So, there is a huge debate about development that I like to busy my brain with. First of all, it should be known that ‘development’ might as well mean ‘westernization’, and westernization is everything from cell phones and computers to box-shaped houses, speaking French/English, and wearing t-shirts.
Second of all, it’s coming. The western world is quickly coming to Africa. In fact, you can see the difference every year. Apparently a year ago there weren’t cell phones in Boukoumbé, and the electricity only worked for a few hours every night. Now there is a fairly bad cell phone system here that is about to get replaced by another, even better one, and the electricity never goes out more then once a day, and not for more then a few minutes at a time… also, there are water faucets at many homes around town, and even sinks, though I don’t know how long ago the water system was installed. The water here is even clean enough to drink from the faucet though. This is because it comes straight from the water table. Who knows what will have developed after these next 2 years… hopefully at least my French will. Development in general is happening quickly though.
The other thing about development is that there is no stopping it. We’ve already shown these people the world. They see movies, they hear our music, they know how great the western world must be. Also, you have to remember the contact these people have… the contact with people like me. Here I am with my laptop and my digital camera that can show the pictures it just took, and my iPod that is smaller then a cd but can store 5,000 times more music… even my glasses are a sign of how great the western world is. Because of this they want these things too… I can’t say I blame them either…
The grass is always greener on the other side though. They don’t see how tied down, how addicted westerners are to their worlds. We can’t survive without it anymore, and we always need more… and they can’t see what it costs us… many of us slave away at a desk everyday, slaves to our credit card bills, mortgages, student loans, all paying for things that are western world told us we had to have. We spend our lives playing catch-up, don’t we? It’s a game, isn’t it? A risky one, a game where you are always teetering on the edge, but without that game we couldn’t have those things, those things that we so desperately need.
These people don’t see that. They don’t know what beautiful freedom they actually have. Freedom doesn’t seem like a fair word for it because these people do have to do 4 or 5 things at once to get by, but they do get by, and what bills they have are the electric and water bills at most. Plus, I can’t tell you how wonderful it must feel to pay those few bills and buy the food for the family and then still have money left over… free money… money that you can use to by a chicken with, money you could by a radio with… uncommitted money! Even if it’s just enough to buy each kid a piece of candy, it’s still free money! It’s that feeling of being ahead… I think the quote from the movie Blow embodies it best, “This is the way it goes; sometimes your flush and sometimes your bust, and when you’re up it’s never as good as it seems and when your down it never seems like your gonna be up again, but life goes on. Money isn’t real (George), it doesn’t matter.” … but I think the Beninese feel this more, because how often are we, with our thousands of dollars of bills, ever ‘flush’? Let me put it this way, most people I know at home would really celebrate if they were flush… and of course they would then charge the celebration to their favorite credit card. Heh. C’est la vie… la-bas (over there).
Another quote I like comes from Edward Abbey’s book The Monkey Wrench Gang, “When there’s nothing left to loose what’s there to worry about?”…but I think you got the idea already.
Anyway, back the issue of development:
The point of all of that was that they see our lives, the good things, and they want to be westernized.
But what about the culture here… their culture? They think ours is so wonderful, and it is, but theirs is so beautifully unique! We as westerners strive so hard to be original and different from one another (and yet we are all still, and always practically just alike), and here is this completely unique and different culture that wants nothing more then to be just like the rest of us. What do you do? What can you say that might make them see what you see?! And to top all of this off, they want me to help develop the tourism here… which is like leading the little Boukoumbé mouse to the cheese of westernization.
Okay, it’s not as bad as that sounds. There’s another side of it all I haven’t mentioned yet. What if I help them build up their tourism by helping them exploit their own culture… what says that they wouldn’t become proud of their individuality, and therefore feel a need to preserve their culture themselves? That is the point of the ever-so-fragile term ‘ecotourism’ anyway, isn’t it? Besides, the world does want to see Boukoumbé and it’s beautiful culture, and there is nothing wrong with helping them make a little money off of it, especially since it’s only a matter of time… if I didn’t help organize it to where they get some of the profits, then someone else will organize it and make sure that the majority of the money never sees the pockets of Boukoumbé.
There are many more pieces to this puzzle of course… more loopholes where something could go astray, but I won’t get any deeper than this. It’s a tricky subject though. Please, by all means, send me your thoughts on the subject… I would love to have more subject matter to befuddle my little brain with. (email: sarahinafrica@gmail.com)
….So that’s one of my big debates that I’m always mulling over…. I guess there are quite a few of those, actually.
Okay, there is one more thing to think about when mentioning this whole development thing… it’s really an irrelevant thought… but what would have happened if we never brought our ‘development’ and ‘aid’ to them? Yes, they would be even more hungry and poor and sick than they are now, but everyone would be like that and they wouldn’t know that anything else existed. Everyone would be equal in that sense, and there wouldn’t be the inequalities there are now where some people have western things and the rest just dream of them… would everyone be happier? They do say ignorance is bliss. If they hadn’t been told that their lives were hard and miserable in comparison to ours, would they still be miserable? I’m not saying development is wrong…. I’m just saying that there are a lot of interesting things to think about.
To all of you, best of luck. Any comments, thoughts or questions are more then welcome. Once again, my email is sarahinafrica@gmail.com.
Sarah
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Saturday, October 21, 2006
A Few New Things Here and There
Here are some new things that I just realized I do on a daily basis that I never did before coming here:
Cooking: Before now I had never peeled garlic, made something with random ingredients and without a recipe, knowingly eaten eggplant, or experimented with fruit juices in the place of spices. It’s almost odd to say, but I think I might be an okay cook. Give me time. I’ll perfect it.
Spoken another language: this one’s fairly obvious, n’est pas? … the French is improving and I can almost understand everything that’s said to me, and I can most definitely respond to things… now for the local language, Ditamariiba!
Not eating meat: The meat’s weird here. It’s all… wild. I guess there aren’t many Tyson factories around here…. All the chickens lack genetic modification, and therefore they taste too natural I guess. Oh, and if you did want to buy meat here you’re either buying a living, breathing creature with everything intact (I prefer my chicken parts in a bag on the frozen food isle), or your watching someone chop off the part you asked for… it’s a little much for me. Did I tell you guys about when the host family had a cow in the front yard one day, and the next day it was gone, and then after that we had beef for the next 4 days (it was for a festival)? Did I mention that? It just seemed all too real. All of this brings up an interesting thought though: How detached are we (as Americans) from our food?
Gotten used to the heat: Well, it finally happened. I now get cold when it’s less then 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I guess it’s only natural for your blood to eventually thin out enough to where anything less then blazing hot feels good. I still sweat when it is blazing hot though… the heat is relentless. But really, I have to say, I definitely wouldn’t trade it for what you guys are getting into. I HATE THE COLD! …let’s see how I feel about that after these next few seasons though. This (the rainy season) is supposedly the coolest. Here comes the dry season(s)!
Read all the time: I think the iron pills might be helping with this one. In case you don’t know, iron pills are just vitamins that fight of anemia, and anemia is just a lack of iron in your blood. It usually occurs in young women, and vegetarians… or in Africa’s case, it also occurs in kids who have worms (If you ever see a picture of a kid in Africa who looks like (s)he could be pregnant at the ripe old age of 3, then that kid probably has a stomach full of worms. It comes from untreated water. The worms eat all the nutrients that come into the kid’s stomach, leaving him with a huge malnutrition problem. Prolonged malnutrition usually leads to anemia and so many other problems associated with underdevelopment. The kids eventually grow out of it.)
Anyway, the point was that now that I’m on iron pills I don’t feel tired all the time, so I can actually make it through more then 10 pages of a book at a time. So far I’ve only read 4 books and all my Peace Corps Manuals (of which there are quite a few, and they’re thick as well.), and a number of random things in French or English.
Books I’ve read so far: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Slaughter-House 5, The Monkey Wrench Gang, and Travels with Charlie. Slaughter-House 5 and Travels with Charlie seem to be the best of the four… you’ve got to love Vonnegut and Steinbeck.
…That’s all that I can think of right now.
Sarah
Cooking: Before now I had never peeled garlic, made something with random ingredients and without a recipe, knowingly eaten eggplant, or experimented with fruit juices in the place of spices. It’s almost odd to say, but I think I might be an okay cook. Give me time. I’ll perfect it.
Spoken another language: this one’s fairly obvious, n’est pas? … the French is improving and I can almost understand everything that’s said to me, and I can most definitely respond to things… now for the local language, Ditamariiba!
Not eating meat: The meat’s weird here. It’s all… wild. I guess there aren’t many Tyson factories around here…. All the chickens lack genetic modification, and therefore they taste too natural I guess. Oh, and if you did want to buy meat here you’re either buying a living, breathing creature with everything intact (I prefer my chicken parts in a bag on the frozen food isle), or your watching someone chop off the part you asked for… it’s a little much for me. Did I tell you guys about when the host family had a cow in the front yard one day, and the next day it was gone, and then after that we had beef for the next 4 days (it was for a festival)? Did I mention that? It just seemed all too real. All of this brings up an interesting thought though: How detached are we (as Americans) from our food?
Gotten used to the heat: Well, it finally happened. I now get cold when it’s less then 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I guess it’s only natural for your blood to eventually thin out enough to where anything less then blazing hot feels good. I still sweat when it is blazing hot though… the heat is relentless. But really, I have to say, I definitely wouldn’t trade it for what you guys are getting into. I HATE THE COLD! …let’s see how I feel about that after these next few seasons though. This (the rainy season) is supposedly the coolest. Here comes the dry season(s)!
Read all the time: I think the iron pills might be helping with this one. In case you don’t know, iron pills are just vitamins that fight of anemia, and anemia is just a lack of iron in your blood. It usually occurs in young women, and vegetarians… or in Africa’s case, it also occurs in kids who have worms (If you ever see a picture of a kid in Africa who looks like (s)he could be pregnant at the ripe old age of 3, then that kid probably has a stomach full of worms. It comes from untreated water. The worms eat all the nutrients that come into the kid’s stomach, leaving him with a huge malnutrition problem. Prolonged malnutrition usually leads to anemia and so many other problems associated with underdevelopment. The kids eventually grow out of it.)
Anyway, the point was that now that I’m on iron pills I don’t feel tired all the time, so I can actually make it through more then 10 pages of a book at a time. So far I’ve only read 4 books and all my Peace Corps Manuals (of which there are quite a few, and they’re thick as well.), and a number of random things in French or English.
Books I’ve read so far: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Slaughter-House 5, The Monkey Wrench Gang, and Travels with Charlie. Slaughter-House 5 and Travels with Charlie seem to be the best of the four… you’ve got to love Vonnegut and Steinbeck.
…That’s all that I can think of right now.
Sarah
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Street Law
Okay, listen closely. Benin: On the 'Top 10' list for 'Poorest Country in the World', and yet I don't really feel that safety is a huge issue. Maybe it is in minor circumstances, like petty theft of rich yovos (again, yovo=fon for white person), but for the most part I feel really safe when the sun is up. "What the hell!, you're crazy Sarah", you might be thinking, but I have some logic to back it up:
Random fact #1) People are poor here, poorer then you might be able to understand, but you don't steal here. I know I've said it before, but if you get caught steeling here it's a race to the police station; you vs. the mob who's chasing you. Street Law.
example #1) Tanguieta, Benin 2 years ago. 2 guys were chased by a mob to the gendarmerie (police station) for stealing a moto, and they beat the mob. Guess what though? these lucky bastards were freed by the police later that day... lucky bastards... so you would think anyway, right??? ...The only catch is, that mob was still outside waiting for them, asking the police to let them go even. As soon as these guys were freed these people gave them a thorough 'gasoline shower', and proceeded to lend them a lit match... then and there, from what I understand. Street Law.
example #2) Tanguieta, Benin a month ago. Another guy decides to steal a moto, and he beats the mob to the gendarmes (police) as well. Well, this guy was really a lucky one. His only punishment was that he had to dance for 4 hours straight. Oh, oh, I forgot to mention... they kind of broke one of his legs in the process of 'retrieving' him... this guy had to dance for 4 hours straight on a broken leg at gunpoint. Street Law.
This whole thought of punishment has really caused me to do a lot of thinking about the cause and effect of crime and punishment. The police here don't patrol the streets. They have their one building in every village where they stay and gaurd. On top of that, if you want them to do any investigating on anything you usually have to offer a bit of 'insentive' for them... so the Gendarmes (police) aren't doing anything really. It's all the people here. Also, there's not any form of mafia here that I can see... that would be a curious thing to theorize on, but I lack the information on the subject. There's definitely no lack of guns... those are readily available next door in Nigeria. Could it be a cultural thing... Is it because they are collectivists, not individualistic enough to kill for one another?? That doesn't seem very logical. Is it the sense of justice that comes with the Voodoo background? ...Who knows. All I know is what I see, and I always find myself amazed. Street Law. Who knew.
Best of luck to you all.
Sarah
Random fact #1) People are poor here, poorer then you might be able to understand, but you don't steal here. I know I've said it before, but if you get caught steeling here it's a race to the police station; you vs. the mob who's chasing you. Street Law.
example #1) Tanguieta, Benin 2 years ago. 2 guys were chased by a mob to the gendarmerie (police station) for stealing a moto, and they beat the mob. Guess what though? these lucky bastards were freed by the police later that day... lucky bastards... so you would think anyway, right??? ...The only catch is, that mob was still outside waiting for them, asking the police to let them go even. As soon as these guys were freed these people gave them a thorough 'gasoline shower', and proceeded to lend them a lit match... then and there, from what I understand. Street Law.
example #2) Tanguieta, Benin a month ago. Another guy decides to steal a moto, and he beats the mob to the gendarmes (police) as well. Well, this guy was really a lucky one. His only punishment was that he had to dance for 4 hours straight. Oh, oh, I forgot to mention... they kind of broke one of his legs in the process of 'retrieving' him... this guy had to dance for 4 hours straight on a broken leg at gunpoint. Street Law.
This whole thought of punishment has really caused me to do a lot of thinking about the cause and effect of crime and punishment. The police here don't patrol the streets. They have their one building in every village where they stay and gaurd. On top of that, if you want them to do any investigating on anything you usually have to offer a bit of 'insentive' for them... so the Gendarmes (police) aren't doing anything really. It's all the people here. Also, there's not any form of mafia here that I can see... that would be a curious thing to theorize on, but I lack the information on the subject. There's definitely no lack of guns... those are readily available next door in Nigeria. Could it be a cultural thing... Is it because they are collectivists, not individualistic enough to kill for one another?? That doesn't seem very logical. Is it the sense of justice that comes with the Voodoo background? ...Who knows. All I know is what I see, and I always find myself amazed. Street Law. Who knew.
Best of luck to you all.
Sarah
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
The end of Stag and my first week of being an official Volunteer
Oh, the things I’ve seen… but before I get into that, let me preface this post with my latest news:
Stag (training) ended a week ago and now everyone is at their respective posts. I even tested out at an Intermediate High level of French, but I think I really probably should have landed at Advanced Low. Those last couple of weeks of stag were hard, and everyone was just about ready to rip each others heads off, but we all survived without anymore casualties…. My group of 59 stagiers (trainees) did lose 6 people for one reason or another, but I have to say that their reasons for going home are respectable. No one left because of personal illness or anything like that though.
My good old friend Montezuma has finally decided that he’s dished out enough revenge to last me a while, so I’m back to feeling healthy and normal…. You can’t believe how much easier life feels here when you are healthy. When I was sick all I could think about was air conditioning and Cambell’s soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and Scooby Doo…. No worries though; my sanity has found me again, and so now I’m back to dreaming of the Arby’s Corn Beef Reuben with curly fries and a frosty… or maybe even just chicken McNuggets with that yummy barbecue sauce…. But really, lets not talk about food.
So now I’ve been at post for a week and I’ve decided that Boukoumbé is amazing. It is all that you could want from a ville/village. It’s not big, but it’s not the smallest either, for the most part people speak French here along with the local Betamarribé, and the people here have an amazing, strong, and beautiful culture.
I realize you are probably curious to know more about Boukoumbé, both physically and socially, so I’ll start off with the physical description:
What is Boukoumbé like physically? Well, there’s one main dirt/gravel road that runs through town, and the town stretches out for 2km (3/4 of a mile) along this. There is a post office here, a regional mayor and his office, a Maison de Jeune (Translation: House of the young… it’s like a community center. Most bigger towns have one), a couple of schools, a health center, an orphanage, a couple of religious buildings sporting the two local flavors; Christianity and Islam (Voodoo is practiced at home… there aren’t any official temples in Boukoumbé).
For food, there is also the usual outdoor marché (market) here which goes all day every 5th day, and most importantly, there are 2 boutiques here that sell some more western products like powdered milk and canned foods and occasionally forks and spoons and dustpans, and other things like that. There are also 4 or 5 restaurants in town, and one of them is actually AMAZINGLY good. A lady owns it named Pascalline… and hence, the restaurant is called Chez-Pascalline. She sells more traditional foods such as rice and red sauce, black and white paté (a hot, moist paste made of your local carbohydrates) with sauce, viande (meat, usually chicken or pintard), beans, and the wonderful fromage (cheese, but not like what you find at home. The cheese here reminds me of Spongebob Squarepants… it looks more like an edible sponge then cheese, but it’s good!). Pascalline is a great cook, and her restaurant has even made it into Lonely Planet multiple times, along with most other guide books.
Boukoumbé is actually the place of the seat of government of this region… Using the word ‘capital’ would be using the word fairly liberally in this case... county seat might be a better term for it. I believe there are approximately 70ish regions in Benin, and Benin is about the size of Pennsylvania in total… so really, Boukoumbé is probably on a 3rd tier in size, with the 1st tier being the hugely huge Cotonou, and the 2nd tier being towns like Abomey, Lokossa, Nattitingou, Dassa, Malanville, Parakou, Djougou, and N’Dali which seem to usually be about the size of Guthrie, Oklahoma (maybe a bit bigger).
Now I’ll get into the social aspects of Boukoumbé:
Where do I begin with this…. Lately, I’ve seen a lot of things that I have never seen before and experienced the real reality of another culture a little bit. Maybe I’ll just list them off as I think of them:
I’ve seen kids soo hungry that their hair had turned blonde from malnutrition… little African kids with ‘Dennis Rodman Blonde’ hair.
I’ve spent the night (with my postmate, Paige) next to a tata somba where chickens are sacrificed on a regular basis on the doorstep, and where they drip the blood into these tall mounds of cemented dirt that stand to represent the members of their family
I have seen the hunters of Boukoumbé gather with their bows and arrows, and some wearing not much more then a loin clothe, in order to go to the Gendarmerie (police station) and find and begin the initiation process of two young men of the community who have been chosen to become hunters as well.
I have seen a man with polio crawl the whole 2km of Boukoumbé by scooting along on his hands and rear…. And he does this everyday, multiple times in search of tchouk (local alcoholic beer… like cider).
I’ve seen women and children work the day away while men sit around and get drunk.
I’ve seen the head magic man of a village, not Boukoumbé, who has worn a loin clothe (and only that) maid of monkeys skin ever since he was chosen to become the head magic man… he hasn’t taken it off since then. He was 63 years old. He was also smoking a long traditional pipe, and he only spoke the local language. This was in Tanikoko, Benin.
Also in Tanikoko, I saw the grotto and the path leading up to the grotto, wear numerous voodoo ceremonies are preformed, such as the place where the magic man takes a man and a woman who wish to get pregnant. He sacrifices a white chicken in this sacred spot, and if the chicken falls on it’s stomach then they will have a child within 3 months, and if it falls on its back then they will not have a child. All the sacrifices that are done in the grotto are done to appease the spirits who rest there… and they only sacrifice animals as far as I know.
I have learned the basic greetings of the Betamariiba people who occupy Boukoumbé. “Aboo” is “how’s it going?”, “Aboo tete” is “It’s going well”, “Denaati” is “it’s going extremely well”, and “iyoo” is “it’s okay”. You also bow to a person when you first encounter them to show respect.
I have had probably 50 marriage offers since I arrived, and I’ve been told multiple times that I would make good children.
I have sat around a giant bucket of tchouk and drank out of dried gourd shells and talked with the locals… it’s just what you do here. There are tchouk stands all along the road in Boukoumbé… probably 10 to 20 stands total.
In the marché half of the bins are reserved for tchouk vendors, and I think the story goes that each vendor is the wife of the local chief, and so the people who sit at each stand are usually from that village/group of people as well… but almost all (93%) are Betamariiba.
I have seen SOOO many kids with worms. This means that they will grow up with a malnutrition problem because the worms eat any nutritional food they might get, and they are also destined to become anemic and underdeveloped. The sad thing is that just a few pills will cure this problem, and they aren’t even terribly expensive.
There are so many things here to see, to understand, and to process… I can’t even begin to list them all now. I wish I could remember all the things that have just dumbstruck me the past week, but these are the only that occur to me now. Well, this is all I really have right now.
As always, I hope everything is wonderful where ever all of you find yourselves. If it's not going well, well, I really don't have any advice... Actually, my best advice would be this: Never eat with your left hand, be ready to have people knocking at your door at 7am just to saluate you, and never forget; a goat's cry sounds oddly similar to a human baby's. My advice isn't terribly relevant, is it? Haha.
Till the next time.
Sarah
Stag (training) ended a week ago and now everyone is at their respective posts. I even tested out at an Intermediate High level of French, but I think I really probably should have landed at Advanced Low. Those last couple of weeks of stag were hard, and everyone was just about ready to rip each others heads off, but we all survived without anymore casualties…. My group of 59 stagiers (trainees) did lose 6 people for one reason or another, but I have to say that their reasons for going home are respectable. No one left because of personal illness or anything like that though.
My good old friend Montezuma has finally decided that he’s dished out enough revenge to last me a while, so I’m back to feeling healthy and normal…. You can’t believe how much easier life feels here when you are healthy. When I was sick all I could think about was air conditioning and Cambell’s soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and Scooby Doo…. No worries though; my sanity has found me again, and so now I’m back to dreaming of the Arby’s Corn Beef Reuben with curly fries and a frosty… or maybe even just chicken McNuggets with that yummy barbecue sauce…. But really, lets not talk about food.
So now I’ve been at post for a week and I’ve decided that Boukoumbé is amazing. It is all that you could want from a ville/village. It’s not big, but it’s not the smallest either, for the most part people speak French here along with the local Betamarribé, and the people here have an amazing, strong, and beautiful culture.
I realize you are probably curious to know more about Boukoumbé, both physically and socially, so I’ll start off with the physical description:
What is Boukoumbé like physically? Well, there’s one main dirt/gravel road that runs through town, and the town stretches out for 2km (3/4 of a mile) along this. There is a post office here, a regional mayor and his office, a Maison de Jeune (Translation: House of the young… it’s like a community center. Most bigger towns have one), a couple of schools, a health center, an orphanage, a couple of religious buildings sporting the two local flavors; Christianity and Islam (Voodoo is practiced at home… there aren’t any official temples in Boukoumbé).
For food, there is also the usual outdoor marché (market) here which goes all day every 5th day, and most importantly, there are 2 boutiques here that sell some more western products like powdered milk and canned foods and occasionally forks and spoons and dustpans, and other things like that. There are also 4 or 5 restaurants in town, and one of them is actually AMAZINGLY good. A lady owns it named Pascalline… and hence, the restaurant is called Chez-Pascalline. She sells more traditional foods such as rice and red sauce, black and white paté (a hot, moist paste made of your local carbohydrates) with sauce, viande (meat, usually chicken or pintard), beans, and the wonderful fromage (cheese, but not like what you find at home. The cheese here reminds me of Spongebob Squarepants… it looks more like an edible sponge then cheese, but it’s good!). Pascalline is a great cook, and her restaurant has even made it into Lonely Planet multiple times, along with most other guide books.
Boukoumbé is actually the place of the seat of government of this region… Using the word ‘capital’ would be using the word fairly liberally in this case... county seat might be a better term for it. I believe there are approximately 70ish regions in Benin, and Benin is about the size of Pennsylvania in total… so really, Boukoumbé is probably on a 3rd tier in size, with the 1st tier being the hugely huge Cotonou, and the 2nd tier being towns like Abomey, Lokossa, Nattitingou, Dassa, Malanville, Parakou, Djougou, and N’Dali which seem to usually be about the size of Guthrie, Oklahoma (maybe a bit bigger).
Now I’ll get into the social aspects of Boukoumbé:
Where do I begin with this…. Lately, I’ve seen a lot of things that I have never seen before and experienced the real reality of another culture a little bit. Maybe I’ll just list them off as I think of them:
I’ve seen kids soo hungry that their hair had turned blonde from malnutrition… little African kids with ‘Dennis Rodman Blonde’ hair.
I’ve spent the night (with my postmate, Paige) next to a tata somba where chickens are sacrificed on a regular basis on the doorstep, and where they drip the blood into these tall mounds of cemented dirt that stand to represent the members of their family
I have seen the hunters of Boukoumbé gather with their bows and arrows, and some wearing not much more then a loin clothe, in order to go to the Gendarmerie (police station) and find and begin the initiation process of two young men of the community who have been chosen to become hunters as well.
I have seen a man with polio crawl the whole 2km of Boukoumbé by scooting along on his hands and rear…. And he does this everyday, multiple times in search of tchouk (local alcoholic beer… like cider).
I’ve seen women and children work the day away while men sit around and get drunk.
I’ve seen the head magic man of a village, not Boukoumbé, who has worn a loin clothe (and only that) maid of monkeys skin ever since he was chosen to become the head magic man… he hasn’t taken it off since then. He was 63 years old. He was also smoking a long traditional pipe, and he only spoke the local language. This was in Tanikoko, Benin.
Also in Tanikoko, I saw the grotto and the path leading up to the grotto, wear numerous voodoo ceremonies are preformed, such as the place where the magic man takes a man and a woman who wish to get pregnant. He sacrifices a white chicken in this sacred spot, and if the chicken falls on it’s stomach then they will have a child within 3 months, and if it falls on its back then they will not have a child. All the sacrifices that are done in the grotto are done to appease the spirits who rest there… and they only sacrifice animals as far as I know.
I have learned the basic greetings of the Betamariiba people who occupy Boukoumbé. “Aboo” is “how’s it going?”, “Aboo tete” is “It’s going well”, “Denaati” is “it’s going extremely well”, and “iyoo” is “it’s okay”. You also bow to a person when you first encounter them to show respect.
I have had probably 50 marriage offers since I arrived, and I’ve been told multiple times that I would make good children.
I have sat around a giant bucket of tchouk and drank out of dried gourd shells and talked with the locals… it’s just what you do here. There are tchouk stands all along the road in Boukoumbé… probably 10 to 20 stands total.
In the marché half of the bins are reserved for tchouk vendors, and I think the story goes that each vendor is the wife of the local chief, and so the people who sit at each stand are usually from that village/group of people as well… but almost all (93%) are Betamariiba.
I have seen SOOO many kids with worms. This means that they will grow up with a malnutrition problem because the worms eat any nutritional food they might get, and they are also destined to become anemic and underdeveloped. The sad thing is that just a few pills will cure this problem, and they aren’t even terribly expensive.
There are so many things here to see, to understand, and to process… I can’t even begin to list them all now. I wish I could remember all the things that have just dumbstruck me the past week, but these are the only that occur to me now. Well, this is all I really have right now.
As always, I hope everything is wonderful where ever all of you find yourselves. If it's not going well, well, I really don't have any advice... Actually, my best advice would be this: Never eat with your left hand, be ready to have people knocking at your door at 7am just to saluate you, and never forget; a goat's cry sounds oddly similar to a human baby's. My advice isn't terribly relevant, is it? Haha.
Till the next time.
Sarah
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