The World Around

As corny as this may be, I’m posting it anyway:

There’s something terribly magical about this time of year here. It’s that mystique that comes with things that are at the height of their beauty… and everything around me surges with an energy, a pulse, a freshness. The mountains are green and domineering, the wind is gentle and the rains are fickle and boisterous. But then there is the land: Millet that is so tall that you feel like Alice in wonderland, and at the very top are the little plumes of grain… all that plant for that one little plume. The corn is less impressive, but still beautiful in it’s own way, especially with its bright purple-budded wild flowers that grow around the corn that add so much color and vibrancy to it all. And then there’s the funion (pronounced foo – nio), a local grass that is grown for it’s grains, which are made into a paste that is eaten with sauces. This beautiful grass whispers and sways with the slightest breeze, as if it’s telling us all just to stop and feel the motion of the earth. And then there are the grasses that have been allowed to just grow wild along the roads. These grasses, having found themselves at the end of their season, have produced special feathery crowns of violets, roses and lively yellows, as if they were celebrating the last of their days. Scattered amongst all this beauty are the endearing and wise baobab trees, with their thousands of fruit pods, their massive trunks and their roots sticking up as if providing a place to sit and enjoy it all. The mango trees, though less magestic, are doing their best to add to it all by growing new leaves of the brightest green, which is beautifully offset by their greener, more elderly leaves.

But what would all this be without the creatures of this place: Women with children tied to their backs picking the buds of funion, the pods of beans, or the ears of corn. Goats, ever wandering, ever munching on the leaves of browning corn stocks, occasionally fighting to stand on the highest reachable point amongst the roots of a baobab. Dogs wandering around, always seeming happy and free. Lizards, invisible to the eye until they decided to make a few quick and sporadic movements to their next resting spot where they become motionless and undetectable again. Cows being herded by boys as young as 3 years old, wandering from place to place as their master wishes. I’m sure they must be longing for the day when everything dies again so they might be allowed to roam again unsupervised. The other children, some of them at least, might also be heard singing and learning and playing games inside the school buildings, with their shuttered windows. There is no glass to keep the sound of their laughter hidden away.

All this… and then there’s me. I feel like an accessory to the show right now. I know that this is not where I’m supposed to be. I know that my world, much colder and better engineered lies somewhere over there on the other side of this little ball of wax. Some might say I’m lost, but I like to think I’m finding my way. After all, there is so much to learn from ourselves, from others, from the world around us. Who can tell me that those whispering blades of grass don’t know more than I do? Maybe if I just listen long enough…

Life On the Up and Up

Well, Here I am in Natitingou again. I thought I would post something before I go back to Boukoumbe. Do you guys want to hear some good news?!!! I'm on the internet right now WITH MY OWN COMPUTER!!!! I know that seems like nothing to you guys, but it is sinfully delicious for me over here!!! I still do have to get to the cyber in Natitingou for it, but now I can download things, I can type on an English keyboard, I don't have to deal with their protective system quarks that they keep on their computers... *Heaven. I'm in Heaven...*

I really don't have much news, since it has only been a couple days since I last posted. The radio show that Kate and I are going to start just got the 'all systems clear' check though, and so I guess I will soon be a local radio celebrity. Funny, eh. I just wish I had one of those sultry radio voices... Anyway, I'm really excited to get started on that. We are going to have 30 minutes once a weak Monday evenings. Hopefully we are going to start with some American music with a few minutes of talk in between every few songs. I think we are going to start by talking about the benefits of saving money. This may seem terribly basic for you guys, but radio is really the best form to distribute this information to where people will take it in, and many people do not understand how to save.

Other than that, I've been hanging out with some of the new Benin volunteers as well (My new post mate is actually in Togo, remember), and it's interesting to see others at that place where I was a year ago. I now realize that the hard part wasn't just the cultural adjustments and stereotypes, although those issues are incredibly difficult... but I now realize that the really difficult dilemma is the idea of taking a perfectly good life in America, complete with friends and family and ammenities, and cutting all contact. It's like dropping a daimond ring down a shower drain. That daimond was JUST SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!

It's not only me and my perspective that is changing lately: Group/regional volunteer dynamics has changed incredibly with the leaving of old volunteers and the coming in of the new ones. I find that I am now like those seniors in high school who get all that credit that really isn't deserved. I find I have learned a lot about life and how to deal with things, but I wouldn't say I/we deserve all the credit that seems to be handed to us. It just seems like people can adjust to anything, and to give us credit for something that anyone and everyone does naturally, well, is that really so much deserved?

That's about all I have for today. Maybe I'll post more next weak. Best of luck to all of you.

Sarah

Circus Freaks

You know, I think Africans would love to see a circus. They love the unbelievable. The only problem is that in our freak shows, we like to see things we can’t believe. Africans like to believe what they can’t see. Who knows, we probably do quite a bit of that ourselves as well.

Really, right here in Boukoumbe we practically have our own circus freak show… but they’re not usually people. They are actually the tata somba’s (traditional mud fortress housing. Refer to previous posts for details). Did you know that there are tata’s that are more than 100 years old? There are also tata’s that are so mysterious that if you were to enter you wouldn’t be able to find the door to leave. Other tata’s actually just fell from the sky one day. Some will curse you if you were to use artificial lighting in them. To quote one of my good, and fairly educated friends, “Tata’s are very mysterious.”

I love how even educated people still appreciate the magic of Africa. It’s like they departmentalize it: There is their education, and then there are those things that education could never explain. Things like multiple personalities and mental diseases are always ‘gri gri’ (voodoo) though, and nothing bad could ever happen unless someone had put bad gri gri on you.

There is also good gri gri as well though. You could gri gri a husband back to health, you could gri gri necklaces that protect your children from any harm (therefore freeing you of the need to look after them. Hehe.), or you could even sacrifice a chicken to help a daughter get pregnant.

It’s crazy, but education is almost completely denied to the lower class women. Many women do see pregnancy and family planning to be in the hands of God and gri gri. In fact, a woman who has had multiple miscarriages has surely been cursed. I have a good friend that I feel is about to possibly get disowned by society and therefore forced to move because she has had such bad luck. She just recently had a miscarriage, her 2nd in a row, and to top it all off this last one has left her constantly ill. On top of that, her husband and a son have also been very ill of different maladies… Things like this are never taken well in society here. If it got bad enough, people would see them as though a dark cloud hangs over them, and they would be forced out of society. These people are by far the coolest, most interesting friends I have here, and I would be heartbroken if they were forced to move. I and my new post mate, Kate, might actually help the wife get to a better medical facility so that the whole thing might get cleared up faster.

Yes, I do have a new post mate! I had one before but he was rarely there, and we didn’t share many of the same interests to begin with. Kate has replaced him now though, and we have a really good time together! She is a Business volunteer on the other side of the Togo/Benin border, and her project, oddly, is to work with micro finance groups. Lucky for her, I had already started a couple of those in her village, so I just handed them over to her in the name of convenience. So now we’re working together on that, and also we are going to hopefully start a radio show. It would be a 30 minute show once a weak, and we would play American music and then talk about important issues like water treatment, health, AIDS, saving techniques, and other things like that. This radio show is also encouraging me to find a Tutor for the local language, Diitamari. Kate would also be doing the tutoring with us.

So, things are going pretty well. All the stuff I brought from home is starting to dwindle off into my belly, but I guess I will be back home in only 2 months! It’s so weird to think that I was just home and that I’ll be there again so soon. I’m looking forward to it, but thanks to that last visit I’m not wishing the days away in hopes that December might get here sooner. Honestly, my recent visit home did wonders for my mental fragility. I’m cured!!! In the sense of diseases and the like that plane ticket doctored me up for probably less than the cost of a consultation, being as the ticket was free via SkyMiles. (Thanks Mom and Dad and Delta!!!).

Well, that’s all my recent history. I hope all of you are doing well, and I hope to see as many of you as possible in December! To all the new babies in the world, welcome ou bienvenue! You know who you are … or maybe not yet, but welcome anyway!

Sarah