 39.2%, Adja and related 15.2%, Yoruba and related 12.3%, Bariba and related 9.2%, Peulh and related 7%, Ottamari and related 6.1%, Yoa-Lokpa and related 4%, Dendi and related 2.5%, other 1.6% (includes Europeans), unspecified 2.9% (2002 census)

Canada - Religions:
Roman Catholic 42.6%, Protestant 23.3% (including United Church 9.5%, Anglican 6.8%, Baptist 2.4%, Lutheran 2%), other Christian 4.4%, Muslim 1.9%, other and unspecified 11.8%, none 16% (2001 census)

Benin - Religions:
Christian 42.8% (Catholic 27.1%, Celestial 5%, Methodist 3.2%, other Protestant 2.2%, other 5.3%), Muslim 24.4%, Vodoun 17.3%, other 15.5% (2002 census)

Canada - Languages:
English (official) 59.3%, French (official) 23.2%, other 17.5%

Benin - Languages:
French (official), Fon and Yoruba (most common vernaculars in south), tribal languages (at least six major ones in north)

Canada - Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99%
male: 99%
female: 99% (2003 est.) GO TEAM CANADA!

Benin - Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 34.7%
male: 47.9%
female: 23.3% (2002 census) :sad face:

Canada - School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education):
total: 17 years
male: 17 years
female: 17 years (2004)

Benin - School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education):
total: 7 years
male: 9 years
female: 6 years (2001)

Education expenditures (or how much we spend on education):
Canada: 5.2% of GDP (2002)
Benin: 4.4% of GDP (2004)

but wait! let's compare GDPs:

Canada's GDP: $1.271 trillion (2007 est.)
Benin's GDP: $12 billion (2007 est.)

So, Canada spends about $66 092 000 000
And Benin spends about $528 000 000

Let's also compare by saying that the Ontario Government increased Grants for Student Needs (GSN) funding to school boards by more than $400 million in 2006-07 to $17.3 billion. (source)

Canada - Administrative divisions:
10 provinces and 3 territories*; Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories*, Nova Scotia, Nunavut*, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Yukon Territory*

Benin - Administrative divisions:
12 departments; Alibori, Atakora, Atlantique, Borgou, Collines, Kouffo, Donga, Littoral, Mono, Oueme, Plateau, Zou

Telephones - main lines in use:
Canada: 21 million (2006)
Benin: 110,300 (2007)

Telephones - mobile cellular:
Canada: 18.749 million (2006)
Benin: 1.895 million (2007)

Telephone system:
Canada - general assessment: excellent service provided by modern technology.
Benin - general assessment: inadequate; fixed-line network characterized by aging, deteriorating equipment with fixed-line teledensity stuck at 1 per 100 persons; mobile-cellular telephone subscribership is increasing.
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Alright, enough comparing. We all know Canada's awesome... and still - it's never enough.

Data... The first installment of FUN FACTS!

2009-01-08T07:05:00.001-08:00

Reading Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge - Early Childhood Care and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Fun fact: (ok, not so fun)

About 96 of every 1,000 children born in SSA in 2005 did not reach their first birthday. Another 163 of every 1,000 children will not reach their fifth birthday. These figures are twice the world averages.

I did the math twice, and that basically means that 25% of kids born in Sub-Saharan Africa don't live to see their 5th birthday. 1 out of 4, if you will.

Good times, good times.
Sigh... and I'm only on page 14.

God sometimes you just don't come through...

2009-01-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

I believe that every society is exactly the same. There are lazy people, extraordinary people, gossipy people, mean people, nice people, smart people, stupid people, violent people, passive people, proactive people, etc. in every society.

But there's something about tribal people, be it African, Aboriginal (Australian or Canadian), or South American that gives the impression that they just don't care to better themselves. They live, they die. They don't explore, they survive. They don't really evolve, they just improve, again, for survival's sake. I'm not saying this is actually how it is, just that that's the impression I have.

I had an interesting discussion with my brother over Christmas about the African "blahs". I won't go into how my brother feels about the situation, since I can't remember his point of view, only that I didn't agree. Are they really indifferent? Or is it just that the indifferent people have been in power, using the money they make through warfare to keep up with the Joneses in bling and not in societal structures...? I'm ill-equipped to theorize.

I read this great article on my friend Andrew's blog. Andrew's in Liberia, a few countries over (west) from Benin, working in orphanages. The article talks about how Christian organizations are bringing a sense of hope and self-respect and self-awareness to these people... for better? or for worse?

Oh big-G. Where would we be without you baby?

I thought this article was à propos... so many people, when I told them I was going to volunteer abroad, said, "You're not working with a Christian organization, are you?"

I'm not, but for the record, I'm totally bringing Jesus with me. He's got my back.

As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God
Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset
by Matthew Parris

Read the whole article on The Times Online

Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it's Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

<...>

Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.

And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete. END

While I agree that "a whole belief system must be supplanted," I'm not sure I agree it has to be supplanted by Christianity or religiosity as we know it. I know we are all connected as a human race and as a planetary organism... we call the energy within us and around us "God"... but what if we gave it a different name? What if this energy wasn't there to riddle us with guilt or pity towards those who haven't yet "found God" and instead worked to make us realize that we are all the same?

Bah - what do I know. If Africa enlightens, I'll report back.

Blog title is from Tori Amos' God: crazy video... oh Tori.

Home Sweet Home

2009-01-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

Got an email from Bénin today, letting me know that they found an apartment for me in Cotonou.

Il y a un ventilo au plafond, il y a un climatiseur, un lit, des fauteuils, une salle de bain, une television, une petite table et deux chaises et une cuisine... La chambre coute 100000 le mois. Le propriétaire de la maison va placer une cuisinière et un réfrigérateur dans ta maison.

What more could I ask? A ceiling fan, an air conditionner, a bed, some sofas, a bathroom, a TV, a little table with 2 chairs, and a kitchen, all for the low-low price of 100,000 South African Francs ($250cdn) a month! Plus, the owner has agreed to buy me a little fridge and a stove before I get there. BEER FRIDGE!! ;)

I still have no idea where this place is within Cotonou, or what kind of building it is, but I'm pacing my questions so as not to overwhelm these poor souls.

They're paying first and last month's rent, so at the very worst, I'll be stuck with this place for 2 months. The peeps there seem really, really nice though, and I very much doubt they'd put me in an apartment that isn't kosher.

I'm in North Bay now until the 14th. I better get some work done! I slept in til 11am this morning!! It's so nice and quiet here. Taking full advantage of sleeping in peace and quiet, eating deliciously rich food and enjoying the cold before I leave.

I want to get started on my reading now, but before I run off, I wanted to share the last line of the email about my apartment (from a lady I'll be working with):

Nous sommes pressés de te voir très bientot et de vivre ensemble une expérience extraordinaire. A bientot. (We are eager to see you soon and to live together an extraordinary experience. See you soon.)

:humbled:

The Pieces of Life

2008-12-29T09:09:00.000-08:00

My head's full of craziness.

Africa. Oh Africa. There are so many aspects to consider when you're moving. From medication to an extra pair of earphones (although I'm POSITIVE I could find earphones there. I mean, come on. They have teenagers) to whether they'll have contact lense solution? Feminine hygiene products? eep!

Preping for a trip like this makes you realize everything you use in a day. Pillow, pillow case. Sheet. Alarm clock, cell phone, medication, glass o' water. Face cloth, comb, water spray bottle, toilet paper... and that's the first 90 seconds I'm awake.

I took a 40 minute shower last night, hot and toasty, just because I could. Now I'm eating all the italian food I can get my hands on. My dad made lasagna, homemade pasta and everything, so cheesy, so RICH, with spinach. Though I'm sure the food there will be fine! I'll love it! (gulp.)

I finished reading A Long Way Gone. My manager lent me/gave me/passed on to me this book. BRUTAL. And then just when you think it's finally over, and you can go back to thinking everything's gonna be ok, the conflict starts up agaIN and you're like NOOOO! (Although the dude does a good job at inserting stories and little phrases here and there that let you know everything's gonna be ok (he's alive, isn't he?) which is the only part that doesn't make it totally heartbreaking.)

Just to give you an idea of how charming and sweet this guy is (he was born in 1980, a year younger than me!) - when the war finally touched his village, he was out of town with a couple friends, heading to a talent show where he and his boys were to perform a hip hop act to OPP. He describes learning to do the running man. The details make the book riveting.

Really really well written, but not an easy read.
And now is when I take a moment to thank Life that I was born in Canada... AWESOME.

One thing's for sure, I'm staying away from the brown brown.