A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

A picture says a thousand words, so here they are! These are just a few pictures from my 5 weeks here in Costa Rica.



Me and 3 friends from the language school. This was right before we did the zip line tour.



Me on the tarzan swing in the zip line canopy tour.


These were the people we did the zip line canopy tour with! It was a good group.


This is the beach in Manuel Antonio. It's such a beautiful place!!


Me on the beach in Manuel Antonio.


A sloth in the national park in Manuel Antonio.


2 monkeys with a baby monkey crawling all over them... Manuel Antonio.


An iguana chilling on the beach in Manuel Antonio.


My language class last week. This is as full the classes get!

My First 2 Weeks in Costa Rica

So, I finished my Peace Corps service on August 25th, and then I traveled around West Africa and Europe for a couple months where I met so many great people and saw so much, learned so much, and ate so much. 2 months and 2 parasites later I was back at home in Oklahoma City and trying to readjust. It was actually pretty hard to get back into my old life, but by the end of December I had started moderating how much I talked about Benin, bought a car, and was officially starting to look for a job. December/January 2008/2009 is/was not a good time to be looking for a job, as I quickly realized. Especially in international work, and especially when I want to work in international aid and only know about West Africa.

In January my good friend José invited me to come to Washington D.C. for Obama's inauguration, so I found a cheap ticket, booked it and went! José had just come back from Costa Rica and told me all about it, and then he threw me an idea... It went something like this: "Sarah, you know, you would love Costa Rica!! And you could learn Spanish down there too. There are a lot of gringos down there who are working there and taking Spanish classes, and in 6 months or so you would probably be fluent." ...And he then continued to tell me how cheap his ticket there was and that the Costa Rican Spanish accent is pretty understandable everywhere, and that Costa Rica is safe and beautiful and... well, perfect... So, after my trip I looked up plane tickets and language schools, and 10 days later I was in Costa Rica!!!

I arrived on a Sunday morning and was picked up by a taxi driver, Leonel, for the language school I had enrolled in. He was the first Costa Rican I might have ever (knowingly) met, and in the 20 minute drive he showed me pictures of him running marathons dressed as an indian, and explained the many meanings of 'huevos' to me; it was probably the funniest introduction conversation I've ever had.

Leonel dropped me off at my new host families house, and I was surprised to be greeted in English. Ana, my host mom, is wonderful, and she showed my to my room and showed me around the rest of the house. Ana is a physical therapist, and her husband, José, is a computer specialist who also works nights in a hotel lobby.

My first few days flew by, and I quickly realized that living in Costa Rica would be nothing like living in Benin was. First of all, it's like the US in a lot of ways: The grocery stores all have American products, the water in San Pedro is clean enough to drink from the tap, the buses in town are fairly nice and run on time schedules, there are malls, fast food places, and even international cuisines all close by!

Don't get me wrong though, there is a little bit of a crime problem here, and it is a little dirty (trash wise), and there does seem to be a drug problem in some areas... but any big town will have those problems more or less.

To sum things up, I started Spanish classes the Monday after arriving, and I've now finished my second week. My first week I met some people who invited me to go with them on some weekend excursions, so on Saturday we went to Irazu volcano, the town of Cartago (founded by Columbus), and this beautiful valley that looked like it might have been a movie background!!! That Sunday we went on another excursion and did a zip line tour through the rainforest canopy where we were in the tops of trees that were 140 ft high. It was great, relaxing, and a real bonding experience.

In my second week I decided to start taking a jewelry class at a near by jewelry school where I'm learning to make beautiful things out of raw silver! I have to say, I'm really enjoying that. I've already made a ring and I've started making chain lincs for what I believe will be a bracelet. It's hard to say since the classes are all in Spanish!! It's great though, and the people there are really great. We've gone from words to a very primal point-and-show kind of communication, which is working pretty well for me.

During the class breaks I've usually been hanging out with the girls I went on the weekend trips with; Catherine, Katelyn and Debbie. Catherine and Katelyn are also American, and Debbie is Dutch. We have a lot of fun, and I'm really starting to enjoy being here. I'm so happy right now and having such a good time that it almost seems like the bottom has to be about to drop out.

Other than that, I've also been taking dance classes that are free at the language school where I'm learning to cha cha, Mereunge and salsa, and after that I either go to the gym to work out (free with the school enrollment), go to work on my jewelry projects, or I just go home and eat and chat with my host family!!!

Well, Life is good here. I hope it's just as good for everyone everywhere else!!

Till next time
Sarah

Girls' Camp in Bassila

All the girls from the girls' Camp we did in Bassila. The only person missing in this picture is our wonderful Beninese counterpart, Olivier. There are more pictures at the end!!!

Okay, I know I’m terrible… I should have written before now. So much has happened that I don’t know where to begin!!

The most exciting event recently was the girls’ camp in Bassila. Bassila is a town about 3 hours to the south of Boukombe, mostly Muslim, and the cultural groups there are the Ani and the Nago, and both have their own languages that have integrated a lot of Arabic into them. Anyway, this was the 2nd year of this girls camp, but the two volunteers who set it up last year both finished their services literally within 2 weeks of the end of the camp, and long before their replacements had even arrived. To top it all off, one of the new volunteers quit Peace Corps about 1 month before the camp was scheduled to start, leaving all the planning and budgeting to one new volunteer. That’s a lot of weight for one person to carry, especially in a still strange culture with a still new language. It was impressive in that aspect, but that’s not to say there weren’t some hitches.

The biggest difficulty was the lack of help. Unfortunately there were quite a few Peace Corps camps going on at the same time as this little Bassila camp, making it more difficult to get volunteers to come up and work. Also, this year they decided to rent a house and have all the girls stay in it together. The house used was a good size with a living room, 3 bedrooms and a huge front yard that was walled in. It was ideal… until the last minute when the Mama that was supposed to stay with them at the house decided that she was just going to stay at her own house at night. This left the Carly, the volunteer, with a bunch of volunteers in her house while she slept on the porch of the rented house with the girls. I can’t imagine how bad the mosquitoes were that night! So, needless to say, she was tired the whole camp. That Mama barely helped the whole camp. Then the last 2 days (out of 5) all the other volunteers left, leaving Carly and I and Olivier, our Beninese counterpart for the camp. It was hectic, but we managed!

The experience of the camp was truly fully embodied in our last field trip. Olivier, our awesome Beninese counterpart, had arranged for 2 mini-buses to come at 8am to pick us up for our day trip in Djougou, a bigger town about 1 ½ hours to the North. Breakfast was scheduled to arrive at 7am. Since it was just Carly and I at that point, we were both sleeping on the porch, a mosquito net ghetto-rigged above us. 5am the girls start getting up to take their showers, which means they had to go get the water at the faucet across the street, which mean we were quickly woken to the sound of voices and squeeky doors opening. The electricity had been cut for most of the week, so I laid there and watched the sun rise, glad to have a warm sheet on such a cool morning. 5:30am: Cries and screams start coming out of the house. Poor Carly was so exhausted that she didn’t even budge from all the noise, so I went to check it out. I found a girl bawling on the floor of one of the bedrooms with girls rubbing her legs while she screamed in pure agony. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard screams like that before.
“What’s going on” I asked
Another girl answered, “She’s sick, this is her sickness.”
‘Oh great’, I thought to myself as I went to wake Carly. With Carly’s help we easily moved the girl onto the living room couch as the girls continued to rub her legs ferociously and occasionally wrap one as tight as possible with a head scarf. The girl was yelling something in Nago, the local language. “What’s she saying?” I finally asked.
“She wants us to beat on her legs. We won’t do this. She’s irrational from the pain.”
I was overwhelmed. “What’s her sickness?” I finally thought to ask.
“Rhumatism”
I mulled the word over, searching my tired brain for the meaning. I wanted to say it was arthritis, but that didn’t seem right for a young girl. Carly, who was beyond exhausted, decided to go to her house and get the girl some aspirin as I sat there and continued to rub her legs. She was in so much pain that it was painful to watch, so I left the girls to rub her legs as I moved up and had her put her head in my lap. The sudden silence was a shock to the ears. She all-of-a-sudden just stopped balling. As she laid on my chest I could feel the moistness of her t-shirt, completely drenched in tears. Carly arrived after a while with the aspirin, and that also calmed the girl.

As I sat there the girls flew around, occasionally stopping to gawk at the sick girl. The breakfast, of course, didn’t arrive till 7:45. “It’s okay.” Carly said, “They can all eat in about 30 minutes or less. We’ll be fine. Besides one bus just arrived, but the other isn’t here yet.”

After the sick girl calmed down we sent her to change shirts and get ready. She was determined that she didn’t need to go home, and that she would be fine on the trip. She had stopped crying and was even walking a little, so we decided it would probably be okay. Once ready and fed, we loaded her in the first bus as we waited for the second.

9:30: Olivier decides to go look for another bus to take us. At least we didn’t pay the guy in advance. 10am a 2nd bus arrives and the girls start piling in. The 2nd bus had a whole row less than the 1st bus, so the girls had to squish together with 5 to a row…. And for some reason the driver of the 2nd bus, after filling his vehicle, comes over the 1st and starts having the already-loaded girls start moving so that they are 5 to a row as well, which gets the 1st driver involved, and then the apprentices for both drivers come to help their patrons, and within a minute there was 5 African men standing at the door of a sardine-packed bus with room to spare, yelling over something in Nago. Seeing she stupidity of the situation, I get involved and add my voice to the yelling, “LEAVE THOSE GIRLS WHERE THEY AAARRRREEE!!!” …no use. Men just don’t listen to women here, white or not. Seeing the intelligent approach, I went to tell Olivier what was going on, and he breaks the 5 minute discussion up with a few words. It’s so frustrating working with men here.

10:00 Start your engines, we’re ready!! … of course the 1st bus wouldn’t start though, which once again meant all 5 men came back over to the 1st bus and stared at the bus together while the drive dabbled here and there – nothing. So, everyone got out of the front seat so it could be lifted up to view the engine underneath. The driver again dabbled here and there as now 8 sets of eyes glared at him, while the other driver annoyingly puts in his two cents along with sounds of disapproval. Another minute or two and, “VVvrroooommmm!” The engine finally starts. We’re off! “It’s still only 10:30. I guess we’re not hurting to much on time.” Carly says as we roll up to where we were dropping stuff off. Carly jumps out to take care of things with some people as I stay with the girls and the driver. The driver, speaking oddly more English than French, says, “I go there” pointing to some people. I nodded. The man walks over to the group of men, says high, then walks over to a nearby taxi-moto and jumps on and takes off!!!! I caught his eyes as he looked back at me while holding up a ‘1 minute’ finger as he shot off ahead. I must have sat there astounded for a few seconds, because all girls behind me started laughing at my expression. “Where did he just go!!??!!” I asked them. “Did he tell you guys??” Everyone nodded no. Carly came back and quickly got worried by my expression. I explained what happened, and then the girls laughed at both of our expressions. We sat there for a few minutes wondering what was going to happen next, when the driver finally comes back, takes an envelope from his dash and says, “I visit moda. She live dehr. She not fa. I go now.” I flipped a little, and took advantage that he was speaking English, “No, you can’t visit your mom!!! We have everyone in the car!!! You will bring us back this evening. You should visit your mother then.” Luckily this guy wasn’t too hard to convince, so after just a little more cajoling he put the envelope back on his dash and started the car back up. Off we went.

We had left the 2nd bus to go pick up the lunch while we were supposed to pick up the disappearing camp Mama near where she worked on the main road. We found her easily, and she ran over to the window looked in to find a packed car and said, “I am waiting for Olivier’s bus.” “Okay” we respond, and we took off for Djougou.

The next hour and a half passed smoothly. Arriving on the outskirts of Djougou we decided to stop and wait for the other bus. The engine rolls to a loud stop, and everyone gets out to stretch. 5 minutes pass.
“You know, they might have passed us since we took so long dropping that stuff off.” Carly mentioned. “Maybe they’re ahead of us.”
“It is possible. Can you call Olivier?” Carly tries to call. His phone doesn’t ring.
“He might be behind us because his phone isn’t working… but we did take a long time. Maybe his battery’s dead. Let’s go ahead into town.” We all loaded up into the car again. The driver turns the key. Gr-gr-gr-gr-gr. Silence. Try again. Gr-gr-gr-gr-gr. Silence. “It not go now.” The driver says as he calls a man nearby over to push us. We were right off the cement of the road on probably a 5 degree angle with a big, stagnant puddle 10 feet in front of us. The two of them push… no luck. The driver tells 3 girls to get out and push, this time helping push it backwards to avoid the nasty puddle. The engine still doesn’t start and the 5 of them aren’t enough to get the bus back on the pavement. “Wouldn’t ya know. Let’s do it.” I say as Carly and I get out to push, quickly followed by all the other girls. We pushed it forward again. We pushed it back onto the pavement again. We pushed it forward again. Back onto the pavement again. Forward again, and, finally the engine roars up and we all run to jump into the moving vehicle. I turned around to see a bunch of sweaty smiling faces as I started a head count, only to turn back around to the slowing of the car again… our driver had voluntarily stopped at a police stop not 500 feet in front of where we had just come from.

Let me explain about policemen here in Benin. Ya see, there are a LOT of cars in Benin that just don’t want to get their paperwork for their vehicle. Maybe they just work a local route, or maybe they can’t afford it. After all, it costs an arm and a leg. Anyway, most roads aren’t barricaded, they’re just mostly blocked off, letting everyone pass and only stopping ‘suspicious’ vehicles. Suspicious vehicles, if in the wrong, can usually be let off with a small private donation – a bribe. Luckily though, a lot of people just roll through the stops without any problems. Let’s face it, you don’t want to take too many bribes or else it might get back to your superiors… and your average policeman works so hard fattening their pockets that they need at 20 hours of sleep a day… my point is, about 60% of vehicles fly through without a hitch.

But our driver willingly stopped at this police stop, knowing that he didn’t have his papers and that that would be of interest to the police. He takes 2,000 francs ($5usd) of his pay in advance from us as he gets out of the car to talk to the policeman. The policeman, taking not of the 2 white women in the front seat, strolls back to the vehicle, acting as though he’s truly outraged, “Can you believe this man hasn’t bought his papers in 3 years!! 3 YEARS!!! And here he is putting you and all these young girls at RISK!!! Mesdames, you are not secure in this vehicle!! What do you think of that?!!!” He obviously assumed we were stupid enough to possibly side with him on the ordeal. I just turned to him and quietly said, “It’s between you and the driver.” The policeman turned to Carly and started in, “And you??!! This man is putting you in danger!!”
“It’s between you.” Carly responded, without even a turn of the head. As we sat there the other 2nd bus flew by past us with a few black arms sticking out of the windows and waving. Luckily it didn’t take to much longer, and we soon were left to pass with the little tip the driver had offered.
The other bus had gone on to meet with the women who made cloth, and we quickly found it without to much trouble. In arriving, Olivier quickly asked, “Where’s Mama Angelique????”
“She said she wanted to go with you.” we each replied.
“No, you were going to take her. I didn’t pick her up!” Olivier responded.
Ooops.

The rest of the trip seemed to go well. I got to see most of the tour of the hand-made cloth shop before the sick girl had another attack of pain. She broke out a bottle of her own medicine, and reading in English I found what they were calling arthritis; the girl had Sikle-cell Anaemia. I was shocked again!!! Now it all made sense. I vaguely remembered hearing somewhere that that was one of the most painful diseases anyone could have. Wow. I sat with her till the first tour was over, then another girl tied her on her back like a baby and took her to sit in the bus.

The woman who gave us a tour of the cloth factory was so excited to have a group of girls there, that she lead us to visit a metalworker, a jeweler, a leather worker who made shoes and purses, and a man who made makeup and other cow products, like cow hide jewelry boxes and hats. She single-handedly made the day a huge success, and all other problems seemed worth all the fun. The poor Sickle-Cell girl sat in the car crying the whole time with another girl who spoke her language. I wasn’t much help, so I took the role of trip photographer for most of the day. We got back while the sun was still setting with a load full of very happy, pumped-up girls.

That’s the perfect example of how the whole camp went. It was one thing after another, but it was really all about the girls, and I think they had a great time and learned a lot. I was so excited to help them learn to take hold of their lives, and this year my French was so much better than last year that I could even teach them sessions without them giggling at my mistakes. By the end of the camp all the girls were in tears, and I have to admit I was the worst of them all. It was all so difficult and exhausting and frustrating, but all so very worth the trouble.

In case your curious, Sickle-Cell anaemia is actually a hereditary disease that causes the red blood cells to take a sickle shape instead of their normal round, flexible shape. Because of this, they sometimes get blocked up in the system and restrict oxygen from the blood vessels downstream, causing attacks that, in the developed world, need opioids to calm the pain. It can cause strokes, ulcers, gallstones, and much more, and the average lifespan of an inflicted person is 42 to 48. Interestingly though, Sickle-Cell is more common in places where malaria exists, because people with Sickle-Cell have red blood cells that aren’t conducive to the parasites causing immunity to malaria altogether. Crazy, right?

This was a long post, huh? Well, I hope you all are doing well. I have about a month left in Boukombe, then 2 months of travel, and then I’ll be home!! I look forward to it.

Sarah


All the girls singing in the bus. They had about 5 camp songs that we sang everywhere we went.


Here the girls are learning about weaving cloth.


In this little shop the girls learned about making aluminum products. The workers here can make 3 to 4 spoons a day like this one, and they can sell them for $4 a piece.


These girls are looking over the materials and tools used to make jewelry at the jewelers.


This man made these things out of cow hide.


After touring all the different workers' shops, The woman who was helping us also introduced us to her mother. Her mother was the one that taught her to weave, and here you can see she is in the process of starting a loom.

The times, they are a Changin'

These are some of my neighbor kids in my reading group. When I took this picture I told them to smile like they were laughing, so they all started to laugh like crazy... hence the great facial expressions! I love these kids.

It’s that time of year again! School is finally over here, the rains finally started, all the school kids have gone back to their villages and everyone has gone to the fields. Bent over with a 13th century style farming tool, people turn over the moist soil by hand until they make neat rows, rows that turn into swimming troughs and drinking holes for ducks and cows when it rains. After the soil is arranged they take a mango branch and, hole by hole, poke it into the ground and drop a seed in. This goes on and on till all of their land is planted, all of their father’s land is planted, all of their brothers lands are planted, and so on.

Now’s also the time when the water tables rise back up. Soon water will be above the low parts of most roads, making transportation all the messier. All this standing water also means that it’s mosquito season again, which means people will start getting even more sick from malaria or colds, which they’ll conveniently call malaria anyway. The only good things that the rain brings are more food and colder weather. Whip out those winter coats everyone, it’s 85*F outside!! …and they do. They actually do catch cold here if it’s colder than about 85*. I’ll admit, I even put on a coat!

Unfortunately, it’s also time to say goodbye to people. My service is quickly coming to an end, and I’ll actually leave Boukombé around August 15th. Most of my work is wrapped up or will be easily right before I leave. My latest business club ended a few months ago without as much success as the year before. My reading club with all of my neighborhood kids will free up the kids’ Saturday mornings once I’m gone. My good friends in town will go on with their lives and probably talk about me and how nice I was, how fat I was (remember, that’s a compliment here. It means you’re a big person basically.), how my parents came, how I liked to work with kids and education, and how I used to always bake breads and cakes and cookies and share them with everyone. I hope that’s what they’ll remember. I don’t think anybody here thinks badly of me, but if there are some then those people might talk about how I bargain like an African, how they might think I traveled too much, how I refused to marry an African, or how I never really quite mastered Ditammari (the local language).

You might want to ask if I think I’ve been a successful volunteer. My answer would definitely be a yes. I really do believe so. After all, I’ve achieved exactly what I came here to do. In leaving home, I knew I wanted to grow along with a community and help them grow without just giving handouts. I helped kids by mentoring them and teaching them basic business practices. I even took a group of 15 on a business trip and introduced them to successful people who weren’t always well educated and some who were even successful even though they are handicapped. I helped a women’s group start a micro-credit union amongst themselves, and by the end some women could show me their increased savings balances in their account books because of their loan. I’ve helped kids learn English, and I’ve helped them get interested in reading with my Reading Club. I’ve also helped private small business owners make personal investment plans, which are helping them save the money to improve their businesses and their lives. I lived with a host family for over 2 months, and there I learned about life in the house of a Muslim family, and what it must be like to have 20 to 30 kids in a household all the time. I’ve also taught people about my culture, and I’ve learned an incredibly lot from them. I’ve also grown up while being here. I’ve learned patience, self-reliance, confidence, perseverance, what it’s like to be a minority, humiliation, and for a time I even experienced being poor first hand.

I’m truly going to miss my friends here. Most of all I’m going to miss Mama who has adopted me as her own and who I will never forget. I’m going to also miss my neighbor kids. They have always made me laugh, even on my darkest and most difficult days here. I’m going to miss Zena (a nickname), an intelligent female student of mine that has become a good friend and a huge help to me. I’ll never forget my work partner Paulin, who has always been there for me. I’ll never forget all of our discussions and all of the help he has so willingly given me. I’ll really miss Therese, who has always been a great friend and defended me till the end against the racism of others. I’ll miss my tailor lady, Fassi, who has always been a good friend and a willing student when it came to learning western-style clothing. If only you all could see some of the things we’ve produced! I would love to name off everyone I’ll never forget, all the women, all the artisans, all the people at the mayors office, all the people at Zongo (where the Muslim women sell things)… there’s just not enough time or space, but I’ll never forget any of them.

What next? I’m not quite sure. I would like to learn more languages, especially Chinese and/or Spanish, and I’m thinking I would like to continue to work abroad to some extent. It’s not like I have the fear of going home that so many volunteers develop, but it’s more that I feel like I have so much to learn about the world, and there’s so much I want to experience! I have an offer for grad school in China, but it’s starting to look unlikely that I will take it. I’ll probably take the GMAT again once I get home and apply to better schools. Right now it seems more and more likely that I’ll be putting off grad school for work though.

I’m really excited about my upcoming Close of Service trip!!! A friend, conveniently also named Sara, and I are going to make a tour of West Africa! She is going to meet up with me a week after I COS (Close of Service), but we’ll be going through Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, and then back to good ol’ Benin where we’ll fly to Paris together and hang out for a few weeks. Then, to top it all off, I’ll meet my parents in Italy in mid October for a family vacation! I should be touching down on that sweet American soil no later than mid October! Oh that beautiful land of grocery stores, fast food and coffee shops… and broccoli, cheese, spinach, tomatoes… I’ll be seeing you soon!!! Is it too obvious that I can’t think about anything but food? That must be the malnutrition speaking.

Well, I’ll probably only write once or twice more before my service is over. It’s crazy to imagine that I won’t be writing about Boukombé and Peace Corps anymore. Anyway, I hope you all are doing well, and I look forward to seeing you all in just a few months. Isn’t it crazy how time flies???

Sarah



This is me with my new haircut. It's now the shortest it has ever been.

NEWSFLASH!

So much has happened since I wrote last!!!

First things first: I now have my official COS (Close of Service) date; August 25th, 2008. After that I plan to travel around West Africa for about 1 1/2 months before I fly home. Don't worry, I've got a travel partner!

A couple of weeks ago I had my COS conference with the other 45 or so volunteers that I swore in with. Peace Corps put us up in a really awesome hotel where we ate buffet-style for 3 meals a day!!! It was really nice, actually... it was the exact getaway I needed! Unfortunately I didn't get to hang out with the other volunteers as much as I had hoped. I had to study for the GMAT in just about all my spare time.

So, I had to schedule to take the GMAT in Ghana (2 countries over) because it's not offered in Benin or Togo. The visa's just to get over to Ghana cost about $50 USD, so I decided to take advantage of them and spend the last of my vacation days in Ghana as well. I'm actually still in Ghana right now!

Ghana is an incredible place. People are so friendly here! Also, they are on the American/British system instead of the French system, which means they speak English, eat toast instead of baguettes, work during those 3 hours in the middle of the day, and they even have fast food! I feel like I could really live here. Even though it is English speaking here, it is still surrounded on every side by French speaking West Africa... surely I could find a job here, right? We'll see. Right now I want to finish my service and my travels, then touch American soil for a while.

Since being here I've really played tourist the whole time. Ghana and Benin were the two largest exporters of slaves during the slave trade, so I spent quite a bit of time visiting the Gold Coast. The Gold Coast is, obviously, the coast of Ghana. It was named this because of all the gold found there. The Gold was actually the first thing that attracted Europeans to Africa. Gold would be traded over the Sahara from one tribe to another in the forms of traditional carvings and gold dust. Back then the people here saw it as something beautiful that could be used as decorations, so when the Europeans came in search of gold, they found they could buy it off of the locals very cheaply. Because of this, they built huge fortresses along the coast line. The Portuguese were the first to arrive, but over time they left the coast. This left the British and the Dutch as the main powers in Ghana, and after time they found that trading humans was much more profitable than trading gold. Over 250 years 65 million slaves were traded from Ghana's coast.

There are over 20 castles and forts that still stand on the coast of Ghana today, and touring them was incredible. In the Cape Coast Castle human waste would be left in the cells to the point where in one room it had solidified to a highth of 4 feet. Most castles held up to 1,000 people at a time for 2 to 3 months before being shipped off like animals... and that's not counting the 2 to 3 months WALK in shackles to get to the coast. As many as half of the people involved died before reaching the new world.

Playing tourist and seeing these forts was incredible. I visited Cape Coast Castle, Fort Victoria, and St. George's Castle. I also went to the towns of Cape Coast, Elmina, Takoradi, Kumasi, and of course Accra, the huge and wonderful capital.

Other news: I gave birth for the first time Wednesday, May 28th. I had had this swollen spot on my stomach for about a week, and after taking the GMAT I finally decided that it might be time to squeeze out all the liquids that seemed to be inside. I squeezed and squeezed, and then this line of white stuff about 1 centimeter long comes out all at once... and then it starts wiggling!!!!! I flipped out!!!! And started calling the Peace Corps doctors and explaining what happened to everyone who passed my way. I soon settled down though. It turns out it's just a common thing here, and you squeeze out the bug and it's over. They never have twins. It's actually a fly that lays larva on wet clothes, and if you don't let your clothes dry completely before putting them on then the larva will hatch on your skin and start forming a fly. Apparently, if I had left it much longer I would have started to see the fly moving under my skin!!! Crazy, right?! Anyway, I killed it right away, and ever since I've been drying my clothes to the point of obsession.

That's about all of my news though. I know this blog is a little eclectic and not well organized, but I've just been writing as things come to me. I hope all of you are doing well, and I hope to see you all when I get back in early October!!!

Sarah

Food

This is me with a bush rat I bought on the road from Boukombe to Natitingou. It had just been killed and some of its hair was being plucked when I bought it, hence his white bald spot on his side. I ate him that same evening. He was tasty!!!

I always love my weekly phone calls from the States. I love just hearing familiar voices, hearing about day to day life back at home, hearing about how wonderful things are over there. I like to hear that most of day to day life is just as I remember it. I love imagining everyone in the air-conditioned bubbles, the work bubble, the car bubble, the store bubbles… the stores…

I like to imagine all the things you could buy in the States. If I were there, I would jump out of my house bubble and into a car bubble and drive down to the nearest grocery store bubble where all the produce and meat I could imagine could be found, and in perfect condition (aka in their own bubbles). I might cry if I could go in a grocery store. Tears of happiness, of course. I would buy a head of broccoli, a head of cauliflower, carrots, and some big steaks. …Scratch that; I would go to Charleston’s in Oklahoma City. I would order a steak with mixed vegetables and Charleston’s glazed carrots. Maybe some potatoes too, depending on how I felt. I would hate to not eat them and be wasteful. After all, think of all the starving children in Africa.

Food is one of the things I miss most. There’s something very soothing to be found in grilled chicken or a hamburger. There is meat here, but it is all very lean. The chicken tastes rubbery and flavorless unless fried. For the small price of 3 hours of work, I could grind my own hamburger and make my own burgers… and that’s not even considering the time to make the buns. I’ll admit though, I do do that occasionally.

Food has probably been my hardest thing to deal with in living here. In the 2 years that have now passed, I’ve probably lost more than 50% of my hair, and it turns out that it’s more likely I lost it from a lack of protein than from the anti-malarial medicines as I had previously assumed. I’ve also gained weight and lost muscle mass… also results of more carbs than proteins.

It’s just so hard to eat protein here! For chicken or guinea fowl you have to wait till market day (every 4 days) to buy the live chicken, keep it alive (and crapping and crowing at 3:30am) until you want to eat it, then cut it’s throat(not easy to do with a dull knife), defeather it in hot water (which you have to get from a bucket and boil), then remove its innards and prepare for cooking. Let’s not even think about boneless chicken!!! I definitely don’t.

Beef and pork are easier, but pork is a little risky. To kill all the possible diseases in pork you have to bring the uncut beast to a high temperature I believe, and this doesn’t get done here. Pork is sold in small, precut pieces at the market though, which is less work than chicken. Beef is sold by the kilo, and you can choose with or without bones. Of course, you’re ordering this from a butcher who is standing 3 ft in front of a huge cow carcass, only to fill your order by turning around and hacking at the poor remains with a machete. There’s also a separate butcher who sells the innards, if that’s your thing. A good cow’s brain can be bought whole for the small price of about a dollar or two. And yes, I’ve eaten that, along with the skin, intestines and tongue. No signs of Mad Cow Disease yet!!!

Goats and sheep can also be bought, but your basically buying the whole baaing, squealing animal at the market. I don’t mess with that, but I’ll eat it when it’s served at places. Goat’s pretty tasty really, and of course mouton is.

My favorite meats are really the surprising ones. I really like bush rat. In fact, I will eat bush rat any chance I get!! It’s just SO GOOD. Bush rat is as huge as a rabbit, and just as decadent. Rabbits good to. I keep meaning to try dog. I hear it’s a rich mans meat. Monkey to. The monkey is always so pre-cooked that it looks disgusting though. Same for the moles. I have eaten your average rat though… it might have been mouse I guess. It wasn’t my thing, but a lot of people like it. Fried rain bugs are good, but I don't know if you would call that a good source of protein. The only thing I probably won't get a chance to try is cat. They say that cat is for really poor people and there’s not much meat. Pigeon also didn’t do much for me, but I guess if you’re eating meat mostly for the bone marrow, it might be good.

Everyone here breaks the bones and sucks out the bone marrow… yes, like a dog. My post mate ate dinner with a French woman/tourist once, and they were with some Beninese as well, and when the Beninese started chewing the bones and sucking the marrow out the French woman literally said, “Oh, like a dog!” …Which is so offensive I can’t even imagine the looks on everyone’s faces. Especially since in Ditammari (local language) calling someone a dog is a way of really putting them down. She just didn’t understand. If you throw unbroken bones on the ground or in the trash here you will most likely offend some people. At least leave it for some kids. After all, bone marrow is a great source of protein!

I do miss vegetables as well, but if you work at it you can get your veggies. We get cabbage and carrots at the Market for most of the year here in Boukombé. For a brief period at the end of the rains (September) we get eggplant and mushrooms. We seem to get green beens for a month or two after the rains as well. We almost always have tomatoes, though defunct in flavor, and onions in either white or purple. We also have okra all year around, but people don’t fry it here. If you drop raw okra into boiling water it turns into a snotty looking goo sauce, which is eaten all the time here. When anything can’t be found in Boukombé it can almost always be found in Natitingou, the big town 35miles (50km) to the East. I bring carrots back, and sometimes avocados, green beens, eggplant, radishes, and/or cucumbres.

Fruits are seasonal, but more abundant than veggies. Oranges can be found from about July to December. Bananas are a year around cheap potassium source. Papaya shows up everywhere from about December to February. Mangoes to are incredibly abundant, but only from March till May when they disappear completely. Grapefruits, melons, and pineapples (very rare up here for lack of water) all make appearances at the end of the rains (August/September) till about December. Citrons and lemons also are fairly easy to find, especially during the rains.

As I’ve mentioned before. After September we don’t see another drop of rain, much less even a cloud till March, so that limits everything that can be found here. It also determines when you can find meats. For some reason birds like to lay eggs during the rains. Also, people sell off their cows in the middle of the dry season because the poor beasts are starving and getting sick. Animals don’t get fed, they roam for food, so once the rains stop food gets more and more rare for goats and cattle. Also, one of the biggest thing lacking in Benin is an affordable transport system, whether it be with humans or produce, so we rarely see items from elsewhere. There are buses that go north and south on the 3 long paved roads that run through the country, but they are mostly for people, and they are expensive even for that (approx $16usd one way Natitingou to Cotonou – a 9 hour trip).

I just realized that I’ve probably explained my food situation in way to much detail to you. Honestly, I just really am obsessed. Luckily Boukombé gets a lot more variety than most towns its size, but in that month or two when you can’t get tomatoes here you realize how limited you are. When onions double in price and sell out early in May you can’t help but imagine that far away land of grocery stores who keep hundreds of pounds of huge onions stocked at just about the same price year round. Or what about that moment where you’re craving a steak (no matter how lean), only to realize it’s not market day or that the butcher took the market day off.

Though it might seem I’m complaining, I’m really not. I’ve gotten used to things here. Yes, it will be nice to go home to the carcass-free land of plenty, but I’m busy enjoying the here and now. There are so many incredible things to see and learn and experience here. It’s just to bad that a good piece of meat can’t be one of those things to.

Sarah

Le Dernier Baobab A Tombé – The Last Baobab Has Fallen

This is what a Ditammari Cemetary looks like.

The last baobab has fallen… it’s a beautiful phrase, is it not? It’s what people say here to signify that an era has changed, or that the last of the great symbols of a generation are gone. Today, the last baobab was actually my best friend in village’s husband.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned my Mama to you before. Mama Agness? She is an older woman, about 65, who grew up in Boukoumbe. She did not live in Boukoumbe her whole life, but she grew up here and she has retired here. In between then she was married, had 3 children, was then left by her husband, and all that time worked for 25 years as a secretary in Cotonou.

My Mama’s husband left her to start another family with his 2nd wife, and then after they had both retired he left his 2nd wife to live again with Mama. Mama is a strong and very religious woman, and so she found the strength within her to take care of him as his health started to fail him, even though she felt betrayed by how he had treated her all of their lives.

Though his health was fairly good within the last few years, he had been having bouts of tension (I assume they were strokes), and the last one hit him hard. He lost a significant amount of weight and strength, and on his return it was hard to recognize him from all the weight and muscle he had lost. Papa was a strong-willed man, and since modern medicine wasn’t working he turned to the local healers. He spent over a week out in the bushes, living with a medicine man who was giving him treatments and having him sleep on a mat on the ground, and of course there was no electricity. He did everything to try to get better, but to no avail.

Papa Alexis died on March 29th, 2008. I believe they said he was 65 or 68 years old.

I was in Cotonou at the time, but Mama called me the morning after to tell me the news. The funeral was set for 2 weeks later (In case you’re wondering, there is a morgue in Natitingou that has refrigeration). That was last Saturday, April 12th.

Now, I have seen funerals before, but I had never seen a funeral for an old man from Boukoumbé. For young people, aka people without children, the funerals are very sad and morose. On the other hand those who reached old age have their lives celebrated.

This particular funeral was more than a funeral – it was a all-inclusive town event! Everyone made sure nothing was planed for Saturday, because no one wanted to miss the funeral. Ya see, Papa Alexis wasn’t just an ordinary man. After he left Mama for his 2nd wife he was promoted to be a big chief in the Police department in Cotonou. Big men get big celebrations.

It all started on Friday night at 8pm. The body was not there, but everyone gathered and spoke about Papa Alexis. It ended with a ministre speaking, which was when I showed up. My excuse for being late: Nothing ever starts on time in Africa! …except for funerals apparently. Anyway, after the memorial service was over coffee and bread (both specialties) were served to help people stay awake all night. That’s right, they stayed awake all night in memory of Papa Alexis. I drank my coffee and went home to go to bed.

The real, official ceremony started at 7am on Saturday. Mama had the viewing of the body in her living room. In preparation for this, within days she had completely replaced the linoleum on the floors and had her front porch painted white. The masses of people lined up to walk past the body, which was incased in a locally made teak casket, featuring a window over the face where people could look in. I can’t say I got much time to look at him, but let me just say that they don’t embalm the bodies here. By 8:00am this was done, so they took the body to the Mayors office so that the mayor could say goodbye. Papa had worked as a council for the mayor, and so it was a sign of his service and his importance to the community. By 9am he had arrived back to the church for his last Mass.

I found the mass to be especially interesting, because they seemed more interested on focusing on Papa Alexis’ lack of attendance in the church rather than his personality or his family or how much he would be missed, though those things were slightly mentioned. If you think about it, that’s quite a way to convert people: Come to church or we will crucify you at your own funeral!

Anyway, After mass the body was taken to a cemetery out in the bushes. It was buried, and it was encased in cement as they do at home, but people do not have headstones here, and there are not families buried together. There is a cemetery for men and only men can enter it, a cemetery for women, and another separate one for children. After the bodies are buried they put a clay pot on top with a hole in it. I assume that this is a home for their spirit, and the hole is so that the spirits can easily get in and out.

The men all went to witness the burrying, while the women were left in town to wait. Afterwards. Lunch was served at the local bar, where important invited guests were fed while the peasants were given drinks. After this, the festivities continued at Mama’s house, where canned drinks (a rarity) were served, along with plates of rice and beef, fried dough balls, beers, tchouk (the locally made beer), ice water, and even cookie packets for the kiddies were given out. Everyone sat around in the heat and talked and stuffed themselves. Me especially! I decided to leave at about 2pm for no real reason, but the party kept going till sunset.

The next day, yesterday, there was a traditional ceremony as well, which involved lots of dancing and noise, but I didn’t realize it was Papa Alexis’ traditional funeral until it was too late. It started around 4pm and ended by 7:30pm, and the ending honestly sounded like an orchestra warming up, from a distance at least.

I visited Mama again today, and she seemed distressed. I think she is tired and worn down from having to entertain and stay up all night and everything. I also know she’s sad though. She has had 4 days of nothing but talking about her deceased husband who caused her so much pain in her life, but that she can’t help but love and miss.
Most of the guests are gone, and the 2nd wife as well. Many of you are probably wondering how they get along. They are very affable towards one another. Mama realizes that it was him that searched for a 2nd wife, not the other woman searching him out. In fact the other wife (her name escapes me) was incredibly nice and very helpful to Mama.

Mama and the few relatives left are still sitting there talking about Papa, probably even as I type. When I left them they were talking about how “The last baobab has fallen.” As poetic as this is, it is a sign that they are still in mourning. The other visitors will go home soon though, and Mama will get a chance to move on and be happy again. I look forward to that, for Mama’s sake.

As for other things, well it’s hot here!!! It’s been about 110*F the last few days. It’s even hot at night, and having the fan on full blast doesn’t even seem to help at all. Well, I say that and then the electricity will get cut and I’ll realize that the fan’s not so bad after all! Hopefully the rains will start in another week or so. I keep thinking that I see or smell rain clouds on the horizon, but it must be a desert mirage. Stupid mirages.

It’s so hot that no one even leaves their houses between about 10am and 6pm. Today I got a little stir crazy and so I tried to go out and walk around at about noon, and everyone who saw me stopped me and tried to give me a ride home. “What are you doing out right now!?!? It’s too hot to walk around right now!!! Can’t you tell it’s hot?!!!?! Get on my moto, I’ll take you home…” I swear I hear that speech 10 times before I took the offer, and I only took it because I literally got blocked in by 2 people who refused to let me walk a step further. Ha ha. I guess it might have been hot outside.

As for work: I’ve got some new stuff started, but I’m hesitant to announce it because it will indefinitely fall apart if I do. I’m working with another women’s group though, and we will hopefully rebuild a flood pond, giving water to a waterless area during the dry season. I also hope to get some other classes started with this same group of women, but we’ll see how it goes. I plan to train some trainers on how to give some classes as well, but we’ll see how things go before I say to much.

That’s about all of my news. I hope all of you are doing well! It would be great to hear from you guys at any time, new and old friends alike! My email is sarahinafrica@gmail.com. Best of luck to you all.

Sarah