Foreign Service Guy

Two reps from the State Dept. visited some of us in Cotonou last week and we were able to pick their brains (for a short time) about the FSOT (Foreign Service Exam). It is being offered in Benin for the first time and I think I will take it. Apparently it does not count against you later in the selection process if you don't pass it the first time you take it OR if you do pass but you fail to follow up for later rounds of assessment (oral interviews in Washington). PC won't pay for the round trip but I think I'd like to take it just to see what it looks like. Being in Benin for 2 years really drops your current events IQ to basement levels. Also, I prob will have to go to grad school before seriously pursuing a state dept job since over 80% of the people who do end up selected have post grad degrees...it is the new college degree. Getting the amazing opportunity to breakfast with the Ambassador and Assistant Secritary of State before going off to Mali for vacation. Can't go north of Mopti due to Islamic beheadings so Timbuktu is out...lame. I wanted to see the dunes of the Sahara. Anti-HIV meds are also still lame.

injury update

The x-rays turned up negative on my wrist. The docs did not think the arm needed to be put under the machine. I think both were just pretty badly bruised. My seatmate also seems to have gotten away with just a few cuts and bruises. We are both on the anti-HIV medications, which don't exactly make you feel super. I don't need anything and I'll prob be here in the main office till next Tues/Weds to see a Washington official about a career path with the Foreign Service. Thanks for the love everyone, and I 'll see you guys when I see you.

"Ooooo, here we go..." SLAM

Myself and 2 other PCVs were on our way down to Cotonou yesterday to participate in a VAC (volunteer advisory committee) meeting. Since the other two were VAC reps and I'm a PCVL it was basically mandatory. We had left Parakou in the morning and had just past Dassa around 10 AM when the bus came around a S-curve to find 4-5 vehicles stopped in it road. The driver pumped the breaks a little, then entered the oncoming lane to see if he could just pass the stopped vehicles. What he saw was a semi truck coming right at us. The driver re-entered our lane and began pumping the breaks very quickly. It did not look like we ere going to stop in time to avoid a collision with the cars in front of us...this is when I started the quote that I used to the title of this posting. Right before we hit the line of cars the driver chose to test his luck in the on-coming lane again. The semi and bus met each other going around 30 MPH (each). I was sitting next to another PCV and we ducked. The impact was loud and glass ad rice was thrown everywhere (the window beside my seatmate had shattered and the semi was carrying a load of rice on it's flatbed. Once we stopped I got up off the floor (the impact had thrown my body through my seat belt) and observed a lot of chaos. Most off the seats on the bus had ripped out of the floor. After asking the PCV next to me if she was all right (she was but she was stuck under the collapsed seats) I started unbuckling people who where stacked on top of each other still in their seats. The third PCV, travelling with a friend who happened to be a RPCV, was in the back and asking if we were OK closer to the front. I said we were and she and the RPCV escaped out the window. There were a lot of serious head injuries around me. Normally what many Beninese passengers do when they heard a disturbance on the bus they poke their heads up in a facsimile of a meerkat...I think I referenced this in a n earlier blog post. This tome it was not a smart move for many passengers. My seat partner and myself were fairly well off (I suffered a seriously bruised right forearm and screwed up left wrist, my seatmate was not wearing her seat belt ...it was stuck in the seat when we left Parakou so we decided to leave it...and had hit her side hard, she also suffered abrasions to her ankles were the collapsing seats had trapped her feet) many people surrounding up were in very bad shape. Basically everyone in front of our row, the 5th, were done. You could hear a Japanese volunteer screaming in one of the front rows. She was trapped in the pile of seats and bodies. It took a while, and an axe, to free her. She could not walk and prob had something wrong with her knee but she was much luckier than those around her. After helping some people unpile themselves I decided we need to get out of the wreck in case another truck hits us or there is a fire (another bus had caught fire last year) so I made my way out our shattered window. The overturned semi next to us provided a nice ramp of rice sacks which made getting out of the wreck easier.

Unfortunately the woman in front of me ended up outside the window during the crash and was now half buried, upside down, in the rice sacks. We had to leave here there until we could get everyone out of the bus since digging her body out would have taken away our rice sack ramp. I called PC officials to inform them of the crash and our condition and them helped the other PCV (in serious blank faced, short answers shock) out of the bus. We met up with the other PCV and RPCV who had escaped the back and gathered under a tree away from the bus and semi.

Outside the bus you could see the damage to the fronts of the truck and bus...they had also plowed into a building beside the road. After getting everyone situated and contacting the PC people with updated status (like I said, we were very lucky. The PCV and RPCV in the back had flow over a number of collapsing seats and got out of there with a few cuts and bruises...the people around them were strewn all over the ground with broken limbs and bloodied faces) and asking for a PC car to come get us I returned to the crash to try and help the villagers remove injured persons. I climbed the rice sacks and helped a guy remove a seat row by the window and then called to a guy standing eyes wide muttering in local language in the bus with a huge gash in his head. Helping him out the next guy they brought to the window was a overweight gentleman with a broke leg. I tried to help the villagers carrying him, but my wrist and arm injuries were causing me to do more harm than good. I decided to get out of the way of the abled bodied rescuers and check up on the PCVs again. We were all stressed out and displaying our personal ways of dealing with that stress. By this time law troops were on the scene directing traffic around the wreck and villagers were stopping cars to place the injured into so they could be transported to the closest hospital in Dassa. After the survivors were taken out of the bus I decided it was time to get our bags from underneath the bus. Everything was a mess down there but I was able to find our stuff after a couple trips. My passport and PC ID were in my to-do notebook in my helmet in the bus.

I re-entered and tried to find my stuff through all the carnage...which is the right word on account of the glass/blood/rice/seats/possessions strewn around the cabin. I found my helmet, visor, pen, various papers (including vacations forms for my planned trip to Mali) but not my notebooks or IDs. I decided that staying in the bus to continue searching was not worth it so I climbed out and gave my name to the head police officer in case anyone found them. All we could do then was wait for the PC car. The Japanese volunteer had been removed and one of the PCVs was taking care of her, helping her wash her cuts and acting ans an intermediary. The girl knew two PCVs in her town. A large group of PCVs emerged from a stopped bus (the law officials were stopping everyone at this time so that the injured could get rushed into cars) when they saw the accident. They had just left a large group training session in the south. We told them that everything was OK and suggested that they take middle/back seats in the bus for the future and always wear your seat belt. They left and we had to wait a few hours for the PC car to arrive. Once at the office we met with one of our doctors who assessed our conditions and drew blood for tests. I might have to get a couple things x-rayed and am taking the anti-HIV medications since I had come into contact with a lot of different people's blood helping them out of the bus. Like I said before, we were all very lucky. At the time of the accident there were 7 deaths and they could not find the body of the apprentice to the semi truck driver. In addition, 25 people were taken to the hospital for serious injuries. This means that only about 12 people walked away with minor injuries and four of those people were the R/PCVs...and most of those people were in the back. My seatmate and I were VERY lucky since not many people in front of our row made it out. I will blog again when I find out more about my wrist and arm.

update

Hello everyone. I have been busy with a lot of admin type work for the workstation. My new house is still on standby...and has been for a number of months. Most likely I will not see it finished. PSL 21 termination of service of service is getting closer and closer... 7-8 months now. There is a quarry near the workstation, so I myself went with another volunteer to check it out. It was pretty neat and we took some photos for the upcoming 'Men f the Alibori' calender. We will be selling it at our GAD (Girls and Development) auction to raise $ for GAD small projects. My cousin Kelli sent over a Wii with a couple games...it was very well received in the Alibori. It is still very difficult to find enviro work here, or work I want to be a part of. My town (despite being a commune head) is a place people try to escape on a regular basis...it's like the midwest USA...so there are not many ongoing programs or operational ONGs.