Camp Glow

I'm back in good health. After that small battle with malaria(?)or bacterial infection I've been back on my feet since Friday. Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) was a great success. The girls all seemed very changed by the end of the week. It was really inspiring to see them become more outgoing and confident. They had toured a radio/ television station, visited a university, heard talks from professional women, health workers, environmental workers, done crafts, played sports and many other great activities.

I was so proud of how well my girls from Ouedeme behaved. In fact one was so impressive that out of the 50+ girls in attendance she was awarded a "spirit stick" because she was always so involved, on time, outspoken, and well-behaved. She is one of my best students and I'm glad I was able to help her have such a unique experience.

Saturday was my day to spend all day and night at the center. Another volunteer and I were in charge of girl-wrangling and running the various activities. There was a recap sessions about their goals and motivations. We discussed what they wanted to do and how they were better equipped to achieve their aims after the week's sessions. It went pretty well.

Next was a closing ceremony where we invited many of the participating ONGs and contributers from the community to come meet with the girls and see a slide show presentation I put together of everyone's photos throughout the week.

The afternoon was a great session. We had four hours of crafts. There were friendship bracelets, crocheting, making little pouches from FanMilk bags, and I manned the tie-dye station. Each girl made a head wrap and dyed it.

Saturday night we had a candle ceremony then a dance party. After that it was lights out. Upon returning to our room I noticed my wallet was left open sitting on the bed. I know I hadn't spent any money all day so it struck. Anxious, I opened it only to find my money missing. The door had been locked all day and was locked when we came back to the room. Also missing from the room was another volunteer's brand new digital camera. I spoke to the security guard who explained that it was not possible for the camera and my money to have been stolen as there is only one person with a key. Frustrated we went to visit the person who keeps the keys only to find him not answering the door. Cleaned out, my biggest concern was that I now had no money to get my girls home the next day. There was nothing that could be done so I went to bed.

The next morning I spoke with the volunteer who organized the camp and she managed to squeeze a little money out of the remainder of the budget to get my girls back to village. It was nice to finally have some downtime so another PCV and I rearranged some of the furniture in the workstation. I'm looking forward to this week as my first true week of vacation.

Why?

Because email is hard.

After nearly one year here in Benin I find myself giving into the blog. After sending 17+ dispatch emails I have grown tired of the unreliable and cumbersome nature of mass mailing. In an effort to put an end to these problems, I have created this space to post to directly. I hope you will check in often, even if there is a lull in posts from time to time. After all, internet access is never guaranteed here in Benin. You can also subscribe if you still want it to come to you.

Paluuuuuu!

I'm up north in Parakou for a girl's empowerment camp, called Camp GLOW, this week. Thirteen volunteers brought between 2 and 4 girls to the city for a week of sessions and outings. Most of the girls are between 10 and 13 years old. Many have never left their little villages and have no idea what life is like after 3e (similar to 8th grade in the US). At GLOW, they go to the university, a radio and television station, listen to talks, watch films, eat really well, and meet other girls from all over the country.

We came up on Sunday, got the girls settled in and did some ice-breaking activities. The next day there were several sessions including some really interesting talks from some independent professional women.

On Tuesday we took a short trip to an agricultural center about 15k outside of Parakou. A couple other volunteers and I made the trip by bicycle just to get some exercise. I noticed I was getting a bit of a headache, I thought it was just from the sun (although the sky had been threatening rain all morning). I paid no mind and made the ride home.

Back at the workstation I started to feel a bit ill and really tired. Within an hour I had massive headache, I thought it was a migraine. So I laid down and watched some TV on my laptop. An hour later I had the chills, and my head seemed to be splitting open. I checked my temperature a round 9pm and it was at 102.4. I knew I had malaria, the palu. Through the night things kept getting worse but I slept as well as I could waiting for the sun to come.

In the morning I woke up feeling a bit better. This is normal for malaria, as it usually bursts the blood cells at night and the symptoms intensify. I spent the day resting and made a call to the doctors. They told me to wait to see if thing got worse in the evening. If so, I was to do a blood test and call the doctor back. They would send a local doctor to the house to run the test and give me medicine.

I spent the day waiting but it never got too bad. My fever stayed marginal and I just felt a little weak. I made it through another night and today I feel pretty good. If I do well tonight I should be fine. I'm looking forward to beating this little bout with the Palu, and chalking it up to another trial of my time here in Benin and getting back to the camp.

The down time how I finally got to put this blog together.

Pomp and Passing in Glazoue

For those haven't received my previous email dispatches, Glazoue is a town situated on the goudron (asphalt road) about 12k from my village. Glazoue is also the head of my “commune” (county). The mayor had died a month earlier of a heart attack. There had been wide-spread rumors attributing his death to Gris-Gris (evil voodoo). There were even some civil uprisings and minor conflicts between the two ethnic groups there. The conflict was, when compared to events such as Kenya's last presidential election in January, very minor. Some businesses were looted, and threats were made. One of my favorite shop owners was imprisoned for making threats after his shop was decimated by rioters. Eventually the military was called in to quell the strife.

A month later I, with another PC volunteer and the two local Japanese volunteers attended the burial ceremony in Sowe, a village near my own. Upon arriving at 7:30AM we were greeted by a crowd of family, friends, and hangers-on. The number of the crowd would eventually grow to thousands. We walked around and I visited with a couple of people I know from the village. Everyone seemed very impressed that we were dressed appropriately.

My guest and I were dressed outfits made in one of the several designated tissus (clothes). Wearing the same cloth is a huge cultural custom here in Benin that people invoke for any number of occasions. This particular ceremony was interesting because of the sheer number of different tissus and their according significance, direct relations wore one tissue, indirect another, political and social ties had their own as well. The outfits were amazing, everyone was dressed to the 9's, knowing that nearly every politically influential personality would be in attendance. I hadn't seen so many luxury cars gathered together since arriving in Benin. Soon it was time to eat a little something before the ceremony began.

In Benin it is custom that the women of the family spend the entire night before a burial preparing food for the attendants of the proceedings. In the case of the mayor, two cows were killed and cooked. In addition to mountains of riz-gras (fat rice) which, as one might imagine from the translation, is just rice cooked with tons of fat. Just the thing to wake you right up for a 5 hour Catholic ceremony spoken in a combination of foreign languages.

Soon thereafter we were seated under massive tents that would make any circus proud. The ceremony was soon under way, speakers were punctuated with musical numbers from one or more of the 6+ choirs in attendance. The ceremony seemed to outlast not only our short Western attention spans but those of the Beninese as well. Soon there were calls from the MCs to limit this or that part of the ceremony. Eventually, after gift giving, dancing, singing, ad nauseum we made our way home to spend the afternoon showing the Jica (Japanese version of Peace Corps) around my village and eating make-shift Mexican.