Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm in Kandi right now for a Thanksgiving dinner with all the volunteers from this region. Post is well, but to tell the truth I have not spent that much time there. I participated in an AIDS formation and mural painting at a health volunteer's post for a few days. I also went to Niger (illegaly) to be on radio Fahel to talk about american culture and the thanksgiving holiday. The past two days I was at the northern most volunteers post, organizing an enviromental themed bike tour. Baisicly 10 volunteers will mount biokes at the end of Jan and travel around these back roads to teqch the villigers about desertification, reforestation, and the nutritional benefits of a tree called Moranga. Right now I'm organizing the logistics and such, so I've been pretty busy. Here in Kandi I just mailed a letter off to Ms. Kelli Gault's gifted class. Unfortunatly I had to send it to my grandmothers house, so when it comes she can give it to Kelli and Kelli and take it with her to school. I hope it makes it! I also ordered a bed, a table, and a bookcase type thing to put my cloths on...sounds familiar doesn't it? Oh well. So far everything is going well, I am going to start pushing on the organization that controls the park to see if I could possibly get some work near the animals. Speaking of animals I saw a school boy walking past the other day with a hedgehog in his hands (dead of course, they were going to eat it)...now I know when the pet store says African Hedgehog they mean it! My new house is nice, twice the size of my old house and it even has a proper latrine and screen on the windows! I hope everyone enjoys the holiday season...I'll be in the south for training for 2 weeks in december so I will be able to get on the internet more easily then. I'll update everyone then, and hopefully post some more pictures.

What a difference a day makes...

I left Cotonou by taxi this morning for Parakou. Tomorrow I will leave Parakou for my new post even FURTHER north, just south of Malanville. It was interesting to see the grasses turn brown as you exited the south, even the trees seemed weighted down by the sun. I am very excited to be moving from the south-south to the north-north (there are only 2 volunteers more northern than I will be). Being from FL and living in the south for my first few months in-country, this is my first experience with the northern Benin dry-heat as well as my first time seeing the collines (aka small granite mini-mountains rising from the grasslands). While I am not sure, I think my work with UNDP will be related with the W National Park. I am also not sure on my internet availablity for the next couple weeks, but I have to come back down south for some training meetings in the middle of december.

Relocation...

I went to my old post this morning to collect my things. As I got there and the crowd gathered I felt it was best to leave my newly acquired furniture there. I can order a new bed and table when I get to my new post and I thought it was better to spend as little time as possible exiting my old village. I move tomorrow morning to go to Parakou. Sunday I leave the Parakou workstation for my post. It is way up north between Kandi and Malanville. I think I'm going to have to get a new sim card (MTN does not work up there) as well so that means a new number. I'll post more as I know it. Which will prolly be at the Parakou workstation. I'm going from the jungle to the desert.

Only in Cotonou...

So I was going out of my mind with boredom here in Cotonou...even tho there is a TV room it only takes about 5 days to see all the movies you want to see and another 3 days to see all the movies you don't, and I wasted all those days on my earlier malaria experience. Luckily today some 2nd year PCV's came into the bureau and I benefited from their knowledge of the area. We went to a pizza place on the water...it was awesome. And on the walk home I visited Benin's modern art gallery in Cotonou....I have passed this building about 8 times since it is right next to the bank but i never knew what it was. The exhibits were interesting...somewhat like what you would find at Ringling School (some good/some not). I think I go tomorrow to get my stuff out of my old post but I still do not know when I will be moving to my new post.

So I have good news...

I have been re-assigned to a recently vacated post up north! I am not sure as of yet what my new focus will be since there are no fishery activities up north, but I'm sure I'll find something. The host organization I think I'll be working under is the UNDP. Actually having the backing of a real organization will also be a welcome relief from my current organization's structure of 'a guy and his house'. Whatever I end up doing up there, I'm looking forward to it. I'll post an update later on when I'll be placed.

Sitting on standby...

I was supposed to have a meeting today with top PB-Benin brass, but nothing materialized. I think the security head already had something planned for today out of the office and my APCD for EA had a family matter he had to take care of. The Bureau was very quiet today. It is not any skin off my back since whatever their decision may be, I'll probably have to hang out in the Bureau for another few days if not weeks while they arrange my relocation. Living in Cotonou is interesting. You are closer to all those comforts of home, but you have to pay. Living here is easily nearly twice the cost compared to living in village. Normally volunteers receive a per diem for being in Cotonou on business but I have not yet asked if my situation allows me the same courtesy. We'll see how the next few days goes and what type of schedule PC develops for my relocation before I start crying 'bankrupt' like Circuit City...luckily I had started saving at post for and eventual States-side visit for the next holiday season...now I can eat in Cotonou! No need for anyone to spend your hard-earned American dollars calling me (unless you really want to hear my voice) because I'll keep this blog updated on any comings or goings here. Thanks for every one's support.

Answers to Ms. Thompson's 5th grade class...

Since I'm here in Cotonou with wonderful access to power and Internet I can take this opportunity to respond to your questions...1: Francophone is an adjective used to describe someone or something are french-speaking. Benin's national language is French and for this reason the people here are francophone (Americans speak English so we are anglophone). The keyboards for computers over here are also francophone which means some letters are not in the same place as they are on our keyboards back home and you have to hold the shift key to type numbers. The french languages uses many more symbols than the English language so they had to fit more things on the same number of keys. 2: My village has a population of about 800 people. It is a small village, not even on the map! Many people (I would say almost 80%) do not even speak french but speak a local language instead (Gun, Tori, Nado). Most of the people in my village grow crops, such as beans or corn, for food and to sell at market. A typical family here has about 6 kids! 3: No, I have not yet gotten a CIA shirt. 4: People keep dogs for security but they are not like your pet dog at home. They are not well fed or taken care of, but they are surprisingly obedient. Along with dogs people own and raise many chickens and goats for food here. Every once in a while you see a cow. All these animals live around their human owners...sometimes even sleeping in people's houses for safety! I have a picture of one of the dogs at my post and I will put it on my flickr site or post it here for you. 5: I was researching topics on Select Palm...it is a type of oil palm that has a smaller inner kernel inside it's fruit. They harvest the fruit bunches here to make palm oil, and they use the oil for cooking. 6: I have a cell phone but my reception (called rizzo here) is not very good. 7: In the market you can find rice, corn, flour, potatoes, yams (not the orange/yellow yams you are used to but white yams), large potato-like tubers called manioc, spaghetti products like macaroni, eggs, tapioca, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, onion, various canned items such as instant coffee/hot coco/sweetened condensed milk. Typically I buy some rice and beans with pepper/tomato sauce for breakfast. I have a spaghetti and two egg mixture for lunch (they fry it all up in a pan with peanut oil). And for dinner I eat a 2 egg 'omelet' which is really just 2 eggs fried in more peanut oil and served with on a french bread. The market cafeteria that I go to to eat cooks with a gas burner but most villagers cook using charcoal or wood fires. 8: The term for my house is concession. That can be roughly translated to apartment. I live there with about 7 other families and I have 3 rooms. It is a mud building that has been plastered with cement to fulfill Peace Corps regulations. I have an outdoor latrine/shower area. I will post pictures of this on my flickr site as well. 9: I eat 3 meals a day. 10: Malaria is very common in my area and throughout the developing world. The flu is common here and so is meningitis, tuberculosis, and typhoid. People can become infected by amoebas or worms because they don't wash their hands before eating and no one uses soap. 11: There are international agencies that come to the schools to vaccinate against polio and to do AIDS testing but that is about it. 12: Yes, I did recover from my encounter with unconfirmed malaria. After taking the anti malarial medicines my fever disappeared completely! 13/14: Sunday is church day in Benin. So is Wednesday. This was a French colony in the past so there are a lot of churches in the country despite the fact that the people follow their traditional beliefs as well. This country is known as the birthplace of voodoo. 15: The differences are amazing. Other than cellphones (which everyone seems to have and everyone wants the white guy's number) everything is very different here. The school system is different, transportation is different (mostly by motorcycle or by shoving 7 people in a compact car with no working dials), the way businesses operate is different (service at food places is horrible at best and very, very slow), the family structures are different, the workday is different (they take a 3 hour break in the middle of the day for lunch, it is called repo). But a couple things you do recognize that we all have in common...babies cry for their mothers when they are scared (sometimes they are afraid of me because they have never seen a white person before) and the kids laugh and play and fight with siblings just like we do in the States. 16: I have learned to play a local version of checkers which allows the king to move much like a bishop in chess, a game a lot like Sorry, and a game resembling Mancala. All these games resemble the American versions but changes to the rules and/or playing board differ slightly from our versions. All right guys...it is midnight for me here but only 6PM for you in FL...there is no daylight savings time here because I am soo close to the equator...so I am going to bed. I will probably be here in Cotonou for a couple days so feel free to message me and I will try to send your class something in the mail from Benin!

Houston, we have a problem...

I am in Cotonou right now trying to convince my Country Director to relocate me to another site. Earlier this week I called the office with serious security concerns and after a visit from my APCD and PC security chief I thought I was on my way out of there. That was until yesterday when my APCD called to tell me that the senior staff had held a meeting and decided my problem was a cultural misunderstanding and not a security threat. I obviously did not articulate my site problems accurately and decided I had better come to Cotonou and have a face-to-face with the woman in charge myself. Right now I am waiting for her final decision. It is obvious she is reluctant to reassign me if I'm just going to quit the next time something bad happens...but I'm not. My present site is just TOO DANGEROUS. I think our meeting went well and I'll post an update when I know more. Also, I posted more pictures on my flickr page and I plan on trying to send Kelli's class an example of student's work. I don't know how everyone back home is handling it but all the Africans here think it is great an African was elected president of America...they don't understand that everyone born in America are Americans....and I think they are going to be very disappointed when Obama does not give them all free plane tickets to America (sounds like a joke, but I am serious)