Friday, September 5, 2008
So I'm in...
We just had a long swear-in ceromony and now everyone is in the Cotonou office, sorry i cant tell you guys where my post is because of security reasons. I m going to let someone else on the internet now. C-you guys in a month!
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Wrap up and grad bash
This is a final note on calling me...on my post visit i found out my cell coverage does not work there so i will have to buy a new SIM card = new number sooo you won't even be able to reach me at my original cell number (if you have been trying to call i hear there is calling cards that work and apparently keepcalling.com only costs ten cents a min)...Also, when i go to post Im not supposed to leave my post for very long or very often in the first 3 months so I WILL ONLY BE ABLE TO REACH THE INTERNET ONCE A MONTH!! Prob on the fith of each month...so keep the email traffic down and don't expect quick answers from me unless you ask on the fourth.
About my post visit, i went to my post and did more labor in 3 days than most volunteers do in one year...it was interesting, a little gardening, a little fishery work, and a little coup couping (cut down with machete) 400 square meters of forest and an entire tree...thats right, im a enviro volunteer on the front lines of deforestation.
I got packages from the Mr. and Mrs. Morris and Grandma, thanks a lot. I passed my french exam so I will be able to swear in on friday. All volunteers selected special tissue (cloth to make clothing) to represent their sectors and we all got outfits made for the ceremony. It is going to be a big deal because it is the 40th anniversary of PC in Benin and the president of Benin will be there. Afterwards all the new volunteers are invited to a dinner with the president, so many are excited about that!
Right now were are learning local language: mine is Gun. We are also doing a lot of admin stuff...like when/how you are getting paid, budget yourself, what things PC will pay for and what things they won't. We get paid pretty well to live in village but if you do a lot of traveling around benin or your starting a new post (like me) and need to buy stuff like a bed or a table or spices or basins or buckets to carry h2o or anything you can think of when starting a house from scratch then you will be poor for the first few months...they call that bien integré. Its ok, i think while i cannot leave post during the first three months i'll just eat rice and drink boiled filter water so i can save up for a trip to the center of northern Benin to do a world map and a biodiversity project.
I realized that I don't put much on here about life here in benin so here it goes. Trash is a huge problem here. In the states we have laws and dumps, here you just throw your trash on the ground and sometimes prople gather said trash and burn it...there is a lot of plastic bags so one of the enviro projects i can do is do some crocheting with plastic+bag+strip+yarn. Big cities have electricity but it can go in and out...most places in Benin have no potable water and no electricity (like my post). We are pretty spoiled right now by living in this big city for the first two months. I will be living in the south so there are two rainy seasons and two dry seasons and it is always hot or muggy( for those in FL think april thru august on a loop). People in the south seem a little higher strung, for example when a volunteer like myself bikes down the road you are the only white person these people will see all day or all year (if you are au village) and most yell out at you. the word for whitey here is yovo or le blanc. the children scream a song and here is how it goes: Yovo, yovo bon soir. Ca va bien. Merci. Translated it means white person, white person good evening. I am well. Thanks. It basically is a way to teach children some french when they are 3 to 4 years old so i don't take offense to it. That said it does get old because the same kids will yell it very loudly EVERY DAY. Apparently there is a youtube video of children doing this in africa, just search yovo yovo bon soir. There are not many if any native land mammals in the south....people have been living here for thousands of years and basically have hunted all animals from the south. In fact there is little native fauna because people have been cultivating the land for soo long. The hills around my post are nice, think Georgia gone tropical. The big cities are polluted by all the motos scooting around, there are no emission requirements. I went to the beach near Cotonou with a few other volunteers and that water was not clean. But on a day trip with Peace Corps to Grand Popo ( the tourist beach town) we got to hang in the big waves and that water was nice. My post is near the Nigerian border but since im american i cannot go there, volunteers near togo/burkina faso/niger might be able to get visas to those countries thru PC for work.
tomorrow I have to buy a lot of things for my new post because I will be moving on monday and friday is the swear in ceremony. It is fun to go to the bank and pull out thousands of cfas...unfortunately it will all be spent in short order and my bank account now reads zero, haha. I hope everyone has a good school year and New Orleans still exists when i get back near the internet on the fifth of october...peace out
About my post visit, i went to my post and did more labor in 3 days than most volunteers do in one year...it was interesting, a little gardening, a little fishery work, and a little coup couping (cut down with machete) 400 square meters of forest and an entire tree...thats right, im a enviro volunteer on the front lines of deforestation.
I got packages from the Mr. and Mrs. Morris and Grandma, thanks a lot. I passed my french exam so I will be able to swear in on friday. All volunteers selected special tissue (cloth to make clothing) to represent their sectors and we all got outfits made for the ceremony. It is going to be a big deal because it is the 40th anniversary of PC in Benin and the president of Benin will be there. Afterwards all the new volunteers are invited to a dinner with the president, so many are excited about that!
Right now were are learning local language: mine is Gun. We are also doing a lot of admin stuff...like when/how you are getting paid, budget yourself, what things PC will pay for and what things they won't. We get paid pretty well to live in village but if you do a lot of traveling around benin or your starting a new post (like me) and need to buy stuff like a bed or a table or spices or basins or buckets to carry h2o or anything you can think of when starting a house from scratch then you will be poor for the first few months...they call that bien integré. Its ok, i think while i cannot leave post during the first three months i'll just eat rice and drink boiled filter water so i can save up for a trip to the center of northern Benin to do a world map and a biodiversity project.
I realized that I don't put much on here about life here in benin so here it goes. Trash is a huge problem here. In the states we have laws and dumps, here you just throw your trash on the ground and sometimes prople gather said trash and burn it...there is a lot of plastic bags so one of the enviro projects i can do is do some crocheting with plastic+bag+strip+yarn. Big cities have electricity but it can go in and out...most places in Benin have no potable water and no electricity (like my post). We are pretty spoiled right now by living in this big city for the first two months. I will be living in the south so there are two rainy seasons and two dry seasons and it is always hot or muggy( for those in FL think april thru august on a loop). People in the south seem a little higher strung, for example when a volunteer like myself bikes down the road you are the only white person these people will see all day or all year (if you are au village) and most yell out at you. the word for whitey here is yovo or le blanc. the children scream a song and here is how it goes: Yovo, yovo bon soir. Ca va bien. Merci. Translated it means white person, white person good evening. I am well. Thanks. It basically is a way to teach children some french when they are 3 to 4 years old so i don't take offense to it. That said it does get old because the same kids will yell it very loudly EVERY DAY. Apparently there is a youtube video of children doing this in africa, just search yovo yovo bon soir. There are not many if any native land mammals in the south....people have been living here for thousands of years and basically have hunted all animals from the south. In fact there is little native fauna because people have been cultivating the land for soo long. The hills around my post are nice, think Georgia gone tropical. The big cities are polluted by all the motos scooting around, there are no emission requirements. I went to the beach near Cotonou with a few other volunteers and that water was not clean. But on a day trip with Peace Corps to Grand Popo ( the tourist beach town) we got to hang in the big waves and that water was nice. My post is near the Nigerian border but since im american i cannot go there, volunteers near togo/burkina faso/niger might be able to get visas to those countries thru PC for work.
tomorrow I have to buy a lot of things for my new post because I will be moving on monday and friday is the swear in ceremony. It is fun to go to the bank and pull out thousands of cfas...unfortunately it will all be spent in short order and my bank account now reads zero, haha. I hope everyone has a good school year and New Orleans still exists when i get back near the internet on the fifth of october...peace out
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Reminder
a couple people seemed to misunderstand the skype option...if u call me it is free for me. i repeat: incoming calls r free for me, so if you use skype we beat the system. thanks. also, come october/ september if anyone could send me a world map, some of those little candy canes that come individually wrapped and a couple packages of good pens....like the gel type, that would be great. i am plannning a trip around northern benin at x-mas time and i will be painting a couple world maps with the kids and i would be great to give them some candy canes or pens for cadeaux....kids here really like thier pens. hopefully i get back on here in a week and a half. swear-in is on sept 5th and i become an offical government volunteer
Hurray 4 packages!!!
I just got grandmas packages today...thanks for the candy and protein bars!! Also i want to wish my lovely sister a happy early b-day since i cant call her (here in africa i started a tradition for all the volunteers who celebrates a b-day by giving them a b-day beer with a candle in it and singing happy birthday...people seem to like it). It has been a while since i was on the internet last and a couple more people ETed (early termination). No kellie im not still sick. I go on my post visit tomorrow and see the village ill b living in for 2 years...there is no electricity or running water there so that should be fun...just a FYI between september to december i cant leave the village so communication with me will prob drop to nill, but i will try to get to a computer from time to time. Grandma= if you could give me the email of kellies teacher or just direct her to this site that would be great, i dont think peace corps processed my request to be in the letter program because other volunteers have recieved comfirmation and i havent. I hope everyone is having a great time watching the olympics and enjoying A/C!! Talk to you all later, peace
Sunday, August 10, 2008
halfway thru
Another week down....i think next week EA visits our actual posts. everything is going well, but another EA trainee ETed after tech visit. I think tomorrow i help to build a mud stove
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Things EA has done since arriving
Enviros have: planted veggie garden, planted avacado trees, made a compost pile, constructed a clay oven, lots of French, eniromental education, seeded teek trees and others.
I think this week we r going to a sustainable farm to learn some methods and also build ovens for local community people. On thurs I think we pair up and teach a class on a envrio topic, mine is the water cycle....in French
I think this week we r going to a sustainable farm to learn some methods and also build ovens for local community people. On thurs I think we pair up and teach a class on a envrio topic, mine is the water cycle....in French
Tech Visit
I went to Dahe, north of Come, with 2 other trainees for a tech visit with a current volunteer for 4 days last week. It was neat, we saw beehives being built and how to attract bees to them. Also, independance day was the first and we took a boat ride on a large lake. We were located in the south but other trainees travelled farther north and the TEFL english teachers got to travel to thier REAL posts. If somone could send a male-male audio plug....the kind you plug into headpone jack ...that would be great. I have had only moderate sickness so far...so everything is going well
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